a very noble Allyance yet we may say it relates not to God in his Persons but in his Essence For all the perfections Man received in his Creation are but the droppings of the perfections of God His Power expresseth that of his Creator his Liberty is an emanation of that Being which is as free as it is necessary his Reason is a product of the first primitive Reason and all the other qualities that raise him above the rest of Creatures are rather images of the Unity of God then of the Plurality of his Persons Nay the very Angels which are of nobler extraction then Man seem not allyed to the divine Persons Every one of their * Cernere est in Seraphin quomodo amet qui unde amet non habet cernere est in Cherubin Deum scientiarum qui solam nesciat ignorantiam cernere est in Thronis judicantis aequitatem nec vacat sessio tranquillitatis insigne est Bern. lib. 5. de Consid cap. 4. Orders respect some one of the perfections of their Creator The Seraphims express his Love the Cherubins his Light the Thrones his Rest The Hierarchies lead us not to the Trinity or if they give us some umbrages thereof they deliver no exact knowledge We see nothing in these blessed Spirits that discovers to us the Generation of the Word or the Procession of the Holy Ghost and having well considered them there is nothing we admire in them but the Goodness or the Power the Greatness or the Majesty of him that created them All their Allyances as wel as those of Men are terminated in the divine Essence and pass not to the Trinity of the Persons They are rather Servants then Sons or if they are Sons their Adoption is not * Nusquam enim Angelos apprchendis sed semen Abrahae apprehendit Heb. 2. founded upon the Mystery of the Incarnation This glory was reserved for Christians who at the moment of their Nativity have the honour to be allyed to all the Persons of the Trinity The Son loves them as his Brethren the Father adopts them as his children and the Holy Ghost quickens them as his Temples therefore are they baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Their Birth consecrates them to this ineffable mystery and from the time they receive the Being of Grace they bear the Character of the Trinity The Son began this Allyance by the Mystery of the Incarnation he was made Man to make us his Members he hath united us in his Person by such a neer combination that his advantages become ours and our transgressions become his Every thing is common to us with him and giving his Person to our Nature there is no Greatness he hath not communicated to us our Grace is an effusion flowing from his our Birth is an image of his eternall Generation Gratia nihil est aliud quà m participatio divinae filiationis secundùm Divum Thomam and if we beleeve the Master of the School our Adoption is a copy of his divine filiation Finally to express so high a Verity in a more noble Elogie Every Christian seems to be a second Jesus Christ every beleever is a son of God and as they are happily blended with the Word Incarnate they may boast themselves as he is Men-Gods 'T is on this occasion Love makes his power appear that of many persons mutually affecting one another he makes but one that he makes greatness bow and sets humility on high that he transforms God into Man to transform Man into God and surmounting all obstacles that oppose this Union constitutes Jesus Christ the Head of Christians and Christians the Members of Jesus Christ Now 't is in Baptism that they obtain this honour for albeit the Son of God is united to our Nature in the Mystery of the Incarnation and that there this eternal affinity was contracted which death cannot dissolve we are not engraffed upon his Person but by Baptism till we are bathed in this Laver we have nothing but the miseries of Adam nor any part in the merits of Jesus Christ 'T is by the vertue of this †Nemo fit membrum Christi nisi aut Baptismate in Christo aut morte pro Christo Aug. lib. 1. de anima Sacrament that we enter into society with him 't is there that putting off the old man we put on the new and beginning to be united to the Son of God we participate of his divine qualities From this time the Christian is a new creature he receives the Spirit of Jesus Christ without changing his nature he changeth his condition though he hath yet but the seeds of glory he hath notwithstanding the rights of a Son and looks upon the Kingdom of heaven as his inheritance The grace of Jesus Christ blots out all his sins of a slave he becoms a child of an object of wrath he becoms an object of love and big with the merits of his Head he hopes one day to reign with him in glory By a necessary consequence he enters into an Allyance with the Father Everlasting not considering the meanness of his Extraction nor the misery of his Original he treats with God as with his own Father he makes use of those amorous terms the Church puts in his mouth and without losing the respect of a servant he enters into the liberty of a child Grace fastens so strict a union betwixt them that nothing but sin can divide them as it is an emanation of the divine Sonship it is not a bare Adoption and if it bear this name 't is because we have no other to expresse its excellence by But to comprehend rightly this Allyance is as true as that which flesh and blood entitles us to with our Fathers and Mothers if this be founded in Nature that is founded in Grace if this be sensible that is spiritual if this be close that is more intimate neither is the quality of children in Christians a meer denomination as 't is in those that humanely are adopted We are the images of our Father in the donation of Grace we participate of his nature and as it is true according to the saying of St Peter that by grace we are God's so is it certain that by the same grace we are the children of God All the trouble in this Alliance is that it depends upon our Liberty for its preservation we have the power to dissolve it there needs but one act of our will to break the Association and though the chains that entertain it are stronger and more precious then those of Diamond one mortall sin is able to dash them all in pieces there is nothing but Glory that unites us inseparably with God as long as we live upon the earth we are divided between hope and fear and if the greatness of Allyance makes us joyful it 's frailty causeth us to be apprehensive and fearful As long as it lasts it
did not the following surpass it For the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Faithful as he is the Love of the Father and of the Son But to understand this truth we must inform you that the Word being begotten of the Father by the Understanding is his onely Son and that the Holy Ghost being produced by the Will is his Love The Father and the Son reciprocally love one another by this mutual charity they finde their happiness in this common dilection and should they cease to love they would cease to be happie Having a minde to exalt us to their happiness they raise us also to their love and pouring forth charity into our souls they make us capable of loving them For God is so great that he can neither be known but by his own Light nor lov'd but by his own Love the Holy Spirit must enlighten our Souls warm our Wills and by the purity of his flames purge away the impurity of our affections he transforms us into himself to make us happie This holy Love is a particular effect of the Holy Spirit the beams that heat us are an emanation from that Divine fire that burns the Seraphims and the charity that raiseth us above the condition of men is a spark of that personal charity wherewith the Father and the Son love each other from all eternity But that we may not challenge the Holy Spirit as sparing of his favours he hath vouchsafed to be the accomplishment of the Church as he is the accomplishment and perfection of the Trinity For though there be no defects in God though this Sun is never clouded nor eclipsed this Supreme Truth labours under no shadows nor errours this excellent Beauty hath no spots nor blemishes and this amiable goodness be full of charms and graces yet may the Holy Ghost be called the Complement thereof The Father begins this adorable Circle which the Son continues and the Holy Spirit finisheth he it is that bounds the Divine emanations draws forth the fruitfulness of those that cause his production and if it be lawful to speak of an ineffable mystery and to subject to the laws of Time Eternity it self God is not compleated but by the production of the holy Spirit He is the rest of the Father and the Son his person is the perfection of the Trinity and this Divine mystery would want its full proportion did it not include the Holy Spirit with the two Persons from whence he proceeded The holy Scriptures to afford us some light of this verity attribute all the perfection of the works of God to the blessed Spirit They represent him to us moving upon the waters in the Creation of the world finishing by his Fecundity what the Father and the Son had produced by their Power They teach us that it was he that gave motion to the Heavens influences to the Stars heat to the Sun They inform us that 't was by his vertue that the earth became fruitful and that from his goodness she received that secret Fermentation that to this day renders her the Mother and the Nurse of all things living And the Gospel to give this Truth its full extent instructs us that 't is the holy Ghost who by his graces in the Church makes up what Jesus Christ hath begun in it by his travels He is his Vicar and Lieutenant he came down upon the earth after the other ascended up to heaven nor hath he any other designe in his descension then to compleat all the works of Jesus Christ The Apostles were yet but embryo's in Christianity when the Son of God left them three yeers of conversation was not able to perfect them the greatest part of the discourses of their Divine Master seemed to them nothing but Aenigma's his Maximes Paradoxes his Promises pleasing Illusions every thing was a mormo to these timorous spirits ths name of the Cross scandalized them and so many Miracles wrought in their presence were unable to calm their Fear or heighten their Courage To finish these demi-works the Holy Ghost came into the world he descended upon their heads in the shape of fiery tongues to make them eloquent and bold he inspired them with Charity to cure them of Fear made them Lovers thereby to make them Martyrs he cleared their Understanding warmed their Will that light and heat being blended together they might more easily overcome Philosophers and Tyrants Finally he set up a Throne in their hearts that speaking by their mouthes and acting by their hands he might render them accomplisht pieces to the service of their Master And indeed we must acknowledge the Apostles changed their condition after the descent of the Holy Ghost their Fear vanished as soon as they were confirmed by his Strength the Cross seem'd strew'd with Charms as soon as they were kindled with his Flames they found Sweetness even in Torments Glory in Affronts Venit Vicarius Redemptoris ut beneficia quae Salvator Dominus inchoavit Spiritus sancti virtute consammet quod ille redemit iste sanctificet quod ille acquisivit iste custodiat Aug. Serm. 1. Feria 32. Pentec and Riches in Poverty This made S. Augustine say that the Holy Spirit came to finish in Power what the Son of God had begun in Weakness to sanctifie what the other had redeemed and to preserve what Christ had purchased If you seek saith the same S. Augustine what was wanting to the Apostles and what might be added to their perfection by the coming down of the Holy Ghost I will tell you Before that happie moment they had Faith but they had neither Constancie nor Fidelity they were able to forsake their possessions to follow Jesus Christ but they would not lose their lives to glorifie him they were able indeed to preach the Gospel but knew not how to signe it with their blood nor seal it with their death they were vertuous as long as they conversed with the Son of God up on earth but they were not grown up to perfection till the Holy Ghost had communicated to them his graces and adding force to charity had made them the Foundations of the Church the Fathers of the Faithful the Terrour of Devils and the Astonishment of Tyrants Finally 't is the holy Spirit according to the saying of S. John Damascen that perfects the Christians because 't is he that Quickens them by Grace and Deifies them with Glory So that we are obliged to confess that he enters into alliance with them that he is the same to the Church that he is to the Trinity and that after he hath been our Bond our Gift and our Love upon Earth he will be our Accomplishment in Heaven The Fourth DISCOURSE That the Holy Ghost seems to be to Christians what he is to the Son of God IT is not without ground that the Christian is called the Image of Jesus Christ since he is his other Self the one possessing by Grace what the other doth by
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
enjoy not this quality but after we are instated in the person of the Word nor can we have God for our Father but we must have Jesus Christ for our Head But when Grace hath made us his members Unicum Filium Deus habet quem de sua substantia genuit nos autem non de sua substantia genuit Creatura enim sumus quam non genuit sed fecit ideo ut fratres Christi secundùm modum faceret adoptavit Aug. lib. 3. contra Faust cap. 3. and being quickned by his Spirit we make up one body with him the Father loves us as his children looks upon us as a portion of Jesus Christ contracts an allyance with us that honours us and imitates that which he hath from all Eternity with his Son Thus we are his sons and his subjects he is our Lord and our Father and we bespeak him in the same language our Head doth we call him our Father and our God This Allyance is not only true because founded in Grace Vinculum igitur nostrae cum Deo Patre unionis Christum esse constat qui nos quidem sibi conjunxit ut homo Deo verò genitori suo sic unitus est ut naturaliter in eo sit Cyril Alex in Joan. but so proper that it relates only to the person of the Son agreeing not so much as to the holy Spirit For as he is not the Father of Jesus Christ so neither is he ours and as he hath other Alliances with him so hath he also with us The Father alone is our Father 't is to him that we addresse our selves when we use that name and knowing very well that we are inseparable from his Son we know very wel that the affection he bears us is an overflowing beam of that love he bears him of whom we have the honour to be members Though this mystery be wonderfull and 't is a hard matter to comprehend upon what motive Jesus Christ was willing to procure us this honour yet the condition wherein he found us redoubles the wonder For Adoption hath this advantage above Nature that 't is in its liberty to chuse the most accomplish'd Nature is blinde in her affections as well as in her productions she knows not for the most part what she does her works are many times defective and as if she had lost her light together with her innocence she brings forth Monsters as often as Men In the mean time she forbears not to love her imperfections she hath the heart of a Mother for all her productions and compels parents many times to embrace Monsters because they are their children In this particular Adoption is much happier then Nature it sees what it admits of chuseth upon knowledge of the cause loves that which is lovely and amiable nor does impart affections or goods but to persons that merit them Neverthelesse contrary to all these rules we finde that the Eternal Father adopts children born in sin and having nothing but the Apennage of Adam are rather the objects of his wrath then of his love He goes to seek them in the masse of perdition he separates them from the Guilty to render them innocent and applyes to them the merits of his Son to make them worthy of his inheritance For of all the Favours saith St * Promisit hominibus divinitatem mortalibus immortalitatem peccatoribus justificationem abject is glorificationem quicquid promisit indignis promisit ut non quasi operibus merces promitteretur sed gratia nomine suo gratia gratis daretur Aug. Psal 102. Augustine God the Father was pleased to honour us with he hath continually prevented our deservings he pardoned us in our delinquency heaped honour upon us in our misery To wretches condemned to death he hath promised immortality to the guilty innocence to base contemptible creatures glory to men divinity that we may receive all these favours as the gracious endearments of his mercy and not the recompences of our merits Thus our Adoption is founded upon his goodness he chose us but because it was his good pleasure he hath made us his Children because Christ hath made us his Brethren and in the apprehension of so great an advantage all we have to do is to humble our selves at the sight of our miseries and to give him thanks at the consideration of his mercies But to the end that this grace may appear more precious we must reckon up its Priviledges and allow the rest of this Discourse to its more noble Excellencies The Adoption of men is indeed an Allyance but we may without offence call it an imaginary one it hath no other foundation but the affection of him that adopts and the true or apparant merit of him that is adopted the conjunction is so impotent that it produceth nothing reall in their minds 't is as we have observed a meer denomination constituting no true relation between the two persons it unites and in this particular we must needs confess 't is much weaker then Nature For this tyes men with flesh and bloud her chains are so strong that 't is almost impossible to break them The Father looks upon his Son as a piece of himself the Mother beholds him as a portion of her own bowels nor can the Son die but both of them die in conceit with him Adoption hath nothing of this vigour in it it leans upon interests and as soon as he that is adopted hath no more any hope he hath no more love nor respect But the Christian Adoption is like that of Nature the links that compose it are of Diamond Missus est Filius non adoptione factus sed semper genitus Filius ut participata natura filiorum hominum ad participandam ettam suam naturam adoptaret etiam filios hominum Aug. lib. de Gra. Novi Test and the Grace that supports it is so firm that 't is able to subsift eternally It penetrates the very essence of the soul and cleanseth it from the spots of sin darts a light into the understanding heat into the Will plants the seeds of Glory in that intellectual substance gives it a true right and title to the kingdom of heaven and constitutes an Allyance between man and God so strict and combining that it imitates that that is between the Humanity and the Divinity by the mystery of the Incarnation From the very instant of Baptism the Christian is truly the Son of God the misery of his Nature the shame of his Birth and the Crime of his first Father hinders not Jesus Christ from being his Brother the Church from being his Mother nor eternal glory from being his portion But I wonder not at all that the Adoption of Christians is more substantial then that of men since it is celebrated with greater pomp and ceremony For when a man intends to adopt a child he needs only declare his will and make use of the Princes authority to make his
the mutuall gift of Men to God and of God to Men. But that which surpasseth all belief He is so absolutely in our disposall that the faithfull communicate him to others The Priests are not onely the Ministers but the Principles thereof they produce him by their word as they do Jesus Christ neither are there any Sacraments in the Church which are not so many channels by which they powre forth the Holy Ghost into the souls of Christians Nay many times they that have him not themselves impart him to others being poor they make others rich and having not the grace they notwithstanding communicate the source for though they lose their sanctity they lose not their power and as it is founded in their Character which can never be obliterated they have alwayes the right to give the Holy Ghost and to remit sins But because I intend to make a particular Treatise of the Spirit of the Christian I shall reserve my larger Discourse of the Allyances we have with him for that place and conclude the present subject with those words of St Leo That the Beleever is obliged to acknowledge the advantages he hath received from Jesus Christ in his Birth by no means to degenerate from his Nobility and to think he ought no more absolutely to dispose of himself seeing he hath the honour to be the Son of the Eternall Father the Brother of Jesus Christ and the Temple of the Holy Ghost The Eighth DISCOURSE Of the principall Effects Baptism produceth in the CHRISTIAN FOrasmuch as Effects are the images of their Causes we never judge better of the power of these then by the greatness of those A great Effect leads alwayes on to a great Cause and this Maxime is as true in Grace as in Nature For if God sometime make use of a weak Instrument to produce a miracle Aliud est enim baptizare per ministerium aliud per potestatem Baptisma enim tale est qualis est ille in cujus potestate datur nō qualis est ille per cujus ministerium datur Aug. Tr. 5. in Joann he raiseth the puissance thereof and by himself supplyes what infirmity would sink under Thence it comes to pass that the Fathers of the Church attribute to Jesus Christ all the effects of Baptism teaching us that 't is neither the vertue of the Water nor the merit of the Minister though both are requisite that justifie the Christian God reserves to himself the glory to act in this Sacrament He it is that baptiseth by the hand of his servants and without having respect to their deserts worketh grace by a Divel as well as by an Angel Wherefore we need not wonder that so common an element produceth such rare effects seeing 't is in his hands who of nothing was able to create all things These effects are almost infinite their number aswell as their greatness astonish us and to observe them well we had need be illuminated by his light whose works they are Nolite contristare Spiritum sanctum in quo signati estis Ephes 4. The most part of Divines are of opinion that the impression of the character is the first effect for he that is baptised wears the Livery of his Soveraigne he is marked with his Seale and from the time of his Baptism there is formed in the essence of his soul a Character that neither Time nor Eternity can blot out He carries it with him to heaven for his glory into hell for his confusion and that which was a mark of his allyance with God becoms a mark of his rebellion against God Men make their slaves wear upon their garments visible Badges of their vassallage and there are some so cruel as to stigmatize their very faces The Divel who is Gods Ape engraves his Character upon the bodies of those miserable wretches that serve him and if we beleeve the report of the Magicians and the experience of the Judges that have examined them there are not any Witches who bear not the shamefull marks of their abominable servitude This proud Spirit imitates his Soveraign as far as his weaknesse will give him leave and he is ravished that the creature who hath given himself to him witnesseth his fidelity by an external and visible impresse since he cannot act in the souls of men he is content to act upon their bodies and he is satisfied when upon the works of the Creator may be seen some characters of his Tyranny But God who is absolute in his State acts upon the souls aswell as upon the bodies and at the same time that the Ministers sprinkle the water of Baptisme upon the body of the Neophytes he imprints an eternall character in their souls This first effect is followed with another to wit the Infusion of Grace for assoon as the words that consecrate us are pronounced the holy Spirit enters into our hearts and there produceth that divine quality which renders us the children of God We know not whether it be equall in all those that are baptised Some are of opinion that the disposition of those that are at age augments or diminisheth it and according as they have more or lesse actuall love they receive more or lesse habituall Grace Some others pass the same judgment upon Infants and are perswaded that the designe of God upon their souls makes the difference of their Graces and that those who are destin'd to the highest degrees of Glory receive also at their baptism a higher degree of Grace This question being not yet resolved every one may abound in his own sense though it seem that as every man equally sinned in Adam every Christian is equally regenerated in Jesus Christ But I conceive our Fall and our Restauration are two Abysses that cannot be sounded and that the example alledged for confirmation of the first is as much conceal'd as the Truth they would thence elicite and extract Therefore not confining our selves to any one of these opinions 't is better to confess our ignorance and acknowledge there are secrets in the order of Grace aswell as in that of Nature which the spirit of man can by no means discover The third Effect of Baptism is the restitution of the Innocence we lost in Paradise Every one explains it according to the conceit he hath of it and there are store of Divines who imagine that man by the vertue of Baptism re-enters into all the advantages of Adam that his will recovers its Perfect freedom his understanding its light and every faculty of the soul is re-established in its primitive vigour and activity But certainly experience gives this opinion sufficiently the lye seeing every day the faithful to their cost finde that their will is a slave to concupiscence and if the assistance of Jesus Christ give them not the mastery there is no temptation but would engage them in a sin Indeed though we should affirm that habitual grace restores us with advantage what-ever Adam despoyl'd us
of yet must we acknowledge that concupiscence remains in those that are baptised making havock in their souls aswell as in their bodies that it weakens their wills because it divides them obscures their understandings because it sheds darkness over them troubles their rest because it stirs up seditions in their person which end not but with their life Let us say then that this innocency is nothing but a freedom from sin which flowing from grace causeth that the disorders of concupiscence render us not guilty and that there must be an act of the will to occasion the loss of that which grace hath endued us with This binds us so powerfully to Jesus Christ that we find more strength in him then in Adam and are more secure in our Banishment then we had been in the earthly Paradise But this Innocence though never so substantial is not quiet its conflicts make up the best part of its glory its enemies prepare triumphs for it and 't is always arm'd because 't is well assured Heaven cannot be gain'd now but by violence The fourth Effect of Baptism is the weakening of our concupiscence For though it remain in the baptized for their exercise it loseth much of its vigour being left an orphan in respect of the father that gave it life it droops and languisheth and separated from sin it gives us no assaults but such as we may easily defend our selves from The grace that assists us is more potent then the adversary that sets upon us and 't is upon this occasion that we may say Stronger are they that are on our side then those that are against us A man must needs play the coward to suffer himself to be overcome in a combat where the victory depends upon his own will animated with Grace If we want help we may pray for it and the Christian hath this comfort to know that his own consent is necessary to his undoing True it is inasmuch as he is not ignorant that his victory is affix'd to Grace and that Grace is not so due unto him as that it may not be justly refused him he hath still reason to fear and distrusting his own strength is obliged to have recourse to the mercy of his divine Redeemer Though all Christians are persecuted by concupiscence Cecidit primus homo omnes qui de illo nati sunt de illo traxerunt concupiscentiam carnis Aug. Tract 5. in Joann yet is it not certainly known whether it be equall in all for it is so impotent in some it seems utterly extinct all their inclinations are so good we have great reason to beleeve that Grace is rather the Principle of their actions then corrupted Nature and having had a greater share in Jesus Christ at their Baptism they have lesse of Adam then others of his Posterity Nothing pleaseth them but vertue sin appears with no shape but that of horrour and whether it be that Grace hath weakened Concupiscence or fortified Nature they have none but holy desires and just and upright hopes Others on the contrary have so many bad inclinations that Baptism seems not to have regenerated them Adam appears more in their actions and in their words then Jesus Christ the old man is more thriving and operative in their persons then the new and did not faith instruct us that the Sacraments infallibly produce their effects we should with reason doubt whether they had received that of Baptisme or no. These two differences can proceed from nothing but from those two Principles which we are equally ignorant of to wit whether some men have more transgressed in Adam or more merited in Jesus Christ then others have unlesse we will lay all the blame and misfortune of the later upon their own constitution or upon the disorders of their Parents who many times make them undergo the punishment of their debauches To all these internall Effects may be added a great number of externall ones which makes us greatly admire the power of Baptism For by the vertue of this Sacrament the Christian is freed from the slavery of Satan he changeth his Master as he changeth his Condition Hell is shut against him Heaven is opened to him the Angels look upon him as one of their Companions and seeing in his soul the Mark of their Soveraign they are very tender and respective of his Grace and Priviledges Circumcision had not this advantage for if it distinguished a child from an Infidel enroll'd him in the number of the Israelites and by the belief of his Parents shed forth faith into his soul yet all Divines are of opinion that it gave him no entrance into Heaven and that dying in that state they went down into Limbo the skirts and fringes of perdition The heavens were not opened till the Ascension of Jesus Christ He it was that delivered our Fathers from their Captivity and that he might triumph over Hell aswell as over Earth made them partakers of his happiness But to give us a clearer apprehension of the right we have to Glory by Baptism Baptizato Domino Caeli sunt apâ—rti ut declaretur nobis quid ex Baptismo operari possemus Div. Thom. he was pleased that the Heavens should be opened when he received this Ceremony at the hands of his Precursor and the Confession of his Father declaring him his wel-beloved Son was an Earnest and Pledge assuring us that we should one day receive the same favour From this advantage there ariseth another which greatly promoteth the Condition of Christians As they are ingrafted into the person of Jesus Christ passing into a new order they live under other lawes and I can hardly believe that they are subject to that common Providence that rules over all men For the illustration of this Truth which may seem strange because it is new Effectus rerum omnium aut movent aut notant sydera sed sive quod evenitfaciunt quid immutabilis rei notitia prosiciet sive significant quid refert puovidere quod evitare non possis Sen. we must suppose that the sin of Adam hath not onely changed Man but the World also The Elements bid him battel the Starres persecute him and the fires of the Firmament sparkle with pernicious qualities to infest him Mans life depends upon their influences his constitution is altered by their motions and the greatest part of his adventures are regulated by their favourable or malignant aspects Astrologers therefore have some reason to search for good or bad successes in the starres and to learne from heaven what shall happen upon the earth 'T is a book wherein knowing men may read the alteration of Monarchies the events of battels the birth and death of Soveraigns and all those other accidents which surprise the vulgar This Opinion whether true or false pretends to be founded in scripture In sole posuit Tabernaculum suum Psal 18 and that there are some passages in it assuing us that the stars are the
kingdom of Life but by Jesus Christ As all that are born of Adam are sinners all that are born again of Jesus Christ are justified and as all the sons and daughters of Adam are the children of the earth and death all the children of Jesus Christ are the children of heaven and of life This Maxime is so true that man makes no more progresse in perfection then according as he doth in allyance with Jesus Christ The more Faith he hath the lesse hath he of Errour and Falshood the more hope he conceives in the mercy of God the lesse confidence hath he in the favour of men the more he burns with the fire of Charity the lesse is he scorched with the flames of Concupiscence the more he is united to this innocent and glorious Head from whom all grace is derived the lesse is he fixt to that infamous and criminall Head from whom all sin takes it originall so that Christians as we have already proved ought to have no other care but to make Adam die and Jesus Christ live in their person if they intend to be innocent they must be Parricides if they will bestow life upon the Son of God they must inflict death upon their first Father if they meane to be quickned with the spirit of humility which raiseth men in debasing them they must renounce the spirit of vain-glory which lays men low in lifting them up and under a colour of making Gods of them makes them nothing but Devils or Beasts Finally mans unhappinesse flows from the shamefull alliance he contracted with Adam in his Birth Ex transgressione primi hominis universum genus humanum natum cum obligatione peccati victor Diabolus possidebat si enim sub captivitate non teneremur redemptore non indigeremus venit ad captivos non captus venit ad captivos redimendos nihil in se captivitatis ha bens sed carne mortali pretium nostrum portans Aug. de Verb. Apo. Ser. 22. and the Christians happinesse proceeds from the glorious alliance he contracted with Jesus Christ in Baptisme Thus the quality of a Chief in Adam is the source of all our Evils and the quality of a Chief in Jesus Christ is the Originall of all our Good and as Adam did not so much destroy us in being our Father as in being our Head neither doth Jesus Christ save us so much for being his Brethren or his Children as because we are his members because 't is in effect this quality that procures us all the rest neither is God our Father but because Jesus Christ is our Head The Second DISCOURSE Of the Excellencies of the Christians Head and the advantages they draw from thence THough all the alliances Jesus Christ hath contracted with men be as beneficiall to them as they are honourable yet must we confesse that the relation that unites him to them as their Head is the strictest and most advantageous 'T is much that he would be their King and giving them Laws had owned them for his Subjects 'T is more yet that he condescended to be their Brother and sharing his Eternall Inheritance with them made them Co-heirs together with Himself 't is more yet that he made them his Children and conceiving them in his wounds suffered death to give them life But 't is yet a more signall favour that he vouchsafed to make them his Members and joyning them to Himself in one body he is constituted the Head from whence they receive all those indearing influences which communicate to them the life of Grace and merit for them that of Glory Therefore also doth Saint Augustine when he examines the favours we have received from the Father preferre this before all others Nullum majus donum prastâ—re posset hominibus quam ut verbum suum per quod condidit omniâ— faccret illis caput illos ei tanquam membra coaptaret ut esset filius Dei silius hominis unus Deus cum patre unus homo cum hominibus Aug. in Psal 36. Ser. 3. and confesseth he never more sensibly obliged us then when he gave us his onely Son to be our Head God saith he could bestow no higher honour upon men then by uniting them with his Word by whom he created all things as the Members with their Head that he that was the Son of God might be the Sonne of Man and that by reason of his Divine Person subsisting in the Humane Nature he might be God with his Father and Man with his Brethren 'T is in effect from this glorious co-habitation that all our blessings are derived If the Father look upon us 't is because we are the Members of his onely Sonne If he hear our prayers 't is because Jesus Christ speaks by our mouth if he receive us into Glory 't is because he sees us cloathed with the merits of our Head if he admit us into his bosome 't is because the quality we bear renders us inseparable from his Word But if this alliance be beneficiall to Christians 't is honourable to Jesus Christ For though nothing can be added to his Grandeur who is equall to his Father and all the Priviledges he received from his Incarnation may passe for so many Humiliations Neverthelesse the dignity of being Head of the Church is so eminent that after that of the Son of God there is none so Venerable and August It gives Jesus Christ the same advantage over the Faithfull that the Head hath over the Members and to conceive what he is in the Church we must observe what this is in the Body The Head is the noblest seat of the Soul 't is that part of the Body where she acts her highest operations 't is there that she debates those subjects that are presented to her that she deliberates upon the accidents that happen 't is there that the memory preserves the species which may be called the treasures of wisdome and the riches of the Intellectuall faculty 't is there that the understanding conceives truths and the will pronounceth determinations In a word 't is there that the affairs concerning Peace and Warre Salvation or Damnation Time or Eternity are treated of Thus also is it in Iesus Christ that all those lights reside that govern the Church 't is in him that are shut up all the treasures of wisdome and from him that all Oracles proceed whereby the Faithfull are instructed The Head is the most eminent part of the Body Nature was willing that as it is the noblest so it should be placed nearest Heaven and the very situation should oblige all the other parts to shew it reverence It is the most exalted that it may more easily dispence its orders and that the spirits which convey sense and motion by the nerves may descend with more facility into all the parts of the body Iesus Christ also is in the highest place of his State he reignes in Heaven with his Father from thence he views all
Fourth DISCOURSE That the Vnion of Christians with their Head is an Imitation of the Hypostaticall Vnion CHristian Religion acknowledgeth three wonderfull Unities which exercise her Faith enflame her Love and entertain her Piety The first is the Unity of Essence which is found in the Trinity For the same Faith that â—eacheth us there are three Persons in one God teacheth us also that he subsists in one and the same Essence and that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are but one God This Truth soares so high above Humane Understanding that it cannot be conceived otherwise then by the light of Faith Reason would deceive should she be consulted with in this mystery Man would not be more faithfull Considera quod voceris fidelis non rationalis si dicas hoc non est exponcre sed expositione fugere respondeo in die judicii non damnor quia dicam nescivi naturam Dei mei si aâ—tem aliquid temere dixero temeritas poenam habas ignorantia veuiam meretur Aug. Ser. 1. de Trinitate should he labour to be more rationall in this subject and hee will fall into the Heresie of the Arrians or into that of the Sabellians did he not subject his Reason to his Faith The second is the Unity of Person in Iesus Christ which honours the Unity of Essence in the Trinity though it be in some sort opposite thereto For as there are three Persons in God which preserve their differences in the Unity of their Nature that the Trinity is neither confounded by the Unity Decuit cum summa quâ— in Deo est unitate congruere ut quomo o ibi tres personae una essentia it a hic convenientissima quadam contrarietate tres essentiae fint una persona Bern. lib. 5. de Consider cap. 9. nor the Unity divided by the Trinity There are three Natures in Jesus Christ that subsist in one and the same Person and which without losing their proprieties make one composition which is called God-Man There by a strange prodigie Flesh and Spirit agree with Divinity neither are the two Others swallowed up in This Each Nature preserves its rights and as the soul is not debas'd by being engaged in the Flesh the Divinity is not disparaged by being associated to both This shines forth by Miracles the Other Two are obscured by Injuries In a word the Son of God never loseth his Equality with his Father nor the Son of Man his Equality with his Mother The third Unity is that of the Body which is found between Christ and his Church for though there be so much difference between these two Persons Love hath combined them so neer together that not confounding their properties he hath made there of but one Body whereof Jesus Christ is the Head and the Faithful the Members They live of one and the same Spirit their Interests are common though one raign triumphantly in heaven the other suffer miserably upon earth they fail not to be so perfectly knit together that the Body is happie in the Head and the Head is afflicted in the Members Of these Three admirable Unities the Second adores the First and the Third the Second For the principal designe of the Word in his Incarnation is to honour the Trinity of the Divine Persons by the Trinity of his Natures and to pay homage to the Unity of the Divine Essence by the Unity of his Person This Divine Compound is an Image of the Trinity it declares the wonders thereof by its constitution neither did he take pleasure to unite the Flesh and the Spirit with the Divinity but to express to the Faithful the ineffable Unity between the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit in the difference of their personal proprieties Indeed this incomprehensible Mystery was not preached among the children of men till the Word became Incarnate and their Understanding clarified with the light of Faith began not to conceive the Trinity of the Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence till it conceived the Trinity of the Natures in the Unity of the Person of the Word Finally the Third Unity renders honour to the Second seeing Jesus Christ entred not into society with his Church but in pursuance of the affinity he had contracted with Humane Nature It seems he was willing to extend the mystery of the Incarnation in that he made all men his Members to make them the children of God and not being able or not vouchsafing to unite himself personally with every Christian he became united to them in the unity of the Spirit and of the Body The First of these Marriages is the example of the Second and we cannot well express the Union of Jesus Christ with his Church but by that of the Word with our Nature The Resemblances are so wonderful that they justly deserve this Discourse to see if we can clear them The chiefest secret of this mystery is that the Plurality of Nature destroys not the Unity of the Person Verbum caro factum unus est Christus ubi nihil est alterius naturaeâ—quod sit utriusque D. Leo. Serm. 10. de nat Dom. For though the Flesh have its weaknesses and the Divinity its perfections in Jesus Christ 't is nevertheless an admirable Compound that preserves its unity in the difference of its Natures he acts sometimes as God sometimes as Man receives the adorations of Angels and the injuries of Men that obeys his Father and commands with him suffers upon the Cross and reigns in Glory that 's buried with the dead in the Grave and triumphs over the devil in hell But in these different conditions he ceaseth not to be one and the same subject who accommodating himself to the proprieties of his Natures mixes Greatness with Humility Joy with Sorrow Repentance with Innocence without interessing his Person The same wonder is met with in the Marriage of Christ with his Church they are different in their qualities and 't is a strange effect of Love that was able to finde out a means to unite together two subjects whose conditions are so dissonant The one is Soveraign because God the other a slave because redeemed the one innocent the other guilty the one reigns in Eternity the other sighs and groans in Time nevertheless their Union is so strict that without confounding their properties they compose one and the same Body and both together make up but one onely Jesus Christ Whence it comes to pass that S. Augustine who after S. Paul hath best understood this Mystery Totus Christus secundum Ecclesiam caput corpus est non quia sinc corpore non est integer sed quia nobiscuÌ„ integer esse dignatus est qui sine nobis semper est integer Veruntamen fratres quomodo corpus ejus nos si non nobiscum unum Christus Aug. in Serm. Quod tribusmodis Christus intelligitur delivers these words One onely Jesus Christ is the Body and
the Head of the Church not that he is not entire without this Body but he that is entire without us as Man and God was pleased to be entire with us as Head For how shall we be one Body with him if he were not one Christ with us and how shall he speak in our person if he give us not the liberty to speak in his Jesus Christ then and the Church make up but one Body and both of them together make that admirable Compound which by reason of the difference of its parts bears sometimes the name of Jesus Christ and sometimes the name of the Church This leads us to the second Resemblance between the Union of the Humanity with the Divinity and that of Jesus Christ with the Faithful For the former is so perfect that without offending the two Natures that subsist in the Word all that may be said of the one which is said of the other The Communication of Properties produceth that of Idiomes and without uttering blasphemies we attribute to Man all that may be attributed to God Thus without doing any violence to Truth we say that God is Man and that Man is God that Man commands over Death that God is subject to the dominion thereof that Man contains the whole world in his Innocency and that God is inclosed in the chaste womb of a Virgin that Man bears rule with his Father and that God obeys with his Mother All these manners of speech which else had been blasphemies are now great Verities and as if the Word had been willing to satisfie the unjust passion of Man that desired to be God he hath exalted him to his Greatness in uniting him to his Person and by priviledge hath conferred that upon him by Grace which by Nature he was no ways able to attain unto Such is the Union of Jesus Christ with his Church the communication of their Goods hath produced the communication of Dialects we speak of them so confusedly that there are no Elogies given to Jesus Christ which may not be given to his Spouse he loads himself with her sins and cloathes her with his merits he gives her part of his innocence and covers himself with her unrighteousness so that without prejudicing the Greatness of Jesus Christ and the Modesty of the Church we may say The Church is perfect in her Head and the Head imperfect in his Members the Church knows all things in her Head and Jesus Christ learns in his Members the Church is innocent in her Head and Jesus Christ guilty in his Members Thus is it that S. Augustine interprets the words of the Prophet Deus Deus meus ut quid me dereliquisti Quare hoc dicitur nifi quia nos ibi eramus nisi quia corpus Christi Ecclesia quomodo dicit delictorum meorum nisi quia pro delictis nostris ipse precatur delict a nostra sua fecit ut juftitiam nostram suam faceret Aug. in Psal 24. Expos 2. Longe à salute mea veâ—ba delictorum meorum and findes that this language that so happily expresseth the love of the Son of God does no way prejudice his innocence Indeed because he is the Head of the Church and this quality unites him with his Members it obliges him to speak of their sins as of his own to pay those debts for them he never contracted and in their name to satisfie the justice of his Father he had no ways offended How saith the same S. Augustine could Jesus Christ make this discourse without wounding his Innocence and Truth it self How could he attribute sins to himself that never committed any How can we believe him true when he made his confession upon the Cross were it not that we acknowledge he applied our offences to himself that he might communicate our righteousness to him and by the communication between the Head and the Members he is charged with our Crimes to enrich us with his Merits This will not seem strange to those that shall consider another parallel between the Marriage of the Humanity with the Divinity and that of Jesus Christ with the Church For though Joy and Sorrow be as incompatible as Sin and Innocence since according to the doctrine of S. Augustine man became not miserable till he became criminal we observe nevertheless both of them in the Person of the Son of God from the very moment of his Incarnation he joyned pain with pleasure during the course of his whole life he tasted the felicity of Angels and resented the miseries of men he is happie and afflicted and contrary to all the laws of Nature and Grace a glorious soul informs a passive body and that which beholds the Divine Essence Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem is obliged to make complaints and shed tears Therefore is it that I have always reverenced that Ancient who call'd Jesus Christ a Paradox because his composition startles Humane Reason associating in his Person Joy and Grief Innocence and Guilt in a word the Majestie of a God with the Weakness of a Man But inasmuch as this Mystery was unconceiveable because hid Jesus Christ was willing to manifest it by the union he contracted with the Church For there may be seen an Image or Representation of that which passed heretofore in the person of the Son of God pleasure may be observed with pain and by a strange wonder Jam in caelo est hic laborat quamdiu laborat Ecâ—lesia his Christus esuris hic sitit nudus est hespes est quicquid enim patitur corpus ejus se dixit paetâ— Aug. the condition of the Blessed twisted with that of the Miserable one and the same Jesus is still a Sufferer and still Glorious he reigns with his Father in heaven and suffers with his People upon earth he triumphs in the Angels and sighs in the Martyrs he is rich in Eternity and poor in Time he makes liberal largesses in his Glory and receives presents in his Poverty and he that possesseth all things in Himself hath need of all things in his Members Finally to conclude these Resemblances the Word uniting it self to the Humanity stoops to exalt it and enters into its Imperfections to give it admittance into his Power For though the Manhood remain in its natural condition yet was it adorned with so many Graces by this sacred Marriage that it became happily acceptable and found it self in a free necessity to love God without being able to offend him it appeared sanctified as soon as conceived glorious as soon as reasonable and by a priviledge which neither Men nor Angels shall ever enjoy it was no sooner drawn out of Nothing but was united to the Eternal Word These Miracles would remain without an Example did we not perceive some shadows thereof in the conjunction of Jesus Christ with the Church For in chusing her for his Spouse he hath endowed her with all the advantages so noble an Alliance could exact
among men the meat he eat assimilated into his substance every part took what was needfull for it and whilest his hands that were to work so many miracles were strengthned his legs that were to bear him over all Palestine were alike fixed and consolidated 'T is so with his Mysticall Body the parts that compose it grow according to their employments they take their bulk and nourishment from his Word and from his Grace nothing remains uselesse in that great Body every particular hastens to perfection and in the difference of conditions all the members receive their growth and dimension This is it that the Apostle had a minde to acquaint us with by those words which being well understood will greatly serve to the clearing of this mystery Speaking the truth in love let us grow in him thorough all things who is the Head Christ From whence we learn that we grow not in our selves but as much as we grow in Jesus Christ and that 't is from the union we contract with him that our greatnesse and perfection is derived Both these Bodies were a Sacrifice to God assoon as Iesus Christ was Incarnate he immolated himself to his Father in the Womb of his Mother he made it appear by the thoughts of his heart that he respects his body as a Holocaust and he testifieth by the language of his Prophets reported by his Apostles that he was cloathed with our flesh only to make an oblation of it Sacrifice wouldest thou not but a body hast thou prepared me His design is to supply the unprofitablenesse of the Law to offer to his Father a Victime well-pleasing to him and meritorious for us that finding our salvation in his losse we might be reconciled to God by his Death Id Sacrificium succedit omnibus illis sacrificiis veteris Testamenti quae immolabantur in umbra futuri propter quod dicit OblationeÌ„ noluisti corpus autem aptasti mihi quia pro illis omnibus sacrificiis oblationibus corpus ejus offertur participantibus ministratur Aug. lib. 16. de Civ Dei His mother who was as well acquainted with his designes offered him in the Temple in that Spirit and Simeon answering her thought speaks to her onely of her sorrows A Sword shall passe thorow thy Soul Iesus Christ exhibited himself as a Sacrifice during his life he entertains his Disciples with this Discourse and testifies he was not at rest till he should be offered up for an oblation He finished in the arms of the Crosse what he had begun in the Womb of his Mother he was immolated to his Father by the hands of the Executioners he made their fury serviceable to his piety and of a Gibbet erected an Altar of a Sacriledge a Sacrifice of a Patient a Holocaust he fully satisfied the Iustice of his Father Thus his Mysticall Body is a Victime which he daily offers for the glory of the same Father He will have every beleever immolated that the members imitating their Head may have the honour to lose their life in the holy severity of an acceptable sacrifice Therefore doth Saint Paul so often invite us to discharge this duty he speaks to us of nothing but Oblations and Altars he exhorts us to offer our selves to God in a sweet smelling savour and he would have us looking upon our selves as reasonable and living sacrifices our whole life should be but one continued Oblation Saint Augustine treading in the steps of his Master teacheth us the same Truth and far differing from their judgement who would mingle Roses with Thorns in Christianity tels us that the life of the Faithfull if it be ordered according to the Maximes of the Gospel is but a languishing and a painfull Martyrdome This Circumstance discovers another and the Sacrifice of these two Bodies leads me insensibly to their persecution For the Natural Body of the Son of God was not exempted from sorrow because innocent his Trials began with his Life he had Enemies assoon as he had Subjects and if he saw Kings at his Cradle paying their Homages Positus est in signum cui contradicetur Luc. 2. he saw others conspiring his Death He was forced to commit his Safety to his Flight to seek an Asylum in Egypt and to passe his minority in a Countrey where his people spent the years of their Infancy the continuance of his life was not much different from his beginning hee lived not in security but whilest he lived unknown hee purchased his quiet with the losse of his Glory nor did he see himself without Enemies but during the time he got his living by the sweat of his brows Assoon as ever he began to appear he began to be persecuted Passionem auteÌ„ Christi non illuÌ„ diem solum appellamus quo mortuus f it sed totam vitam ejus Tota enim vita Chriâ—i crux fuit Martyrium Bernard The Preaching of the Gospel drew upon him the hatred of the Pharisees the lustre of his miracles made an end of him they plotted his death when he had raised Luzarus from the grave and the rage of these cruell men ended not with this life for they made war upon him after his death they endeavoured to destroy his Mysticall Body having destroyed his Naturall Body and God suffered them to have successours in their malice that the condition of these two Bodies might be alike Indeed the Church never wanted persecutors she hath seen all the Princes of the Earth armed against her Children Three full Ages have exercised her patience she hath watered the whole Earth with her blood neither is there any corner in the world wherein she hath not given testimony of her courage The conversion of Heathen Princes hath not been the end of her persecutions Sinners have succeeded Tyrants the good have found tormentors in the person of the wicked Every beleever hath found by experience that the Maxime of Saint Paul is true and that it is impossible to live piously and not to be persecuted All those that will live godlily in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution Indeed their persecution hath appeared glorious and 't is in this particular that they have another resemblance to the Naturall Body of the Son of God For his Father glorified him upon the Crosse hee would have his Innocence known at his Death that his Executioners should be the first witnesses of it that to the confusion of the Jews the Judge that condemned him should make his Apology that the Theeves that suffered with him should publish his Royalty and the Soldiers that nailed him to the Crosse become his Adorers But as if so many miracles had not sufficiently magnified his onely Son he would have whole Nature weare mourning for him The Sun must bewail his Death and the Earth tremble with amazement the rocks cleave asunder with pangs of sorrow and all creatures celebrate the obsequies of a dying God Indeed there never was a more dolefull and more
Nature Thus was he torn in pieces by lions in the person of S. Ignatius devoured by flames in that of S. Laurence stoned in that of S. Stephen beheaded in that of S. Paul and this great Apostle that knew the desires of Jesus Christ rejoyced to accomplish them by his sufferings and to be one of those Victims whereby he adored the Justice and the Soveraignty of his Father But not to urge this conceit any further 't is enough that we learn from it that Jesus and the Church are united in their sufferings upon earth and by a necessary consequence assures us they shall be so one day in their rest in heaven For though the Church sigh here belowe she knows her Beloved will keep his word that having had a part in his sorrows she shall have a share in his triumphs and having been two in one Flesh they shall be two in one and the same Felicity She hath the promises of Jesus Christ for caution of her hope and when she remembers the prayer her Beloved made to his Father in her behalf she expects the performance with constancy of assurance Father I will that where I am there also my servants be Whenever Jesus Christ speaks to his Father 't is with so much respect that he seems rather a Servant then a Son when he asks that his Church may reign with him in his glory 't is with so much freedom of speech that he seems equal to his Father and that his demand is rather a determination then a prayer Volo Pater so that the Church who hath passed thorow all the degrees of unity with her Beloved expects this last with confidence and makes no more doubt of the Eternity of her rest then of the Verity of the words of her Beloved She believes that the union he hath contracted with her puts her in possession of her hopes that she enjoys in him what she hopes for in her self that she is glorious in her Body because she is so in her Head and that during the evils she suffers Ubi portio mea regnat ibi me regnare puto ubi caput meum dominatur ibi me dominari sentio D. Max. Serm. 3. she may boast her self happie because nothing is wanting to the felicity of her Beloved She hath now in Christ what she hopes for in her self and according to the judgement of S. Maxime she believes to raign there already where the most illustrious part of her Body reigns and conceives her self exalted above the Angels in the person of him that considers her as his Spouse and looks upon them as his Subjects The Seventh DISCOURSE That the quality of the Members of Jesus Christ is no more advantageous to Christians then that of the Brethren of Jesus Christ IT is not without great reason Unigenitus Dei factus est hominis filius ut qui Creator mundi erat fieret Redemptor Aug. that the same God that created us by his Power hath redeemed us by his Mercy For these two favours being extreme we should have had much ado equally to have acknowledged them Having but one heart to love with we must of necessity have divided our affections and the benefit of Redemption surpassing that of Creation we had been constrained to prefer our Redeemer before our Creator But the Divine Providence saith S. Bernard hath delivered us from this perplexity for he that drew us out of Nothing hath drawn us out of Sin and he that Created us is the same that Redeemed us so that without any fear of Jealousie we may compare these two benefits and give one the pre-eminence without injuring him of whom we have received them Me thinks I may say the same concerning the subject I am in hand with and free from any apprehension confront the quality of Brethren with that of Members because we hold them both of Jesus Christ and that the same who was pleased to be our Brother disdained not to be our Head Nature hath found out no alliance neerer then that of Brothers and Members and though she be so ingenious she hath not been able to link men in a stronger bond of relation then in giving them one and the same Father or one and the same Head Brothers are Slips of the same Stock if they ascend one degree they will finde that before their conception they made one portion of their Father and that before their birth they were a part of the bowels of their mother Friendship which is so much esteemed of in the world is but a Copie of this Alliance Friends are Brethren that our Will bestows upon us and Brethren are Friends that Nature stores us with but as that which is voluntary never equals that which is natural 't is very hard for Friends to love so tenderly as Brothers do Nevertheless if the affinity of these begin by Unity it insensibly tends to Division Brothers children are but Cousins their Grandchildren are yet at a farther distance and it falls out in time that those that issued from one father become by continuance of Generations strangers and enemies I know very well that Christians have priviledges that raise them above the condition of Men and that Grace more powerful then Nature hath given them a Father and Mother from whom they are never divided For the Son of God unites us to his Person in begetting us of children he makes us members and as if the Alliance of Father were not strict enough he becomes our Head that subsisting in him our life may be inseparable from his The Church imitates the charity of her Beloved she is so tenderly affected towards her children that she brings them up in the same bosome where she conceived them There are none but Hereticks that go out from her and they as Vipers must tear her bowels and offer violence to her Love in making a breach in her Unity Though other Mothers bear their children Nine months with an affection that solaceth their travel yet do they long to be eased of that painful load and the Infant desires to quit that troublesome prison Both of them do their utmost for a separation and if the children seek their liberty the mothers are as earnest after their delivery But the Church is so good a Mother she is never rid of her burden they always make a part of her inwards as they always are a part of the body of their Father they are born in the same place they are formed and as their Regeneration divides them not from Jesus Christ their Generation divorces them not from the Church But who sees not that to entertain this Union the quality of Members comes in to the assistance of that of Children and that the Faithful are much more knit together for being Members of the same Head then for being Children of the same Father We make up one Body with him Time that divides Brothers cannot divide Christians and as nothing but death can disjoyn the members
agnosce â—e in ipso tentatum te in illo agnosce vincentem Aug. Jesus Christ saith he was tempted by the evil spirit in the desart or rather we were tempted in him for 't is from us that he took Flesh from him that we derive Salvation 't is from us that he receives his Death from him that we receive our Life 't is from us that he had these affronts cast upon him from him that we have Honours conferred upon us 'T is therefore for our sakes that he suffered Temptation and for his sake that we carry away the victory Or to say the same thing in other words If we were tempted in him 't is in him also that we overcame the devil our enemy He certainly could have difcarded him from his person and using him like a rebellious slave have punished his rash boldness by commanding him to hell but had he not been willing to be tempted he had not taught us to overcome by his example nor had the combat he fought in the wilderness procured us the honour of a Triumph Thus the quality of Head is injurious to Jesus Christ and honourable to Christians because in that exchange it obliged him to make with them he endured the shame of the Temptation and purchased for them the advantage of the Victory Finally to conclude this Discourse The Son of God was willing to bear the reproaches of the Cross and to merit for us the priviledges of Glory For being charged with our iniquities he suffered death the punishment of them permitted Shame to be added to Cruelty that spoiling him of Life Si moriamur saltem cum libertate moriamur Cicero in Verâ—em de Crucis supplicio agens they might withal rob him of his Honour and he might give up the ghost as an Offender and a Slave together In the mean time his Punishment purchased our Glory his Death merited our Immortality and in stead of taking vengeance of our crimes he procures us his own advantages It seems saith S. Augustine the Father mistook himself he treats his onely Son as a Delinquent and handles Men as Innocents he crowns him with Thorns these with Glory and confounding the Sinner with the Just confounds Chastisements with Rewards But if we consider that the Son of God took our place and we his that he is our Head and we his Members we shall finde that his Father had reason to punish him and to reward us because having made a change with us he is become Guilty we Innocent Let us therefore be thankful to Jesus Christ who disdained not a quality which investing him with our Nature chargeth him with our sins and our infirmities and uniting him to us as to his Members obliges him to be tempted to make us victorious Ille quippe Christianorum caput in omnibus tentari voluit quia tentamur sic morivoluit quiae morimur sic resurgere quiae resurrecturi sumus Aug. in Psal 9. Serm. 2. and to suffer the death of the Cross to obtain for us the glory of Immortality The Ninth DISCOURSE Of the duties of Christians as Members toward Jesus Christ as their Head THough the duties of the Head and of the Members are reciprocal and that composing one Body they are obliged to a mutual correspondence arising from Necessity as well as Love yet there is no man but will acknowledge that as the Members receive more assistance from the Head ten the Head from the Members so are they tied to greater expressions of dependence Nature which is an excellent mistress in this matter instructs us that the life of the Members depends upon the Head and their very preservation obliges them to three or four duties without which they can no ways subsist Their Interest requires that they be inseparably fastned to that from whence they receive their life lest their division with their death deprive them of all those advantages which spring from the union they have with their Head Thus we see that the Hand which is one of the most ingenious parts of the body and which may be called the Mother of all Arts and the faithfullest Minister of the Soul loseth its dexterity and comeliness as soon as separated from the Head that enlivens it The Feet though not so noble as the Hands are yet as necessary being the moveable Foundations of this living building are destitute of all strength when they have no commerce with the Head This indeed ceaseth not to act and move though provided neither of Hands nor Feet when Nature fails it hath recourse to Art and being the throne of the Soul ransacks all her treasures of Invention to execute that by it Self Omnis salus omnis vita à capite in caeterae membra derivatur Galen was wont to be put in execution by its Members But though the hands are so industriously subtil and the legs so vigorously strong they are absolutely useless because their separation deprives them of the influences of their head This Maxime so notorious in Nature is much more evident in Grace For the Son of God hath no need of his Members 't is Mercy and not Necessity obligeth him to make use of them He is not at all more powerful when united to them nor more feeble when separated from them Faith tells us he can do all things without them whereas they can doe nothing without him Therefore is he compared to the Vine and they to the Branch to acquaint them that all their vertue flows from his and being pluckt from his Body can as the Branch expect nothing but the fire Therefore the first obligation of Christians is to unite themselves to Jesus Christ to seek their life in this union and to believe that their death is the infallible consequence of their division This is it that Saint Augustine represents us in this Discourse which though long cannot be tedious because there is nothing in it that is not delightfull and necessary As the Body hath many members which though different in number make up but one body so Jesus Christ hath many members which in the diversity of their conditions constitute also but one body so that we are always with him as with our Head and drawing from him our strength as well as our life we can neither act nor live without him We with him make up a fruitful Vine that bears more Grapes then Leaves but divided from him we are like those Branches which being good for nothing are destin'd to the slames when stript off from the Vine Therefore doth the Son of God so earnestly affirm it in the Gospel that without him we can doe nothing that our interests as well as our love Domine si fine te nihil totum in te possumus Etenim quicquid ille operatur per nos videmur nos operari potest ille multum totum sine nobis nos nihil sine ipso Aug. in Psal 30. may engage us to be united to his
Answer he returns to these Philosophers 'T is a great argument of a firm Will not to be able to change and we are not to imagine that a man will not a thing when he wills it so strongly that 't is not in his power not to will it at all For who is so unadvised as to deny that the Wil is free when she is no longer in danger to quit her resolution to embrace a contrary nay who ought not rather to judge that she is never so free as when her resolution is so firm that it becomes eternal Indeed if we believe he wills a thing who may not will it Must we not believe that he wills it much more when he wills it so powerfully that he is past all danger of not willing it But he could not better resolve this Doubt then when opposing Constraint against Necessity he saith The later may be found with Liberty and if we have no obligation to a man that does us a courtesie because he was forced to it we have notwithstanding to him that does it because he cannot do otherwise and hath imposed this necessity upon himself with which he cannot possibly dispense This opinion hath its Reasons to back it and though it seem somewhat singular hath notwithstanding Philosophers for its Protectors whose judgement 't is that the Will is never more free then when 't is less indifferent For if Liberty say they be nothing but a fixation of the Will we must acknowledge that she is never more free then when by many indifferent acts she is so united to her object that she cannot possibly undo her self Otherwise perfect Love would deprive us of Liberty the use of that power would destroy it and it would follow that to have a long time acted freely we should cease to be free They confess that Indifferency which they look upon as a weakness of Liberty is lessened by the power of Love and the more strongly a man affects a thing the less indifferencie hath he to quit it But they believe you shall never perswade a Lover that the loss of his Indifferency is the loss of his Liberty that the more his Passion increaseth the more his worth diminisheth and for being more constant he is less acceptable to her he loveth There are some Divines of the opinion of these Philosophers who finding no Indifferency in Jesus Christ nor in the Blessed cannot imagine it inseparable from Liberty For Jesus Christ was free because he merited the reconciliation of men with his Father he was free because he satisfied for their sins and all the hope of their salvation is founded as well upon the Liberty as upon the Dignity of his actions Etiamsi esset liberuÌ„ arbitrium Christi determinatum ad unum numero sicut ad diligendum Deum quod non facere non potest tamen ex hoc non amittit libertatem aut rationem laudis sive meritiâ—nam respectu amoris est sempiterna libera electio D. Thom. In the mean time he had no Indifference in respect of Good and Evil the will of his Father determined his without constraining it he died necessarily and freely and seeing his sentence noted in the thought of his Father he submitted to it by an obedience which not being indifferent ceased not therefore to be perfectly free Finally they cannot be perswaded that the Saints have lost their Liberty in the enjoyment of Glory for having lost their Indifferency They cannot believe that the Blessed are slaves that their love is not free because necessary and that the firmness of their condition cancels the perfection of their Liberty They adde further that no man shall perswade them that Grace which is Glory begun deprives us of Liberty when it deprives us of Indifferency not that it reduceth us to the condition of Slaves because it brings us neer to that of the Blessed But as all agree not upon the same Principles Other Divines leaning upon Reason and Scripture will have Indifference inseparable from Liberty in this world that men may always will Good and Evil and that they are never so strongly determined to the one but they may quit it to embrace the other They judge that Grace does not so fix the Will upon Good that it takes away her Indifferency but that there remains some inclination or some capacity towards Evil so that even when she is determined by Grace she hath still in the centre of her Being a certain Indifferency making her capable to change her minde and to depart from the Supreme Good that possesseth her According to this Principle we must say that as Grace transporting us leaves us a power to resist so also determining us an Indifferency That as we may hold out so may we change if we will and consequently there is no moment wherein our Will is not always Indifferent By this 't is easie to judge that the Councel of Trent opposeth not this Opinion Siquis dixerit Liberum arbitrium à Deo motum non posse dissentire si velit seâ—velut inanime quoddam nihil omnino agere â—nathema sit Sess 6. Can. 4. when it pronounceth an Anathema against those that say that Free-will being moved by Grace cannot resist it when it will because whatever advantage we put upon Grace we acknowledge she never takes away the power of resisting of God confessing she leaves us Concupiscence which holds our Wil under her Tyranny For there are no Saints who at the very instant they yeeld obedience to Grace prove not internally a secret opposition to her motions who groan not to see themselves divided by self-love and who sigh not with Saint Paul in that they feel in the recesses of their soul an irregular inclination that combats that of Grace This domestick sedition makes them long for Glory which hath this advantage over Grace that destroying all the remainders of sin and confirming their will in Good it lifts them to a condition which suffers them no longer to contradict the pleasures of the Almighty But in expectation of this happie hour they confess with as much confusion of face as grief of heart that though they will not resist him that draws them they can nevertheless do it because Grace hath not so strongly rooted them in good but they may forsake it should the mercy of God give them over to their own infirmity 'T is then easie enough to comprehend that Grace though effectual takes not away from the greatest Saints the power to resist Jesus Christ But 't is very hard to conceive how their complaints are true and how they can with reason accuse themselves for having been unfaithful to him For the accusations of Saints ought to be sincere humility must not make them renounce Truth nor to avoid Pride engage in a Lye These are two extremes equally dangerous which all those that are led by the holy Spirit ought carefully to avoid In the mean time they accuse themselves daily before Men
his bounty ought to live for his service Thence he concludes that we offer our members as oblations and employ all that we are for the glory of our Redeemer Slaves in the negotiations of the world could not dispose of their actions they acted by order of their Master they took pains for his Interest they got wealth for his profit and as if nature had lost her right in their persons they got children to increase his family Philosophers acknowledge that servitude fals only upon the body that it fetters only the feet and the hands leaving the slaves more free many times in their irons then the Soveraigns upon their Throne Bondage hath no dominion over their wil and with all her rigours cannot extort the least baseness from them if they be generous they dispute their liberty with fortune they preserve in deed what they have lost in appearance they many times command their oppressour and bearing the hearts of Kings in the bodies of slaves are more free and more happy then their Master But the Christian enters by Redemption into a Thraldome which passeth from his body into his soul fetters his heart with his hands triumphs over his liberty without constraining it confiscates all his goods to his Soveraign and despoiling him of all but Nothingness and Sin obligeth him to confess that he owes all the rest to the Liberaility of his Redeemer For the understanding of this Verity which makes one of the foundations of Christianity we must know that though God be the Soveraign of all men he treats not the innocent and the guilty alike He seems to respect the former to refuse them nothing that they desire preventing their wishes and in that happy state wherein Concupiscence had not disordered them he subjected their salvation to their liberty and made them in some sort the disposers or masters of their good fortune Grace is always at the door of their heart this Divine assistance never fails them and God would think he violated the Laws of his Justice had he not given these Innocents all that is necessary for their salvation But he deals far otherwise with Guilty men It seems Sin gives him more right over these wretches then Nothing does and being fallen from their priviledges by their own fault he owes them nothing but punishments He abandons them to their own conduct leaves them in blindness and weakness and as if they were meerly the objects of his anger he sometimes withdraws from them the assistance of his Grace Thus did the Eternal Father deal with men before the mystery of the Incarnation his Son found them in this deplorable condition when he undertook their deliverance they had no right neither to Grace nor Glory and sin that had deprived them of their innocence had confiscated all their apennages Thus we owe our Salvation to our Redemption we hold that of Mercy which heretofore we held of Justice we are saved rather as men enfranchised then free and acknowledging our salvation an effect rather of Grace then our own freedome we ought to renounce the one to give our selves over to the other This conceit carries me insensibly to another which seems only a consequent of this and the coherence they have will not give me leave to divide them Man in the state of Innocence was the master of his actions the uprightness wherein he was created was the cause that God left him to his liberty having no inordinate motions to regulate no wild passions to subdue no unfaithful senses to correct he had need only of a succour to sustain him His will was the principle of his merit and the good works he did proceeded rather from himself then from God Thus his good fortune was in a manner in his own hands he depended more upon Liberty then upon Grace and being the Director of this he might say without vanity that he was the principal Authour of his own salvation Divine Providence obliged him to take the guidance of himself to determine his own actions that he was the master of his fortune and making use of the advantages she had given him the acknowledgement of the victory was due only to his own courage and dexterity But now that he is faln from his Innocence hath lost half his Light and Liberty carries a Tyrant in his very Essentials which subjects him to his Laws he stands in need of a Grace that may deliver him and exercising a dominion over his will may save him by a more humble but surer way then that of Adam He is no longer the Master of his actions nor the Authour of his salvation he must take direction from Jesus Christ learn to deny himself distrust his own abilities and place his hope in that victorious Grace which subjects whose man captivating his understanding by Faith and his will by Love This Oeconomy of God towards the Christian is mixed with Justice and Mercy 't is Justice to take from him the disposall of his person because he used it so ill in the state of Innocence 'T is Justice to submit his Liberty to Grace because when he was the master thereof he neglected to make use of it 'T is Justice to treat him as a Pupil or a Slave not to trust him any more with the government of himself and to employ for his cure a remedy which reproacheth him with his blindness and infirmity 'T is Mercy also to knock off the fetters of a slave to indulge him the true liberty his sin had deprived him of to unite him to God from whom he was estranged to assure his salvation by a Grace which infallibly produceth its effect to sanctifie him in Jesus Christ whereof he is a Member and to give him an occasion to offer himself an Holocaust to God For it is true that self-denial is a parting with all things a sacrifice wherein man immolates his will by obedience a combat wherein he triumphs over himself where he is the vanquisher and the vanquished where he subdues his passions by reason and subjects his reason to grace After this advantage there is none but he may with Justice hope for because he that hath conquered himself may easily conquer all others 'T is a punishment which in hardship and durance disputes with that of Martyrs It is long because it lasts as long as life may take up the best part of an age nor spares the strength of the penitent but to make him suffer more It is rigorous because there is no cruelties a man given over to grace does not exercise upon his person and being witty to invent torments converts all things into corrections For as Saint Gregory the Great saith he suppresseth vanity by the sword of the Word of God he cuts off his head to ingraffe Jesus Christ upon his body he makes all die that he received from the old Adam to make all live that he hath drawn from the new and if he cut not off his arms and his legs he pares
Pyramids to preserve their memory and being not able to busie the Pen of the Historian employ the Tool of the Engraver and stamp their name upon Marble being unable to write it in the Annals Conquerors are not exempt from this madness they fight onely to get themselves a Name seek for Life in the very bosome of Death depopulate States to make succeeding ages talk of them destroy Towns to raise Trophies and Longum est retexere Curios Regulos Graecos viros quorū iunumera elogia sunt contemptae morti◠propter posthumam famam Tert. not able to gain Reputation by their Justice or Clemency strive to purchase it by their Courage and Valour From this Passion doth Tertullian draw arguments to prove the immortality of the soul and to perswade the Infidels that whole man dies not because he extends his desires beyond this life and knowing very well that his spirit must survive his body is much troubled how he may preserve his reputation after his death The Devil who is not ignorant that this desire is engraved in our hearts by the finger of Nature and that it is easier to divert it then smother it try'd to make use of it in Paradise to seduce the first man he went not about to take from him the belief of the immortality of his soul he knew a minde so enlightned could not be clouded with such darkness but he perswaded him that his happiness depended upon his disobedience and that to defend him from death wherewith God had threatned him his onely way was to eat of the forbidden fruit This subtil spirit would not set upon man till he had stirred up the most violent of his Passions and he conceived it an easie matter to ruine him if he could but perswade him that Immortality would be the recompence of his crime Indeed Man charmed with so fair a promise violated the respect he owed his God he reached his hand to that fatal Tree and plucking the fruit which served for a proof his obedience made himself guilty of sin and obnoxious to death But inasmuch as the Son of God takes pleasure to draw our Salvation out of our Fall and makes us in a blinde submission finde that advantage we sought for in a foolish credulity he hath instituted a Sacrament in his Church which contains an admirable fruit giving those that eat of it a happie Immortality For the chief effect of this celestial food is to preserve us from death and assure us of life He that eateth my flesh saith Jesus Christ shall live for ever He opposeth this nourishment against that of the fathers in the wilderness and protesting that those that eat his flesh shall never die he engageth himself by a solemn promise to raise them from the dead So that though his Justice did not oblige him to raise the Innocent and the Guilty out of the grave to give them their reward his Truth would oblige him to restore life to the Faithful who in obedience to his will have eaten this ever-to-be-adored Fruit. Therefore is it that the Fathers of the Church making the Elogie of this Sacrament call it sometimes the Earnest of glory sometimes the Antidote of death sometimes the Seed of immortality But because the devil joyned the desire of Glory with that of Life and promised man to make him a god if he would eat of the Forbidden fruit Jesus Christ takes the same course and having made us hope for immortality in this Sacrament he raiseth our expectation and promiseth us Divinity I do not wonder that Innocent man desired to be God Nec quicquam homine aut superbius aut miserius Plin. maj seeing Guilty man covets it to this day and that the misery which punisheth his disobedience hath not flatted this his desire nor do I conceive it strange that the greatness of his condition seconded with the promises of the Serpent had perswaded him that in eating the forbidden fruit he might purchase Divinity For in that happie state all was submitted to his will he was equally absolute in his Person and in his Kingdom he discoursed familiarly with the Angels and he knew that his soul though included in a body was little inferiour to those blessed spirits His Soveraignty gave him hopes of an Independencie being Lord of the Universe he was easily perswaded he might be the Conservator his lights which should have cleared up his judgement dazled him his present greatness made him forget his former original The promises of the devil charmed him and not imagining that Humility was the way which should lead him to Glory he suffered himself to be transported with Pride which threw him into confusion and misery His loss had been irrecoverable had not the Son of God found out a remedy and obliging him to taste a Divine Fruit in the Eucharist had not repaired his fault and satisfied his desire For it was not enough to cure Man of his sin by a Sacrament if the Divine Mercy had not furnished him at the same time with a means innocently to content his longings The inclination to Divinity was riveted in the very bottom of his Essence and I dare say the perswasion of the Serpent very far from defacing it had rooted it faster Man had a minde to command though he had lost the power he still retained the desire and as there is no miserable man that would not with all his heart be happie neither is there any sinner that would not raign with God This wish was a Sacriledge and an attempt against the Godhead but by the goodness of Jesus Christ it is become an act of Religion and Obedience For this Son who is equal to his Father and who being his primitive Image and the Character of his Substance hath the right of exalting men to this dignity was made Man in the Incarnation that they might be made Gods in the Eucharist and was laden with their Miseries in the One that they might be cloathed with his Glory in the Other Indeed 't is in this ineffable Mystery wherein Man mingles himself with God where by a holy confusion he loseth his bad qualities and assumes divine ones where leaving off to be a sinner he begins to be innocent where soaring above himself he enters into the rights of God Eucharistia videtur esse velut Incarnationis mira quaedam extensio D◠Tho. There it is that the Eucharist supplies the mystery of the Incarnation For this made onely a Man-God included its effects in one Individual of Nature the holy Humanity enjoyed this favour all alone and if men received any advantage it was rather honourable then useful This Alliance was like those Marriages where all the profit is the Brides and the glory onely the Kinreds 'T was indeed a happiness for men that their nature was preferred before that of the Angels and that God intending to be allied to his Creatures vouchsafed to make himself a Man and not a Seraphim But
dead serve for a nourishment to the living and to give him a resurrection by an artifice which can find no excuse but in the excesse of that passion that gave it a being Thus we read that disconsolate Artemisia having lost her dear Mausolus Mortui cineres vino commistos ebibit memoriae ejus tam splendidum sepulchrum erexit ut magnifica monumenta deinceps Mausolea ab illius nomine fuerint appellaii Gelli lib. 10. cap. 18. could not satisfie her love but by swallowing his ashes thereby to be united to him and to make him still co-habit with her Her grief spared nothing that might comfort an afflicted wife in honouring the memory of so dearly a beloved husband she employed the most famous Orators of her time to sweeten her sorrows and to make the Panegyrick of him she had lost she erected a staely monument which passeth for one of the seven wonders of the world and having not seen any Tomb that can equal its magnificence gives a denomination to this day to those of the the greatest Monarchs of the Universe But inasmuch as nothing can content the extremity of love and ordinary remedies doe but aggravate a violent sorrow this afflicted lover resolved to drink the ashes of her dead husband Vt esset vivum spirans conjugis sepulchrū that changing them into her substance she might expire with him or he survive together with her Me thinks the Son of God compleated in the Eucharist what love engaged this amorous Princess to attempt For being united to us in this Sacrament and converting us into himself by the mighty working of his infinite Power we may say he re-animates ashes because he raiseth the dead and converts sinners So that of all the alliances he hath contracted with us we must needs acknowledge this the closest and most intimate 'T was certainly a great testimony of his love when he was incarnate in the chast Womb of his Virgin Mother and clothing himself with our flesh took upon him the burden of our sins and of the punishments due unto them it was a consequence of this love when he vouchsafed to converse with us and treating us as his brethren gave us part in the inheritance of his glory It was a proof of his compassion when he became our Advocate to his Father pleaded our Cause before his Throne and to purchase an act of oblivion for all our transgressions mingled his tears with his bloud in the garden of Olives It was me thinks the utmost expression of his love when he became our Surety upon the Crosse loaded himself with our sins to enrich us with his merits and made an exchange with us which cost him his life and procured us salvation Nevertheless all these favours united him not with men and when he was our Brother Cum autem datur in cibum unio perfecta est uniuntur enim in unitate corporis cibus qui cibum sumit Di. Tho. our Advocate our Surety he was not one person with us But in the Eucharist wherein he is our nourishment his love hath found out the secret of incorporating us with him he yet unites man with God he repeats the Mystery of the Incarnation he does that in favour of all men which he only did for Humanity and he works a thousand times one miracle in the Bosome of the Church which he acted but once in the Womb of his Mother For if we compare the Eucharist with the Incarnation we shall find that in the one God is made Man in the other Men became Gods In the one he is united to our nature in the other to our person in the one he is invested with our miseries in the other he apparels us with his greatness But because in all these Alliances we meet not with that of Mother he is willing that his body conceived by the Virgin should be also produced by the Priests upon our Altars that they might be his parents and might boast that the Incarnation hath no preeminence above the Eucharist For the Scripture teacheth us that Jesus Christ in his birth is the work of the holy Ghost and of the Virgin both these persons became mutually pregnant Mary restores to the holy Ghost what she received from him and when she became the Mother of the Son of God he became the Principle The same Jesus in his Passion is the work of sinners they condemn him to death by the mouth of Pilate nail him to the Cross by the hands of the Executioners and despoil him of his honour and his life by the outrages of the Jews In the Resurrection he is the pure work of his Father he it is that draws him from the grave who gives him the recompence of his labours exalts him to glory and makes him raign everlastingly with him But in the Eucharist he is the work of the Priests 't is their word that makes him present upon our Altars their intention that makes him descend from heaven in the name of all the Faithful these are the powerful Ministers that conceive him and bring him forth that this holy Sacrament may perfect all the Alliances the mystery of the Incarnation had begun and that we may have this consolation to know that there is no union in Nature we contract not with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist The Sixth DISCOURSE Of the dispositions the Christian ought to bring with him to receive this Nourishment IF it be a truth that great benefits require great acknowledgements we must confess that extraordinary Mysteries require extraordinary dispositions nor that they must otherwise be approacht unto then with that reverence which is due to sacred things 'T is a Sacriledge to have to do with them with a prophane spirit and we do but expose our selves to the indignation of heaven when we think to partake of them without that preparation their stupendious holiness doth require The Levites were not admitted to the service of the Altar before they were purified The High-Priest went not into the Sanctuary of the Temple till he had expiated his sins by the blood of a Sacrifice neither did the Prophets deliver Oracles to the people till the holy Spirit who spake with their mouth resided in their heart The Eucharist therefore being the most august of our Mysteries obligeth us to very great and reverential dispositions Each quality 't is attended with exacts a particular preparation and all the titles it bears demand of the receivers as many different vertues Inasmuch as it is the most hidden Mystery of our Religion whose wonders deceive our eyes whose lustre dazzles the sunshine of our neerest observation the manner of Christs residing there being altogether imperceptible to our Senses and unconceiveable to our Understandings we are obliged to bring along with us much Faith and little Reasoning a blinde obedience is a Sacrifice that must accompany this oblation of the Son of God upon our Altars and at the same time
Earth the effects of his bounty they would bring presents and victimes of them that returning his Soveraignty what they had received from his mercy they would sprinkle his Altars with wine load them with fruits and deck them with flowers But there is a question whether to satisfie their piety they would exercise their cruelty upon Animals whether they would butcher those innocent victimes shed their bloud upon the Earth and in that happy state commit murders that they might offer sacrifices Some are of opinion that man living only upon fruits slaughtered no victimes that having not as yet deserved death he would not make them bear the punishment of his sin and being content to offer their Wool or their Milk he honoured God and did not deprive them of life Others conceive they slew these innocent Beasts not to pacifie the Justice of God who was not as yet offended but to adore his Soveraignty and publickly to profess that expecting no sin he might binde Man over to death and require it of him not as a Punishment but as a Sacrifice The Scripture seems to favour this opinion and the skins wherewith our first parents were cloathed after their transgression make us suspect they had sacrificed some Animals during the state of Innocence and that the Supremacie of the Almighty imitating his Justice was content that Man sacrificed them in stead of himself But not to engage in the search of a Truth which lies buried in darkness and oblivion 't is enough to know that Sacrifice is a publike acknowledgement of Gods Soveraign power and that this was the first motive that invited Man to offer him Oblations The second is taken from his Holiness Sanctum terribile nomen ejus Psal 110. which is one of the noblest and least known of all his perfections The Scripture never speaks of it but with respect and mixing admiration always with this attribute teacheth us that we are to magnifie it rather by our silence then by our words The Angels in their eternal Hallelujahs are taken up onely with this adorable perfection They forget as it were his Power that drew them out of Nothing his Providence that guided them while they walked in the way of Merit his Mercy that fortified them in their conflict his Justice that crowned them in the victory to think onely upon his Holiness Sanctus sanctus sanctus Dominus Deus exercituum Isa 6. which unites them to the Supreme Good and separates them from all things else Indeed it is the Seat of the Almighty and if it be true according to the opinion of the Fathers that his Essence was his Habitation we may say that his Holiness is his Throne and place of rest For all the other perfections more sollicitous after our advantage then his glory oblige him to apply himself to our necessities His Power marcheth forth to seek us in the Abysses of Non-entity his Mercy delivers us from our Miseries his Goodness pardons our Offences and if his Justice that punisheth us seem to espouse his interests it presently forgets them because having revenged them it studies to recompense our deservings But Holiness Sanctitas est ab omni inquinatione libera incontaminatissima perfectissima puritas Dionys Requievit ab operibus non in operibus suis in se enim Deus requiescit it studies to recompense our deservings But Holiness more zealous for the Glory of God then the Salvation of Man separates him from all things shuts him up in himself and surrounds him with such a brightness of Majestie that his Creatures dare not approach unto him He rests in this ever-to-be-worshipped Throne more holily then in those blessed spirits who borrowing their name from their properties or from their offices are called the living Thrones of the Divine Essence Sacrifices then are immolated upon Altars to adore this ineffable Perfection They perish by the knife or by the flame to testifie that God is not at all fastned to his Creatures that the noblest are unworthy to come into his presence and that approaching before him he must destroy them because there is nothing deserves to be offered up unto him 'T was in this humble and true sense of the Divine Majestie that the most innocent of all Sacrifices bowed his head and gave up the ghost In this apprehension that Jesus Christ adoring the dereliction of his Father acknowledged that as his Victim he was to be forsaken though as his Son he remained inseparable nor that it was just for God to go out of his rest to deliver him from his sorrows or to avenge him of his enemies Tu autem in sancto habitas laus Israel But because we cannot speak much of a Perfection whose Greatness amazeth us and the lustre whereof dazzles us we pass to the Fulness of God which is the Third Motive of our duty of Sacrifice Sadai appellatur Deus ab Hebraeis hoc est sibi sufficiens God is so Immense that by a glorious Impotency he can do nothing which is not useless in respect of Himself Whatever he produceth out of his Essence is unworthy of his employment Inasmuch as he findes his happiness in himself he stands not in need of our Magnificats and seeing his felicity supplies him with inexhaustible riches he hath no need of our Presents he possesseth all things in a transcendent eminency and they are much nobler in him then in themselves Omnis pulchritudo agri mecū est ubertas omnium in terra gignentium mecum est cum illo sunt omnia cognitione quaedam ineffabilis sapientia Dei in verbo constituta Aug. in Ps 49. The Flowers are immortal in God the Fields are always cloathed with a springing fertility the Trees never lose their fruit the Seasons are never irregular the Elements jar not in him there men live for ever and all Creatures subsist in their perfections without any mixture of deficiency Thence it comes to pass that we deliver up Victims to the knife and consume them in the fire to publish aloud that we pretend not to enrich him that possesseth all things and who would not be God did he stand in need of our Oblations Dixi Domino Deus meus es tu quoniam bonorum meorum non eges Therefore in the very state of Innocence they poured out the Liquors that were offered they burnt the Fruits that were presented and striving to annihilate them proclaimed openly that they were no way profitable to him But since sin hath robbed us of original righteousness we were obliged to joyn offended Justice to these three Perfections and to offer Sacrifice to him to pacifie his Fury For inasmuch as he is chiefly busied to revenge his neglected slighted Mercy that 't is this that laid the foundations of hell made deluges over-flow shakes the earth till it tremble we have endeavoured to appease this incensed attribute by our homages Knowing that Death is one of the highest vengeances he takes we
make use of it in Sacrifice and laying the punishment we our selves deserve upon the Creature we do our utmost to avoid his indignation by an invention his own mercy hath taught us Et viles animas pro meliore damus Ovi Fast Thence it is that those people who have lost the true Religion have not left off to continue Sacrifice and instructed either by Tradition or Nature they have laboured to appease the gods they worship by the slaughter of Victims Apud Aegyptios victimae inurchantur sigillo quodam in quo effigies erat servi seipsū gladio confodientis Plut. in Isid Osy By that Ceremony they acknowledged themselves worthy of death and at the same time they went about to satisfie Justice they confessed that his Mercy suffered them to transfer the punishment due to their offences upon the Beast and to immolate innocent Animals in stead of guilty Men. The Egyptians who had more dealing with the Jews give testimony they were of the same minde when they stampt upon the Victim the picture of a Slave stabbing himself to inform all the world that the Justice of God sparing the Man gave them leave to sacrifice the Beast in his place and in a manner to charge him with his sin and his punishment 'T is true that as Oblations were not considerable among the Jews but because they were the Figures and Types of Jesus Christ Huic summo veroque sacrificio cuncta falsa sacrificia cesserunt Aug. it was thought requisite that in the fulness of time he should accomplish the Truth and that he might perfectly honour all the perfections of his Father should himself be sacrificed upon the Altar of the Cross The Eighth DISCOURSE That the Christian stood in need that the Son of God should offer for him the Sacrifice of the Cross and of the Altar IT is a strange Paradox but very true that Sin which obligeth Man to sacrifice himself deprives him of the power to do it Animantia minus ingrata Deo quia minus infecta peccato Philo Jud. and reduceth him to a condition where not being able to finde a Victim in himself he is driven to seek for one among the Creatures This shameful necessity discovered not to him onely the Goodness of God who was content that Beasts should be offered up in stead of Men but it upbraided him with his unworthiness and made him wofully resent that being able to offend his Creator he could by no means make him satisfaction Having imprinted this truth in his minde and for many Generations reading him this lesson that he that pretended to equal the Almighty was in a worse condition then the Beasts in process of time it was demonstrated to him that his crime was too great to be expiated by the blood of Goats or Lambs and that his excess required a Sacrifice whose merit was Infinite Indeed that a Sacrifice might be acceptable to God it must have those qualities which are found neither in Angels nor Men nor Beasts For it must be Innocent and no way obnoxious to that evil whereof it is to be the remedy It must be Reasonable to treat with God and to speak in behalf of them whose place he appears in It must be mortal that it may undergo the punishment sin hath deserved and thereby satisfie the Divine Justice But above all its merit must of necessity be Infinite that being equal to the malice of sin the honour of God may have full reparation and the debt of man an entire compleat acquittance De Adaestirpe nullus propagari poterat naturaliter qui illius delicto non teneretur adstrictus Aug. The Angel had two of these conditions he was Reasonable and Innocent but being Immortal and Finite by nature he could neither die nor satisfie Man was Reasonable and Mortal the one he owed to his Sin the other to his Constitution but having lost his Innocence he could neither Satisfie nor Merit The Beast more happie in some sort then Man was Mortal and Innocent but having not the use of Reason his death was unprofitable nor could his sacrifice reconcile us to God Therefore did the Eternal Word contrive to be Incarnate that uniting the Divine Nature with the Humane in his Person there might come forth a Divine Compositum which being God and Man both together might possess all the qualities requisite to accomplish the work of our Salvation He was Mortal because he was Man and had assumed our Nature with its imperfections the appurtenances of sin He was Innocent because he subsisted in the person of the Word which managed his Will without constraining it and by a happie necessity made him absolutely impeccable He was Reasonable inasmuch as having taken our imperfections he withal took our advantages and by a priviledge due to his Greatness the use of Reason was indulged him with life that from the first moment of his conception he might honour his Father and satisfie for sinners His Merit was as his Person Infinite and the actions that were performed by this God-Man were Meritorious because Humane and on the other fide Infinite because Divine Thus the Word Incarnate became the Sacrifice of God and Men and entering into our duties paid what we stood bound for to the Justice of his Father he suffered what our sins deserved and delivered us from those punishments our sentence condemned us to But being the Substance of all the Shadows of the Old Testament and by his acquitting us being obliged to fulfil all the Figures thereof he offered up himself to the Eternal Father by a double Sacrifice that one seconding the other the Christians might render as much honour to God as the Jews For the Synagogue had four kindes of Sacrifices The First was the Holocaust which respected the glory of God wherein the Victim was wholly consumed by the fire The Second was an Atonement for sin where the Oblation being parted between God and his Ministers one part was burnt in the fire and the other remained to the Priest for his nourishment The Third and Fourth were called Peace-offerings with this distinction that the one was made to obtain some favour of God or to give him thanks for what was already received the other to acquit the offerer of his promises and to accomplish those vows he stood engaged to God for In these two last Sacrifices the Victim was divided into Three parts The First was consecrated to God the Second designed to the Priest and the Third left to the Faithful Therefore hath the Son of God joyned the Sacrifice of the Cross with that of the Altar to accomplish all those of the Old Law Upon the Cross he offered up himself an Holocaust to his Father where being destroyed by death he rose from the Grave to be consummated in Glory and to be received into the bosom of his Father from whence he came forth by the Mystery of the Incarnation But because in the Oblation
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
the parts of his body He imitates those that are transported with anger and as they find no vengeance that can satisfie them nor any punishments that equal their injuries no more can he any sufferings that content him nor any chastisements that equall his offences From anger he passeth to hatred and fully to satisfie the Justice of God handles himself as a Criminal or as an Enemy he exerciseth acts of Hostility against his body and finding nothing more ignominious nor more cruell then the Cross condemns himself unto it and willingly embraceth it For Saint Augustin teacheth us that the true Penitent ought to be crucified while he lives that the Counsels and Precepts of Christ are the nails that must pierce his heart that every inclination is a foot or a hand that he is bound to fasten to the Cross of Jesus Christ and that it is a crime to take out the nails as long as we live upon the Earth The Great Saint Leo is of this mind and though he were of so mild a spirit he is so severe in this point that he cannot judge us worthy to be the Members of the Son of God if our flesh be not crucified with his He will not have us the same after Repentance that we were before but out of a severity which he believes founded upon the Sacrament of our Reconciliation he will have us put off the old man and put on the new and renouncing all pleasure make our body become the Image of Christ crucified When he is arrived to this degree of severity he hath no more to do but persevere that he may become worthy of the glorious name of Penitent For the sorrow is not true unless it be constant the Repentance is not sincere unless it be faithful and he is rather a Deceiver then a Penitent who having testified some desire of amendment of life commits with pleasure the offence he had bewailed with grief Many saith Saint Augustin protest that they are sinners and continue still to sin This acknowledgment is indeed a Consession but no Correction Irrisor est non Poenitens qut aduc agit quod poeniteat non minuit peccata sua sed multiplicat Aug. Ser. 1. de Poen they accuse themselves but they labour not after a cure and as another Father of the Church adds they appease not the Divine Justice by their prayers but provoke him by their insolence For a man therefore to be truly Penitent he must lament his sin in lamenting it he must punish it in punishing it he must hate it and that this severity may not be reproached as counterfeit it must last as long as our life and our forsaking sin with a perseverance in good must be the certain proof of the Truth of our Repentance The Tenth DISCOURSE That the most glorious Quality of a Christian is that of a Christian IT is hard to determine Non minus se debere Aristoteli quam Philippo dicebat Alexander Plut. Whether we have more obligations to our Tutors or to our Fathers for if the one fashions our Body the other fashions our Minde if the one give us Life the other gives us Reason and if we receive from the one our Riches from the other we receive our Vertues Therefore in all Antiquity Disciples bore the name of their Masters as well as of their Fathers nor were they less jealous of the Learning of those that had instructed them then of the glory of these that had begotten them This difference hath no place among Christians Because he that gives them Life gives them Grace and the same Jesus Christ that hath conceived them in his Wounds hath taught them in his School He is the Father and the Master of the Faithful and as these two Qualities oblige us to bear his Name they oblige us also to relinquish our own He is jealous of this honour and whatever part his Ministers take in his advantages he hath never been willing to let them share in this The Apostles never transferred their name to their disciples these faithful servants wrought all their gain for their Master knowing very well that all their power was derived from him they laboured onely for his glory and when they had brought forth children they named them by the name of Jesus Christ and not their own They imitated saith S. Augustine the Israelites who marrying the widow of their brother made their children bear the name of the dead Jesus Christ died upon the Cross his Ministers are his Brethren and to accomplish his designe they beget children for him by preaching but they owe him so much respect that they baptize them in his Name and call them Christians Inasmuch as this advantage is great it carries great obligations along with it and all the Faithful are bound to imitate the Son of God This honourable Title exacts this duty from them 'T is in vain saith S. Augustine Ex Sacramento Christi descendit hoc nomen quod ille frustra sortitur qui Christum minime imitatur Aug. to denominate themselves from Jesus Christ if they strive not to conform their life to his It is lawful for Infidels that know not the true God to seek for Patterns among men because they can finde none among the gods and they may regulate their actions according to the example of the Socrates's or Cato's But 't is a crime for a Christian to transcribe any other copie then that of Jesus Christ He that hath formed them ought to guide them and as his Death is their Glory his Life must be their Morality I can not endure that the greatest part of Believers should seek for vertue among Heathens and dazled with a false sparkling that decejves them quit the Humanity of the Son of God to imitate the Vanity of Pagans For besides that their vertue hath its imperfections that Self-love is the Principle Pride the Soul and Glory the End thereof she is accompanied with so many Vices that labouring to render them Vertuous she makes them Criminals Alexander was valiant but his Anger made him dye his hands in the blood of his Favourites Pompey was wise but ambitious Caesar was merciful but lascivious Cato was generous but he drank many times somewhat too liberally and not being able to finde consolation in Philosophy sought it in good company But neither are the Saints themselves to be our Models any further then they are conformable to Jesus Christ When S. Paul invites us to follow him 't is after he hath assured us that he imitated our Exemplar and endeavoured to exhibite himself a Copie of that divine Original Imitatores mei estote sicut ego Christi So that it is the Son of God always whom we look upon they are his actions that regulate ours and his Person that serves us for a Pattern For this reason he chose a life which may minister instruction to all men and carried himself so that Rich and Poor Learned and
us more happie They promise pleasures to the Wanton Inflant animos divitiae superbiam pariunt invidiam contrahunt luxui serviunt Sen. and conspire with him to corrupt Chastity they furnish Arms and Seconds to the Furious to take vengeance on their enemies they raise the Ambitious to offices and employments and complying with all Passions engage men in all kinde of impiety Therefore he judged aright who said that to give a sinful man Riches was to put a Sword into a mad mans hand or present poyson to a Desperado because not being under the command of Grace he will make use of them only to satisfie his ambition or to content his brutality So that the Philosophers preventing the Divines rightly discovered that Poverty was more Innocent then Plenty and that it was easier for men to preserve their liberty in the leanness of want then in the affluence of riches For besides that they wed us to the earth Multis parasse divitias non finis miseriaruÌ„ fuit sed mutatio Senec. Epist 17. they expose us to a thousand accidents which can neither be foreseen nor avoided and give fortune game at our person Therefore is it that Seneca said Those that will be happy must either be poor or like those that are so they must possesse their goods without being possessed by them and use them as Stewards rather then Proprietaries and they ought to be alwayes ready to part with them because they have them but in trust Religion out-bids Philosophy and requires farre other dispositions from her Children then this does from her Disciples For she will have them acknowledg that in Adam all is lost that they are fallen from their rights by his sin and being guilty are become miserable Perswaded of this Truth they live in the world as in a strange Country they possesse riches upon Loan and since their Goods were confifcated to their soveraign they enjoy them meerly from his mercy Though Jesus Christ re-instate them in their goods and being made Co-heirs with him may dispose of heaven and earth as their Inheritance yet are they obliged to regulate themselves by his Example and not to make use of their rights till after the generall Resurrection He carried himself thus during his life though Heire to his Father he disposed not of his estate a Cratch received him at his birth and a Cross served him for a Death-bed he lodged in a borrowed house and was buried in a strangers Sepulchre If he wrought some miracles for the Glory of his Father he did none for his own Interest when he created a piece of money in the mouth of a Fish it was to pay Tribute and when he commanded his Disciples to take the Asse which served to carry him in his triumph it was with the consent of the Owner Paupertate Christi non additur pecunia sed justitia Divitiae verae immortalitas ubi enim vera copia ibi nulla indigentiâ—â— Aug. He put not his absolute power in execution till after his Resurrection nor did he enjoy the priviledges due to his Birth till he was entred into Heaven The Christians tredding in his steps pretend nothing in this world but reserve the fruition of their right for the next They are content with the promises of Jesus Christ and living here upon hope expect the effects thereof in glory During this time they look upon Poverty as an innocent Usury which gives a value to what they give or part with here for the Son of God for they know saith S. Bernard That Jesus Christ who is a New Man is come down here below to teach us new things and that those that obey him finde rest in labour liberty in servitude and abundance in Poverty Their Goods are multiplyed in being distributed and as the husbandman casting his seed into the earth promiseth himself a hapgy harvest the Christian in communicating his goods to the Poor expects a great recompence at the generall Resurrection Till then he comforts himself with the advantages Poverty bestows upon him for he perceives that if riches have their good use they have also their bad They acknowledge the Custody of them troublesome the love of them contagious the losse of them sensible and if there be pain to get them there is more to keep them This made some Philosophers rid themselves of such attendants and gave comfort to others whom injustice or fortune had made bankrupt for as Seneca sayes excellently well We gain much in losing our riches if with them we lose our covetousness and we fail not continually to gain something even when we lose it not because the subject that entertained it being taken away there is some ground to hope either that it will dye for want of nourishment or at least do no hurt for want of power The Poverty of Christians is happier in this point then that of Philosophers for being inanimated with Grace they lose the desire of evil with the meanes of doing it nor are they innocent only out of impotency but out of deliberation They make their Poverty meritorious in making it voluntary if they choose it not they endevour to accept it and a misfortune or a chastisement they husband into a vertue The losse of their Goods causeth the assurance of their salvation and the rest of their souls they cease to fear assoon as they cease to love and they draw this advantage from their poverty that being no longer engaged to the Earth by their affection they are no more troubled with fear nor abused with hope But their greatest happiness is that they learn from Scripture that their condition is a holy Asylum and that heaven hath promised a particular protection to the Poor Evangelizare pauperibus misit me Luc. 4. They know that Christ came down from heaven to instruct them that his care of teaching them is a proof of his Missions that he hath pronounced them happy in his Sermons chose them for his Disciples hath designed them his favours made them the objects of his love and hath so particular an affection towards them that a man must be poor in deed or in desire to be taken notice of in his State Let us love Poverty then and despise riches seek Felicity in want and if Nature hath not brought us poor into the world let us become like those that are poor either by unbottoming our selves of our Goods or distributing them that raking part in the reproaches of Christ upon Earth We may be partakers of glory in heaven The sixth DISCOURSE That the Happinesse of a Christian upon Earth consists in Humility rather then in Glory THe Ambitious will hardly agree as concerning this Maxime and it will pass into their minde as an Errour rather then a Paradox Merces virtutis gloria honos alit artes omnesque incenduntur ad studia gloriâ For they believe that Honour is the nourishment of Vertue that she droops and languisheth when deprived of
is not the true happiness of Christians because they are obliged to renounce it and there is great reason to believe that Humility hath more Analogy with Beatitude because it accompanies the Blessed in the midst of their Grandeurs Indeed this vertue is the foundation of Christian Religion it is that which the Son of God came to teach us by his words and actions The way he held to come to us and that we must walk in to come to him Let us explain these Verities and make it appear that the true Glory of a Christian consists in Humility This vertue is so necessary and withall so difficult that God was fain to become Man to teach it us Philosophers who were informed with vain glory knew not the name of it and if it came amongst them it past rather for a fault then a perfection Aristotle confessed that Modesty was a species of Vertue but consisting in a mediocrity Magister noster per quem facta sunt omnia vocat genus humanum dicit discite à me quia mitis sum humilis corde Forte putaebas dicturum discite quomodo caelos feci astra Aug. it suffered not man to debase himself below his inferiours or his equals The Son of God was united to flesh to read us this lesson and confirming by his words what he had taught us by his examples hath made it the principal subject of his entertainments He that knew all things hath propounded his humility only as imitable and he chose rather to make his Disciples humble then learned The Incarnate Wisdom opening his School upon Earth taught us not the secret to create worlds to dart thunderbolts to govern states but to mitigate our anger to abase our pride Inasmuch as he became like us in humbling himself we become like him laying our selves low and by a strange prodigy humility gives us accesse to him as Pride puts us at a distance from him Man was ruined in striving to grow great his vanity gave birth to his misery nor did he fall from his Greatnesse but because he would climbe above his defarts To draw him out of this abysse the Son of God threw himself into it and to place him higher then the Angels he descended lower then Man He was laden with their sins and languishings that by different degrees he might descend to the very Center of debasement His humility was the passage to his glory his Father exalted him because he vouchsafed to be humbled and his Crosse which was the last proof of his Patience became the Fountain of his Greatnesse According to his example we cannot aspire to honour but by humility we enter into grace by lowliness arrive at glory by humility and we finde that this vertue producing its contrary restores us those high immunities Vanitie had ravished from us If after death it lead us to glory whilst we live it gives us some earnests thereof nor are we ever more content then when most humble The Earth is not the mansion of pleasure because in it man is always exposed to danger he findes enemies in all places and which way soever he turns he is apprehensive of detriment Prosperity makes him insolent the sweetness that flatters corrupts him and this pleasing enemy hath no charms which may not engage him in sin Frangitur adversis qui prosperis corrumpitur Aug. Adversity renders him a coward its batteries slat his courage and this fierce enemy hath no afflictions which are not sufficient to cast him into despair The vertues offer him their assistance in his need Repentance who boasts her self the punisher of all offences and the protectresse of all vertues sets upon pleasures and by its severities masters their allurements Patience suffers the pains of life struggles with discontents and mingling tears with bloud triumphs over grief and death Humilitas est maxima disciplina Christiana ipsâ námque conservatur omnis virtus nam nihil citius eam violat quuā superbia Aug. But we must needs acknowledge that these vertues without humility would grow insolent of their good success and man would finde his defeat in his victory if this faithfull Confident did not minde him that his strength depends upon grace and that the Christian who is not humbled cannot subdue Satan who is a proud spirit To establish us in a vertue which causeth our felicity upon Earth we must remember that it is not true if it reside not in the will as well as in the understanding not perfect if it have not as much heat as light and little exceeds that of Devils if it pass not from knowledge to affection Therefore he that means to be humble must despise himself Having made some good progresse in the practise of this duty he must wish that others may despise him and being perfectly established in this disposition he must finde his joy in contempt ann his torment in honour The Seventh DISCOURSE That Felicity is found rather in obedience then in command IF there be any thing in the world the possession whereof can promise us felicity we must confess it is the power of commanding For Kings are Gods Vicegerents the Interpreters of his Intentions Ego ex omnibus mortalibus electus sum qui in terris Deorum vice fungerer Ego vitae necisque gentibus arbiter quid cuique mortalium fortuna datum velit meo ore pronuntiar Sen. de Clem. and the Disposers of Life and Death Fortune saith a Heathen expresseth her self by their mouth acts by their hands and sheds abroad happinesse or misery through a state by their conduct Their wils are laws their aspects more powerful then those of the stars and as they please to dispense sweetness or indignation they make Cities happy or miserable All their soldiers devote themselves to death for their service all Swords are drawn in their quartel Peace and War is in their hands nor are there any Subjects whose losse or safety depends not upon their orders They dispense at their pleasure liberty and servitude content and sorrow and all that hold of their Crown confesse they are the Authors of their good or bad fortune When they appear in publick it seems they are Suns which fill the Firmament when they speak all the world is attentive when they are angry they make their Kingdomes tremble and when they punish an offendor they astonish all Innocents The holy Scripture which cannot flatter Soveraigns and ranks them among slaves when compared with the Almighty makes them pass for Gods when compared with men it prescribes no bounds to their power allots them no Judge but their Creator and whatever exorbitance they have committed teacheth us they are to render an account to none but him from whom they hold their Crown If Priests have a power to reprove them God onely hath a right to punish them and when they abuse their Authority their subjects have only prayers and tears to reduce them to their duty Therefore it