places estrangeth their hearts he hath brought us into one City that being shut up within her Lines of Communication we may the easier converse together and of fellow Subjects may become fellow Citizens Vos estis Cives Sanctorum But forasmuch as this alliance is not the strictest there are factions many times in Cities which sow discord in mens minds all the inhabitants steer not one way the diversity of quarters hinders their familiarity he hath adopted us into one family that being the Domesticks of one Master our amity may be the closer by how much our condition is more equall Vos estis Domestici Dei Had he left us in this state he had taken pains enough for our good but as Domesticks have different designes jealousie steals into their souls and the hope of profit which is the end of base and mercenary souls suffers them not to taste the sweets of true Friendship he hath raised them to the quality of children and giving them their Soveraign for their Father will have them love one another as brethren Vos omnes fratres estis Morality and Politicks have nothing to wish for after this favour seeing all the Subjects of a State linkd together by the bonds of so indissoluble an alliance beleeve nothing can be added to their happinesse But God who is pleased to outgoe our hopes hath reduced us to the perfection of unity in making us members of the same body and giving us our Father for our Head So that all the Faithfull make up but one Man all their conditions are happily confounded together and all of them making up one part of Jesus Christ they are quickned with his Spirit clarified with his Light warmd with his Love till they be taken up into his Immensities and consummated in his Glory The Eight DISCOURSE That Jesus Christ hath taken all the infirmities of his Members and his Members have drawn all their strength from him IF it be a Truth that whatever is glorious as relating to Jesus Christ is profitable to Christians it is not true on the other side that whatever is beneficiall to Christians is honourable to Jesus Christ For the dignity of Head whence all their advantages are derived is the source of all those evils Jesus Christ underwent and had he not been the Head of sinners he had not been obliged to be their Surety Hee hath as Saint Augustine saith made a compact with men extreamly advantageous for them but very prejudiciall to himself For as the union which Nature or Grace puts between the members of the same body makes their good and bad common we find that the Son of God imparts his priviledges to us and assumes our miseries to himself He enters into our lownesse and we are admitted into his Greatnesse he is burdend with our transgressions and we are invested with his merits he is made the Sonne of Man and makes us the Children of God This important Verity requires a full Discourse and 't is just that in acknowledgement of the obligations we have to Jesus Christ we take notice of what he drew from us and of what we have received from him Innocence is one of the Apennages of the Word Incarnate Inde nascimur sic nascimur in carne peccati nascimur quam sola sanat similitudo carnis peccati inde mifit Deus filium suum in fimilitudine carnis peccati Inde venit sed non fic venit non enim virgo libidine sed fide concepit Aug. de verb. Dom. ser 10. were he not God by his Person he would be innocent by his Conception and having the Holy Ghost for his Principle and the Virgin for his Mother 't is impossible he should have contracted the sin of Adam Wherefore when the Angel expounded to the Virgin the Grandeurs of her onely Son he expresly observes that his Sanctity was derived from his Birth and being the work of the Holy Ghost must therefore be exempt from all impurity Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in te ideoque quod nascetur ex te Sanctum vocabitur filius Dei In the mean time the quality of Head obliges him to stoop under the load of our offences Hee that is innocent by nature becomes guilty by love and when he united himself to his members he became their Surety and engaged himselfe to satisfie for them Thence it is that the Prophets speak not of him only as a man of sorrows but as a man who stands Hostage for the children of Adam and who is voluntarily boundto bear all the punishments their sins are obnoxious to This made the Father say by the mouth of the Prophet Esay Percussi eum propter scelera populi mei Ipse vulneratus est propter iniquitates nostras attritus est proterscelera nostra posuit Dominus in eo iniquitatē omniū nostrum Isa 53. This made Saint John say That he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world and this made Jesus Christ himself upon the Crosse say that his sins condemned him to death Longe à salute mea verba delictorum meorum For he died not that ignominious death but because he stood in the place of men and being their pledge because he is their Head he was bound to satisfie for them the Justice of his Father Therefore the sentence that obliges the Son of God to death is the justest and unjustest sentence in the world 'T is unjust if we consider it as proceeding from the mouth of Pilate because all the crimes Jesus Christ was accused of were forged by his enemies 'T is just if we consider it as proceeding from the mouth of the Eternall Father because his Son appeared before him as the Head of all men and he beholds him as an innocent Victime whose charity hath made him a Delinquent Indeed our sins are not remitted but because the Son of God is charged with them the fury of God the Father is not appeased but because Jesus Christ hath satisfied it nor doe we live securely in the world but because our Head hath restored us our Innocence This is the compact he made with us he hath taken our evils to confer upon us his merits he hath made a change of qualities and to procure us that of the children of God hath voluntarily accepted of that of Surety for sinners This is it that Saint Augustine confirms to us in explaining those words of the Prophet which he supposes spoken by Jesus Christ Domine Deus meus clamavi ad te sanasti me The Son of God saith he prayd to his Father in the mount of Olives before his death and his Father heald him after his death but how could he heal him that never was wounded did he heal his Word who was God equall with himself No certainly but he heald us in his Person because this Word being made our Head was loaden with our wounds and had changed them into remedies to cure us of our scars He heald him then
hath so many Ages sealed them up in their Tombs and that now they do arise after they were buried in Infidelity then they shall be freed from all misfortunes that attend their mortal condition now they are delivered from all clouds of Ignorance that darken their spirituall existency then they shall rise to Immortality and Glory now they are regenerated to Grace and Salvation Though these effects of Baptism are sufficiently admirable by their own proper greatnesse Nonne mirandū et lavacro dilui mortem atquin eo magis credendum si quia mirandum est ideo non creditur atquin eo magis credendum est qualia enim decet esse opera divina nisi omnē admirationem Tert. de Bapt. Sine pompa sine apparatu sine sumptu in aquae demissus inter pauca verba tinctus inde exiliit innocentior Idem ibid. yet must we acknowledg that the easinesse that produceth them extreamly heightens their Excellency For to revive a childe there needs only a little water animated with the Word of God all these changes are wrought in his soul when the Priest speaks and sprinkles his body he is miraculously raised when the Ceremonies of the Church are ended and this way that prepares him to eternall life costs the Ministers of Jesus Christ nothing but the Pronunciation of these words I baptise thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Heathen who heretofore inform'd themselves of our Mysteries were scandaliz'd at a miracle so mean and simple in its Administration so glorious in its Promises and so powerfull in its Effects They could not comprehend saith Tertullian that washing the body with a little water the soul should be cleansed from its sins that without any * Miratur incredulitas non credit miratur enim simplicia quasi vana magnifica quasi impossbilia Ter. pomp or expense a few words mingled with the commonest of the Elements should assure us of the Conquest of heaven But this Great Doctor answers their doubts with such solid Reasons that he at once blazons the honor of our Religion and the Majesty of our God For he makes them see * Prob misera incredulitas quae denegas Deo proprietas suas simplicitatem et potestatē Ter. de Baptis he was pleased to shew his simplicity in the matter of our Sacraments and his State in their effects that not to know God was no more then to deny him these two perfections which seem to constitute his Nature and that it was to want respect to make simple things passe for vain and glorious things for impossible because it is easie for him who drew the world out of nothing to draw our salvation out of an Element quickned by his Word and by his Spirit Baptism then being so fruitfull of Miracles and this Sacrament being the Throne of the power of the Almighty we need not wonder that the Christian finds his birth there that in it he is renewed by Grace that he is raised again by the vertue of Jesus Christ and that there he commenceth a supernatural life whose Progresse is as strange as the Beginning is wonderfull The Third DISCOURSE That the chiefest Mysteries of Jesus Christ are applyed to the Christian in his Birth IT is not without reason that St. Paul informs Christians newly baptized * Quicunque in Christo baptizati estis Christum induistis Gal. 3. that they have put on Jesus Christ since in their second Nativity they are united to his Person replenished with his Grace and quickned with his Spirit For as a * Induistis id est conformes ei facti estis quod est vobis honor contra aestus protectio Glossa ordinar in hunc locum Garment is the ornament and shelter of a man it covers his shame and protects him from the injury of the weather so may we say of Jesus Christ he is the glory and guard of a Christian whom having delivered from the confusion that accompanies sin he defends against the assaults of temptation and bestows upon him vigour and beauty thereby to render him a compleat work But as all graces in Christianity are mixt with pain the Christian according to the doctrine of the same Apostle if he intend to be perfect must die with Christ death must bring him to the resurrection and to life Whosoever saith he are baptized into Jesus Christ are baptized into his death All that we are of Christians we have by being baptized in his death Sacri Baptismatis in cruce Christi grande mysterium commendavit Apostolus eo modo ut intelligamus nihil aliud esse in Christo baptismum nisi mortis Christi similitudinem ut quemadmodum in illo vera mors facta est sic in vobis vera remissio peccatorum quemadmodum in illo vera resurrectio ita in vobis vera justificatio Aug. in Beda we are buried with him in Baptism we drowned our sins in the waters of this Sacrament and in this laver happily lose whatever we received from Adam in our first birth This death is fruitful producing in us the life of grace this burial prepares us for the Resurrection neither doth Jesus Christ make us partake of his Cross but thereby to make us partake of his Glory The Tomb is a step to our Birth like the Phoenix we finde life in our ashes and by a wonderful prodigie the Sepulchre of the Sinner becomes the Cradle of the Believer For the Christian receives a Being in Baptism according as he expires there and contrary to all the Laws of Nature Death is the Midwife of Life All the Fathers speak the same dialect with S. Paul Baptismus Christi nobis est sepultura in quo peccatis morimur criminibus sepelimur veteris hominis conscientia in alterā nativitatem rediviva infantia reparamur Baptismus inquā Salvatoris vobis sepultura quia ibi perdidimus quod antè viximus ibi dennò accipimus ut vivamus magna igitur sepulturae hujus est gratia in qua nobis utilis mors infertur vtilior vita condonatur magna inquā sepulturae hujus gratia quae purificat peccatorē vivificat morientē Aug. Serm. 129. de Temp. never mentioning Baptism but as a Sacrament where the life and death of Jesus Christ are equally applied unto us that we may live to grace and die to sin The Baptism of Jesus Christ saith S. Augustine is a burial wherein we bequeath sin and losing the conscience of the old man we enter upon a second Infancy by a new Nativity In a word the Baptism of our Saviour is a Tomb wherein we are buried and a Cradle wherein we are born again 't is a pleasant dormitory where receiving a death beneficial we receive withal a life far more glorious and where leaving off to be Sinners we begin to be Innocents In this it is that I admire the Providence of the Son
of God who made use of sin to destroy sin as saith the Apostle of the Gentiles De peccato damnavit peccatum and changing his death into a sacrifice made it a satisfaction for all our iniquities For if Baptism make us die to sin it is upon no other ground but because it imprints in our souls the merit and image of the death of Christ and by an invisible but a true and real grace works in us a desire to part with all that is derived from Adam This makes the * Infelix ego homo quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus Rom. 7. Saints that they cannot endure the rebellions of concupiscence that they employ all their strength to smother these embryo's that being true to Grace they resist all the motions of its Enemy groaning when they are compelled to follow or suffer his disorders They know that Christ died to oblige them to die to sin that he was not nail'd to the Cross but to crucifie them to the world nor buried in the grave but that the earth might be their sepulchre All that is in the world Crucifixus est Christus ut vos crucifigamini mundo mortuus est ut vos moriamini peccato saeculo vivatis Deo sepultus est ut vos consepeliamini illi per baptismum Apostolo dicente Consepulti sumus c. ut sicut ille semel surgens à mortuis jam non moritur ita vos vetustate mortalitatis per Baptismum mortificati vitale indumentum induti non iterum per peccata in anima in morte retrahamiâ—i Aug. de Expos Orat. Dom. Symbol Serm. 3. displeaseth them diversions are their torments that which is a recreation to sinners afflicts them and knowing very well the minde of the Lord Jesus they endeavour to fulfil it even with the loss of their own lives Saint Augustine entertained the Catechumeni heretofore with these obligations and expounding to them the doctrine of the Gospel taught them that Baptism engaged them in death Jesus Christ said he was crucified that you might be so to the world he suffered death that you might die to sin he was buried that you might be together with him and having put off the old man Adam and being cloathed with the new man Jesus Christ you may die no more in your souls by sin All the other Fathers speak the same language teaching us that there is a death and a life hid in Baptism producing real effects in our souls Thence ariseth the inclination all Christians have to die and to live thence proceed those obstinate conflicts they entertain self-love with thence spring those violent desires to be separated from the world and the flesh that they may be no longer subject to their tyranny But because this Mystery very much concerns our salvation it deserves a more ample explication from us that we may disclose the truths and obligations that lie wrapt up in it The Son of God is willing that as his death is the Principle so it should be the Rule and Example of our salvation as he died to deliver us he would have us die to honour him and as he entered not into glory but by the door of the Cross neither must we pass to the resurrection but by the gate of the Grave He died saith the great Apostle that by his death he might ruine the Empire of sin He died that losing all the imperfections he drew from Adam he might rise again to life everlasting He died that satisfying his Father we might be no longer responsible to his Justice All these considerations oblige us to die in Baptism Pro omnibus mortuus est ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est debet ergo vita hominis in se deficere in Christo proficere ut dicat cum Apostolo Vivo ego jam non ego Aug. Serm. de Epiphan if we intend to be the images of Jesus Christ we must destroy sin by death that dying we may be born again and making a sacrifice of our death we may be changed into spotless Victims But as the Son of God was not content onely to die but was willing to joyn the ignominy of the grave to the bitterness of his death Sicut Christus sepultus fuit in terra sic baptizatus mergitur in aqua Nicol. de Lyra. because there was a second punishment of sin comprised in those words of our Arrest Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return he will have our death followed with a funeral and that the same Sacrament that makes us die bury us together with him Consepulti sumus cum Christo. Burial addes to the dead corpse two or three notable conditions The first is Coemeteria extra urbes utnullum esset viveniuÌ„ cum mort uis mmercium that he that is buried is separated from the company of the living that he remains in the regions of death and hath no more commerce with the present world So the Christian is buried with the Son of God because he is removed from amongst wicked men neither doth the state of death into which he is entered suffer him to converse with them Quid est mori peccatâ— consepeliri cum Christo nisi damnandis operibus omnino non vivere nihil concupiscere carnaliter nihil ambire sicut qui mortuus est carne nulli detrahit nullum aversatur Prosp de vita contemp c. 21 He hath now no ears to hear calumnies no eyes to gaze upon the beauties of the earth no desires nor pretensions after the honours of the world and his death being attended with a funeral he protests aloud that he hath renounced all hopes of the things of the world The second condition of this state is the duration that goes along with it For though death be eternal in respect of the Creature nor can any but an Almighty power re-unite the soul with the body when once separated yet there seems to remain some faint hope as long as the body is not committed to the grave we watch it to see if that which appears a death be but a swoon or trance and there have been those that have died and rose again the same day without a miracle But when the body is laid in the sepulchre drooping Nature is then past all hope This dismal abode hath no intercourse with life 't is an everlasting habitation whence there is no return but by a prodigie Sepulchra eoruÌ„ domus illoruÌ„ in aeternuÌ„ jam quia constructa sunt sepulchra domus sunt sepulchra quia ibi semper crunt ideo domus in aeternum Aug. in Psal 48. 't is the place where worms serving for ministers of the Divine Justice discharge their fury upon men till being reduced to powder there remains nothing of these famous criminals Thus the Christians when baptized are as it were interred to
a Virgin This Prerogative hath repaired the scandal of the Crosse and if some impious wretches have thought meanly of him when they knew he suffered upon a Gibbet they could not chuse but highly admire him when they learnt that he was born of a Virgin The Fathers of the Church are of opinion That if the Son honoured * Nobilitas fuit nascentis in Virginitate parientis et nobilitas parientis in Divinitate nascentis Aug. Serm. 30. de Temp. his Mother by his Divinity the Mother honoured her Son by her Virginity Finally they thought if God must have a Mother she must be a Virgin and if a Virgin must have a Son he must needs be a God Though this be so extraordinary a Priviledge that Christ never communicated it to any mortall the greatest Monarchs are born of a woman that purchaseth her condition of a Mother with the expense of that of a Virgin yet hath he been pleased to honour every Christian with the same favour For they are born of the Church who like Mary is pure and teeming together Their Mother is a Virgin and as Age impairs not her fecundity neither doth the number of her Progeny sully her purity She is delivered of them without sorrow as she conceives them without sin and because she engenders the members of Jesus Christ she hath the same priviledge with her that brought forth their Head The Church is a Virgin saith * Et Virgoest et parit Mariam imitatur quae Dominum peperit numquid non virgo sancta Maria et peperit et virgo permansit sic est Ecclesia et parit et virgo est Aug. Ser. 117. de Temp. St Augustine she imitates Mary that conceived Christ Mary is a Virgin though she were delivered of a childe the Church also bears children and continues still a Virgin And if you well weigh her priviledges you shall perceive that even she also brings forth Jesus Christ seeing those that are baptized are his members Thus the Birth of Christians is as glorious by their Mothers side as by their Fathers they have as Christ their elder Brother a God for their Principle a Virgin for their Mother and a Kingdom for their Inheritance To all these Graces we may adde a Third which is common to them with their Head for the Holy Scripture silently hints that the word of the Virgin contributed something to the production of her son she yeelded her consent before she surrendred her wombe she spake to express her intentions and her word had so much vertue that it gave life to Jesus Christ This word * Verbum quod erat in principio apud Deum fiat caro de carne mea secundum verbum fiat mihi verbum non prolatum quod transeat sed conceptum ut maneat Bern. super missus est Hom. 4. Fiat which began the Incarnation was in a manner as powerful in her mouth as that which began the Creation and if we judge of the Cause by the Effects we are more obliged to this then to that which produced the whole world since one Jesus Christ is more worth then the whole Masse of Men and Angels together This Word as efficacious as it was humble glads heaven and earth repairs the disorders of the Universe and giving a product to a Divine * Expectat Angelus responsum expectamus nos verbum miserationis quos premit sententia damnationis Ecce offertur tibi pretium salutis nostrae statim liberabuntur si consentis si ergo tu Deum facias audire vocem tuam ille te faciet videre salutem nostram Bern. ibid. Redeemer laid an obligation upon all creatures But if with our Mysteries we may raise our contemplations let us say that the Virgin imitated the Eternal Father and as He conceived his Son by speaking she conceived him so too she declares his divine Originall and becoming the Mother of him of whom he is the Father she begat him if not by her Thought at least by her Word Her sacred Mouth began the work of our salvation her Virgin-Womb finished it and assoon as the Holy Maid returned her answer and contributed her blood the Word was found Incarnate in her bowels I confess this Miracle would be without a Paralel had Jesus Christ no brethren but since he was willing to honour them with all the Priviledges of his Nativity he was pleased also that his Spouse should be fruitfull as his Mother was Indeed the Church produceth us by speaking the water that regenerates us receives the vertue from her words and did not the Ministers pronounce them when they baptise us this Sacrament would have no power to give us a Being 'T is the lips of the Mother that quickens us her voice that draws us out of the bosome of death neither would all the water of the sea be able to wash away the least sin were it not enlivened with her word Shee acts as her Beloved doth makes things by her speech inspires a secret vertue into the Elements ennobles them above their nature and by a miraculous impression gives them an insluence upon the soul Shee imitates Mary her speech is prolificall and as her production is spirituall she needs only speak to enliven her children What is water saith Saint Augustine without the Word of God in the mouth of the Church but the commonest of the Elements but when quickned with her voice it becomes fruitfull and by the union of these two Principles together the Sacrament is compleated sins are absolved the dead are raised Christians are regenerated and sinners converted Let us adde Miracles upon Miracles to unfold the excellencies of Man a Christian and pronounce this fourth wonder in the Birth of Christ that without losing the quality of the Son of God Idem est in forma Dei qui formam suscepit servi idem est incorporcus manens et corpus assumens idem est in sua virtute inviolabilis in nostra infirmitate passibilis idem est à paterno non divisus throno et ab impiis crucifixus in ligno D. Leo Ser. 10. de Nat. hee assumed that of the Son of Man For having two Natures united in one person he relates to his Father from all Eternity and to his Mother in the fulnes of time from the one he received Divinity from the other humanity The manger that cradled him in his Temporal Birth obscur'd not the Glory of his eternal Birth Greatness was alwaies mixt in his Person with meannesse and as God and Man are never separated since first they were united Nihil ibi ab invicem vacat tota est in majestate humilitas tota in humilitate majestas nec infert unitas confusionem nec dirimit proprietas unitatem aliud est passibile aliud inviolabile tamen ejusdem est contumelia cujus gloria Leo Ser. 3. de passi Dom. in this divine composure may still be discerned an admirable Medley of
glory and humility which ravisheth Christians and confounds Infidels These cannot comprehend that the Son of Man is the Son of God that he that is equall to the Father is his servant that he gives Orders and receives them that he commands and obeyes that he comes down upon the earth and yet never leaves heaven that he dies and still lives that he is confin'd in a Sepulcher and yet fills the whole world This Miracle prepares us for the belief of another no lesse strange then the former For if we consult the Holy Scriptures we shall find that the Son of God was made the Son of man for no other end then to make us the Children of God he was humbled that we might be exalted and he hath facilitated the belief of our future greatness by the example of his debasement His birth is a pledge of ours he was born of a woman but to assure us that we might be born of God neither was he apparelled with the flesh in the womb but to perswade us that one day we shall be clothed with glory in the heavens And this is the Argument the most illuminated of the Evangelists makes use of to establish our second Generation for having taught us that Baptisme and Faith give us God for our Father fearing lest so high a promise find no credit in our understanding * Venit Filius ut illo participantemortalitatem nostram per dilectionem nos efficeret participes divinitatis suae per adoptionem Aug. de Cons Evangel he gives us the Generation of the Word for an assurance of our Regeneration and having ravished all men with those magnificent words He gave them power to become the Sons of God hee discovers the cause of that miracle and clearing us of one wonder by telling a greater he tells us man may become God since God by an excesse of love was willing to become man And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us This is the admirable argumentation of St. John and the solid establishment of our greatness 'T is by this unparallel'd example that hee prepares us for the belief of our mysteries this is the proof all the Fathers make use of to perswade us that the misery of our condition can no way hinder us from being the children of God since the glory of the Word was no obstacle to his being made man Give me leave to expresse these wonders in the words of S. August Vt homines nascerentur ex Deo primo ex ipsis natus est Deus Non quaesivit quidem nisi matrem in terra quia jam patrem habebat in coelo natus ex Deo per quem efficeremur natus ex foemina per quem resiceremur Noli ergo mirari quia efficeris Filius Dei pergrat am quia nasceris ex Deo per verbum ejus prius ipsum Verbum voluit nasci ex homine ut tu securus nascereris ex Deo diceres nasci voluit Deus ex homine ut immortalem me faceret pro me mortaliter nascitur Aug. Tract 2. in Joan. and to joyn the pomp of his eloquence to the majesty of my subject God that makes all things with so much justice was willing to bee born of a woman that men might might be born of him He sought out but one Mother upon the earth because he had already one Father in heaven being born of his Father he made us being born of his mother he re-made us associating by an admirable conjunction the quality of Creator with that of Redeemer Wonder not then if by grace ye are the Sons of God since ye are born of him by his word nor thinke it strange that ye shall be one day immortall in glory since God in his second Generation became mortall was willing to suffer death upon the Crosse for our salvation Thus his Charity makes us like him his goodness surpasseth the miseries of our nature and renders us partakers of his glory so that there is no Christian but may boast that his Baptisme confers upon him by grace all the advantages Jesus Christ possesseth by nature and that the Mystery of the Incarnation being repeated in the faithfull by their new Birth exalts them by a happy Indulgence to the greatness of Jesus Christ The Sixth DISCOURSE Of the Adoption of Christians and the advantages it hath above the Adoption of Men. IF it be true that the end why the Son of God was made the son of Man was that we might be made the children of God we need not think it strange that the adoption of a Christian is one of the chiefest effects of Baptism nor that man changing his condition by his regeneration change also his Father and Mother But it is a thing very well worthy our admiration to consider that he is adopted by a Father who having an onely Son equal to himself should in reason cast out all adopted children were he not obliged to accept them at the intreaty of his own proper Son Adoptio nuptiarum subsidium fortunae remedium supplet sterilitati vel orbitati Jurisc For to take this Truth at the rise and unfold the wonders contained in it we must know that Adoption was invented among men to supply the barrenesse of Parents or the death of children Indeed t is a thing never heard of that a Father to whom Nature hath given a Son should adopt another and seek that in a strange Family which he may find in his own He would beleeve himself to offend against paternal charity should he divide it and injurious to his Son should he assigne him coheirs Though this be his only one he never resolves to provide him companions neither hath he ever recourse to this remedy but when the death of his son makes it lawfull in making it necessary In the mean time the Eternal Father adopts us though he have an immortal Son he extends his affections to us and admits us into his Family to make us share in his Inheritance But that which most furprifeth us in this Oeconomy is That he undertakes this designe at the request of his Son nor does he honour us with the condition of Children till Jesus Christ hath honoured us with that of Brethren 'T is one of the chiefest motives of his incarnation and we may say that he had never chosen a Mother upon earth but that he might have Brethren in heaven He is the onely begotten in the bosom of his Father He shares not this quality with the Holy Ghost and as their processions are different one is the Son the other the Spirit of the Father the One remains in his bosom the Other in his heart the One proceeds by Knowledge the Other by Love But this onely Son is first born of the chaste spotless womb of the Virgin by his temporal birth he gains Brethren and clothing them with the robes of his merits obligeth his Father to avow them for his Children For we
being his Creatures under a double Title and he our Principle in Nature and in Grace there is no body but believes we have all the reason in the world to set up his Kingdome in our hearts and carefully to preserve charity whereby he lives in our soules Neverthelesse the Great Apostle of the Gentiles complaines that the faithfull of his time made him dye that they put out the candle of their life and by an ingratitude as great as their blindnesse committed a double murder in one and the same crime He begs their favour towards the holy Spirit and having presented them with the Obligations they owe his infinite goodnesse he conjures them not to choak him in their soules Quench not the Spirit This passage is diversly explain'd Nolite Spiritum extinguere 1 Thes 5. but equally weak'nd by our Interpreters For some are of opinion that Saint Paul made use of this word to quench because the Holy Ghost coming down upon the Apostles in the likenesse of Fire might be put out as fire by our negligence And if the vestall Virgins were guilty of death Vesta nihil aliud quam ignis cui virgines solent servire quod sicut ex virgine ita nihil ex igne nascatur Aug. for suffering the prophane fire committed to their charge to go out the Christians were certainly much more criminall to suffer this holy Fire to dye that kindled all vertues in their hearts and purg'd out all defects and inward defilements Others think it a kind of figurative speech the Apostle makes use of to aggravate the hainousness of the sinne they commit who do all that they can to extinguish the Holy Spirit and endeavour to imitate the cruelty of the Jews will signe their malice by a detestable parricide It seems Saint Augustine was entred into this opinion accusing not the sinner for the death of the holy Spirit but because of the will he had to do it and endeavouring all that was in his power to stifle him that lives and reigns with the Father and the Son from all Eternity But I conceive without doing violence to the words of Saint Paul or at all prejudicing the holy Spirit we may say He suffers death by sin and loseth life when we lose charity For the same Apostle teacheth us Nescitis quia templum Dei estis Spiritus Dei habitat in vâ—bis 1 Cor. 3. that the holy Ghost dwels in us by Grace that he erects an Altar in our heart makes himself a Temple in our soul and lives in us by his vertues All his Epistles speak this language and as often as he treats of the residence of the holy Spirit in our hearts he speaks of it as of a Divine life whereof he is the first Principle so that he lives in us after the same manner as we live in him and these two lives are so closely combined together that one cannot be destroy'd without the other Thus the holy Spirit ceaseth to live in the sinner when the sinner ceaseth to live by the holy Spirit As they have one and the same life so they endure one and the same death and as the sinner loseth life because he loseth Grace that united him to Jesus Christ so the holy Spirit in some sort loseth that life that united him to the Christian by Charity and receives death from him that inflicts it upon himself by sin Therefore is it that the Apostle useth such high terms to make us comprehend the heinousnesse of our crime and describes the death of our soul under that of the holy Spirit to the end that if we are not afraid to commit a simple Murder we may at least be startled from committing a Parricide The second Quality of the holy Spirit is that having been our Principle he will also be our Director and give us motion after he hath indued us with life I will not inlarge this Truth because I have already spoken sufficiently of it and discovered those advantages the Christian may draw from thence It shall suffice to add that Christians are exalted as far above Philosophers as Philosophers are above Beasts For Beasts are led meerly by sense the pleasure that tickles them transports them and what-ever flatters their appetite either in taste or sight overpowers them if they are not with-held by fear or grief Sinners are in no better condition then the Brutes they consult only their sense when they act Homo comparatus est jumentis Considerate vos factos ad Dei imaginem Imago Dei intus est non est in corpore non est in auribus istis eculis sed est factus ubi est intellectus ubi mens ubi ratio investigandae veritatis Aug. in Psa 48. their soul is alwayes the slave of their body neither do they perceive when they engage themselves in the love of pleasure or glory how they do no more then Buls that foam and fight for the enjoyment of a Heifer or to be leaders of the Herd Philosophers are a degree higher then Sinners and taking Reason for their Guide they think they cannot err Rationalc animal est homo consummatur itaque ejus bonum si id adimplevit cui nascitur quid est autem quod ab illo ratio exigit rem facillimam secundum naturam suam vivere Senec. Epist 41. they fancie proud ostentous designes they frame noble Ideas of felicity they call in the Vertues to their aid to compasse it and assisted with Prudence Justice and Fortitude they count themselves as happy and as perfect as God himself Illi Philosophi seculi vitium vitio peccatumque peccato medicantur nos amore virtutum vitia superemus Hieron Epist ad Rust These blind Opinators see not that their Reason is a slave to their Concupiscence that Vain-glory is the foul of their Vertue that thinking to avoid Sensuaality they fall into Arrogance and flying the sins of Men are taken with those of Divels But Christians humbly soaring above Philosophers take the holy Spirit for their Guide they subject their reason to his Inspirations and knowing very well that they cannot be the children of God unlesse they be the organs of his Spirit they undertake nothing but by the motion of his Grace Though this favour make up one of their greatest advantages they fail not sometimes to neglect it and to resist the Conduct of their divine Director They relapse into the condition of Beasts when they obey their senses are restor'd to that of Philosophers Haec est iniquitas cujus non miseretur Deus cum homo defendit quod Deus odit pecâ—atum justitiam asserit ut omnipotenti resistat omnipotens illi Bern. de Conse when they are led by their judgment and become sinners when they resist Grace 'T is from this impiety that all others are derived there is no wickedness a soul is uncapble of when it rejects the impulses of the Spirit neither were the Jews cast
give a little light to this Speculation let us amplifie in this discourse what Saint Augustine hath wrapt up in this passage and unfolding all the evils derived from sinne discover the malignant influences of this Delinquent in chiefe upon his wretched members Ignorance seems to be one of the prime calamities of man 'T is born with him ever since he was born with sinne it sinks so deep into his soule that it cannot be expell'd thence but with labour and pain Children know neither their Creatour nor their Father they live some years in this sad condition we must expect till Nature ripen their senses and make them capable of the instructions of their Nurses or Masters that knowledge and truth may passe into their soules by the mediation of their eyes and eares Those that are born among infidels thinking to deliver themselves from ignorance are plung'd into falshood and fall into a mischiefe more grievous then that they labour to avoid when these two evils are associated together they heighten the bad inclinations of the Will of an offender they make an Opinator and adding obstinacy to malice throw him into a necessity of sinning If it have not this unhappy consequence in the faithfull who are instructed in the School of Truth it occasions another whose effects are no whit lesse tragicall For the Will feels a wretched impotency towards all those good things the combate of vices and the conquest of vertues makes him apprehend she complains that what ever is enjoyn'd is harsh and difficult what ever is forbidden easie and delightfull and having no strength to secure her selfe against griefe and pleasure Languorem istum culpa meruit natura non habuit quam sane culpam per lavacrum regenerationis Dei gratia fidelibus jam remisit sed sub ejusdem medici manibus adhuc natura cum suo languore confligit Aug. she loseth as many victories as she fights battles In the mean time all the children of Adam live in this misery what ever habituall goodnesse they acquire they never lose all that weaknesse they extracted from their Father assoon as Grace forsakes them they relapse into their former infirmity and being members of Adam they are always feeble and languishing But that which is most deplorable Concupiscence that so disables for good raiseth their appetite with so strong a propensity to evill that nothing seems difficult that appears under that notion The ambitious suffer with pleasure those great anxieties that accompany Glory this vain Idol makes them so couragious that they are true to it to the last gasp their constancy imitates that of Martyrs and they endure more hardships to conquer a Province then those generous Champions have to purchase Heaven The Covetous make our Penitentiaries blush their Interest costs them more then our Salvation Passion that swallows them up exerciseth so cruell a Tyranny over their wills that it obliges them to all the painfull severities the love of Jesus Christ disciplin'd the Anchorites to They fast to save charges they watch for lucre they leave their Countrey to traffique they venture their lives to assure their gains and lose their conscience to enrich their house Finally Haec cupiditas vana ac per hoc prava vincit in eis ac fraenat alias cupiditates Aug. Concupiscence works as many disorders in sinners as Charity does good in Martyrs it inspires them with vigour in tickling them with love it sheds a poison into their souls which blending weaknesse with strength makes them so unable for any good that the least difficulty that accompanies it astonisheth them and so valiant for evill that the greatest oppositions that attend it raise their courage to compasse it To all these mischiefs might be added the division of the soule and body the revolt of the passions against reason the treachery of the senses in respect of the understanding and all the distempers that arise from the unseasonablenesse of the weather or the strife of the Elements had I not largely describ'd them in discovering the miseries of man a Criminall But not to fall upon tedious repetitions 't is more usefull to consider the Head from whence we have derived our Benedictions and confront him against the other from whom we have received our Anathemaes Jesus Christ is that glorious CHIEF whom the Eternall Father is pleased to engraffe upon our Nature to deliver it from those miseries it grones under 't is from Him that all our advantages flow and as we are made guilty by descending from Adam we become innocent by being planted into JESUS CHRIST Our Redemption holds some proportion with our Fall the Mercy of God is regulated by his Justice and the Grace he bestowes upon us is a copy of our chastisement The first Man saith Saint Augustine received a Liberty void of all servitude God presented him with Fire and Water and gave him leave to chuse Man took Fire and rejected the Water God who is just let him grasp what he had chosen so that hee was therefore unhappy because he would be so See here an Expresse of the Justice of God Turn the Table and behold one of his Mercy For seeing that Man by the bad use of his Free-will had corrupted all Mankinde in his Person He came down from heaven not tarrying for his prayers and healed him by his Humility who had lost himself by his Pride he rectified the wanderers and put them into the right way hee call'd home the Banished and instated them in their Country that they might no longer glory in themselves but in that immaculate CHIEF from whom they derived their salvation This Verity is the Foundation of our Religion The beliefe of two Adams acquaints us with our Fall and with our Recovery Wee cannot know what we owe JESUS CHRIST unlesse we know what we lost in Adam nor can we ever worthily comprehend the obligations we have to our Redeemer unlesse we fully understand all the misfortunes accru'd to us by him that was our Parricide at the same instant that he was our Parent Therefore is it that the great Apostle never separates ADAM from JESUS CHRIST he always opposeth Grace against Sin be heightens the greatness of the Remedy by that of the Disease and that we may have a right estimate of the children of God he minds us that they were the children of wrath and vessels of dishonour Saint Augustine the faithfull Interpreter of Saint Paul admirably explains this Mystery in commenting upon the words of this Apostle As none saith he enters into the kingdom of Death that passeth not by Adam Siâ—â—t in regno Mortis nemo sine Adam ita in regno Vitaenomo sine Christo sicur per Adam omnes peccatores ita per Christum omnes justi homines sicut per Adam omnes mortales in poena facti sunt filii seculi ita per Christuâ— omnes immortales in gratia sunt filii Dei August ad Optat. so none enters into the
you goes on Saint Augustine seeing the same thing happens to us every day and an ordinary and familiar example evidenceth the same truth For when ye are in the throng of an Assembly and some body treads upon your foot your tongue presently complains and though no body toucht it cries out you have hurt me what means it by that expression Might it not be replyed you are in safety the place you have in the body secures you from danger and if any part be offended 't is the foot not you In the mean time Truth and Charity require this language for being in the same body with the foot their good and bad are common he that hurts one hurts the other the society that unites them and the compassion that grows from their society constraines it to utter theâ—e complaints as just as they are true Let us apply this comparison and say though Iesus Christ suffer not in his Person he suffers in that of the Faithfull that making up one body with them he is sensible of their pains and taking part in their wrongs is offended when any one offends them By the same consequence a Christian can doe no good to other Christians but the Son or God is beholding to him for it For the Felicity he enjoyeth exempts him from all want nothing can be added to his riches by desires and he is so great and so happy that there is nothing he can either hope or fear yet is he indigent in the faithfull and he may be assisted in the person of the miserable he protests that in that terrible day when he will examine the good and bad works of his Subjects he will recompence the good offices done to the poor as done to himself nor will make any difference between the good usage he received in his naturall body and that he shall have received in his mysticall body he will equally pronounce sentence upon these different actions and every where confounding the Head with the Members will punish with as much severity those that have persecuted him in the poor as those that nailed him to the Crosse That which yee did to one of the least of mine yee did unto me This truth ought to comfort the good and strike terrour into the wicked For if Iesus Christ live still in the distressed if the condition of a Head which he preserves in Glory make him languish in the poor we must needs conclude that those that oppresse them are as guilty as the Pharisees that oppressed Jesus Christ Though his Innocence was clouded under the likenesse of sinfull flesh and the lustre of his Majesty obscured by the humility of his person his enemies did despite to a God when they thought only to injure a Man they committed a Parricide when they imagined they acted only a murder and the Father punisheth them as guilty of Treason against the Divine Majesty because the miracles of his Sonne took away all pretence from their zeal and all excuse from their offence The same judgement threatens those that persecute the poor For though nothing of worth shine forth in them that can render them considerable though Iesus be hid under the misery of their condition and reason cannot discover a happy man under an unfortunate one nor a Son of God under a child of Adam he will not fail to punish them as severely as those that knew him not in Judea because his words which are to be respected as Oracles suffer us not to doubt of this verity which makes up one of the chiefest Articles of our Faith But if it be an argument of terrour to the wicked 't is a ground of comfort and consolation to the godly For they may still succour the Son of God in wretched and distressed people they may imitate the piety of Martha and Mary Magdalen they may enjoy the priviledges which make up the glory of those blessed women they may still be the entertainers of Iesus Christ and receiving him in the person of the poor and strangers Ne quis vestrum dicat 〈◊〉 beati qui Christum suscipere in propriam domii meruerunt noli dolere noli murmurare quia temporibus natus es quando jam dominum non vides in carne non tibi abstulit istam dignationem cum uni inquit ex minimis meis fecistis mibi fecistis Aug. Serm. 27. de Verb. Dom. participate in their merits who received him himself into their houses The Son of God will not have us make any difference between his naturall and his mysticall body his hands and his feet are not dearer to him then the poor and all that is done to these may expect the same reward as that which was done to them If we beleeve S. Chrysostome there is more advantage by serving Christ in his afflicted members then there was to wait upon him in his own Person because there is more trouble in it and as our senses meet with nothing that can flatter them in that exercise our love is more pure and more disinteressed There was as much pleasure as honour to perform acts of service to the Son of God whilest he lived upon earth the Majesty of his Countenance the graciousnesse of his Aspect the Charms of his Conversation the Power of his Words were recompence enough to them that received him into their houses they had a certain adhaesion to his person from whence they were to be separated by death That visible presence which charmed their eyes diminished their merit and the love they bare to that body that was the workmanship of the Holy Ghost had imperfections which were to be purified by elongation But the Faithfull who serve the Son of God in the poor are free from this danger they behold nothing in these sad objects that can please their sense they must consult their faith to find Iesus Christ there they must doe violence to themselves to pay their homage at those shrines and that Image having no allurements all their devotion betakes it self purely to seek after Iesus Christ in Heaven But not to determine this difference 't is sufficient to know for our comfort that Iesus Christ is in the Christians that the glories of the one and the miseries of the other separate them not that he suffers in us without any abatement of his Felicity that we reigne in him without any prejudice to our merit that he is upon the Earth though cloathed with the Glories of Immortality that we are in Heaven though shrowded in the rags of misery that in the difference of our conditions Quoties ergo videmus aliquem indigentem agnoscamus ChristuÌ„ in illo quia ipse indigens membrum Christi est Bern. de Pass Domi. cap. 32. there is a perfect communication of good and bad things between him and us that his Grace is ours our sins are his with this difference onely that his Grace cancels our sins and our sins despoile not him of his Innocence The
august solemnity then what appeared at the Death of Jesus Christ Men lament the death of their Soveraigns they expresse some sadnesse though for the most part 't is either counterfeit or interessed Those that expected their liberality are afflicted at their death those that feared their power or their displeasure rejoyce But were they so generally beloved that the regret was universall at least we must confesse that Nature would not weep over their Funerals she would be insensible of their death nor would she disorder her Course to witnesse her Lamentation This honour was reserved for Jesus Christ There was never any King but he registred by quick and dead None but this Innocent drew tears from the Stars and the Son of God is the only Soveraign whose obsequies all creatures solemnly attended 'T is true his Mysticall Body partakes of this honour with him Nature hath many times wrought miracles to publish the Innocence of Martyrs the fire hath lost his heat that it might not be instrumentall to their punishment wilde Beasts have waxed tame at their feet Omnes Martyres Deus Spiritualiter liberavit neminem Spritualiter deseruit visibiliter tamē quosdā deseruisse visus est quosdam eripuisse sed ideo quosdam eripuit neputes illum non potuisse eripere ubi non cripuit secretiorem intelligas voluntatem Aug. Tract 8. in Epist 10. and acknowledging in them a Grace more powerfull then that of Originall Righteousnesse they have many times forgot that fiercenesse the sin of man indued them with The Sea hath suffered violence to preserve them hath gently transported them upon his waves or suspending his waters as it were into Wals and Arches hath erected them Temples in his lowest Abysses But the Scripture whose every word is an Oracle teacheth us that the death of the Mysticall Body of Christ shall receive the same honours at the end of the world that his Naturall Body received in Mount Calvary For when the number of the Elect shall be perfect when Jesus Christ coming to judge the quick and the dead shall cut off the corrupted members from his Mysticall Body and remove those from his person that were united to it only by a vain Character and an unprofitable Faith the same prodigies that appeared at his death shall appear at this Judgement and according to the language of the Fathers Nature that bewailed Jesus Christ in his Naturall Body shall bewail him again in his Mysticall Body and all creatures shall put on mourning for the death of their Soveraign Finally these two Bodies shall have the same destiny after their Resurrection as they had the same during their Life for the one shall be glorified as the other and they shall both receive the recompence due to their labours The Son of God rose gloriously out of his Tomb after he had given assurance to his Apostles he was taken up into Heaven to reign there eternally with his Father The Angels made a part of his Triumph the Captives he delivered from the Lymbo's waited upon him those gates of Brasse and Steel that had been shut since the sin of Man opened at his word and his Body that was pierc'd with the nails rent with stripes torn with thorns was set at the right hand of his Father upon a Throne whose ornament was Justice and the foundation Mercy His Mysticall Body shall always receive the same glorious entertainment the Faithfull are admitted into the company of the Blessed the Saints shall reign in Heaven with the Angels they shall be mingled in their Hierarchies according to their merits and as heretofore of the Jew and Gentile was made one Church Militant of Men and Angels is daily made one Church Triumphant The bodies of the Faithfull shall accompany their souls in glory in the generall Resurrection those members that have suffered in the quarrell of Jesus Christ shall be freed from all miseries the Divine Providence shall rouze them out of their dormitories by the clattering sound of a miraculous trumpet it will find in spite of the flames those that have been burnt to ashes in spite of the waters those that have been swallowed up in the deep and working as many miracles as there shall be diversities of death to overcome shall treat the Faithfull as it hath already treated Jesus Christ so that we may say of both the Bodies of the Son of God those glorious words of the Apostle Great is the Mysterie of Godlinesse Indeed 't is a Sacrament of Piety that the Word was pleased to be allied to our nature and to the Church to have a Naturall Body and a Mysticall Body Which was manifested in the flesh both of them were manifested in the flesh because it was requisite that the Word should be made Incarnate to Espouse his Church Justified in the Spirit Both of them were justified in the Spirit because they are purely his work and the Regeneration of Beleevers is an Image of the Birth of Jesus Christ Seen of Angels Both of them appeared to Angels in that the same Spirits that waited upon the Son of God assisted his Spouse and extend their care over all her children Preached to the Gentiles beleeved on in the world Both of them were preached to the Gentiles by the Apostles and the mystery of the Incarnation joyned to that of their Vocation hath made up the best part of the Gospel Both of them were beleeved on in the world nor hath any thing more perswaded us of our future greatenesse then the condescention of the Eternall world Received up into Glory Finally both of them were exalted into Glory there to reign everlastingly that the blessedness of Iesus Christ may have its accomplishment and he be as happy in his Members as in his Person The Sixt DISCOURSE That the Church is the Spouse of Jesus Christ because she is his Body and of the Community of their Marriage ONe of the ancientest qualities of Iesus Christ is that of a Bridegroom Tanquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo Psal 18. the Prophets have honoured him with this title in the Old Testament David in the forty fifth Psalm hath made his Epithalamium and Saint Iohn who was the end of Types and Figures and the Silence of the Prophets gave out that he was the Friend of the Bridegroom But Adam is the first that descovered to us this mystery and by his marriage represented to us that of Iesus Christ with his Church For besides that his wife was taken out of his side whilst he lay asleep as the Church was out of the side of the Son of God when he was dead we know that the Laws of that marriage more respected the second Adam then the first He having neither Father nor Mother was not obliged to forsake them to cleave unto his wife But Iesus Christ at his Incarnation left his Father when he took upon him the form of a Servant and his Mother at his Passion when he suffered death for
more delight him Nay the Lascivious wanton is not so much in love with beauty as with pleasure because he placeth his affection sometimes upon objects that have no appearance of beauty and many times forsakes a handsome woman to court a deformed one Thus pleasure is a powerfull charm that masters all hearts plunders liberties and makes slaves that never complain of their bondage because they are voluntary Lovers that seek the secret of purchasing affection study nothing but complacency being assured they shall produce love in that heart where they have begot pleasure Flatterers never insinuate into the minds of great men but by rendring themselves acceptable nor doe their false Commendations steal in at the ears but because pleasure takes up the place of truth The very Devils though our mortall enemies seduce us not but because they please us and had they not found out the art of mixing pleasure with sin all their temptations would be fruitless But the will of man though never so free hath such an inclination toward pleasure that did she never so strongly barracado her self she could not possibly resist it she holds out against truth because she is blind and sees not the beauties 't is adorned with she secures her self against violence because she is free and naturally opposeth whatever seems to incroach upon her liberty she does not acquiesce in reason because she is deaf nor hears any discourse but such as charms the understanding by convincing it But pleasure hath allurements which she can no wayes withstand she trembles when ever it sets upon her she is afraid to lose her liberty in his presence and knowing the power it hath over her inclinations she cals in sorrow to her succour to guard her against this pleasing enemy If it be true that pleasure reigns absolutely over the will we need not think it strange that grace which is nothing else but a victorious suavity hath such advantage over her for besides that this Heavenly influence surpasseth all the delights in the world that charm us having more allurements then glory and beauty that makes so many Lovers and Martyrs it insinuates much deeper into the will then whatever ravisheth us mortals Tunc enim bonum concupisci incipit cum dulcescere incipit ergo benedictio dulcedinis est gratia Dei qua fit in nobis ut nos delectet cupiamus hoc est amemus quod praecipit nobis Aug. Being in the hands of Jesus Christ whom nothing can resist it glides into the very Center of our heart making impressions there that are never more strong then when they are most agreeable thence it cashieres all pleasures that have unjustly usurpt upon us and knowing all the weaknesses of the place it sets upon we need not wonder if she make her self mistresse Other pleasures enter not into the will but at the gate of the senses they have lost half their strength before they can make their approach and her inclinations being unknown to them they many times cause aversion intending to procure love But grace wooes the heart without the mediation of the senses and more powerfull then pleasures that act not upon all the faculties of the soul carries light into the understanding faithfulnesse into the memory and pleasure into the will so that we need not wonder if the sinner suffer himself to be overcome by a Divine quality that sheds delight into all the powers and faculties of the soul That which Grace effects thus agreeably by pleasure it brings to pass more powerfully by Love For according to the judgement of S. Augustine Amor imperiü babet super omnes animae vires propter hoc quod ejus objectum est bonum Aristo Di. Tho. and when God means to convert a sinner his sole design is to make him his Lover Love is the Master of all hearts There is no impossibility this passion undertakes not Miracles are his sports and all the prodigies Antiquity hath teem'd with are nothing but the effects of this Soveraign Scripture is never more eloquent then when it intends to express the force thereof nothing satisfies it in this design all words seem too weak to express its conceptions and finding no comparisons that answer the dignity of the subject it descends to the Tombes where having considered the Trophies of death is forc'd to confess that his power equals not that of Love it passeth to the very Center of the Earth observes the unrelenting hardness of Hel and comparing the pains of the damned with the anxiety of lovers leaves us in doubt whether Hel or Love be more pitiless But not to aggravate his power by such strange comparisons let it suffice to judg of him by his effects Though he be the son of the Wil yet is he the Master he disposeth so absolutely of his Mother that she hath no motions but what her Son inspires her with she undertakes nothing but by his orders 't is the weight that sets her a going the Loadstone that attracts her the King that governs her and she so absolutely depends upon his power that nothing but another love can dis-engage her she is so fierce or so free that neither violence nor fear can tame her she laughs at tortures preserves her liberty in the midst of fetters and many times torments make her but more wilfull Only Love mollifies her hardness his charmes gain upon her what sorrow cannot and experience teacheth us there is no surer Command then that which is founded upon Love In the mean time Vanity which is almost the inseparable companion of Greatness perswades Kings that 't is a debasement to seek the love of their subjects and seduced by this false Maxime they endeavour to make themselves feared not being able to make themselves beloved But God who hath formed the heart of man and knows how they may be vanquished without being forc'd owes all his Conquests to his Love he never appears more absolute then when he tames a rebellious Will when of an Enemy he makes a Lover and changing his inclinations sweetly compels him to fall in love with him Forinsecus terret per Legem intrinsecus delectat per Amorem Aug. His Power sparkles in his Corrections he astonisheth sinners when he loosens the mountains from their foundations when he makes the earth shake under their feet the thunder rumble over their heads and threatens the world with an universal Deluge or a general Conflagration But all these menaces convert not the Guilty the fear that terrifies them reduceth them not to their duty their heart remains criminal when their mouthes and their hands be innocent and if God inspire not his love into them he punisheth indeed their offence but changeth not their Will This prodigious Metamorphosis is reserved for his love 't is his charity that must triumph over rebels nor is there any thing but his Grace that by its imperious sweetness can oblige a sinner to love him I am not
Principle of Humility is sin which is a Non-Entity in the order of Grace and which abaseth the sinner to so low a condition that he is much more miserable then if he were annihilated For inasmuch as he recedes from God the supream Beeing adhering to the creature who is in a manner Nothing himself becomes a wretched Non-Entity and loseth all those advantages he was made partaker of by the union he had with his Creator Tamdiu est aliquid homo quādiu haeret illi à quo factus est homo Aug. in Psal 75. This is it that Saint Augustine expresseth in those excellent words Man is Something as long as he is united to God from whom he had his Beeing but he ceaseth to be assoon as he separates from him by sin and finding his Fall in his Crimes tumbles into a more deplorable Nothing then that of Nature For the former obeys the voice of God if it contribute nothing to his design neither doth it resist his hand and the world that issued out of its barren depths was an evident proof of its submission But the Non-Entity of sin resists the will of God forms parties in his State deboists his most loyal subjects and mastering their wils disputes the dominion with their Soveraign Therefore doth Saint Augustine in some place of his writings call sin an armed Nothing and the Scripture to shew us the horrour goes along with it Nihil rebelle in Deum armatū Amb. prefers the condition of men who never were before that of transgressors who are fallen into sin The third Principle of Humility is Death which seems the middle between Nothing and Sin It is an image of the former and a chastisement of the second it bears the name of both in Scripture and the Prophets illuminated from above call it sometimes a Nothing sometimes a Sin Saint Augustine gives us a handsome proof hereof in these words Death saith he is the punishment of sin he bears the name of his Father to teach us that though man sin not in dying he never should have died if he had not sinned and the same Doctor in another passage acquaints us that Death is a Nothing which having no Essence might indeed be ordained by the Justice of God but not produced by his Power Thence it comes to passe that 't is a shameful punishment attempting the honor of man and his life and makes him feel himself a Criminal because having set upon his reputation it proceeds to attaque his person For he destroys this Master-piece of Nature separates the two parts that compound him breaks the ligaments that unites them and being not able to be revenged upon the soul dischargeth his fury upon the body and afflicts the Mistress in punishing her servant But should not all these powerful considerations oblige man to humble himself the Christian could by no means refuse this homage when he considers that his salvation depends upon Grace that his Liberty without this Supernatural aid serves only to damn him and being fallen from that happy condition wherein he was the master of his fortune he is now the slave of Concupiscence if he be not enfranchised by the merits of Jesus Christ Indeed the Example of God debased greatly comforts him in his misery he is never troubled to humble himself when he considers the Word annihilated in the Incarnation he submits to the Counsels of that Divine Master he is not ashamed to learn humility in his School and having heard that Oracle from his mouth Discite à me quia mitis sum humilis corde he looks upon this Vertue as his Glory and is forced to confess with Saint Augustine that if it be a Prodigy to behold a man proud 't is a Miracle to see a God humbled and by consequence of so great an Example that man must have lost his judgement that should be ashamed of Humility The Ninth DISCOURSE Of the Repentance of a Christian ALL the Vertues have their particular advantages the least splendid are the most useful and those that have not so many allurements have commonly most desert Repentance is of the number of these and it seems 't is not so much her beauty as her necessity that makes her considerable Her Countenance hath no comeliness her Mouth is always full of sighes her Eyes moist with tears her shoulders covered with sackcloth and her hands armed with discipline The Interest of God sets her against her self his Goodness offended his Glory obscured his Mercy neglected provokes her indignation against sinners and obliges them to invent torments to punish their offences But did not her zeal contribute to her excellency she is so necessary that in whatever condition man appears she is proper and peculiar to him It seems she is his difference in Grace and that this Vertue distinguisheth him from Angels and Beasts For these have only a blind instinct that guides them they have no liberty in their actions It is not reason but Nature that leads them and as they are incapable of Sin so are they of Repentance The Angels are unchangeable in good and evil Constancy hath made the Angels happy and Obstinacy hath rendred the Devils miserable These pure spirits cannot alter and whether they know good and evil intuitively or whether they act with the full extent of their power or whether they had but one moment to merit in all Divinity assures us that they cannot repent I intend not to examine whether Grace by its victorious sweetness be able to work a change in them and whether their will be so perversly obstinate in evil that it cannot be diverted But I say with our Masters there is something in their Nature and in their Sin which renders them unworthy and uncapable of Repentance so that this Vertue is a priviledge of a man one of his properties in Nature and one of his differences in Grace Being weak he never adheres so strongly to Vertue but he may desert her and by a happiness arising from his infirmity he is never so deeply engaged in vice but he may shake hands with it He is neither constant in good nor obstinate in evil and though he can neither leave the one nor embrace the other unless he be assisted by Grace he hath a natural disposition which rendring him unconstant makes him capable of this happy change that accompanies Repentance It seems the mercy of God which makes use of our sin to redeem us will make use of unconstancy to convert us and managing this weakness which is natural to us takes pleasure to save us by the same means that ruined us If those that are of opinion that the Grace that changeth men were able also to convert the Angels are not agreed as touching this Maxime they ought at least to confess that the Angel having had but one moment to merit in was not capable of this Grace in the order of God because his Salvation or his Fall had immediately followed
a Government loseth all command when not obeyed there are a thousand Reasons which no less respect our own Interest then the Glory of our Soveraign which oblige us to this undisputed resignation If we consider the Word Incarnate we shall finde that his deportment towards his Father exacts this humble duty from us He doth nothing upon the earth but by his orders he consults his will before he undertake any thing and if the time he hath set him to work his miracles in be not yet come he rejects the intreaties of his mother who can receive no other answer from his mouth but these words Nondum venit hora mea But if we look upon the holy Humanity united to the Eternal Word we shall see that as it is despoiled of its proper subsistence it hath no other motions then what it receives from the Divine Assistant that sustains it Humanitas Christi non est sui juris sed verbi actiones enim sunt suppofitorum It is more a his devotion then at its own is guided by that that preserves it and having no dominion over its actions is in a submission equal to its love whatever it acts upon earth all is referred to the Divine Person and as there is no union more strict then theirs neither is any dependance more obedient then that of the Humanity to the Divinity The Word acts absolutely in this holy Humanity Aliud est inviolabile aliud est passibile tamen ejusdem est contumelia cujus est gloria ipse est in infirmitate qui in virtute Leo. he reserves the whole conduct thereof to himself appropriates all the Inclinations and whether the Humane nature suffer or be abased he will have us know and believe that a God suffers and is humbled with it Therefore are all Christians after the imitation of so rare an example obliged to despoil themselves of their Wills to renounce their Desires to submit to Jesus Christ and to manifest in their person an image of the Incarnation 'T was certainly this powerful reason that made the great Apostle to utter these notable words Vivo autem jam non ego vivit vero in me Christus and to teach us by his advice to derive our guidance as well as our glory from the Son of God Indeed the whole Abnegation of a Christian is founded upon the mystery of the Incarnation and when they consider how the holy Humanity is obscured in the desarts humbled in the Villages sacrificed upon Mount Calavary to be obedient to the person of the Word they need not think it strange if to doe Homage to Jesus Christ they are obliged to renounce their glory and consent to lay down their lives at his command But if this example be not powerful enough to perswade us we must be convinced by reason and confess that Christians have no quality that that doth not exact this blind submission from them For if we consider them as Temples of the Holy Ghost or Members of the Son of God we are forced to acknowledge that these two glorious qualities are as well the Fountains of their dependance as of their greatness Temples are only for the Divinity that honours them with his presence they breath forth nothing but his glory and were they inanimated they would act meerly by his motions Therefore inasmuch as Christians are the living Temples of the Holy Ghost they ought not to act but as guided by him they are unable to perform any thing but by his order and all their actions that have not his Grace for their principle are Criminal or profane We are no more the children of God but as far as we are quickned by this ever to be adored Spirit all our merit is from our acting by his Vertue and when he ceaseth to incite and stir us up we leave off to form good thoughts or perform good actions The quality of Members ties us not lesse closely to our Head then that of Temples to the Holy Ghost for according to the Laws of Nature the Members more belong to their Head then slaves doe to their Master they receive life and motion from his Influences they owe all their vigour to the communication they have with him aand whenever there happens any obstruction that hinders him from sending his Spirits into his Members they lose all sense and strength Besides he hath such command over them that he applies them according to his designs takes no notice of their wils employs the eyes to weep as well as see the hand to serve as well as command the tongue to manage meat as well as compose words and as if it were their greatest glory to perish for him there is not any Member but willingly exposeth it self to death for his defence or honour This submission is an Image of the dependance Christians ought to have towards Jesus Christ they are no longer their own when once ingraffed upon his person they receive an obligation to obey from the same quality that gives them a power to operate Quam in in Christo manes per amorem ipse in te per sanctitatis justitiae operationem in ejus corpore membris computaris Ber. they become Servants assoon as they become Members their liberty depends upon their servitude and by a happy occurrence they lose their own will by submitting to that of the Son of God As it is love that unites them to him so that their liberty is not interessed in their obedience they are never more their own then when they are their Heads they recover themselves in being lost possess themselves by forsaking themselves and by a strange adventure find a resurrection in dying Thence it comes to pass that they are never troubled to sacrifice themselves to Jesus Christ they account themselves sufficiently happy if they can be serviceable to his Glory it matters not though they lose their lives provided they obey him and knowing very well that in the State and in Nature subjects expose themselves for their Prince Members for their Head they are of this mind assoon as ever they enter into the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ â—â—t when they consider how he hath joyned the quality of Redeemer to that of Head and that to associate them to his person he hath delivered them by the losse of his own life they believe they can no ways acknowledge this extream obligation but in dying for his glory who was willing to die for their salvation Indeed we are the servants of Jesus Christ he hath bought us by his death we are the price of his bloud and we owe our happiness and our hope to his merits This is it that the Apostle represents to us in such emphatical terms when he saith Empti estis pretio magno and by a necessary consequence teacheth us that we ought to glorifie him in our body and in our soul Thence it is that he infers that those that live upon
where the Sacrifice is wholly reduced into God men have no part he was pleased to institute another in his Church where giving himself wholly to his Father Hujus sacrificii caro sanguis ante adventum Christi per Victimas similitudinum promittebatur in Passione Christi per ipsam veritatem reddebatur post ascensum Christi per Sacramentum memoriae celebratur Aug. lib 20. cont Faust and to the Faithful he compleated with advantage the sacrifices of the Old Testament For he is there after such a wonderful manner that without being divided he enters equally into the bosome of his Father and into the heart of his Ministers every one possesseth him entirely and this communion is so perfect that none are excluded but those that will have no part in it But for the better understanding of a truth which is one of the principal Articles of our Faith and to resolve the difficulties Heresie opposeth against these two sacrifices we must know that both of them make up but one and that one without the other would be utterly unprofitable For the Scripture teacheth us that to the perfection of a sacrifice Si autem habuerit maculaÌ„ vel claudum fuerit vel coecum aut in aliqua parte deforme vel debile non immolabitur Deo Deut. 15. there are required five parts The first is the sanctification of the Victime which consisted in four things The first was its perfection which excluded all blemishes because they are the marks and punishments of sin whence it was that the Law in express terms enjoyned that nothing should be offered to God that was not perfect The second was a supernatural sanctification which elevated the sacrifice above it self and which being stampt upon it by Divine Authority disingaged it from the dominion of man and destin'd it for the Altar The third was separation which consecrated it to God and suffered it no longer to be employed to any profane use The last was the obligation to death Haecomnia patent ex libris Exo. Levi. Vbi de hâ—stia dicitur quod sanctificabitur scparabitur Domino as a thing dedicated to God and which ought to perish for his glory The second part of the sacrifice was the oblation of the Victime where according to the form prescribed in the Law or taught by Tradition it was actually offered to God and began to appertain to him by a new right greater then that of sanctification The third was the death or killing of the Victime which though the most sensible part of the sacrifice was not yet the principall because it was performed by the Levites and not by the Priests in the Court of the Temple and not in the place next the Sanctuary The fourth was the consummation of the sacrifice which was devoured by the flame that the smoak ascending up into Heaven God might partake of the oblation as the Scripture testifieth in those words Odoratus est Dominus sacrificium and that which seems to have given some colour to the false opinion of the Heathen who imagined that God was nourished with the fume of the offerings The fifth was the communion of the Victime which as we have already observed was sometimes wholly devoted to God sometimes was divided between God the Priest and the people But inasmuch as these sacrifices were but the types and shadows of that which Jesus Christ was to offer to his Father he did not partake of it but in a figure by means of fire which in the belief of the world was accounted the noblest representatation of the Divinity Deus noster Ignis consumens est as for the people and the Priest they communicated really and received the sacrifice into their mouth to disgest it in their stomach If Jesus Christ be the accomplishment of the Law his Sacrifice must necessarily comprehend all these parts and we must find on the Altar what we do not find on the Crosse His sanctification is fully evident for besides that he is the first-born and in that consideration is holy we know that he is the work of the Holy Ghost that his Father is God that his Mother is a Virgin and that his Conception is altogether Immaculate But his Divine Person is his principal sanctification and if other sacrifices be sanctified by some transient words this is consecrated by the Eternal and Divine Word The same Unction that made him Priest made him the Victime and dedicated him by a double title to the service of the Altar His oblation began in the womb of the Blessed Virgin continued in the Temple and during his life and was at last finished upon the Crosse In the womb of his mother he offered himself in spirit according to the meaning of Saint Paul and explaining his mind in the words of the Prophet he protests that he took a body only to be immolated to his Father In the Temple he was presented by the hands of the Virgin and received by Simeon who penetrating the design of Jesus Christ and his mother answers their intentions and instructs her in the mystery of the Cross whereof this oblation was the prologue During his life he continued to offer up himself to his Father as an innocent Victime till upon the Crosse he acquitted himself of his promises and satisfied his obligations Obtulit se immaculatum Deo per Spiritum Sanctum His death appeared upon Mount Calvary where making use of the cruelty of the Jews of the treason of Judas and of the rage of the Executioners he was offered up for our salvation But because it is not the principal part of the sacrifice which is not compleat if the Victime be not consummated it was requisite that the Resurrection should finish what Death began Indeed the Resurrection of the Son of God is his consummation 't is in this mystery that Glory swallowed up what Death had left that he parts with whatever remained of perishable that he enters into that Majesty which is due to his Birth that he is reduced to God and received into the bosome of his Father his lawful and natural habitation This is the mystery to which Saint Paul attributes the perfection of our salvation because it is the Crown of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ Therefore discoursing of what we owe his Death and his Glory he saith Mortuus est propter peccata nostra resurrexit propter justificationem nostram where he assigns the principal effect of our salvation not to the Passion but to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ There it is in a word that Jesus is perfected that his work is accomplished where he is happily consummated where the Divine Essence having the same operation in him that the fire had in the sacrifice he is despoiled of our infirmities and invested with all the glories of his Father Inasmuch as the life of a Christian is a sacrifice which honours that of the Word Incarnate it is not terminated so much by Death as
by the Resurrection nor will the Faithful be truly consummated till he shall be transformed into God by the splendours of Glory Therefore doth Saint Augustine in his Comment upon that passage of the Psalmist Introibo in domum tuam in Holocaustis deliver these excellent words which serve greatly to illustrate this truth The Holocaust is a Sacrifice wherein the Victime is wholly devoured by the fire and the Church in the expectation she hath one day to be admitted into Heaven useth the same language and perswades her self that the fire of glory will consume her to the end that nothing of her self remaining in her she may be wholly her Beloveds This desire will not be accomplisht till the general Resurrection when our mortal shall be cloathed with Immortality and life shall triumph over death the Divine fire will produce this effect and consuming all our perishable being will make of us an Holocaust For nothing mortall shall remain in our flesh nothing culpable in our soul both of them shall be consummated by life that passing into a new being we may become the Holocausts of the Lord. That which ought to befall all Christians at the day of the generall Resurrection did happen to Jesus Christ at the day of his glorious Resurrection Death was swallowed in Life Glory consumed infirmity and leaving the likeness of sin he entred into the Majesty of God his Father But because this sacrifice would be impetfect if the Communion did not succeed the Consummation The love power of Jesus Christ invented a means whereby without departing from God he might communicate himself to the Faithful and make them partakers of his body and bloud This is done upon our Altars where offering up himself daily he finisheth the sacrifice of the Cross and by a mystery worthy of his charity he communicates not only the merits of his death but the very victime that was immolated upon Mount Calvary It bears the name of sacrifice not only because it finisheth that of the Cross which precisely contains nothing but the killing of the sacrifice but for that it exhibits all the marks of a true sacrifice For besides that it is the verity of the sacrifice of Melchisedeh instituted by the High Priest who hath commanded his Ministers to doe it in remembrance of him We may say without any offence to piety that it hath more shew of a sacrifice then that of the Cross because it begins with Prayer succeeds the eating of the Paschal Lamb as the substance the shadow contains an innocent victime is instituted by words dedicated to sacrifices and examining it seriously we shall find the oblation of the victime because there it is offered by the hands of the Priest His mystical death because immolated not by the knife but by the Word of God its perfect consummation because in a glorious condition which rescues it from all humane miseries and its communion because taken into the bosome of God Sacrificium corporis sanguinis Christi successit omnibus sacrificiis veteris Testamenti quae immolabantur in umbra hujus futuri Aug. and the mouth of the Faithful But though all these conditions should fail it would be enough to say that as the death of Jesus Christ though but the killing of the victime ceaseth not to be a true sacrifice that of the Altar though but the communion of the victim ceaseth not to be also a true sacrifice though to speak properly both of them make but one perfect sacrifice according to the true sense of those words of Saint Paul Vna oblatione consummavit sanctificatos and that one and the same Jesus is continually the victime but in such different conditions that they give occasion to Divines to make them pass for two distinct sacrifices The Ninth DISCOURSE Of the difference between these two Sacrifices and what the Christian receives in the one and in the other THough it were very easie to demonstrate the wonderful resemblances which are found between the sacrifice of the Cross and of the Altar and without doing violence to Scripture we might make it appear that one is the image of the other that the same victime is immolated in Both that the Eternall Father is equally honoured in Both and that the Faithful receive thence like advantages yet because things are illustrated better by their differences then their similitudes and that which distinguisheth them from others is always more particularly theirs I have designed this Discourse to unfold the oppositions Nature and Grace hath placed in these two sacrifices Quod autem mortuus est peccato mortuus est semel quod autem vivit vivit Deo Ro. 6. which though one and the same thing in their ground and foundation are notwithstanding different in their circumstances whereof the first is that that of the Cross was never offered but once and this of the Altar is offered every day For the right understanding of this difference we must know that the sacrifice of the Cross is a sacrifice of Redemption Qui non habet necessitatē quotidie quemadmodū sacerdotes prius pro suis delictis hostias offerre deinde pro populi hoc enim fecit semel se offerendo Hebrae 7. where the victime is charged with the sins of the world satisfies for them by the infiniteness of his merits appeaseth the Justice of the Eternal Father and delivers men from the tyranny of the Devil Inasmuch as all those things are no otherwise performed then by the death of Christ which cannot be repeated without a miracle and the Glory whereinto he is entred suffers him not to die a second time Saint Paul tels us that he redeemed the world by that one only sacrifice The Priests of the Old Testament were bound to reiterate their sacrifices because the merit of the victime was limited and to speak properly were neither acceptable to God nor meritorious for men but because they were the Figures of Jesus Christ But inasmuch as the Sacrifice he offered to his Father upon the Cross is of infinite merit he need not repeat it and having sufficiently expiated all the sins of the world it had been useless to pacifie God who was no longer offended and to satisfie for those faults which were already pardoned Thence it comes to pass that the Sacraments which exhibit the death of the Son of God and are applicatory to us of their merit imprint a Character upon us and are never performed twice Baptism is administred but once not onely because it is the Christians birth which cannot be done over again but also because it is the Figure of the death of Christ which according to the language of S. Paul Sicut semel Christus moritur in Cruce ita semel Christianus moritur in Baptismo Aug. cannot be readministred without offence Therefore is it that the same Apostle condemning those that gave themselves over to sin in hope to make an atonement by a second Baptism said to the
Vanity but such as imprint Characters or produce effects in their souls they are as solid as glorious they raise men up to heaven make them heirs of the Eternal Father and brethren of his onely Son Their greatness depends not upon the opinion of people though they are unknown they are notwithstanding honourable sometimes Contempt augments their reputation and the less splendor they bear amongst men the more respect they finde with God Therefore I should betray the honour of the Christian if having spoken of his Vertues I should not speak of his Qualities and having described his Labours and his Sacrifices I should say nothing of his Rewards and Recompences True it is that as the parts of this work are mutually interwoven and the remotest have secret links that unite them all together in speaking of the Christians Birth I have handled his Noblest Qualities and have made it appear that he was the Brother and the Member of Jesus Christ that he was the adopted Son of the Eternal Father and the living Temple of the holy Ghost In making the Elogie of his Vertues I shewed that Faith made him a Believer Charity a Lover Austerity of life a Penitent so that having already spoken of these advantages there remains onely to supply what is behinde to compleat his Portraicture which I cannot better begin then in demonstrating in this Discourse that the Christian is the Image of Jesus Christ For the happier explaining of this Verity we must know that the Word is the Image of his Father the Character of his Substance Qui videt me videt Patrē Joan. 14. the Express of his Greatness He gives himself this Title in the Gospel and teacheth his Disciples that in seeing Him they see his Father in his person Our Divines abound with Reasons of this Assertion to prove that this Elogie is not unworthy of the Eternal Word and that his being the lively Image of his Father no way hinders his being equal with him But not to trouble my self in the proof of a Truth Faith obligeth us to believe it is enough with the great S. Athanasius to let you see that this Divine Image hath none of those defects which are inseparably incident to those of our Carvers and Painters for Existimavit Philo Judaeus prohibitas esse à Deo picturas quia sunt mendacia the most exact Pieces that come from their hands are false because they are not that which they represent nor can all the industry of Art make them other then agreeable Illusions Though they are Lyers yet are they mute painting cannot make them speak and the highest commendation can be given them is to say that nothing but Speech is wanting to them Lastly they are dead Art less powerful then Nature cannot inanimate them what ever dexterity it useth it cannot enliven them they are children that expire in their very birth and could they speak would complain of the rigour of their Parents who in stead of making them Men have made them onely Idols Now this Image that so lively represents the Eternal Father hath none of these imperfections It is very far from a Lye because it is so conformable to its Original that 't is as well his Truth as his Copie It is not dumb because it is the Interpreter of the Father his Eternal Panegyrick his subsisting Word all whose works are so many expressions chanting forth the praises of their Authour It is not dead because it is the Fountain of Life wherein the Creatures before their birth and after their death live and by a perpetual Miracle enlivens all those works it hath produced Imago ista non falsa est quia Veritas non muta quia Verbum non mortua quia Vita Lib. de Incar Verb. This is it which S. Athanasius saith with as much pomp of Eloquence as Learning and Piety This Image is not mute because it is the Word not false because it is the Truth not dead because it is Life This same Son who is the Image of his Father is by a necessary consequence the Idea of all the Creatures they are all formed after this Divine Examplar and according as they more or less participate of his likeness they are more or less noble in their nature Men and Angels have no advantage above the rest but because they are the Transcripts of this Idea and others at most but the Footsteps thereof The Scripture teacheth us that Man was formed after this primitive Image that he was made after the similitude thereof and that in the very Creation he belonged not to the Father but by the mediation of the Son This Greatness was the occasion of his Fall for sollicited by the devil he was not content to be the Image of the Word but would also be that of the Father and pronounce these words which are onely true in the mouth of the Son Ego sum similis Altissimo This Crime was the cause of his disaster the Father to revenge his Son drove this Insolent that had encroached upon his rights out of Paradise and reduced Him to the condition of Beasts who had impudently aspired to the equality of his Word So great a misfortune had utterly ruined us without any hope of recovery had not the Son of God who was the Innocent occasion been also the Charitable remedy For seeing that men were become guilty in striving to imitate him that to revenge Him his Father had destroyed Them he resolved saith S. Bernard Per me Pater recipiat quos propter me amisisse videtur ecce venio talem me eis exhibebo ut quisquis gesticrit imitari fiat ei aemulatio in bonum Bern. to put himself in a condition wherein he may be securely imitated and where the desire of being like him being no longer a Crime is become a means to arrive to happiness He was made Man to serve for an Example to Man he submitted himself to his Father to teach them obedience he was abased to the shame of the Cross to teach them Humility and he forgave his Executioners their putting him to death to oblige them to pardon their enemies Therefore is it that S. Paul discovering the secrets of Predestination saith that his designe is to render the Elect conformable to his Image and to bestow Graces upon them which satisfying their desires may make them without committing a fault like his onely Son For this reason Tertullian says that the same Eternal Father forming the body of the First man at the Creation of the world Quodcunque limus exprimebatur Christus cogitabatur homo futurus Tert. de resurrect carn was taken up with Jesus Christ that the Slime represented him the Incarnation of his Word and that foreseeing the sin of Adam he already provided him a remedy It is true then that the Christian is the Image of the Son of God that Nature and Grace obligeth him to imitate this Pattern and that his perfection consists in
it which is displeasing to God But in expectation of this happy houre they must begin their sacrifice here and by little and little destroying what is contrary to Grace make Holocausts of all their inordinate inclinations For we learn from Origen that though we are no longer under the Law of Moses we are not dispensed with for sacrificing but as the Law of Grace is the accomplishment of the other we ought to immolate all those passions that were represented to us by the Beasts they slaughtered at the foot of the Altar We satisfie this duty when we set upon our criminal affections and full of zeal and courage we endeavour to stifle them We immolate a Bull when we tame our pride and labour to kill this sin that gives life to all others we sacrifice a Goat when we quench the lustful flames of impurity and by a divine fire mortifie this infernal one which devours all vertues we slay a Ram when we subdue our anger disarm this seditious passion calm this raging sea and manacle this fury which troubles the tranquillity of our mind we offer Pigeons and Turtles when we banish those volatile inordinations which divert us from piety and engage our minds in the affairs of the world But if we have subjected our passions to the dominion of reason and by a happy barrenness the Earth of our Intellectual part breeds no monsters which we may offer up to God we must seek into our body and of our members make innocent sacrifices For the great Apostle of the Gentiles teacheth us that we are obliged to offer our bodies a lively sacrifice and to pacifie the anger of Heaven by a holy oblation acceptable to him Vt exhibeatis corpora vestra hostiam viventem as if he would say that we ought to die to sin that we may live to Grace and the members which have served heretofore to the tyranny of Concupiscence may now become serviceable to the lawful power of Charity or he would advertise us that if in the Old Testament only dead Victims were offered up to God in the New we must offer up living ones and that mortification working in the Christian what death did in the Beasts we must joyn the two sacrifices together and accord death with life to satisfie the Divine Justice Thus the whole exercise of a Christian is to make war upon their bodies and to gain victories over themselves they vanquish their enemies in facrificing their members and they may boast that in offering sacrifices to God they erect trophies to themselves In consideration of these Truths me thinks we may say with Origen that all the faithfull are Victims and that in the difference of their conditions they agree in this common quality If any thing distinguish them 't is the degree of their love and the perfection of their Sacrifice The Apostles saith He were the first Victims because they forsook all to follow their Master and having given him their heart by Charity their spirit by Faith their goods by Poverty they moreover consecrated their bodies by the Repentance of their life and by the cruelty of their death The Martyrs immediately succeed them because having a long time laboured by Grief at last they have perfected their sacrifice by Martyrdom The Virgins hold the Third place because they triumph over their bodies tame a hundred severall ways this domestick Enemy and not content to consecrate him by purity borrow the assistance of pennance to mortifie him by contrition The Continent and the Married follow these close and if in their sacrifice they destroy not the Victim they put it at least in a condition that it no more rebels against the Sacrificers and where it expects with patience for death Castitas viduitas de bonis carnis Deo adolentur Tertul. to finish that which Continence hath begun Tertullian was much of this opinion when he said That our bodies furnished us with Victims as well as vertues and that Fasting Silence and Chastity were fruits of this Tree which might be gathered to make an offering for Jesus Christ For though the Body be the least part of man 't is not the most unprofitable its imperfections are advantageous to us its rebellions serve us for Tryals and Grace which is ingenious turns the most part of its miseries into remedies The infirmities which trouble its health help our Sacrifice and the diseased person that suffers his afflictions patiently is a victim who though not innocent is notwithstanding well-pleasing to Jesus Christ Poverty which strips us of superfluities or of necessaries which reduceth us to the condition our Birth found us in and whither Death will bring us is a sacrifice which gains us as much merit as it procures us inconvenience Nay Death it self which seems the eldest daughter of sin who shews all the horrours of her father upon her countenance is not so much the destruction as the sacrifice of our Body she imitates the severity of fire and sword she she alone does what the knife and the pile of wood somtimes did and reduceth the victim to ashes having deprived it of life she serves for the Divine Justice and Mercy together Deficit homo ad Gloriam moritur a◠vitam perit ad salutē mors per Christum commendatio facta est Charitatis Chrysost she prepares the body for Immortality nor despoils it of corruption but to apparell it with Glory This is it that imprints so violent a desire of Death in the hearts of the faithful which makes them in the midst of their prosperity call her in to their assistance and wish that comming to end their life she may come to perfect their sacrifice For it seems she hath changed Nature since Jesus Christ consecrated her in his person she is like those waters that take the taste and colour of those Minerals through which they pass she hath lost all her gastliness and hath some secret beauties which beget love in the soul of all Saints She that led us to the gates of hell lifts us up to heaven she that was the mother of shame and sadness is now the mother of joy and glory she that filled us with despair buoys us up with hope she that established the Empire of sin destroys it in a word she that was the Chastisement of our Crime is now the Sacrifice of our Love For this end have all the greatest Saints made the Panegyrick of death they have rendered thanks to the Divine Justice that inflicts a punishment upon us which shortens our misery and advanceth our happiness which separates us from the world and unites us to Jesus Christ and under a false appearance of rigour delivers us from the dangers that threaten us the griefs that torment us and the sins that tyrannize over us This made that famous Penitent say He was just that expected death but he was holy that desired it Finally this drew that Elogie out of the mouth of S. Paul
when he raised him from the dead and the Cure was perfect when coming forth from the bosome of death he entred into that of Immortality and passd into that happy state where death losing the victory had now no more dominion over him As Jesus Christ hath communicated to us his innocence taking upon himself our sins so hath he made us partakers of his strength by taking part of our infirmities For though the Word was as well the Power as the Wisdome of his Father and by condition of his Eternall Generation he was as well his Arme as his Idea In vera natura hominis verus natus est Deus totus in suis totus in nostris nostra autem dicimus quae in nobis ab initio creator con â—dit quâ— reparanda suscepit Leo Epist ad Flaviam yet all Scripture teacheth us that in cloathing himself with our nature he took upon him our infirmities and was pleased to ascertain us of his infirmities to assure us of his love In all his actions he mixt weakness with power he never wrought a miracle wherein he gave not some proof that he was a man and in the master-piece of his miracles the raising of Lazarus from the dead he shed tears to testifie this truth He trembled in the Garden he gave fear and sadness leave to seize upon his heart and appear in his countenance he gave witness that death and sin had made an impression of sorrow upon his soul and he that was happier and stronger then the Angels appeard as weak and wretched as men This wonderfull proceeding was neither without design nor justice For seeing the Son of God was our Head he must of necessity be charged with our infirmities seeing that quality obliged him to make a change with us he must needs assume our weakness and indue us with his courage Thence it came to pass that the Martyrs braved their tortures with such magnanimity that Virgins contemnd death and ran to execution as to a recreation that Christian Philosophers more constant and more humble then Stoicks without any other succour then that of Grace laughd at Grief and preservd the tranquillity of mind amidst the sharpest gripes of an ingenious torment This is it that Saint Augustine so happily expresseth in his eloquent discourses As Jesus Christ took flesh without sin so was he made partaker of our infirmities without partaking our unrighteousness that assuming the one and delivering us from the other it might appear he was therefore made our Head that he might be our Redeemer Prosecuting the same meditation he addes that we are more beholding to the Weakness of Jesus Christ then to his Power Fortitudo Christi te creavit infirmitas Christi te recreavit fortit do Chri ti feeit ut quod non erat esset infirmitas Christi fecit ut quod erat non periret con idit nos fortitudine sua quaesivit nos in firmitate sua Aug. Tract 15 in Joan. For his Power Created us his Infirmity Redeemed us his Omnipotency Formed us his Weakness Reformed us his Power made that which was Not begin to be and his Weakness hath kept that which Was from perishing that being obliged for life and salvation to one and the same Jesus Christ we may publikely confess what we owe his Power and what we owe his weakness Forasmuch as this Grace is rare and precious it had its Types and Figures in the infancy of the world and Adam who was the form or mould of him that was to come according to the language of the Apostle discovered this mystery to us in his person for besides that his wife came forth of his side whilst he lay asleep as the Church did out of Christ's during his death she was made of his Bone and not of his Flesh and that vacuity was filled up with Flesh and not with Bone What was intended saith S. Augustine to be hinted to us in this Ceremony where the woman taken from the bone appeared the stronger and the man formed of the flesh appeared the weaker but that Jesus Christ took his infirmity from the Church and the Church took her strength from Jesus Christ Indeed his Weakness is our Power because we acknowledge our selves strong in that we are his Members and that separated from him we are so impotent that there is no enemy but may overcome us nor any temptation but may prevail against us This Mystery would be unconceiveable if a greater did not give it credit in our mindes For we know the Son of God would be tempted to deliver us from temptation and not content to vanquish thereby to gain us the victory he was pleased out of an excess of love to subject himself to the lowest proof an Innocent could receive Though all Pains are the tokens of Sin and the creature is not Miserable but since he became Griminal Religion teacheth us there are Afflictions that may consist with Innocence a man may be Wretched and not Guilty and suffer for the glory of his God and the safety of his Brethren without prejudicing his honour Death was not ignominious to Jesus Christ though 't was the first punishment of sin the motive made it honourable and undergoing it to satisfie his Fathers justice it was not so much a Punishment as a Sacrifice But Temptation is always infamous though it be a step to Victory yet is it a way that leads to Sin and we may say If he that is tempted be not Guilty neither is he perfectly Innocent because he that manageth the Temptation is perswaded that he can make him a Criminal So that of all the afflictions the Son of God laboured under there is none more shameful in my opinion then Temptation because the devil that set upon him promised himself success in perverting him and looking upon him as a Man hop'd to make him a Sinner Upon the Cross he attempted onely his Life in the Wilderness he attempted his Innocence upon the Cross he pretended onely to render him Miserable but in the Defart he tri'd to make him a Delinquent so that we may say he was more humbled in the Solitude of the Desart then in the Agony of the Cross and that Temptation carried more infamy and torment with it then Death did Now he endured not this affront but because he was our Head he stoopt not to this punishment but to deliver his Members nor did he give the devils leave to set upon him but to facilitate their defeat and open the way to our victory This is it that S. Augustine glosseth admirably well upon the Sixtieth Psalm Prorsus Christus tentabatur à diabolo in Christo enim tu tentab aris quia Christus de te fibi habebat carnem de se tibi salutem de te sibi mortem de se tibi vitaÌ„ de te sibi contumel as de se tibi honores ergo de te sibi tentationeÌ„ de se tibi victoriaÌ„