and forcibly entered by Cyrus King of the Medes he resolved rather than become a scornful prisoner to dye on the places upon which design he cast himself into the midst of his Enemies preferring an honorable death before an opprobrious life His Son beholding his imminent danger though to that instant at the Age of twenty years he had been alwayes dumb cryed out spare my Father spare my Father it is the King Whereupon the Enemy seised his person and preserved his life some attribute this to a natural cause alledging the love this Prince had for his Father put all his vital spirits into combustion and by that violent motion broke the obstacle of his speech However methinks this passage may in some sense be applyed to our great Penitent who was morally dumb the Organs of his Soul structed by the malignity of sin insomuch as he could not utter one syllable which might have force to reach the Ears of his Creatour untill he came to have a prospect of his eternal ruine and no sooner these Terrours appeared before him but all the faculties of his Soul were stirred up removed all Obstacles and made him Petition for the opening his Lips the first motion to his happiness Lord thou wilt open my Lips For this imports not a local division of the Lips but an inflamation of the heart by vertue of which heat all the parts of his Body will be disposed to discharge those functions for which they were created St Paul to shew how little Man can do if left to himself sayes 1 Cor. 4. What do we possess which we have not received and if so why glory we in it as if our own Again he powerfully asserts it in the Eighth Chapter to the Romans It is not he who wills or runs but he on whom God will have mercy As if he would say as Esau in vain pursued his Chase thinking from thence to derive to himself his Fathers blessing So Man after sin loses but his time and endeavour if he think by the strength of his natural faculties to be able to observe the Commandements of God or perform what is requisite to the purchase of Heaven So that it must chiefly spring from the mercy of God's assisting grace Nay which is more we cannot so much as desire to serve God according to our obligations unless he first by his divine grace move our hearts and dispose our will unto it as the same St. Paul sayes God works in us both the will and the execution without God assisting we cannot have a desire neither to believe what is proposed as the object of Faith nor perform what we should in order to vertuous actions and therefore St. Austin sayes the prodigal Son had never resolved to return home to his Father if the mercy of God had not inspired him to it To manifest this truth we need go no further than to cast our thoughts upon the Grecian and Roman learning which produced the greatest wits in the World yet in all their inquisition after a sovereign good they were so lost as even to become ridiculous acting things concerning a Deity and Man's supream felicity as if they were destitute of reason St. Paul takes notice in particular how coming to Athens he found an Altar dedicated to an unknown God For they had been visited with a great pestilence and ignorant for what offence a chastisement so severe was inflicted at last fancied it was for want of homage to be rendered to some Deity not yet discovered than this what could be more absurd to shew in what darkness and errours Man doth grope when left to himself So that if at any time a person blushes at his vanities and past extravagancies and doth confess that what before he behold as light and life to be nothing else than obscurity and death this Conversion sayes St. Austin comes not from himself but from the powerful and hidden grace of God which dissipates the Clouds of Earthly opinions and enflames his heart with a desire of knowing the truth Now this change God works in Souls several wayes in some more gently in others more forcibly Solomon insinuates that he particularly gives his call by the outward preaching of his word this Esai confirms Chap. 40. God hath sent Doctors of his Faith into the World who should reduce their Brethren like the blind into the way that is unto Jesus Christ the Messias who is styled the way truth and life In this manner Surius recounts Barlaam was sent to Josaphat Son to a King in the Indies that by his conversion the whole Kingdom might embrace the Law of Christ St. Paul was sent to Athens who converted the great St. Dennis a famous Doctor of the Areopagites St. Philip to the Eunuch of the Ethiopian Queen who by expounding unto him a Prophecy of Christ in Esai immediately received Baptism at his hands In the History of Japonia it is related of a certain Indian who had lived well according to the light of nature how he was restless in his Mind believing his religion to be false he went to the Turks thinking to follow theirs but finding there no satisfaction then he applyed himself to the Jews but still remained in perplexity so that with much fervour he was wont to cry out O God let me know who thou art and that I may serve thee according to thy will otherwise do not charge me with blame for my errour At last it happened St. Francis Xavierus came into the Town where he was and no sooner did he hear him unfold the points and sacred mysteries of Christian Religion but he proclaimed that Man preaches the God I must serve and forth with was baptized By this expedient he likewise made a conquest of our Holy Penitent in which action Nathan the Prophet was instrumental who laying before him his obligations to God and his ingratitude occasioned that without delay he had recourse to the Sanctuary of this present petition or Miserere The second manner of his call is by the inward operation of his Spirit and this he communicates to all witness St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. God who drew light from darkness by a word from his mouth hath filled our hearts with the splendour of his knowledge For without this light of Faith Man knowes not God who made him he knowes not whither he tends he knowes not eternal felicity for which he was created nay he knowes not himself for without Faith we know not that we are born Imps of wrath and lyable to eternal death We know not the wounds of our nature our inability to good the necessity of being regenerated by grace Lastly without this interiour light we know not Christ our Mediatour by whose pretious blood we are Redeemed from eternal damnation and restored to a life of Grace and Glory But you will say if God imparts this light of faith to all how comes it so many remain in darkness and infidelity of this the reason is
In order to this he first moves to have a clean heart created in him this shews him a wise and bold beggar that will not be content with scrapps but askes a treasure which may enrich and enable him to give to his Benefactour For this addresse implyes a reformation of all the faculties of his Soul the Scripture expressing frequently by the name of Heart both the understanding Will and Memory So that all these once purifyed and adorned with innocence he will be able to produce Heroick acts of faith and hope and the daily influence of divine favours still rising in his imagination must needs enkindle flames of Charity within him St. Hierom compares sanctifying grace with the essence of the Soul for as the powers and natural faculties which are the instrument of action flow from the essence So from grace are distilled into the powers of the Soul all those vertues by vvhich they are moved and carryed on to what they act Grace then is like a new Being vvhich elevates Man above his natural condition and puts him into a capacity of possessing God who is his supernatural end and by consequence it ought like a noble Queen be attended with a train of infused habits of Vertues The Theological furnish us with wings to fly in a straight Line unto God the Cardinal set us in a just comportment of holiness towards our Neighbour and our selves Nay when Sanctifying Grace shall no more be clogged with the Mass of the Body and relicks of sin her last operation will be to produce unto us the clear vision of God accompanied with beatifick love for the essential part of grace is the same thing with Glory and only distinguished like to what is perfect from that which is less perfect or as a thing begun from what is finished and compleat This Sanctifying Grace then is the fountain our Penitent thirsts after for the purifying his Heart and if once washed in this stream he may justly call it a clean heart witness the Prophet Ezekiel Chap. 6. I will shower down upon you a pure water and it will cleanse you from all your iniquities If this stain consist in a perverse action unretracted Sanctifying grace recalls this perverse action by an habitual conversion unto God and submission to his Holy Will If it speak an offence to God grace repairs this injury and makes that injurious Action no more voluntary If his ugliness spring from an enmity with God grace appeases all his anger and changes it into a love of complacence as a necessary effect not that to love us he hath any need but because a Soul enriched with Grace is just and righteous and whilest it is in such a condition God cannot but delight himself in an object so worthy and deserving If his deformity involves an obligation to eternal punishment grace clears all that score raising a Soul to that degree as she is worthy of Heaven Now 't is impossible that being in a state capable of enjoying him she can be lyable to such a debt wherefore there is nothing so hideous and abominable in a sinner which grace doth not destroy Thus you see what an expedient our Holy Penitent hath pitched upon to arrive by it to his designed purity and if he obtain his demand he knowes his work is done that is the operation of grace is so infallible as the effect is not to be hindred For it is not possible that a Soul at the same time can be innocent and guilty holy and impious have a Right to Heaven and lyable to eternal death So that being once drowned in this purifying Ocean he receives a pledge of all the felicity that either the nature of Angels or Men is capable off But it may be objected that our Petitioner may fall short of his expectation even though he obtain his demand For we see many holy habits introduced with grace to lye as dead within us no wayes disposing us sensibly to supernatural actions Nay on the contrary that persons so enriched are often disturbed and harassed with the insolencies of perverse inclinations Now the reason of this is that the effects of Grace are spiritual and without the Sphere of sense so that these supernatural vertues being of a quite different rank from the vitious propensions of our corrupt nature they do not by their presence necessarily destroy them This position our Penitent admits knowing that God obliges not himself to communicate unto every Soul all kind of supernatural vertues as a necessary dependance on Sanctifying grace but that he distributes to some more to others less in reference either to their want their disposition or the Series of his Holy Providence which deals the measure of his favours according to his will Having weighed all this he recollects his thoughts as to his own particular and remembers how before he defiled himself with sin God had witnessed a satisfaction in the choice of him making him the object of his most obliging liberalities next he considers that when God is pleased to sign his pardon and letters of grace unto a sinner he doth not only free him from eternal punishment for what is past but restores all the treasure he had hoarded up in the sunshine of his favour nay more conferres an addition of grace in that very penitential act by which he concurs with his merciful call So that he hath reason to hope if he purchase a clean heart that is if it be sprinkled with the dew of sanctifying grace his understanding now stupified in the mists of sin will receive its wonted irradiations his will born down with the weight of earthly affections will breath forth again amorous languishments after eternal delights his memory which now records the ugly species of sensual pleasures will be taken up in the holy entertainments of a spiritual life and in sequel of this he thinks it not presumption to believe he shall find himself in the same if not better condition than before his fall and in possession of all those precious titles the Divine Oracle had once pronounced of him This meditation puts him upon great resolves how to preserve and improve the purity he sues for that it may more strictly unite him to God who is his final end his hope and beatitude wherefore every moment he redoubles his petition Create in me O God a clean heart Another motive of this his Petition is in that the heart is the source of all evil 'T is from thence that Homicide Adultery Theft and other sins arise which gave occasion unto many great wits to assert that internal transgressions alone were punished by God and if at any time the scourge of his anger seems to fall heavy upon external acts it was meerly upon the score of bad example whose consequences are for the most part very pernicious to Mankind Besides as the heart is the fountain of all evil so is it no less of all good For the goodness and malice of every
be converted And the impious shall be converted The Application By this clause our Penitent would fortify us against despair and shew there is no sin so enormous which can resist the efficacy of a true repentance for God hath engaged his word not to be inexorable and protests it is far from his thoughts to will the death of a sinner and he excepts none no not the impious but upon submission he will receive them with open arms raze from his memory their iniquities and transport them from a state of perdition to the rich title of being his Children St. Bernard sayes he that assents to what God affirms expresses his Faith and gives belief to God he that acknowledges his Existence and Being is said to believe God Lastly he that places all his hope in God is properly said to believe in him Let us then remember when we say our creed that at the same time we cast all our hope and confidence in God relying on his goodness and power which is infinite and exceeds by consequence all the malice of sin Let us repeat with St. Austin if Paul a persecutour and great sinner is become a Vessel of election why should I despair and why should not I with our Holy Penitent entertain a firm hope when the impious shall be converted Amen CHAP. XXIX Libera me de sanguinibus Deus Deus salutis meae Free me from blood O God God of my Salvation OUr Holy Penitent makes a stop in the carreer of his zeal at the voice of blood from Heaven which beats his affrighted Ears He remembers how Cain wandered like a restless motion beholding alwayes in his imagination Spectres Monstres Fears and dreads the usual mates of a Conscience wounded with homicide And shall he then sit quiet in his Throne whilst Vriah his Veins are opened and emptyed by his command the reeking Vapour which arises from that injured Body seems so to condense the Air that it even stifles him wherefore he begs a little respiration that he may recover a new life and which he shall ever owe to the God of his Salvation Free me from blood c. St. Gregory the great rendering a reason why God will inflict an eternal punishment for a momentary transgression layes the weight of his argument upon the practice of Men who dispatch away into another World by Sentence of Death Murderers and other Criminals of several less degrees by which as much as in them lyes they inflict a punishment for eternity depriving them of life which they can never restore Our Holy Penitent fears the force of this ratiocination for since he hath decreed this doom to his innocent neighbour what remains for him to expect but a torment without end which shall last as long as the injury and this he can never repair All his plea then is to repent to disown his malice to throw himself at the Feet of him in whose Hands are grasped all the Lawes of life and death that he haveing the supream Legislative power to him alone it belongs to dispense acquit or chastise according to the measure of his will Wherefore he sues to this God of Salvation that he may be freed from that heavy doom due to his transgressions Free me from blood c. St. Matthew sayes whosoever shall take up a Sword in order to the effusion of humane blood shall perish by the Sword the same measure shall be returned to him which he hath dealt to others and by the same means he wrought anothers destruction his own shall be contrived and in Gen. 9. the reason is given because Man is created to the resemblance of God We find that upon the score of the excellency of humane nature Man is taken off from the perpetration of several sins as too low for the dignity of his Creation The consideration that he is endued with reason gives unto wise persons an aversion from carnal pleasures lest they should by them degenerate into the condition of a brute The consideration that his Soul is immortal makes him fly Avarice it being sottish for a substance which is to exist for ever to dote upon any thing that is lyable to ruine and corruption The consideration that his Soul is invisible gives a check to Pride and Vanity since her glories cannot appear sensibly and with splendour before the Eye of the World Lastly the consideration that she animates and enlivens every particle of the Body how minute or vile so ere it be warns her from offering any damage or injury to our Neighbour If I say these thoughts work many to decline several particular sins in regard they are misbeseeming the excellent qualities of the Soul doubtless the meditation that she is the fair Image of God ought to make us abominate all sin without reserve fearing by any vitious act to deface the lively Image of a Divinity Wherefore the respect we owe to his resemblance ought to strike in us a terrour of laying violent hands on our Neighbour much less by any force to dissolve that lovely union of Soul and Body in which consists the accomplishment of God's work in framing Man Wherefore St. Cyprian sayes the honour of humane nature is to treat well the pourtraiture of God and from thence discharge our awful reverence towards the Original But when any one is led on by fury and revenge or will usurp in a private person the execution of Justice this is to dash in pieces the Image of God which perhaps he would preserve or at least have it stand untill by instruments of his own he is pleased to undo it Our Holy Penitent confesses he hath committed this outrage he is guilty of this irregular proceeding and hath destroyed God's fair handy work in the Death of Vriah which he was bound to keep decently in repair it being the Office of a King to protect and not destroy his Subjects How many brave designs hath he had to erect a Temple in God's honour and now hurried on by an unruly passion he hath demolished a structure more valuable in the sight of God than all his material edifices the Hands of Man can raise If incendiaries by all Nations are punished with most rigorous Laws what animadversions of severity will be practised upon such as destroy not only habitations but inhabitants who ruine a mansion wherein God hath lodged a Soul immortal and which he hath designed to be the matter of her great merit in this life and an instrument of his praise in the next And if St. Paul sayes the blood of Souls will be required at the Hands of Pastors who starve and famish their flock for want of due instruction and good Example what account shall he have to make who hath not only by omission frustrated his Subjects of good Documents issuing from an exemplar life but more hath effectively concurred to the destruction of them and hurried them to a dreadful Tribunal at a time when perhaps they were little prepared for
in this life If you consider the immense obligations you owe to your Redeemer you will lament in that you have but one life to Sacrifice for him that hath lost his own so worthy upon the Altar of the Cross for your sake You will repine that nature allowes you but a term of sixty years or thereabouts in this world to spin out in his service since he hath surrendered up his life for you of which one moment is more to be valued than all the duration and existence of Men and Angels This is the Sacrifice of Calves which our Penitent had in his prophetick view and it leaves a sweet relish in his Mind with which he concludes his petition It was doubtless matter of great joy to our Penitent to consider the powerful operation of Christ's Spirit that would draw Men from sensual pleasures and baits of this World induce them to contemn riches honors and Earthly glory and exchange these for hair-cloths fasting disciplines and other mortifications of the flesh and this to be acted by persons great in dignity swimming in a full plenty of wealth and endued with intellectual parts even to admiration Millions of these have shrowded themselves within the Walls of a poor habitation where cloathed with a course habit they have led a life wholly Angelical and made themselves a daily Sacrifice unto God beautifyed with a religious simplicity which surpasses all the wisdom of the World and so fulfilled the prophecy of our happy Penitent Then that is in the Church to be established and founded by the Messias they will lay Calves on thy Altar The Application Our Holy Penitent here entertains himself with the grateful returns which Christians were to make in consideration of Christ's eternal Sacrifice and certainly there is no state speaks so much a generous love to God as that of a contemplative life where we behold Men devested of all self love to become perfect slaves to the divine will freed from all adhesion to created things that in charity they might be united to God avoiding the World's conversation the better to enjoy God's presence that since they cannot live without him at least they might live with him as much as the condition of this mortal life will bear To contemplate so many thousand Families where Creatures anticipate their felicity by praising God incessantly and who seem not to subsist but by the dew of a Holy Love like the Seraphims in Heaven Ah let us then conclude with our Holy Penitent and bless the divine Providence who hath in the revolution of so many ages received the perfume of prayers and thanksgivings from an infinity of pure innocent Souls consecrated in a peculiar manner to his glory and service Amen FINIS A TABLE Of the principal matter of this BOOK A. Affliction WHy God conducts Souls by way of affliction Pag. 8 Adversity foundation to eternal happiness p. 143 Why God lengthens out our afflictions p. 380 381 Affliction of David p. 282 Anger Means hovv to avert God's anger p. 178 Adultery All Lavves violated by adultery p. 56 57 Punished by death and great torments by all Nations p. 58 It subverts the rules set dovvn for our education p. 303 It is a vvrong not to be repaired Ib. A passage of St. Paul terrible concerning adultery p. 304 The civil lavv permits parties interessed to be Judges Ibid. It is a kind of Sacriledge p. 305 306 B. Body It is fit the Body should share in the punishment of sin p. 36 Saints Bodies alvvayes had in veneration both in the old and nevv Lavv. p. 170 Divers examples of this subject ib. Why God favours Saints Bodies with the working of miracles p. 168 What David means by humbled bones p. 167 Beatitude To anticipate our Beatitude is here to think alwayes of it p. 248 249 Why we cannot be happy here p. 249 How sweet the thoughts of Beatitude p. 290 Good works the means to Beatitude ibid. C. Carnal Sins Carnal sins destroy both Body and Soul p. 52 53 Punishments of Heaven for carnal sins p. 53 54 Why carnal sins are most dangerous and most abominated by God ibid. Church A pillar of truth c. p. 127 Upon what terms God founded his Church p. 138 seq God punishes such as violate Temples or Churches p. 409 410 The sublime institution of the Church p. 422 seq Christ Christs presence how amiable p. 234 Christ loves to be with men p. 235 Christ dyed for all p. 280 seq Christ's Revelation to St. Bridget p. 283 Christ the source of all merit p. 316 Christ supream pastour of Souls p. 415 Christ Sovereign Bishop of the Church p. 416 Christ a true Holocaust p. 433 434 Christ a true oblation of Justice p. 431 Charity Order of charity p. 403 404 Conversion Of an Indian in Japonia p. 328 Sometimes wrought by outward preaching ibid. Sometimes by the inward operation of his spirit p. 329 D. Mystick Divinity It s definition and several operations from p. 259. unto 263 David Why David begged to be freed from temporal punishment p. 48 49 David the most accomplished Prophet p. 131 The world's creation revealed to David p. 131 132 The Incarnation Nativity and Passion revealed to David p. 133 134 135 The state of his conscience in order to God was revealed to him p. 135 David desired to be a Martyr p. 150 What means he by the joy of his Salvation p. 251 He was very meek and humble p. 3â—7 Death Death concludes all our merit p. 38 39 40 Desire Why our desires are never satiated in this life p. 43 44 Despair Why we should never despair p. 293 E. Men of all conditions are bound to give good example 86 87 seq F. Fear Difference of fear in the good and bad p. 43 Friend Loss of a friend not to be lamented p. 143 144 Faith Springs from God p. 126 and 216 Moral vertues c the way to faith p. 127 Faith teaches what we owe to God and our Neighbour p. 205 Faith of all things ought to be the most unquestionable ibid. God proceeds like a Soveraign in matter of faith ibid. This his proceeding a stroke of his goodness ibid. Christ our Master in matters of faith p. 207 208 The mysteries of faith our greatest comfort p. 208 209 What habitual faith is and its effects p. 210 211 G. God If God deprives us of one good it is but to give us a better p. 49 50 God never rejects a truly repenting heart p. 90 91 seq God will be justifyed in his proceedings with man p. 97 God a primary and essential truth p. 128 God is not the efficient cause of obdurateness p. 218 219 What sign of God's leaving us p. 226 Two derelictions of God p. 227 How God is lost by sin p. 232 God still gives more than we ask p. 231 235 How to escape God's anger p. 236 237 How comfortable the belief of God p. 288 Grace Definition of grace and
great for it hath all the dimensions of greatness it reacheth from Heaven to Earth even to the Gates of Hell It is extended from one pole to another nay it is immense as God himself participating of his Divine nature it searches the abstrusest corners of our Heart and if the least Crany be put open to his light and grace it is presently replenished by this great mercy Ah! did we but know what mists of terrene affections the beams of his mercy have dispersed within us what a change they have made in our bad inclinations what dangers they have met and diverted from us We should even repine at Nature that hath not furnished us with more Hearts and Tongues to love and praise this great mercy He adds likewise secundùm that is according to the custome of thy great mercy which uses not to boggle at the remission of any sin nor to look so precisely upon the degree of the offendours past malice as upon his present repentance whence he grounds the Communication of his Grace by which we may discern the Sense our Holy King had of his transgressions which made him willing to huddle up his score and without giving in any particular to desire they mighâ—â—…ther in a cluster be cast and drowned in the Ocean of his Mercy We are taught by this two things First not to presume upon the value of our own actions so farr as from them to justifie our selves for in this kind none could plead more for himself than our holy petitioner he had with a Piety and fortitude unequalled run through many difficult and glorious enterprises wherein God was pleased to appear for him and own him his champion Yet he thinks good to hush up all this well knowing that praise is due alone to him under whose guidance and protection he had begun and set a fortunate period to them Next we are taught that reflecting upon our sins past we should never despair for as our good deeds we owe to God alone by whose inspiration moving us we do them so we must submit our bad deeds whereof we our selves are the sole Authors to his Mercy Whence we may see though he cannot concurr with us in doing ill his unspotted Nature being incapable of any obliquity yet it being done he will share with us in the undoing or repairing of our misfortunes And which is more no sooner hath this Mâ—rciful Hand dragg'd us out of the mire of Sin but 't is stretched forth to be joyn'd to ours in a happy nuptial bond promising by his Prophet to espouse us unto himself for ever in misericordia in the inseparable Union of his Mercy It is this great Mercy without end or beginning which hath decreed from all eternity to bring us off clear from all misery and place us glorious in his light inaccessible from the time that God was and loved himself he disposed us for his love and mercy have we not therefore reason to spend every moment of our Life in loving praising and glorifying this great mercy It is in all kinds infinite no excess of malice obstructs it no frequency of Commission or reiterated guilt renders it inexorable no time excludes it no not a desperate delay to the last moment O God thy judgments may be well said to be unfathomed Abysses wherein are lost our most Enormous crimes and from that loss we find our selves transferred unto the enjoyance of thee irradiated with the comfortable beams of thy mercy But above all this mercy never appears so great as in the admirable Mystery of the Incarnation where we behold the eternal Father giving up his only Son in behalf of Mankind vitiated and defiled with Sin rebellious and insolent against His Sovereign a Worm and poor scantling of putrefaction a prey for the Flames of Hell That I say a God most perfect in himself who hath no want should love so vile a Creature at such a distance from him and who could stand him in no stead and yet this eternal God full of greatness hath cherished Man in such a manner as to bestow upon him the dear production of himself coeternal consubstantial and equal to him in Greatness and Majesty and for what end To save him from ruine to enrich him with eternal Life this is that great mercy our Penitent now implores and he claims it by vertue of a promise made to Abraham that since he had not grudged him his only Sonne all Nations should be blessed in his Seed that the Eternal Death of him who is temporal should be redeemed by the temporal Death of him who is eternal How many Miracles found birth in the execution of this act of love and mercy First Nature was stopt as to the result of a humane subsistence in whose place was intimately applyed the personality of the Divine word and this infinite subsistence was adorned with graces vertues and priviledges supereminent a Mother enjoyed a fruitful Virginity and a delivery without pain in the fruit was found at the same instant the blood consolidated organized animated and deifyed So that the Second Person of the blessed Trinity assuming a new Being newly produced that is the essence of a holy humanity attyred himself with it becomes a good man and a master piece of love and mercy A remedy so necessary that without it all the purity of Angels and Holy Souls all the inflamed desires of the Patriarchs could never have merited with condignity this incarnate mistery For were all the groans put together all the tears sufferings and exquisite torments which Saints have endured for the love of God and on the other side but one single tear thrown in of Jesus Christ shed either at his birth or any time of his life this tear issuing from the flaming Furnace of his Heart Sacred and united to the Divine Word would exceed in value all you can think or imagine in the meritorious actions of Creatures So that this adorable mistery is not a mistery of just retribution springing from any humane or Angelical merit but 't is a mistery of goodness and supereminent mercy and in consideration of that prodigious design of love he is animated in his suit and believes he cannot receive a repulse because he acts it Secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam in the name of the Messias in whom all the Divine mercies from the beginning of the World issued forth unto mankind are comprised and consequently may be stiled a great and the greatest of mercies The Application Our Holy penitent having in the clear prospect of his prophetick View beheld this great work of mercy brake forth into this happy expression and couches a clause of all others the most efficacious to obtain the end he sues for we may learn from hence that our Mediator Jesus Christ is the best Sanctuary in all our distresses whether in regard of our past offences or of our impotency to repair our failings Methinks I hear our Petitioner to say O God what
shall I return thee in requital when I would praise thee an Abyss of Majesty exhausts in a moment all Encomiums and my Adorations appear nothing before thy Divine Essence could I unmake my self in deference to thee the Fountain of all Beings it were a poor homage to thy ineffable greatness Nay could I annihilate the whole World for thy glory yet would it nothing equal what thy immensity might justly exact But whilst I thus labour with my own poverty finding nothing created worthy thy acceptance behold the perfect oblation of thy Son a prodigious effect of mercy this I offer to thee he can best speak our gratitude who can only satisfie thy Justice since by this gift the very treasury of Heaven will be exhausted and the Earth enrich'd with a pure Sacrifice whose odour draws upon mankind a continued flood of mercies It is this eternal offering meant by our Petitioner when he mentions thy great mercy whose very thought and foresight at the distance of many ages replenished his heart with joy And if the expectation of him to come so transported what dilation of spiritual joy ought to invade us who now possess what they had only in hope who now reap a plentiful harvest of Salvation when before the World was blasted with sterility and doom'd to darkness untill the bowels of this great mercy were opened to store us with his light and grace Let us joyn our Petitions with Holy David and adore the wonders of this great mercy in which we behold humane flesh hypostasiated in a Divine nature a Creatour link'd to his Creature Death unto Life Glory unto Confusion and Iniquity stamped with Innocence And whilst we contemplate these admirable contrivances of the Divine Wisdom can they do less than ascertain us if we place in the Frontispiece of our supplications this compositum made up of so many contrarieties that our desires will take effect that under this Sanctuary we shall strike off all the scores of guilt and render a satisfaction as great as God can expect or require Hence you see how confidently every sinner may repeat with David Have mercy on me O God according to thy great mercy CHAP. III. Et secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum And according to the multitude of thy mercies OUr Holy Petitioner having expressed his relyance in general on Gods mercy next fixes upon its effects in particular and makes a series or list of all his mercies Wherein methinks I behold him just like one in desolation of Shipwrack fastning on a plank and though the storm continue darkness surround him and nothing but the Face of Death appears before his Eyes yet he remembers that many have been saved in his condition how some have been cast upon the shore others upon a Rock some by a passing Boat gathered up In fine he calls to mind a thousand wayes of preservation to consolate himself in this distress and every thought of hope makes him grasp with new fervour his floating support Even so I may say of our distressed Penitent his goodly Vessel of innocence was wreck'd dashed against the powerfull charms of a Woman from thence he was thrown into an Ocean of Sins where on all sides he beheld the menaces of eternal destruction in these perplexities he runs with his thought over all the passages of God's mercy from the World's beginning by the consideration of them a little to keep up his sinking Spirits He fails not to remember the mild proceeding of God with Adam in not punishing him irrecoverably as he had done the reprobate Angels but was contented to Exile him from the delicious place of his Creation and to expose him here to the Whirl-winds of passions in which contest if he proved faithful his reward was to be the same as first designed for him From thence he passes to the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah where though God's justice fell heavy upon those miscreants yet he layes it on their impenitency and admires his goodness that would notwithstanding have kept in his shafts of vengeance for the sake of ten just persons if that small number were but found in those populous Cities he goes on to the Ninivites and pleases himself to see them under the Lee born thitherby repentance even when the storm of God's wrath was ready to plunge them in an Abyss of ruine He insists much upon the prayer of Moses which still diverted the rigorous designs of God upon his people he fancies that every Groan and Sigh of his contributes something towards the making up of a brazen Serpent by whose Soveraign aspect his cauterized Soul might be unvenomed and made whole It was no small Consolation when he reflects on God's people in the Land of Egypt whose Oppression which their own Sins had drawn upon them was yet relieved at the rate of miracles and wonders and such as Israel had not seen And why all this But to make good his promise to Abraham Isaac and Jacob that he would never abandon a Truly-repenting Heart Thus he goes on enumerating a thousand other passages of God's mercy from the Worlds Creation until his time nor is he content with this but advances further displaying in his prophetick knowledge innumerable other effects of God's compassion to Mankind and at last begins to make this Application though he could not deserve to partake of his great mercy that is not only to have his guilt remitted but also to become the object of his choicest favours yet at least he hoped he might be hudled in amidst the multitude of his mercies How sweetly did those Attributes Divine resound in his Ears where God is stiled rich in mercies where his Mercy transcends all his other works and where his Goodness and Mercy are proclaimed inexhausted Sources He leaves not a Crany in the World unransacked and after the severest scrutiny finds and confesses there is no place destitute of his mercy no Creature that is not cheered and enlivened by the effects of his mercy this made him cry Lord when thou dost open thy hand all Creatures are filled with blessings and he tells us that every Being looks upwards depending on his Creatour and expects from him a seasonable supply of all wants Nay he excludes not Hell nor Souls doom'd to eternal flames from this mercy for he considers that God is bonus universis good to all and though his Justice have plunged them in that Calamitous State of misery yet that their torments are not more intense and in many circumstances aggravated they owe it to his mercy which still hath something to do even in the punishment of the highest offendours Having then survey'd Angels Man and sensible Creatures the Heavens Earth and Hell and found no Being that could in the least repine for want of mercy upon these reflections with just reason our Petitioner entitles them a multitude of mercies for on all sides they flow as from a natural Source Nor wonder that we have more Presidents of his
misery so likewise it might unto his happiness For doubtless the Combats which a virtuous Man sustains amidst so many Head-strong passions which abound in this mortal frame of ours are no small advancements to eternal Glory nor mean Engins to work our Freedom from the slavery of Sin Hence he takes up arms proclaims Warr against himself and abjures any future compliance with his unbridled appetite He will make his Body a Sacrifice into pennance which before had been a lump of ordures and sensuality His will shall become a Tyrant and check every the least inclination to Evil which till then was agitated and born away with every breath of Vanity and foul delights and if withall these rigours he can break the stamp of his iniquity he will prize that Action beyond all his former Victories and raise more Trophies in Memory of this deliverance than ever were consecrated to the most Heroick enterprize of any person in the World The monstrous shape of his iniquity so confounded him that 'till it was defaced he could not ask any blessing for it is the greatest of evils and wherein all misfortunes are Centered When Rheuben importuned his Father Jacob that Benjamin his darling might go into Egypt he offered his two Sons as pledges for his return and adds for a further engagement ero peccati reus he would be guilty of sin that is exposed to all the miseries imaginable if he falsifyed his word St. Paul expressing how severely God fell upon his only Son sayes he who knew no sin was made sin for us that is he discharged upon him the Tempest of his wrath rendring him the most despicable of Men as a Testimony of sins deformity and the deplorable State of him that lyes under the guilt of a mortal transgression Whence a great Doctor allowing the truth of St. Austin's assertion that one drop of the water of Paradise will be sufficient to quench the flames of Hell yet will it not suffice says he to wash away the foulness of sin Our Holy Penitent knew well that Death concludes all our merit and demerit that though the Just after this life shall perform many glorious actions yet these will not purchase to them any new Crowns no more than the reprobate shall not become more criminal by their abominations acted in Hell Wherefore during the time of this transitory life wherein we are to fix our choice of an eternity good or bad our penitent resolves to play the industrious Merchant whilst he lives his extinguished light of Grace may be enkindled and the hideous Character of his iniquity worn out but if Death surprize him in the obscurity of sin he must eternally remain in darkness deformed with the ugly stamp of his iniquity Wherefore having a clear view both of his present state and danger of delay he will both importunely and opportunely redouble his Note Dele iniquitatem meam blot out my iniquity The Application We may learn by the example of our penitent to work whilst the day of this life endures for the Night of Death approaching our lot is cast As the Tree falls so it will lye no skipping from vice to vertue nor from vertue to vice after Death if here you claw not off the stamp of your iniquity it will be fixed as an eternal reproach unto you and 't is but just where there is a capacity of perfection that a place time and state should be allotted for its acquisition The Angels who excell Men compassed their Felicity by one sole Motion by one simple operation But Man who is more gross and set at a greater distance from Beatitude must usually speaking gain it by several reiterated operations for the period of our merit or demerit takes its beginning where we surcease in the use of our senses for as in flattering their inclinations we offend so in curbing and wisely ruling them for the love of God we perform acts of Piety and Vertue so that in Death the matter of Vice and Vertue expiring with the loss of our senses Man remains confirmed in that State he is then found be it of good or evil Wherefore let us imitate our penitent and whilst our Petition may be heard cry out with Holy David Dele iniquitatem meam blot out my iniquity Amen CHAP. V. Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea Wash me more from my iniquity OUr distressed Penitent rowses up his Spirits believing he hath already a grant of part of his Petition but he fears lest some relicks may yet remain of his sin that is bad inclinations and proneness unto wickedness contracted by many reiterated peccaminous Acts and therefore he thinks good to stick close unto the same subject till he compleat his design Wash me more from my iniquity It is natural to Vegetables simply to covet a Being to sensitive Animals to seek a well Being and to reasonable Creatures to thirst and long after a Soveraign Being which only can satisfie their God-thirsting Souls So that we see our Petitioner by an impulse of nature is carryed on to his first demand but when with this tendency in nature are joyn'd the seeds and beginnings of Divine love the least stain supervenes not without a sequel of a strange horrour and trembling arising as well from an apprehension of losing the rich Donative of Grace as from a restless ambition of improving it every moment to God's Glory He knowes our life is here as it were between privation and existence between light and darkness by how much we recede from one Extream we approach nearer to the other and to make a hault or stop in this mean is to slide back into that part we would avoid this made our Petitioner not satisfied with a bare remission and to press for a further exemption from his iniquity Amplius lava me wash me more He beholds the Sun to cheer the World with his light not by one continued constant ray but by a perpetual emission of Spirits from his luminous Body Even so he wishes that splendor of the eternal Father which hath already visited with comfortable beams his happy Soul might incessantly oblige him with new influences that if the least exhalation of Sin arise it may in an instant fly and disperse it self before this purifying Globe amplius lava me wash me more His anxiety continues but with this difference before he feared to dye an enemy to God now he dreads to dye not his friend Before his care was to clear himself of sin now it is how to preserve and purchase an encrease of grace He begins to wonder that this spiritual resurrection allayes not all his desires but forthwith he checks himself with the reflection of Man's condition in this life where he is alwayes to seek and never to find because he proposes to himself the Idea of an Entity beyond his reach and hath only this support to hold up his hope that he seeks a thing incomprehensible an Object on Earth designed for our
contribute to the drift of his Petition which is to appear every minute with a greater purity in the Eyes of his Creatour Amplius lava me wash me more from my iniquity The Application St. Bernard observes that if at any time God deprives us of what is good it is but to gratifie us with something that is better upon this reflection he reckons it a happiness in St. Paul that he was struck blind for immediately upon that stroke he was raised to the third Heavens and admitted unto secrets unfit to unfold to Man and afterwards receiving the sight of his Body with that restitution was superadded the clear Eye-sight of his Soul God sent Jeremy to the Potters shop that he might see how the broken Vessel was to be new moulded and come out better than before if then the Clay frequently recieves a better form and fashion than at first let us in imitation and with the same confidence of our holy penitent after our failings cry Lord wash me more Let our past harms warn us not to presume of our own strength this humble opinion will separate much of the dross of our actions and teach us to rely more upon God than our selves Let us oft lay before us the Seal of God's pardon this cannot but enflame our love and enfire our Hearts in the zeal of his service nay Christ seems to set it down as a rule that we proportion our love to our Obligations He little loves to whom little is forgiven that where a large score is struck off by his Mercy there must needs succeed an ambition to a more supereminent perfection wash me more from my iniquity In fine this quadrates with Habakkuk's prophecy If heretofore thou madest one step in the way of Death thou shalt now tread for it ten in the way of life So that every sinner is encouraged not only to recover his innocence but to improve it throughout the remainder of his life never ceasing to repeat Amplius lava me ab iniquitate wash me more from my iniquity Amen CHAP. VI. Et à peccato meo munda me And cleanse me from my sin IN the Series of Acts inordinate and deficient from that rectitude required to give them a denomination of good We find some which relate immediately to God as when with contempt we strike at things directly ordained to his glory and service these pass under the name of impiety Others there are whose first tendency levells at our Neighbour as when we traverse the light of Nature in doing to another what we would not have done unto our selves and these are styled by the appellation of iniquity Lastly there are certain treasons whereof we make our Bodyes instrumental and by which we are corrupted depraved and wrought into strange habitual Frailties these are properly expressed by the term of sin because by them we act against our selves Our Holy Penitent drawes the exordium of his Petition from a sense of his impiety when in this first verse he said have mercy on me O God for there he owns his Frailties as a Creature in respect of his Creatour and beggs his Gracious pardon In the next verse he confesses his iniquity whose full discussion as to injustice towards his Neighbour I reserve for another place In this third verse he surveys his own person beholds the Havocks and corruption made there by sin and now would feign apply a Salutary Medicament to which end he inserts this clause in his Petition A peccato meo munda me cleanse me from my sin that is from the filth and ordure which accompany sins of the flesh Amongst all the irregular motions whereof Man is capable there is none which leads unto Labyrinths so inextricable into precipices so disastrous as this unhappy sin of carnality In the first place it drawes a Cloud over the understanding and so depresses the faculties of the Soul as she becomes in a manner terrestrial that is unable to elevate her self beyond the objects of sense for the operations of the Soul are more perfect as they are more abstracted from materiality Now this sin wholly drowns and takes us up in the pursuit of sensible things and consequently must needs debilitate and weaken the Mind in her natural functions In other passions as Anger Fear Joy and the like there are still extant some Seeds of reason this destroyes all that is Man in us and makes Man by a thousand homages and venerations subject to that Sex which God and Nature have designed Mans inferiour as if it aimed not only at Mans destruction but to resolve the World into another Chaos For what shafts of Gods vengeance have fallen heavy upon Mankind that were not directed to the chastisement of this sin It was an inordinate appetite to mix with the Daughters of Gentiles that first gave birth to Monsters and Gyants and from their accursed off-spring the Earth became such a sink of abominations as no less than an universal inundation was able to wash away the stanch and infection of their impieties It was this foul pleasure which ministred Fuel to the consuming flames of Sodom and Gomorrah this blind passion led Israel ensnared by Madian Women in Idolatry a foundation to all the Calamities and derelictions by God which befel that chosen Nation At one time twenty four thousand Hebrews were punished with Death for Adultery and what a slaughter of sixty thousand persons did our sad Penitent behold and this in revenge of his own libidinous Acts as if the stains they had left behind could not be drawn out by a Sea of blood When his affrighted thoughts had layed before him all these dismal passages he trembles expecting every moment to be shivered and dispersed into Ashes by the decrees of a just avenger he approves the fancy of those who compose Venus of the Froth of the Sea brackish perfidious and the Seat of hazzards and disquiets the pleasure he hath had appears to him now but like a Froth or bubble which if not born away as easily it is by every blast will certainly of it self soon dissolve and work its own ruine and however the substance be fleeting it leaves notwithstanding a remembrance behind so bitter and distastful and so hardly clawed off as one would think that alone were a sufficient punishment for a trespass of so little satisfaction and for the storms and wastes it often makes in Kingdoms and private Families scarce any age hath not furnished many sad examples I am sure our Holy Penitent felt the smart of this bitter Truth in the desolation of his house in the dishonor and death of his Children in the rebellion of his Subjects and above all in the forfeiture of those large promises made by Heaven to him and his posterity all which found not their Tomb but in the corruption of this unhappy sin So that in this request to be cleansed from his sin he first declares the foulness of it evident in the horrid Disease Nature gives
Idols and plunge themselves in transgressions of the highest nature However he did not here forget his promise but at the prayer of Moses reassumed them into his Sovereign Protection the same Night which was blest with the institution of the sacred Synaxis or Eucharist was also conscious of the horrid Treason of Judas and yet this Monster of ingratitude according to all Divines might have sheltred himself from God's wrath by a true Repentance Thus all along we see God justifyed in his Clemency towards sinners so that victory must needs remain to him when questioned by blasphemous Tongues for creating those who were to perish A Nabuchodonozer speaks for him a Thief upon the Cross a St. Paul a Magdalen and a Million of others that have redeemed by a few hours repentance what had been contracted in many years impieties and wickedness Our holy Penitent will also come in for a witness First he cryes what return shall I make to my God for all he hath done to me he praises blesses his holy name and then layes open his enormous crimes believing it is but reasonable to do him all right that hath dealt to him so much of mercy and though every thought of his sins afflicts him yet he glories that his Creatour's goodness will appear resplendent through his deformity he is content to become nothing that he might add the least tittle to God's Honour and greatness He values not his own confusion so God may be justifyed and this sweet experienced truth made good that the Divine will is that all shall be saved and to this end proportions sufficient means to all so that none can perish but through their own Impenitency and Perseverance in sin The Church would not style Adam's sin a happy sin if our Redemption and the merits of Christ's sacred passion were not extenedd to all even the highest offendour St. Paul sayes as Death found its entrance by the default of one so life was restored by one whence it is clear the remedy brought to us by Christ reached as far as the Disease St. John entitles him a Sun which enlightens every one that comes into this World there is none wrapped up in so black a Cloud of sins who may not if they will take in the Rayes of his Mercy and by their Deliverance justify God's Promises to Man In the production of every the least Creature saith St. Thomas the power wisdom and goodness of God are made manifest how much more then are they exalted in the Transmutation of a Soul from the Privation of Justice to the Possession of a Supernatural Gift of Righteousness whence St. Paul sayes God doth predestinate us according to the councel of his will that we may praise and diffuse abroad his glory Ah then let us give unto God what is his due as near as we can by despair we condemn our selves in rendring our Judge Inexorable and deaf to Mercy By Hope animated with Repentance we quit our scores of guiltiness and justify the hand that wipes them off To our justification by his grace he doth not only invite us to dispose our selves for it promising to refresh such as are oppressed c. But declares he is at the door of our hearts knocks solicits and expects but our consent to enter in at last defies the World to object the least failing on his side having done to his Vineyard what ever could be required to make it thrive To conclude God will be still justified that sinner who doth finally perish is the Author of his ruine by his own impenitency rejecting graces abundantly sufficient offered to him So that in the height of his misery when it is too late he will be forced to acknowledge crying O Lord thou art just and thy judgements equitable That sinner again who hath imitated our Penitent in having had timely recourse to the throne of mercy will not blush to unfold his wickedness since he now breaths a new life of grace which obliges him to proclaim how just God is in his promises and glorious in his Mercies That thou mayest be justifyed in thy words and overcome when thou art judged The Application In this clause we read the clear view our Holy Penitent had of the unquestionable proceedings of God with Man for beholding in his all-displaying Eye the ingratitude of Millions of Souls who would abuse his favours yet did not this restrain his munificence to them he first gave them a Being added to this Being the exhibition of his Graces all sufficient nay in a greater proportion than to many of the elect and to the acquisition of these benefits he made his only Son instrumental by whose blood is conveyed to them a capacity of Salvation Now if afterwards they come to perish it is through their own malice in misusing his gracious endearments and proving refractary to his commands for since he had conducted them indiscriminately with the predestinate by a supernatural Providence with which all along he obliged them what wisdome prudence or justice were it to gratify Traytors obstinate even unto death in rebellion with his Glory So that the motive of their reprobation is a foresight of their final perseverance in Sin their guiltiness gives matter of God's hatred and eternal damnation the effect of their impenitency 'T is true it was not in their power to be born or not be born but to fight generously or be vanquished by the Devil this depends on us It seems unreasonable that a King opening a Tournament and proposing a reward to the Conquerour should admit onely that person into the list whom he feresaw would be victorious So God in Creating an infinity of persons whereof the greater part would become reprobate is not to be blamed no more than that Prince who lets all run at the ring though it cannot be gained but by one for if we be foyld it is by our own Cowardize and remissness Thus the goodness of God appears in the Creation of Reprobates and no less his justice in pouring vengeance upon them so that he would be justified in his words and silence any blasphemous Tongue nay though these unfortunate wretches miss of their particular end that is paradise to which they are created yet the general design of their Creation to wit the promotion of his Glory will take effect for after his patience hath been strained if it may be so expressed in supporting their insolencies he will give lustre to his Saints Glory by the opposition of their misery just as a Moor sets off a great beauty Wherefore let us keep consort with our Holy Penitent avowing his just providence and submitting to all his Decrees as most equitable and worthy our Adorations Amen CHAP. XI Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum For behold I am conceived in iniquity OUr Penitent here appeals to the World whether he hath not reason being reinvested with the rich ornament of Grace to stand up and maintain Gods proceedings with his
of grief or repentance he might have enjoyed for many years To recover then in some sort those years and lasting joyes we must here denounce war against our senses denying them the least contentment we must drag our Bodies after us as a slave would do his Chain that by this subjection we may preserve our obedience untouched to our Creatour and let our Soul which naturally covets Eternity deliciate her self in ravishments proper to her spiritual substance by this means we may strike off all the arrears of Time which the Apostle so seriously recommends unto us Now for the reason why he puts us upon this task of good Husbandry to repair our losses because the dayes are evil St. Austin tells us there are two things sayes he which give birth to these our unfortunate dayes One the common misery of Mankind derived from Adam's sin For cast your thoughts on the Mass of things created and you will find none so indigent so unsatisfyed and reduced to such straights as Man other Creatures are no sooner brought into the World but nature gives them a capacity of helping themselves Man after he is born for many years hath his understanding so tyed up that he resembles a meer Brute only surpassed by them in an industry to preserve natural life other Creatures find here those objects which quiet all their motions the elementary Bodies meet with their Centers which settle them in a full repose the natural appetite of Beasts encounters that which satiates and gluts all their avidities plants grow to a certain greatness proper to their species Man only is the unsatisfyed Being upon Earth for his understanding elevates his thoughts above the Heavens and all the powers of nature his will frames infinitely more desires than the World hath perfections so that there being found no Object upon Earth adequately proportioned to the vast capacity of his Soul it is necessary he still languish here in a State of dissatisfaction This casts him upon so many shelves of misery and makes him restless hoping still to find something to allay his desires Sometimes he fancies riches would do it but finding them ordained to the purchase of other things it cannot be a sovereign good thence he flyes to honour and observing that also to depend upon the breath and will of another he fastens on beauty this likewise he perceives to fade and perish by a thousand accidents this invites him to the acquisition of knowledge and after many a toilsome hour he finds only this proficiency how little we are capable of that the least plant of the Earth will puzzle and confront all his acquired Notions to render the true vertues of it Thus he passes on from the Essay of one delight to another still as unwearied as unsatisfyed and why all this But because my Mother hath conceived me in sin For my Mother conceiving me in sin received by inheritance the doom of Death and of miseries consequent to a mortal Life and so cannot but convey the like direful effects to her posterity Timon an Orator of Athens was wont to deliver so pathetically the miseries of Man in this Life that after his Oration which he held forth in publick it was usual for many of his Audience to hasten their passage unto Death by a course of violence some by precipices others by water some by poyson others by a ponyard or halter In fine they regarded not much the means so it might but have the effect that is to rid them from the Calamities to be sustained in this life In a word his Eloquence wrought so many Tragedies that the Senate was feign to make a recluse of him that by sequestring him from humane Society they might prevent the destruction of Mankind This person was an Infidel who considered only Man 's corporal necessities together with his failings in order to moral vertues and if from this Ground he could draw such efficacious perswasions what would he have done with the addition of our Penitent's Faith which teaches that eternal felicity or misery depend upon our actions here that we lye under the Obligation of many positive precepts against whose observance are laid continual Ambuscado's both from the malice of Hell deceit of the World and our own bad inclinations that in the midst of these imminent dangers we steer our Course to an Eternity of Joyes or Pain What Energy I say would this consideration add to the draught of our misery when we not only suffer here but suffer with so much hazzard of incurring the doom of Torments without end Ah blame not then our Penitent if he set before his Eyes and is willing also the petitioned should glance upon his condition in this state of mortality his own reflections will serve to keep him in a wary humility checked with the frailties and inconstancy of his own nature the notice also his dear Creatour may take of what mould he is made will stand he hopes in good stead for he knowes him so inclinable to pardon that if it may be said with reverence he lyes at catch for an opportunity to save us and if the least hold be given he presently fastens upon it and hastens away like a Souldier laden with a rich booty of which he fears the reprisal till he brings us to a place of security where we shall have no more reason to fear the irregular motions of corrupt nature no more to vent in sadness And my Mother hath conceived me in sin Holy Job that prodigy of humane Constancy amidst the smartest Tryals was yet so sensible of Man's misery in this life as to fall with bitterness upon the very day wherein he was brought forth wishing it might perish and never be reckoned amongst dayes in the course of the Zodiack Nay he goes so farr that he involves in his Anathema's every circumstance which concurred to his Conception or Nativity Expositors of Scripture excuse these maledictions in Job and free them from sin upon this score that he weighing the disproportion of Man's desires unto the objects he encounters in this life which hold him in a continued disquiet how naturally he sets his heart on riches honour beauty and other perishable goods with what difficulty they are attained with more preserved and with little satisfaction possessed Amidst these pensive Meditations beholding himself in the extremity of affliction his sensitive part crushed even to nothing brake forth into this seeming rage as to fly at every thing that had a hand in leading him to so much misery If this pattern of vertue might be allowed such Salleys that speak so much heat without any derogation from his innocence upon the meer consideration of that high pitch of distresses wherein he was plunged Our Penitent having been made a prey to sin and frailty may doubtless with all submissiveness as he doth expose his Nakedness as cast into the World without arms beset with Enemies bent upon his destruction both at home and abroad and
of supernatural lights and a capacity of discerning not only vvhat is past or present but vvhat is to come and this in the secret and uncertain things of God's VVisdom It is true there is required in that person who is made a repository of Prophetick Truths that he shine with integrity of life have an absolute command over his passions and possess a Mind elevated and fitted to contemplation Yet God is not tyed up to previous dispositions by degrees but can in a moment both prepare and render perfect that party he designs for such a dignity as he hath done in the person of King David and so as to make him one of the most accomplished Prophets that ever was For there is a great disparity in prophetick irradiations some are imperfect lights and improperly called Prophetick as what may proceed from an evil spirit or from nature as that of Pharoah when he saw oxen and Ears of Corn not knowing from whence that vision might come or whether he was sleeping waking and the like Another degree more elevated is when a ray is infused by which I certainly comprehend that which I see only by a species imaginary such is Joseph's case who had an assured knowledge of what he saw that is the signification of them whence he is more justly called a Prophet than Pharoah who only saw and knew not what they signified A Third degree more perfect is when there are both an impression of species and sensible representations as also an infused light by which I can judge of the verity of the thing displayed before me as Daniel could tell the King his Dream and what it signified for the Corporeal forms vvere fixed in his Spirit and the meaning of theâ—… revealed in Daniels Mind The last and noblest degree is when a Truth is represented to us by species intelligible and a light infused Superadded which enables me infallibly to judge of what is represented by them without any external medium of word fact or imaginary Vision and this last irradiation Cassiodorus ascribes to David whence he entitles him the most eminent amongst all the Prophets But it will more recreate us to know what are those uncertain and hidden things laid open to him than the manner how it vvas done Some opinionate it vvas the Creation of the World vvhere the wisdom of God appears glorious in the admirable reduction of a confused Chaos to light and order In the contrivance of the Heavens that such vast and numerous Bodies should keep constant and uninterrupted motion vvithout any jarring or hindrance to one another in their Rapid Course In their Soveraign influences conveyed incessantly to inferiour things In the prodigious fixation of the Earth poysed and sustained by its own Center In the rare vertue of its plants in the variety of Creatures in the Air Earth and VVater And above all in Man the Epitome of the Vniverse to see him sway as Sovereign and by his reason to quell the fury strength and cunning of the most savage beasts To behold the revolutions of Cities Kingdomes and Empires the strange vicissitude of humane things to day a City swelling in pomp and magnificence not long after become a fallow Field an Emperour weeping in that there is no more Worlds to conquer hath been seen to perish howling dispatched away by a few dropps of poyson on the other side another is beheld drawn from a dunghil set on a throne and to Raign vvrth that felicity as if Heaven and Earth were held in fee to make him happy Here a person drenched in a life of Sin and impiety upon a suddain becomes a Saint there another endued with grace and vertue whom the World Eyes not but with a kind of veneration by a little presumption of his own strength and merits falls to nothing and proves an Imp of darkness To contemplate I say all these works in Nature all the strange events of humane actions and all managed by the Divine wisdom so as to make a Harmony to God's glory and out of the clashing and thwarting malice of Men to draw good who would not be ravished at such a prospect And confess with transports they are truly secret and hidden effects as to man of an all-seeing inscrutable and increated wisdom So that with unspeakable delight our holy Penitent repeated oft this Verse the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast revealed unto me Others and more happily I believe say those communications were the Incarnation Nativity Passion and all the other mysteries which relate unto the humanity of Christ and doubtless the contemplation of those mysteries clearly objected to him could not but strangely regale his mind to consider an infinite Being from all Eternity Soveraignly happy in the perfect enjoyment of his blessed self to be Hypostasiated in humane Nature and that this compositum of so many perfections should be born of a Virgin have no other pallace then a poor stable no other Courtiers then simple beasts from whose Breath he must borrow a little warmth to preserve him from the rigours of the season that a bloody design is hatched against him to avoid which he must fly by Night into Egypt through Cold and other dangers attended only by his apprehensive Mother and her faithful Coadjutour St. Joseph amidst these discomfortable reflections surely our Holy Penitent failed not to remember the homages done to him by the Angels and Kings that he might see he still intermixed the Splendour of his Divinity with the Ecclipses wrought and cast on his Humanity From thence he carryes on his thoughts to Christ's Sacred Passion where he lanches himself into an Ocean of misery not a drop trickles down of his bloody sweat but it makes him sink he distinctly ponders every blow lanced at him every scorn and every Calumny He numbers his weary steps whilst he is haled from one Tribunal to another he foresees the shameful flight of his Apostles and how he is abandoned in distresse by his nearest and dearest Friends Thus he sifts every particular passage of that Sacred Tragedy and were it not he is sustained by the consideration of its immense Fruit to wit the redemption of the perished World he would have shewed by his compassionating Death too much was revealed unto him to be at once the Subject both of his knowledge and life Now that this expression of our Penitent doth quadrate with these mysteries you must observe that the second person of the blessed Trinity is styled the Wisdom of the Father because produced by an act of his understanding and though his Incarnation were certain as decreed from all eternity and foretold by many Prophets yet it was uncertain as to the precise time and secret as to the manner of his coming and particular occurrences of his life it is true both were couched in some prophecy or other but so obscurely that the most learned could not dive into them until he came himself to unread them by his
all their VVorldly interests and engagements to follow him what transports do the sweet whispers of his Divine Spirit occasion unto his dear Servants what internal consolations what tranquility of mind St. Austin terms them certain previous relishes or Antipasts of Heaven which far transcend all the contentment and satisfactions of this world In a word that Seraphim of love St. Austin gives us the perfect Character of a spiritual joy by his own experience Saying O Lord sometimes thou dost lead me into unknown delights which were they compleated in me I know not what they would be but certain I am it would not be this life that is such a Dilatation of Spirits he found to attend those spiritual comforts that he saw were they accomplished a ruine of his mortal Being must needs ensue This is the joy and gladness our Holy Petitioner expects and that he was not deceived in his expectation scarce a Psalm of his that proclaims not the sweetness and superabundant satisfactions issuing from the love fear and service of God and therefore when he had petitioned for persecution adversity and the Crown of Martyrdom he might justly solace himself with the sequel and fruits of sufferings which are joy and gladness To my hearing thou wilt give joy and gladness The Application Ah who would not then protest against the vain joyes of this world to tast the sweetness of spiritual entertainments St. Gregory puts this difference 'twixt Corporal and Spiritual delights that the former whilest in expectation are coveted with much vehemency but when once enjoyed they presently become nauseous and distastful the other we pursue but coldly and with little heat of desire yet when once we have a relish of them we still languish after the encrease This made St. Francis that blessed despiser of the World to make a Covenant with his senses never to fasten with the least Contentment on any sensual object and truly he was so exact in the performance as he went up and down like the meer shadow of a Man that had nothing humane in him but his shape his better part ever dwelling in the Mansion of the Blessed These are joyes that will not be held by Repentance may we then still languish after them Amen CHAP. XVIII Et exultabunt Ossa humiliata And humbled Bones shall rejoyce THis encouragement which our Petitioner allowes himself corresponds with the second part of the former verse where he was willing to Sacrifice his life For he doth not only cheer himself in reflecting upon the reward which repentance will bring to his Soul but likewise upon the future condition of his Earthly mould which he beholds as matter of great consolation and therefore upon the same score he prosecutes the Subject of his hope saying that his humbled Bones shall rejoyce Amongst all the comforts Christian Religion affords there is none hath so much influence upon Man as the expectation of a future resurrection the motive of this consolation springs from the belief we have of God's Omnipotency For as we believe he hath created us of nothing so we must acknowledge his power to restore us and raise our ashes to a better and more happy condition Nay if we observe the course of Holy Scripture we shall find the expiration of Saints hath a particular expression given it For they are not said to dye but to fall into a sleep as if their Bodies after separation retained a certain vertue which had resemblance with their glorifyed Souls In the Fourth Book of Kings Chap. 13. We read that a Carkass being thrown into the Sepulchre of Elizeus was by a touch of his Bones restored to life St. Hierom relates how Constantine the Great conveyed with much Solemnity the relicks of St Andrew and St. Luke unto Constantinople Areadius likewise the Emperour translated the relicks of Samuel the Prophet from Judaea into Thrasia where they were received with great veneration and joy of the people All which shews our Forefathers looked upon the remainder of Saints Bodies not as liveless fragments but as the Fountains of life and health as certain pieces God would make instrumental to miracles and to works above the power of nature Therefore the Bones of Holy Persons endued with such vertue may justly be qualifyed with joy and consequently it is not improper to say That humbled Bones shall rejoyce Again St. John Damascene hath a fine conception saying those who imitate the vertues of Saints may be more truly said their relicks or impressions than the lump and mass of Earth they leave behind He who hath the zeal and ardours of a St. Paul in the Conversion of Souls may be stiled his lively Image Who can claim the fortitude of a St. Stephen in accepting the stroke of Death for Justice sake will infallibly bear the stamp of that Protomartyr Who can perform the humble and spiritual life of a St. Francis will prove a better pattern of him than his own Body which at this day remains entire at Assisium as a Testimony of that Glory his Soul enjoyes in Heaven so that when we cast our selves into the mould of their vertues we become their animated statues and make them rejoyce in our imitation as the Angels do at a sinners Conversion it is not unlikely our Holy Prophet alluded to such living relicks vvhen he said humbled bones shall rejoyce Since good Men are here for the most part crushed in the Worlds esteem that values nothing but what is great in vanity Yet amidst these Clouds of oppression and scorns thrown at them they find within themselves a satisfaction in performing their duty to God for the fruit of the spirit sayes St. Paul is joy peace and a thousand other contentments which attend a state of innocence so that it is an ingenious Expression of our Penitent that humbled bones shall rejoyce I have many times wondered why Almighty God should give unto the Ashes of Saints what he had denyed them whilst they were alive and made not use of any limb or vital motion but for his sake that is many miracles have been wrought by touching the mouldred dust of Saints who living were never favoured with the power of any Miracle but as the lives of Saints are admirable so the proceedings of Almighty God with them seem very mysterious yet I have proposed some reasons of this to my sell First Almighty God will shew by this how dear his Servants are unto him and if he give so much vertue to their Ashes what may we expect he doth to their Immortal Souls Next it argues how grateful a thing humility is in the sight of God that those who have Crucifyed their flesh and daily Sacrificed their Bodies for his name should have the very Ashes of that Mortified Body cure Diseases restore sight to the blind and raise the dead to life Thirdly Almighty God will manifest the difference between a pampered Body and one mangled by acts of pennance the one by all manner of
delicacies sought to preserve a beauty and make it proof against time Yet once grown old or cut off by Death it is cast into oblivion the other kept in Chains and threatned daily with ruine yet at the last proves matter of veneration even unto those who before perhaps contemned it You see then how to live in the Memory of Men what Art is to be used to raise a stately structure of our selves the materials of this must be acts of Charity towards our Neighbour and acts of severity towards our selves the Cement must be Patience Constancy Resignation to God's holy will and the like with these Saints have purchased glory to themselves before God and veneration amongst Men that even Kings have crouched with bended knees before their Ashes who whilst here poor Pilgrims upon Earth were looked upon as Idiots and made as it were the mockery of the World so that humbled bones at last shall Triumph and erect their Trophies where they had been made the spoils of Death St. Gregory Nazianzen affirms the Ashes of St. Cyprian were so powerful as no Disease wanted there its remedy and this Testimony he received from those very persons who had been the Subject of his miraculous Cures St. Ambrose relates of one Severus who being blind by touching only the Casket wherein were enchased the relicks of the Holy Martyrs St. Gervasius and Protasius he recovered his sight St. Austin recounts many miracles wrought by the relicks of St. Stephen and adds The benefits obtained at his shrine were so great and numerous as whole Volumes might be filled with the relation In fine there is not a Doctour of the Church whose writings speak not the wonders Heaven hath owned even in their time upon the score of supplications made in the presence and honour of Saints Bodies Nor did this religious Worship of relicks spring up originally with the Ghospel for St. Epiphanius brings evidence how the Sepulchers of Esay Ezekiel and Jeremy were had in great veneration among the Jews and this from the extraordinary succours God conserred on distressed People at the Tombs of those Holy Prophets We find likewise Exodus 13. that before Moses conducted the Israelites out of Egypt he ordained the Bones of Joseph to be taken up and born away with Ceremony into the Land of promise Now why all this But to verify our Holy Prophets assertion that humbled bones shall rejoyce that Death may cause a separation twixt Soul and Body and so seem to Triumph over this mortal clay of ours cannot be denyed Yet if our members have served in purity as St. Paul terms it and merited in life to be the Temple of the Holy Ghost such as these though exanimated may still retain a vertue by which they give life and joy to other Beings Whence justly our Petitioner fore-declares and humbled bones shall rejoyce Truly it is but rational to conceive there should be a Providence to preserve from common corruption those Bodies who had been instrumental to many acts of vertue and made a daily victime by pennance For since mortality is the effect of sin there ought at least be something that hath the resemblance of immortality to attend that Body which hath much contributed to the Souls happiness Besides we believe our Bodies shall one day be glorified and vested with immortal dotes it is fit then such who have here led a life as it were Angelical without any contamination of sensual pleasures should anticipate in some kind their future glorifyed condition and how can this better appear than by imprinting a Sovereign vertue in their extinguished Ashes since it is decreed a compleat glorification cannot unless particularly dispensed with be conferred till the universal Resurrection This admirable operation given to their Earthly and liveless substance as it is a Testimony of their Souls felicity so is it no less to us a pledge the most dear we could have by which we are assured of their watchful and compassionate care over us In fine how powerfully are we wrought into the imitation of their lives when at their shrines we behold both Death and Nature vanquished and the prodigious effects of humbled prostrate Limbs lowdly declare how precious the Death of Saints is in the sight of God Thus our Holy Petitioner hath laid open unto us First the Jubileys of mind which fill a Soul united unto God by love and repentance Next to compleat the Harmony he tells us our very bones shall not want their portion of joy that if they here be made bare disjoynted or broken Almighty God never fails to sweeten those rigours by internal whispers and consolations which carry them on to perseverance in their pressures and debasements and when Saints have once payed this debt to nature then he gives to the one part the immediate fruition of his Glory and to the other he often communicates such Soveraign vertues that they are as it were certain previous dispositions to immortality 'T is true the relick of a Saint appears but a lump of Earth liveless inanimate and so is not capable of joy yet God making it the instrument of miraculous effects is thereby glorifyed and what ever relates to his honour is matter of exultation Again St. Paul saith that every Creature groans that is feels throwes and longing desires after their Maker If then these resentments be allowed to every Being much more ought we grant it to the Sacred pledge of a Saints Body in which the Omnipotency and other Divine attributes of God do so gloriously shine and humbled bones shall rejoyce The Application Let us then so manage our senses in this life enslaving them to the Lawes of reason that after the short course of their servitude here we may arrive to that joy mentioned by our Holy Petitioner Amen CHAP. XIX Averte faciem tuam à peccatis meis Turn away thy Face from my sins WHen I cast my Eye upon this clause of the Petition I cannot but reflect on that passage of Esay where he sayes it is a bitter thing to have once abandoned God for after a sin is committed though it be secret unseen and none reprehend us for it yet we fear every shadow suspect every look and syllable nor can we ever think our selves secure and out of danger St. Austin sayes as iniquity is alwayes accompanied with a neglect of God and consequently is a kind of Pride by which we value our own satisfaction beyond his honour so sin by a just punishment throwes us down below our selves it first induces us to actions unworthy our reason and after that engagement what Tyranny like to this usurper For having shaken off the fear of God who alone ought to be the Object of that passion we sink into the fear of every thing capable to be the Term of Sense if a sound it is a loud promulgation of our Crime if a Shadow it is some Ambuscado to surprize us if the World be civil they are acts of
indevotion and an indiscreet Zeal Fortitude between rashness and cowardise so of the rest Wherefore the art is so to steer your course as to keep at an equal distance from them both yet alwayes mindful that if one be more dangerous than the other you are most to decline that as if I would embrace the vertue of hope which is beset with presumption and despair and my complexion cold and melancholly drawes me on the extremity of despair this certainly most threatens my ruine and therefore I am to look upon every spark of that with more apprehension than a fire which issues from presumption Our Holy Penitent knew that whilest he sailed in the Ocean of this World he must needs be flanked with two dangerous Rocks that is two opposite vices to any vertue he would embrace so that if he keep not a steady hand to the helm by the least diversion he is cast upon a shelf which will destroy him Wherefore it behoves him to fit himself with a right spirit a Spirit of vertue which leaning upon the Principles of reason might preserve him in that degree of honour wherein he is ranked amidst created Beings For as knowledge makes one knowing so vertue gives us the title of good and as the good of any thing consists in the just measure and proportion unto it he concludes this right spirit of vertue to be a purchase worthy his ambition since doubtless nothing to Man as Man is more sutable and agreeing than such actions as are produced conformable to a reasonable nature he anticipates his Son's Declaration and thinks nothing profitable pleasant or great which is not made so by vertue This right spirit will shower down spiritual comforts settle him in peace with God Angels and Men shelter him under the wings of God's Providence which never fails to cherish those who live according to the rules of vertue and after a life attempered with the Harmony of delightful actions it changes into sweeâ—…ss the grim face of Death making it a secure passage unto eternal Beatitude He is resolved to put in execution the practice both of intellectual and moral vertues and that they may prove meritorious he begs they may be infused into him that when he considers the infinity of God's Being and the immensity of his perfections he may forthwith pay him the just tribute of glory respect and submission all worship praise and possible endeavours of Piety That his omnipotency may never pass his thoughts without an entire obedience to his will that his inexhausted and unerring wisdom may draw him to acts of faith and firm assent to his divine word That the fidelity of his never failing promises may fix a reliance and assured hope in him That his unwearied goodness may ravish him into a charity and love never to be extinguished That his incomparable greatness may work him into the annihilation of himself before him and give him a true feeling of his own vileness That a terrour of his judgments may throw him into a course of rigid pennance for his misdeeds and his unspeakable favours be met with all the Testimonies of gratitude which a poor Creature can give He knowes that had he a Million of hearts lodg'd within his own person yet could they never reach that love his goodness merits and should he stoop even unto Hell nay lower were it possible it would still be short of that submission due to his greatness Wherefore though he be hopeless to pay what he owes he will shew at least he hath a will to be just nor doth he blush at his impotency since it springs from the excellency of his Creditour from whom likewise he expects to be enabled towards the discharge of his arrears and he conceives no treasure can be more effectual than that of a right spirit and therefore he incessantly repeats renew in my bowels a right spirit The Application God will be adored in spirit and truth wherefore man is to serve and honour him by a certain knowledge sutable to his intellectual nature now in the essence of God are contained wonders not to be comprehended by the natural force of our understanding Whence we are with our Holy Penitent to Petition for a right spirit that is the excellent light of faith by which we are raised to a more eminent knowledge of the Divinity than all the activity and vigour of our reason could ever reach In this knowledge consists eternal life in the ignorance of this eternal death For with what Face shall he one day ask Heaven of the adorable Trinity who hath never known that mystery Or claim a share in the fruit of our redemption who hath been ignorant of Jesus Christ Let us then beg for this heavenly wisdom by which we are taken off from the low affection to Creatures to fix our Eyes upon the greatness of our Creatour the wonders of his works and amidst a Million of ravishing objects which this right spirit presents to our meditation let us insist with a particular gust on this that our Souls are created for eternal bliss Amen CHAP. XXIII Ne projicias me à facie tua Cast me not away from thy face OUr Holy Penitent seems here to question the success of his precedent petition by which he had sued for a right understanding this argues how unsetled the mind of a sinner is that no sooner he had aimed at this irradiation but immediately he is struck with a terrour of his demerits and fancies his doom is to be eternally banished from the Face of God wherefore he cryes cast me not away from thy Face St. Hierom conceives this clause levels only at the communication of his Divinity in order to the Hypostatick union which he apprehends in punishment of his sin might be concealed from him and therefore he sayes cast me not away from thy face that is deprive me not of the knowledge of thy divine nature as it relates to Man in the great Sacrament of the incarnation It is this mystery he fears to be ravished off which brings along with it a fulness of time and wherein all the groans and labours of many longing Souls will cease and be at rest But the more vogued opinion layes this expression upon his anxiety touching his eternal reprobation He knew he was unworthy of eternal life through the forfeiture of grace he had made and whether being now a Vessel of dishonour the divine Artist will not leave him eternally in this reproachful mould is the just motive of his fear He remembers a passage in Exodus where our Lord threatens to obdurate the heart of Pharaoh and it is no less affrighting what St. Paul declares that God is merciful on whom he will have mercy and in the Fourth Chapter to the Corinthians God hath cast an obcaecation on the Minds of unbelievers Yet our Petitioner is too good a Divine as entertaining these reflections to make God the efficient cause of Man's obdurateness he knowes that
in his Throne drawing from thence the eternal Son of God O who can be so wicked to behold the lines of this merciful proceeding drawn forth and not presently joyn issue with our holy preacher to abandon the pernicious wayes of sin and become a Disciple in the Rudiments of vertue To behold a Redeemer living in the Hearts of Men before he came to live upon Earth to see all the Sanctity of the World addressed to him to speak of nothing but him and all conspire to his glory If before he came he had so many tongues and voices to set him forth and that the Law and service of God had no other aim than to engrave the Messias in the Hearts of Men what expressions ought to enflame our zeal after his birth life cross and triumphant glory These are the wayes our Graduate will distill into the Minds of the wicked and certainly he did it with an excess of fervour and delight helped on by the consideration that out of his seed the Saviour of Israel was to be born And it is clear he kept close to this Theam even to the last making it his Testament and the subject of his expiring words to his Son Solomon That he should be sure to walk in the wayes of the Lord that in the exact observance of his judgments and Commandment written in the Law of Moses were fastned the succession of his Crown saying This done thou shalt not want one of thy posterity to sit upon the throne of Israel These are the wayes if happily taken will preserve the wicked from ruine give them eternal life secure them from Hell and open a passage to all the delights of Heaven as St. John sayes To the end that all who believe in the should possess eternal bliss Wherefore our Penitent egged on by so many powerful motives to the discharge of his task will never fail in what he hath promised to teach the wicked the wayes of God The Application Our Penitent instructs us here by his example that there is no employment so acceptable unto God as to disperse in our Neighbour the clouds of Ignorance and imbue him with principles of wisdome His Son Solomon was perhaps taught by this clause to address so happily his petition And Joel the prophet makes it the great subject of good tydings he foredeclared to the Church Be glad yea Sons of Sion and rejoyce in the Lord your God who hath given you a teacher of righteousness Aristotle being asked why Commonwealths did not assign pensions for Masters that taught and instructed others as they did to other offices of the State made this reply because there could be no reward answerable to their desert if he thought certain notions in natural knowledge to be so valuable what a price would he have set on such as convey the sublime mysteries of heaven unto us Let us then instruct our Neighbour by good example by doing charity to the distressed and by wholesome Documents every one according to his Talent and Ability And in doing this we follow the steps of a great Saint who believed he could in nothing better express his gratitude and zeal for God's honour than in the Reduction of Souls to the way of Salvation Amen CHAP. XXVIII Et impii ad te convertentur And the impious shall be converted to thee BY this clause our Penitent destroyes the Opinion of some in those modern times who assert that Christ died not for all Men but only for the elect for if the impious be not excluded from the participation of his precious Blood surely there is none that are impiety being a crime that directly strikes against the honour of God and is a complaet rebellion against his Divinity Now if our Divine by his preaching was confident to reduce such offendours whom can we imagine shall be excepted nor can they say we are put into a worse condition by the Evangelical Law in which a plenitude of benedictions are showred down upon us and which as far exceeds the Mosaick as a thing real the type and figure that represents it St. John Chap. 1.2 sayes Christ is a propitiation for our sins and not only for ours but for the sins of the whole World First Christ satisfied for Adam's disobedience and original sin witness St. Paul ad Rom. Chap. 2. As death entered by the default of one so life by the justice and obedience of one Again St. John sayes Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World that is original sin for the Greek version puts it in the Singular Number so Bede Theophilact and St. Thomas understand it The Angelical Doctor adds that the Son of God was incarnate rather for original sin which was an universal evil whose venome infected all Mankind than for the actual and personal sins of the World but as no sin is irremissible to an infinite mercy by consequence after original sin he made satisfaction for all actions and transgressions which were mortal The reason is that mortal sins not only deprive the Soul of the vision of God for all eternity but likewise exposes it to the everlasting torments of Hell the Son of God then whose nature is all goodness considered the misery of these sins and offered up his life and death for their expiation For without sanctifying grace our works are not meritorious nor can they satisfy for any venial sin Wherefore deprived of grace by original sin we could not by our selves no not by the assistance of the blessed Angels satisfy for the least venial sin Because though they be endued with grace yet no pure Creature can merit condign grace Wherefore it was necessary that Jesus Christ should make satisfaction for our least failing as St. Austin sayes excellently well that to save an infinity of VVorlds we ought not to cast one glance of the Eye contrary to the will of God Whence it is clear no Creature can satisfy for the least sin since to do it we must offer up something more valuable than the whole VVorld If then we could not free our selves from the least deviation without the interposition of his merits much less were we in a capacity to relieve our selves from the guilt of Enormous Crimes and if as to these the fruit of his passion was not applyed unto all it must be either from the inefficacy of satisfaction or a defect of commiseration and goodness towards his Creatures It cannot be the first for his merits are infinite by reason of the divine person from whence they proceed for actions belong to the person according to Philosophy It was likewise infinite in regard of his humanity because it was sanctifyed and deifyed by the divinity which was like a certain sanctifying and deifying form unto that sacred humanity now as the greatness of merit is not only measured by the quality of the work but also by many circumstances and especially in consideration of the dignity of the person that
perswade First offering to their consideration how much it comforts Man to believe there is a God for in doing this we contemplate a Being infinite and sovereign that presides and rules in the World so that the World possesses in him a sovereign good Is it not then better the VVorld should enjoy such a Being which derives from himself alone his essence and existence than to be deprived of it For in believing there is a God we consecrate our love unto him we pay him the homage of obedience than which nothing is more delightful For to serve an Object of so much excellency is the height of glory we raise our selves finally one day to enjoy this accomplished Being as the ultimate end to which we are designed and every glance of this hope creates in us a new contentment Now if we have not the belief of a God what followes We convert our selves to a Creature inferiour to us on this we rely to this we submit in this we hope who being filled with misery and want can contribute little or nothing to make us great or happy so we must needs languish without any hopes of a full satisfaction Besides suppose there were no such thing as a God we are yet in as good a condition as impious Atheists for then we shall tast no punishment after Death no more than they but if there be a God they have lost all in having not acknowledged the Worlds Sovereign nor performed any duty to him so that in all Events it is better to believe than disbelieve a Deity For besides the joyes our hopes afford us in this life of eternal felicity we run no hazzard of ruine as poor unfortunate impious Atheists do Next he layes before the impious that he who believes not a providence resembles an Orphan bereft of his Parents and hath none to take care of him is like a person at Sea in the midst of Tempests who fancies to be without a Pilot and exposed to the mercy of the Waves Whereas the contrary opinion settles us in peace and tranquility and in all the disasters of this life we have this consolation that his wise and indulgent Providence will make all our seeming misfortunes to end in happiness if with patience we expect but the Issue Again he would have the wicked represent unto themselves what a comfort it is to place God in our thoughts enriched with all kind of perfections that he is an unfathomed Abyss of excellency that he is most happy most wise most powerful most good and merciful So that our dependance on such a Sovereign cannot but add much to our contentment to think he hath abundance to supply all our indigency and goodness to confer it upon us if we prove faithful to his service When he had thus ravished them with a discourse of God's amiable perfections he tells them they were created of nothing and so distills into them a conception and belief of his Omnipotency and by that stirrs up their hope For if he drew them out of nothing with more facility can he restore life and raise them from their Ashes This belief gives us a knowledge of our extraction and shews it is noble in that we belong to God we are subjects to a Lord all powerful who can reward and punish according as we deserve Next he minds them that being composed of Soul and Body the one is immortal by which he is elevated above all other Creatures and resembles the glorious Angelical spirits Now had they not this assurance by faith what desolation and despair would seize them at the approach of Death when like Beasts they must come to lose all and perish for ever in corruption whereas the belief of a Resurrection renders Death unto us but like a sound sleep in the space of which we remove from one habitation to a better So that the belief of the Soul's immortality is accompanied with the greatest consolation that can be His next overture is that they are designed to eternal beatitude from which article proceeds a most ravishing harmony for it is the sole charm by which all the traverses and afflictions of this life are made supportable and the only ingredient which sweetens the bitterness of misfortunes here It is just like a person in distress and born to a great inheritance who still animates himself with the expectation of his Estate which will be the more welcome to him as his hardship hath been the greater no less do our pretensions to Paradise plant in us hope charity humility and constancy in all events Our Holy Penitent notwithstanding all this is not so arrogant as to perswade himself the force of his Arguments will infallibly prevail upon the impious For though the advantages of Faith prescribe an Antidote against any Poyson of misfortune either in this life or the next though it contain nothing that is not holy and pure nothing that is not worthy the Majesty of God yet he knowes that Man by the strength of nature cannot purchase a compleat beatitude that neither by the succour of any natural Agent can he arrive to his perfect happiness because it is above and exceeds any created vertue so that it is necessary God should there act immediately himself as in the raising a dead person to life or restoring sight to the blind whence St. Austin sayes None can give eternal life but the Author of Eternity And therefore our wise Penitent sayes not he will convert the impious but that they shall be converted which is to say the power of God's grace must strike the stroke Lastly he acquaints them that though they are to be illuminated inspired and introduced into their happiness by God himself yet the sole way to dispose themselves for this must be by their own good works and actions Not but that the Omnipotency of God might give them beatitude without exacting any thing at their hands but the order of his Providence would have it so that Man should exercise himself in virtue and labour for the purchase of his final perfection To which end God assists him with his grace and gives supernatural helps which proportion his good works to the greatness of beatitude unto which he may raise himself by degrees by many labours and pious exercises so to purify and the better to dispose himself for so sublime and transcending an end In conclusion our great Doctor bids them gather from this his discourse upon what foundation they stand that if they will have a Crown they must fight for it they must desert their wayes of impiety change their gluttony into a sober repast their softness and delicacies into austerity their vain joyes into Tears of Repentance their libidinous desires into languishments of love and affection towards God If then the most impious will submit to this doom and follow these rules his Holy Providence hath set down he will not blush to assert with confidence that even the most enormous sinner shall
that grand ballancing of all their good and bad deeds and by this means who knowes whether he hath not only disjoyned and torn the Soul from the Body but even from God for all eternity These dismal thoughts prompt him to fly for Sanctuary and it is no where to be found but at the Throne of God's mercy which he implores Free me from blood c. Again he considers with what a severe Eye God looks upon the sin of homicide commanding in Moses Law that blood alone should be the price and satisfaction for blood nay he extends it even to irrational Creatures that if any happen to be the cause of Man's death the Beast what ever it be should lose its life It was to prevent this unnatural violence that he prohibited the eating of blood so to cut off any practice which might diminish the horrour of it Besides the remorse and tortures of conscience which alwayes attend this sin sufficiently evidences that though in other Crimes his patient Justice seems for a while to lye asleep yet this he alwayes revenges upon the place For if the Thunder-bolts of his anger do not immediately fall upon their heads as to the publick view at least he begins the execution from the first moment of the Fact committed disturbing their sleep with frightful Phantomes and filling their awakened hearts with dreads and terrours that their life is even a burden and Irkesome to them of this are extant innumerable examples both in sacred and prophane Histories too long here to recite It is not unworthy our observation that a murdered Body should bleed afresh as it hath been often experimented at the presence of the murderer It is true many give natural reasons of the thing attributing it to the vital spirits not yet extinguished in the remnants of the blood retreated into several Cranies of the Body which by an Antipathy at the approach of their adversary fall into a Commotion and by this disturbance occasions the blood again to flow Others say it may proceed from a simpathy supposing the murderer to have upon his weapon wherewith he gave the wound or in some other part about him certain dropps of blood of the deceased by which Sympathetick vertue it receives motion in order to its reunion But my design not being to insist on Philosophical disputes I will not labour to weaken the force of their Arguments and only assert my Opinion which is that it speaks simply the extraordinary way of God which he holds sometimes in one kind sometimes in another to manifest and publish offendours of this nature Our Holy Penitent may be brought in for an instance unto whom it was declared by God's own command that notwithstanding all his Artifices in contriving Vriah his Death it should be exposed in the view of the whole World that future ages might see he whom he had chosen as the delight of his heart should have no priviledge in this particular and though he would abate something of his wonted rigour in not exacting his life for a satisfaction yet he would bring it near to his door by the rebellion of his Children with the Enmity and Machinations of many Conspiratours against him and that the Law of retaliation was not executed against him perhaps he owes it to this clause of the petition which he seems with more than usual fervour to have preferred repeating O God God of my Salvation We may here reflect how pernicious a thing passion is when once it hath got the Mastery and how soon it gets strength with the aid of dangerous occasions Our Penitent knew well that the Divine precept Non occides thou shalt not kill did not only forbid the taking away of our Neighbours life but likewise all rancour or malice towards him all injury by word or deed which may touch upon his honour or person all disputes contest or impetuosity of Choler these are the seeds of that monstrous fruit homicide as St. John sayes who hates his Brother is a homicide For by nourishing within you a little spark of animosity this from the heart appears in the Eyes which are the glass of the inward temper thence it breaks into words and at last sadly ends in his destruction Behold our Kingly Prophet and now an humble petitioner in his own behalf he is said to have been the meekest of Men and in consideration of his lenity and mildness in Government God spun out his reign to the Term of Forty years which was granted to few or none of the Jewish Kings with what patience did he sustain the reproaches and maledictions of Semei with what an admirable temper the long and restless persecution of Saul how tenderly issued he forth his orders touching Absalom that though he were actually in arms against him and thirsted after nothing but his life and Throne yet he commanded a hair of his Head should not be touched Notwithstanding all this upon a suddain seized with a passion of love both his sweet temperament and all his former habits of vertue proved of little use unto him The Christal of his understanding was blemished with gross vapours arising from brutish pleasures the purling stream of his inclinations which was wont to flow softly without noise and from the source of vertue is now grown into a storm of fury it is so deprived of reason as to imagine his own good and safety to depend upon the ruine of his Neighbour and therefore hastens to take vengeance upon him who never gave him the least shadow of real offence O what a Tyranny is the Rule of passion to make us love what is not amiable and hate what is not odious to push us on to desire what we should abhor and fly from vvhat vve ought most to covet Our holy penitent hath served under this oppression and novv petitions a release Free mee from blood c. Novv the Latins not using the vvord blood in the plural Number though the Greeks do hence it is that some infer and with reason that our Penitent aims at the remission of Adultery likewise because all carnal acts unlawful carry along with them a corruption both of flesh and blood this appears in Deut. Chap. 21. Where it is said that rotteness and worms shall be the inheritance of a luxurious person and as the one that is homicide destroyes the species of Man so adultery subverts those rules which are set down for his education a design which nature intends and drives at as well as Generation The one injures his Neighbour in his person the other in his honour and this not only of himself but casts an infamy upon his posterity It is storied of Vlysses that he met in his Travails with Circes the Enchantress vvho promised to make him immortal in case he vvould be naught with her and though he believed she was able to make good her promise yet he refused her less valuing immortality than fidelity to his Wife Susanna far less esteemed of
Death than she did the dishonour to herself and Family Solomon sayes a Thief may have some excuse in that extremity of hunger urged him to his villany at least in rendering seven-fold he makes satisfaction But an Adulterer hath no plea nor can the Indies ballance the wrong done by him Our Holy Penitent revolving all these truths in his Mind hath reason to joyn in his petition the crimes of homicide and adultery together since both are Coincident in his malice both injurious to our Neighbour both destructive to the very Lawes of nature and both exemplarly punished in all ages by Divine Justice Wherefore he may justly insert Free me from blood c. When I read a passage in St. Paul 2 Cor. Chap. 7. it appears terrible the resentment God entertains of Adultery He there sayes if the Husband be in the number of the faithful and the Wife of the unfaithful he shall not dismiss her But if she be unfaithful to his bed then he may lawfully forsake her so that God seems to be more offended in that she keeps not her saith with her Husband than in being disloyal to him insinuating by this that he will give no quarter to an adulterous act How odious this Crime is to humane Society appears in that the Civil Law permits the Father or Husband of the Adulteress if taken in the fact to offer violent hands and immediately destroy both the offendours and though the Cannons seem to disallaw of this Law as unjust because it precipitates the guilty into an evident hazzard of their eternal Salvation Yet still it concludes how monstrous an exorbitancy Adultery is in the judgements of Men when to punish it they allow parlies interessed to be both Accusers and Judges which in no other circumstance hath ever been permitted Adultery is a commerce between persons who are not linked together in a conjugal tye and from thence it is cloathed with the turpitude of fornication and is a sin against charity Next it is a violation of a bond indissoluble by which the Author of Nature hath united one to another and superadded to fortify this Chain the blessing and vertues of a Sacrament I remember the Councel of Trent in favour of this Sacrament teaches that God by it bestowes a particular grace that as in Baptism we purchase as it were a new Being regenerated and born to a spiritual life as in confirmation we receive a Grace strengthening us in our Faith as in the Eucharist an encrease of heavenly blessings is showred down upon us the like in the rest of the Sacraments So in that of marriage a grace is communicated which perfits and refines the natural love they bare to one another before they married Insomuch as that love which before was perhaps seated in some corporeal charm or grace afterwards becomes wholly sacred and no attractive appears which carries not along with it a pious allurement and which makes them whilest they tread the paths of vertue to have a horrour of any thing that may alter or diminish it Now this holy effect is evacuated by Adultery so that it may be called a kind of Sacriledge dissolving the sacred union of hearts which is made by marriage and therefore I wonder not if St. Cyprian terms it Summum delictum the highest crime that Man can be guilty of Our sad Penitent alarmed with the outcryes of blood on the one side and Adultery on the other for which as an Enemy to God and Nature he deserves to be exterminated hath no refuge but to the God of his Salvation and he repeats it again and again that he would daign to save him from the doom of both protesting a true repentance of both and that for the future like a Lamb in the shearers hands he will be silent endure all the opprobâ—ios his Subjects shall cast upon him and make a return of all the good he can Lastly he will extinguish for ever within him all the Fires of concupiscence and unlawful desires so he may be sheltered from these crying sins under the beams of his mercy Free me from blood O God God of my Salvation The Application The way to preserve our selves from this torturing guilt is to be well versed in the precept of charity For by this same vertue by which I love God I am likewise carried on to love my Neighbour So that whensoever I injure him I violate the Law of love towards God which obliges not only to love him but all that belongs to him Now as Man is the most excellent Creature in this inferiour World and most capable to render him honour and glory there can be no violence offered to him which reflects not upon the Sovereign Lord he serves for whose respect we ought to cherish what he would have cherished I must not then love my Neighbour because he is rich beautifull well fashioned or to me particularly obliging but I must love him because I love God to whose Family he belongs and in a place of Eminency by the priviledge of his Being I must love him in that 〈◊〉 the glory of God to which he may contribute much by the Conversion of his own and other Souls to his Service why should I then plot mischief against him for whom Jesus Christ hath a value why should I aim at his Death to whom God imparted life for whom our redeemer suffered Death and would if needful do it again What need I care if they be malicious to me since I love them nor for what they are in themselves not for what they are to me but meerly for the love I bear to my dear Sigiâ—…r Let us stick close to this Principle and pray Free me from blood c. Amen CHAP. XXX Et exultabit Lingua mea justitiam tuam And my Tongue shall exalt thy Justice AT the first glance one might Censure our Petitioner as not placing aright his acts of gratitude ascribing to God's Justice rather than mercy his deliverance from sin but you must know it is far from him nay contrary to the Doctrine he delivered in the preceeding Chapter to think he could merit any thing de condigno or by the value of his own works without sanctifying grace which is the sole effect of God's mercy His meaning therefore is that supposing he be enriched with the Donative of Grace he may then lay claim to his Justice for a reward St. Paul Tim. 4. sayes A Crown of Justice is reserved and will be justly given to him First he calls Heaven a Crown of Justice because it is given by way of Justice in consideration of the worth of merit Next that God will give it as a thing to which he hath a right and Lastly he styles God a just Judge in Testimony he doth it by vertue of his Office that is to observe the Rules of Justice The Arausican Councel chap. 28. declares that a recompence is due to good works but grace which is not due must go before and
give life to them and truly it is rational that since God threatens punishment to the wicked deeds of Men he should likewise propose a recompence to vertuous actions otherwise he might be said to be more enclined to severity than sweetness which is much repugnant to his nature Again sanctifying grace is a quality so sublime that it dignifies and exalts the works of that subject it informs above all the Worlds greatness Now there being nothing but eternal glory which surpasses grace a meritorious action animated by grace cannot be recompenced to the worth but by glory whence it followes that grace by a title of right and condignity merits eternal glory Lastly sanctifying Grace is communicated by God unto a Soul with the circumstance of an affectionate Amity by which in the first place he loves her and this love of friendship moves him to pardon all her offences to receive her into his favour and adorn her with the incomparable Ornament of this Celestial quality This done Man becomes a Friend of God in his first justification is raised to a pitch of greatness so transcending as his works are worthy of Heaven as performed by a friend of God who hath an affection for her and by that will render her compleatly happy Upon these motives and supposition of a grant to the preceeding clause of his petition he will blazon forth the Iustice of God not in the remission of his sin for this he acknowledges to his pure mercy but upon the score of a recompence which his goodness hath promised This consideration awakens him from sluggishness and as the Labourer endures patiently the fatigues of his task in hopes of his salary at Night so will our Petitioner unweariedly sustain the traverses of this life and amidst his tribulations every thought of Paradise shall move his Tongue to exalt O Lord thy Justice Merit is defined a service which obliges to a retribution or a good work done freely and which God accepts of as the price of eternal life Now albeit good actions arising from grace by which they are supernaturallized are in a certain manner rendered worthy of eternal life even without the promise of God yet they can no wayes oblige God to give it unless he first engage his word to this effect For he is the Sovereign Lord of the World and most particularly of just Men and their good deeds yet can they not so much sway with him as to put a constraint on his will to let them share with him in his Heavenly Kingdom For when all the just had consecrated to his honour all the good works imaginable he might justly say I accept of these in discharge of your past debts and obligations due to me for your Creation conservation grace and power I have given you to act So that when any one makes an oblation of his person fortune or any other his goods unto God he must not present it in way of a gift but with humility as in satisfaction of a debt nor yet as if he would clear all scores but as a small parcel of that great Summ which he owes Wherefore that Man may have an unquestionable right to Heaven by the value of his good works being so engaged to God as he is it was necessary a contract or stipulation should pass by which God should please to declare he would give him Heaven in recompence and upon this ground he should have a title to demand and obtain it In this proceeding his Mercy and Justice meet his mercy in that he accepts the works of the just for more than the bare discharge of their obligations His Justice in that he is pleased to give the rate of Heaven in return of their good works by this means Saints are humbled in the excellency and value of their merits for by it they know that Heaven is so bestowed by way of Iustice as they are notwithstanding unspeakably obliged to the Divine mercy which passing over the debts accepts of their works for Heaven this certainly will give them immortal resentments of gratitude for which they will powre forth an infinity of praises and benedictions throughout the vast spaces of eternity to a Benefactour who treats them so nobly with such signal favours as to become a Debtor even to his own debtors St. Austin admiring this Mystery sayes God hath made himself a Debtor to us not by receiving any thing from us but by promising what he pleased unto us For all things are depending on him nor can they oblige him but as far as he will oblige himself by his incomparable Charity and inviolable Fidelity Our great Penitent ravished in the contemplation of these truths cannot but unloose his Tongue to celebrate the praises of the Divine Iustice which so attempers the circumstances of our Salvation that we may claim it as our due He hires us into his Vineyard and if we prove faithful to our task he will not fail in his promise to give us a salary he often reflects what a comfort it will be to a beatifyed Soul to have contributed something to her own happiness In this liberty and free will which God hath given us he beholds the perfection and greatness of the Soul that neither the most charming beauties the most ravishing delights the most glorious dignities the most amiable vertues in spiritual entertainments nay nor the most eminent hopes of glory can work any impression or impose any necessity upon her actions but according to the mtasure of her will Again she hath a vigour impregnable fortifyed with God's grace against all sin and misfortunes that neither the allurements of what is lovely nor the horrid face of what is frightful can make any entrance by force for the Soul is above all the machinations of Men can resist them and meerly because it pleases her so to do Let them speak fair let them bribe threaten weep attack thunder lighten muster the Elements into storms and fury nothing finds admittance but at her disposal So that these words in the Apocalips may justly be applyed to her I have been dead and am living She was dead by Original sin and is revived by the Grace of Jesus Christ she hath put into her Hands the Keys of life and death that is free will which may open to her either Paradise or Hell After this survey of Man's liberty in this life by which he is free either to the acting of what is good or bad he makes a pause upon the apprehension that Man would have been more perfect were he limited to vertue and incapable of any vitious action as God himself is and all the blessed by a clear vision But he solves this objection considering that God alone by nature is impeccable it is a priviledge wherein none can share with him as being infinitely perfect and can admit of no imperfection St. Ambrose sayes that only the substance of the Divinity is a Being that cannot dye to wit by the death of
of temptations and cluttered with impediments of Salvation heaped one upon another So that to be warranted against so many dangers and at the same time put into possession of a real good by the constant practice of vertues is an advantage to a humane Creature designed for Eternity beyond all other in the World As to the other motive which agitates us here to wit things delightful none are to be compared to those ravishments enclosed within the precincts of a holy retirement For they are satisfactions of the Mind which being more pure and solid than those of the Body do consequently much outstrip them in worth and excellency the first ground of this contentment is a perfect tranquility of Mind which knows no gnawing nor remorse of conscience The Soul sayes Solomon that rests in this assurance is a continual banquet after this quiet succeeds a great love to God which yields a sweet relish to the most embittered accidents of this life Then a vigorous subduing of immortifyed passions which like an Executioner tortures the greatest part of Worldlings and makes them spin out this miserable life in an infinity of anxieties and affliction In a word it is the property of vertue to affect with delight that person which puts himself upon the performance of any Heroick action Wherefore a state of perfection which teaches the practice of all vertues in the most generous and disinteressed way must needs be attended with a great joy and consolation what pleasure then must it be to be setled in a condition of life which is a holy resemblance of Heaven surrounded with the precious ornaments of all vertues wherewith it is decked and set forth no less than is the Firmament embellished with Stars O what pleasure to be received into the Houshold and Family of God to be cherished with an amiable aspect from that grand Master and own'd by him as a Domestick where a multitude of graces and divine favours are showred down where at every turn are offered occasions of doing well and arriving at an admirable pitch of Sanctity and lastly where particular aids of grace are communicated to carry us to our final end and eteâ—…al felicity As to the third Engin which gives life to our actions that is honor what greater can there be than for a Soul to be God's spouse his favourite and friend Now this state of perfection ennobles a person with all these titles of greatness for vertue is the source of honor and by how much that excells in any one so much is his honor really advanced this state then being a nursery of vertues wherein the most excellent are practised and in the most excellent manner as squared out to the Evangelical Councels it followes that such are truly noble who are enlisted under the sublime Standard of so perfect and Christian a warfare First they practise the method of getting honor that is by flying it for honor resembles a shadow that flyes the pursuer and pursues the fugitive Next they profess humility and the Son of God hath protested that those who humble themselves shall be exalted Thirdly they incessantly praise and glorifie God both by their deeds and words now Christ sayes those that glorify him shall be glorifyed by him Wherefore this state cannot be but truly glorious and honorable in which are comprised in its perfection all that is either to our profit pleasure or honor Some who would diminish the worth of this Sacrifice object that many languish under the Yoak of their vocation and lead a life more embittered than others in a worldly conversation To which I answer that those defects spring not from the State but from the immortifyedness pride indevotion and other evil qualities in particular persons who were they such as their state requires would trip with joy in their tribulation acknowledge themselves singularly countenanced by Heaven that when they were in the midst of a depraved and corrupted world he drew them off clear from all its hazzards and miseries to plant them in a Land flowing with Milk and Hony That having rescued them from a party that would have betrayed and given them up to death he admitted them inhabitants of God's City upon Earth who will be to them a loving and indulgent Mother and transmit them rich laden with merit into the Land of the living in case they acquit themselves faithfully of their duty This I say would be their Harmony were they not ungrateful and by their Chagrin and Male-contented humour distastful to God and themselves and so unworthy of the dignity of their state But whilst I thus exalt this Sacrifice which is the purchase of that eternal victime offered up on the Cross yet I am not so transported with its excellency as not to know it hath its proper Crosses nor do I blush to confess it since every difficulty finds there likewise its Consolation First the indigent life there led is many times but a simple dispropriation where we find more necessaries for a subsistence than an infinity of persons in the World enjoy who by constraint is feign to continue poor Besides this poverty will be recompenced with a hundred-fold in eternal treasures and to this performance the Son of God hath engaged himself Chastity there observed is a life Angelical and an imitation of that eternal wherein no marriage will be admitted it frees them from a million of cares sufferings and perplexities which married persons experiment at a dear rate and thence frankly confess their state to be much less happy Obedience is a life without curiosity a secure navigation and an excuse of weight with God It is a journey performed sleeping for whilst you obey you repose quietly in the conduct of another and by that avoid a thousand dangers and difficulties incident to those who live at the Helm of their own will and liberty If they are startled at the necessity of cohabiting with some who may be of a strange peevish and cross humour and with these they must continue even to death this I confess may happen sometimes yet not alwayes but as to this likewise there is often a mistake the froward humour being rather in themselves than in their companion so that possessing a spirit like that of the Jaundice all they behold appears yellow to them But admit they are really so that is thwarting and contradictory perhaps God hath given them to you that they may be converted and saved by your mildness and patience at least to be unto you occasion of merit Christ our Lord disdained not to cohabit with Judas and if they discharge not their duty to you at least do yours to them and so you will hammer out a Crown at their cost and by means of their unpleasing stroaks In a word if you have a love for God and a serious thought of Eternity be it of Heaven or Hell if you consider the torments and death of Jesus Christ nothing will seem harsh or tedious to you