and at the same time seeth him to be the brightnesse of his glory and the figure of his owne substance this must needs propitiate God infinitely to that body which representeth to him such an honour he hath received from the head thereof who being equall with him did thus admirably subject himselfe for the exaltation of his glory Doth not then the suffering Church rememorate to God continually the highest point of all his glory For the holocausting or incineration of infinite worlds in honour of the Majesty of God would not have been an oblation equivalent to the least drop of blood drawne from the person of Christ and therefore Christs designe in leaving his mysticall body in a suffering posture is one of the highest straines of his divine providence both in order to the honouring of his Father Ephes 4.13 and the purifying of his Church till The body and the head meet in the perfect man in the age of the fulnesse of Christ It then we review the state of the Church even since the Empire of the world undertooke her protection and repose we shall finde her still continuing an image of the life of Christ who we know had divers intermixtures in his course through this world sometimes he was in want and hunger in the desart sometimes declared in the glory of his miracles feeding multitudes and curing all diseases and again sometimes we find him withdrawing and hiding himselfe from the fury of the people and then at other times we behold him in authority and magistracy expelling the prophaners of the Temple and casting out the evill spirits out of the images of God and converting them into the temples of the Holy Ghost These vicissitudes we finde also in the state of his Church sometimes prospering spreading and feeding those multitudes which sodainly after have risen against her and forced many of her members to fly out of their reach into desarts and more dispeopled places in some times again she hath propagated miraculously and established her doctrine and her jurisdiction among many unbeleeving nations in a wonderfull felicity and in sequence of time hath beene banished and eliminated out of these dominions These alternative mutations are evident in the progresse of her dispersion through the world and we know she shall extend her selfe at last to the ends of the world and if not cover the face yet leave some of her markes upon the whole face of the earth Wee see her now as it were shipped away almost quite from Africa where she was so firmly planted many ages before America was so much as knowne to be in the world and now shee spreads there to a good growth while her plantation in Africa lies waste and desolate and the good seed which is falne in that ground seemeth to answer for the semination of those tares which the Enemy hath cast into these territories of Christianity And we may note that all the ancient heresies which so much infested the Church in former ages are now almost eradicated according to the fate of them Sap. 4.3 Spuria vitulamina non dabunt radices altas and the new ones which are now so flowerd and full blowne will shed and fall away like Tulips which commonly vary their colours every yeare somewhat till the roote it selfe in a few yeares leaveth bearing and these varieties of vexations will successively spring up to the Church out of the ruines of some errors new wil be erected and thus she shall be exercised to the end of the world till the man of sin Antichrist shall come to purge her by a generall conflagration as it were of the whole world in the flames of his blasphemy which shal be the last perfecting fire of tribulation shall reduce the Church to the finenesse of that gold which must pave the heavenly Jerusalem This is Christs method and designation of the manner of his Churches passage through this world up to him in whom since there can be neither impotency nor severity to this his body for the Apostle tells us Ephe. 5.29 He nourisheth and cherisheth it as a man doth his owne flesh we must resolve that this order is in reference to the presenting his Father with a continuall intuition of his suffering body whereby he is the most eminently honoured Ephe. 5.27 Not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it may be holy and unspotted and to refine this body to the most perfect degree of purity which this locall separation from the head can admit of to reduce it at last to that glorious estate Non habentem maculam aut rugam aut aliquid hujusmodi sed ut sit sancta immaculata Wherefore I may properly say to you as members of this suffering body 1. Pet. 4.12 from S. Peters mouth Thinke it not strange in the fervour which is to you for tentation as though some new thing happened unto you for all that you are exposed to is in consequence of that order wherein Christ conducts his Church through this transitory world TO clucidate farther this position That God is propitiated by the sight of Christs suffering body we may make this animadversion upon the constitution of the Catholike Church That soone after the issue of bloud was stenched so as the bodies of the Martyrs did no longer afford that object of passions the Holy Ghost who had charge to preserve the Church in the most acceptable condition to God presently infused a spirit of voluntary mortifications and sufferings into the Church whereby many holy persons were divinely inspired to congregate bodies and societies of sufferers which should be united by a vow of perpetuall afflicting and exercising their bodies and making themselves lively images of Jesus Christ crucified by the rules of selfe-abnegation and exhibition of a life intirely sacrificed in the toleration of all sorts of austerities This spirit wrought upon both sexes and hath produced those admirable orders of mortified and crucified Christians which are so eminent in the Catholike Church so that the strongest powers of flesh and blood have been subdued by the weakest portions of it Virgins in the succeeding times have been as sanctified by their civill death and spirituall mortification as they were by the violent destruction of their lives consecration of their bodies in martyrdome to this ministery of the Churches sufferings which were wanting to the passions of Christ and so this order of selfe-sacrificing seemeth to have succeeded in the Church to the vacancie of the Martyrs whereby God hath this spectacle continued to him in the passions of the body of Christ in bodies and societies expresly set apart from the world for that intendment which are all the religious orders of the Catholike Church whose lives are nayled to the Crosse by many vowes of austerity penance and self-crucifixion and these make such a propitiating sacrifice of their lives to God as we may be assured he smels it as an odour of sweetnesse
be violated and offended nay he subjected himselfe to his greatest enemy the Divell himselfe when he suffered him to carry him up to the pinnacle of the Temple so there is no creature from the sublimest to the meanest from the best to the worst to whom Christ did not humiliate himselfe And thus you see this arche of humiliation set as it were on another bow in the clouds of his humanity for a signe of this Covenant of sufferances wherein I have suggested to you your ingagement and this bow of his Covenant is so extended as it makes a perfect circle it reacheth from the sphere of angelicall to that of inanimate substances to both which we see Christ did submit himselfe and so his subjection toucheth the highest and the lowest point of his owne creatures Which consideration of his ineffable humility must needs assure us of that admirable effect it hath produced of converting crosses into the nourishment of his body left upon earth and so to bring that which separated his soule and his body now to be the meanes of reuniting the body to the head For the Crosse is left in his Church to conjoyne and consociate the members unto their suffering head Christ Jesus and we may well adde that this Divine signe of the Crosse set in the Heaven of his Person so conspicuously remains as a sensible marke of his promise to the Church of never being drown'd in any inundation of crosses falling on her Looking up therefore to the heavenly object of Christs sufferings we may be comforted by our similitude and we may rejoyce at our security which this Covenant recapitulateth to us as often as we contemplate it insomuch as there is none of you who groan under any pressure or tremble under any oppression Heb. 12.2 that looking up upon the anthor and finisher of our faith Christ Jesus may not see him bearing the same crosse with joy despising the confusion of it Whether you sweat under your burdens or whether you bleed under the edge of these times you shall find your persecution both civill and sanguinary patternd to you in the person even of God and Man Christ Jesus who hath not left so much as your feares and terrors out of the exemplar of his passions Mar. 14.33 He began to be heavy and to feare his Caepit taedere pavere was designed purposely as a cordiall in your fits of fainting and if there were any point in your afflictions which were not exemplifide to you in Christs passions that circumstance ought to prove to you a sufficient consolation in that you had some suffering to offer to Christ of your owne besides the copye and pourtraicture of his But alas all that we can imagin in our own paines wherein there is imitation of his is that which we may better blush at then boast of for it is only the guilt of deserving more then we can endure in this life this is simply ours in our afflictions wherein we find no resemblance in the figure of Christs sufferings which part of our cases may make us offer up to Christ a thankfull alacrity in all temporall penalties inflicted on us for having taken off from us the burthen we could not remove by any sufferings and having left us only such pressures as may aleviate the weight of that intolerable gravation which is the guilt of sinne for our crosses in this life by the vertue of the Crosse of Christ whereof our heaviest are but chippes or shavings doe not only keepe our sinnes lower but also weigh against the temporall penalty of those which are in the scale It may admit a question whether it be a more precious Christian exercise to doe good or to endure evills That state is certainly the best in which both are conjoyned when suffering many grievances we act as many good as we are able yet God hath provided matter of meriting in both conditions severally let them then who have nothing left to give to God by way of actions rejoyce in the faculty of sorrowes which furnish them meritorious offerings in all their necessities When King David extols the dignity of man he raiseth it upon this ground that God had made him but a little lower then Angells Psal 8. But in this respect we may say that God hath advantaged him above them by furnishing him with more instruments of meriting then they have by having coupled a body to this spirit in which he may suffer for Christ when many other capacities of expressing his gratitude are suspended For man hath not only all the severall powers of his minde but also the senses of his body given him as organs of meriting by carrying the Crosse upon them With this corporeall furniture man is enriched above Angells so as man may even out of the greatest infirmities of his constitution extract matter of glorification This vertue hath been imparted to the vility of flesh and blood since God vouchsafed to be invested in it our flesh received this priviledge not only of being admitted into heaven but of contributing to the soule 's degrees of glory by the proportions of the bodies fufferings and as S. Paul saith Rom. 8.13 It is no wonder that God having given his owne Sonne to human nature should have given all these other prerogatives with him Out of this state of our mortality the Saints shall rise as high as they should have done from the state of innocence immortality which shews that they are equally sanctified in the brevity shortnesse of their life now to what they should have attained in many ages if they had remained immortall The multitude of sorrowes and crosses by the grace of Christ countervaileth and compensateth the numerousnesse of the yeeres of our service Our Redeemer hath left this compendious way of meriting by the necessities molestations of our flesh the which he would not expunge in it that he might present his Father the children of his most precious passions as much purified in a little time as they should have been in the efflux of many ages He who raised above the highest heaven the heavinesse of our earth upon this Engine of the Crosse hath left it us to winde up the easilyer our terrestrial qualities upon the same machine This was the means which S. Paul made use of in all his elevations up to the third heaven Christo confixus sum cruci Gal. 2.20 With Christ I am nailed to the Crosse carryed him up to that sublimity and he kept himself so close nayled to the Crosse all his life as when he was weak he was strongest and never esteemed his raptures so much as his revilings and ignominies He professeth to glory willingly in nothing but in his humiliations Libenter gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis 2 Cor. 12. Gladly wil I glory in my infirmities in contumelies in necessities in distresses for Christ c. in contumeliis in necessitatibus in angustiis pro
out of the strong shall issue sweetnesse The Lyon of the Tribe of Judah hath infused honey into the teeth of all these Lyons he le ts loose upon his Church and a resigned patient shall taste more the honey then he shall feele the teeth of the beast that quartereth him They therefore who will finde the suavity of persecution must suck it out of Christs Passion where it lyes ready made and not amuse themselves to work it out of the order of Gods providence wherein it rests implicated in the folds of many mysteries and our curiosity in seeking it will return us rather Sauls anxiety upon his enquiry of Samuels ghost then Sampsons sweetnesse in the Lyons jawes which he found when he looked not for it And out of S. Pauls mouth who was once a raging Lyon till he was killed by him of whom Sampson was a figure we may take this hony to dulcifie all those bitternesses of our lives 2 Cor. 4.18 Our tribulation which presently is momentanie and light worketh above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory in us Quod in praesenti est momentantum leve tribulationis nostrae supra modum in sublimitate aeternum gloriae pondus operatur in nobis HAving thus seene and considered Gods hand and manner in the figure of his dearly beloved Son upon the Crosse by which he conveyed him to his Coronation let us now consider also Christs method in ordering his Church after he professeth that all power is given him both in heaven earth so as the sufferings of the Body to such an Head must needs be by order not infirmity For after he had suffered sufficiently for more worlds then he shed drops of blood and for as many ages as worlds he might well have allowed the members of his body all joy and felicity for the rest of those few Ages this world was to subsist But he who was Wisdome it self chose another method as he told his dearest friends Ego dispone vobis sicut disposuit mihi Pater meus regnum He copyed his Fathers hand upon himselfe in his drawing and figuring his Church upon earth Lu. 22.29 I dispose to you as my Father disposed to me a kingdome so as after his glorious body was enthroned at the right hand of God he left his mysticall body hanging as it were upon the crosse in Calvary for some Ages wounded by the launces of the Gentiles and vilified by the scornes of the Jewes In this posture it hung exposed many yeers a scandall to the eyes of the one and folly to the understandings of the other insomuch as the extreme passions of this body might well have extorted out of flesh and blood a Deus meus ut quid dereliquisti me The afflictions were so intollerable as no body that had not a God for the head of it Mat. 27. My God why hast thou forsaken me could have growne and prospered in so bleeding an infancie It seemeth Gods unsearchable Wisdome designed Christs mysticall body to be formed on the face of the earth as his naturall body was in the wombe of the Virgin in the composition whereof there was onely the Spirit of God working upon the pure blood of the Virgin and in like manner the vertue of the holy Ghost came upon the blood of the Martyrs forming and animating the Primitive Church For in those times we find the vertue of the Spirit working most upon blood to forme and procreate the body of the Church And thus by the admirable vertue of Christs Passion it seemed not an effusion but rather a transfusion of all the blood was drawne conveying it into other veynes and the same spirits seemed to be carryed in it into other bodies which successively making the same use of it might make one think it had been the very same blood infused into other veyns which like channels rather then owners of it poured it out againe so freely and in this way of generation the Saints and Martyrs procreated the descent of the family of Christ for above three hundred yeeres The Apostles seemed to poure out their blood into the veynes of their Disciples and Successors and they in like manner to transfuse theirs into those discended from them and by this successive transmission the Progeny of the Church was deduced through the Primitive Persecutions This was the operation of that one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule the Apostle saith was then in the multitude of the Beleevers And indeed the records of those times may well make one reflect on the doctrine of Pythagor as in his transmigration of soules for in those times the spirit of acting and suffering which was transmitted from one to another seemed so much the same as one might fay there was a transmigration of the soules of the first Martyrs into the surviving issue of their spirit Herod is said to have suspected that the soule of S. John Baptist had passed into Christ when he said Mat. 14.1 This is John the Baptist he is risen from the dead and therefore vertues work in him Hic est Joannes Baptista ipse surrexit à mortuis ideo virtutes operantur in eo The doctrine of transition of soules from one body to another was much followed in those times But we may wel in a pious and sober sense say that the soule of S. Peter seemed transmigrated into his successors for many yeeres for the same spirit of fervour in watering with their blood the Rock whereon Christ had planted his Church possessed above thirty Popes successively after S. Peter and so all their bodies seemed to be cast as a mold of earth upon that rock whereupon the faith of the Romane Church did spring the plants whereof even all acknowledge their Churches to be who have now severed themselves from that radicall communion and forgetting the benefits of those Josephs who sed them in the famine of their Faganisme are now laying burthens on their children In this manner the Primitive Church was nourished in her cradle instead of having milk given her to make blood of she sucked blood and made milke of it by the which she hath nursed the succeeding times for in all the Churches following persecutions the faithfull have been sustained and refreshed by that milk which the blood of those times did make for them for their examples descending with their doctrines hath confirmed and strengthned as well as alimented all their future progenie It is an admirable evincement of the truth of Christian Religion to remark that as it was founded upon a supernaturall conjunction of a body that might suffer to a person that was impassible so it was propagated by the destruction of those bodies which were the organs of tradition of it to posterity for the wounds of the Apostles and the Martyrs seemed but so many more mouthes opened to speak out louder the mysteries of the Gospel and to prove those verities by daring to dye for them which were not to
to the sincere and orthodox Christians which sir-name we take from our Mother the Catholique Church notified so for the single and onely Church of Christ by the Apostles Creed and in the sequence of ages as the tares grew up in the large field of Christianity the pure and sound part of the Church assigned this as a speciall and specificall difference between the Heretiques and the legitimate Christians and so it hath been accepted ever since as a notional discernment between them The word Catholike signifieth literally Universall and was meant to signifie that faith to be onely sincerely Christian which was universally and unanimously promulgated by the Apostles and conserved by the general conseat and fidelities of their disciples and so transmitted by all the concurrent testimonies of that age to the next succeeding it So as the Church is not called Catholike for the actuall extention of it into all nations but as the major part in respect of all Christian societies or in reference to the promise of this expansion over the whole world So that it hath alwaies been one of the visible markes of the Church the being the greatest society of Christians of any one communion And as all sects came out of the true Church she retaineth still the name of the whole as the body of the tree doth after many branches are torn off from it So as the Catholike Church neither is nor ever was a comprehender of all the sects of Christians but a compriser of a greater portion of them then any other profession which was separate from her and this majority the Catholike Church hath had in all Christian ages When we say then the Roman Catholicke Church we doe not meane to exclude all Churches from being Catholike besides the locall Church of Rome but as that is the head and spring of Catholike communion by way of dignity and preference above all other particular Churches we give Rome that single appellation as the head of all other Churches or by reason of the derivation of the Catholick faith from her to the rest of the Churches of the world as being the Chaire of S. Peter the Prince of the Apostles who was constituted head of the Universall Church and as the same authority and prerogative is descended upon his successors the Bishops of Rome in these respects in regard no Church is accounted nor is Catholicke that doth not adhere to her communion we stile the particular Roman the Catholike Church For if we speake formally and expresly the Catholike Church signifies the body of all particular Churches united in communion with the Vniversall and by way of participation any particular Church may be called Catholicke as it partakes with the intire body In this respect the Church of England before the separation was a Catholike Church and so are all Churches which remaine united to the Catholike Communion So as when you heare it objected that Roman and Catholike seem as incompatible as particular and Universall you may satisfy your selves that Rome doth not claime the title in that contradictory sense to say that the single and locall Church of Rome is the Universall Church but that Rome is the head of the Universall Church in which all particular ones are to be accounted Catholike in this sense of orthodox and true Churches as they are united to that head If the Protestants acknowledged any one particular Church to be the head of their communion that Church might be said to be the Universall Protestant Church by way of eminency and in this sense the Roman Church is stiled the Universall or Catholike Church I have said this as falling within the verge of the word Catholike without intending to passe further then the frontispice of the Church to read to you this inscription only of Catholike which is often misunderstood by those who will allow Universall Religion but no Catholike And I hope the signification of this your surname may minister great assurance to you when you consider that you suffer under that title and notion which hath alwaies been the discernment of true Christian Religion For S. Irenaeus one of the Primitive Fathers of the Church marketh that none of the sects of those ages did ever arogat this title of Catholikes Psal 90. With a shield his truth shall encompasse thee a thousand shall fall on thy side ten thousand on thy righthand but to thee it shall not approach It seems it hath been preserved miraculously among the insolences of all various errors which never durst lay violent hands upon this lovely intemerat virgin name of Catholicke the protection of the Psalmist hath been verifide upon this name Scuto circumdabit te veritas cadent à latere tuo mille decem mille à dextris tuis ad te autem non appropinquabit for of all the swarms of waspes and hornets which have flown out of the Church in all ages never any did so much as taint this name by their hiving themselves in it There hath alwaies descended upon the projectours of Babel this designe of Let us make to our selves a name Faciamus nobis nomen they have alwaies affected the celebration of their own name that have set up for themselves any new sect and their master hath payed them that vanity for labouring in his high way to allow the stamp of their owne names to be set upon the coine whereof he is the Prince and the Father This priviledge the divell hath allowed to all Arch-hereticks and hath communicated so much of his prerogative as to leave their names impressed as a signature upon their errors but none have been permitted to vitiate the name of Catholike by an imposition thereof upon any sophisticated Religion It is not my worke now to exhibit to you the proofes of the legitimate genealogy of your Religion from the true ancient Catholike stock I beleeve these very times may read to you the evidences of your antiquity by the aversion which all novelty declares against it I purpose only to convince the controversies of humane nature in the point of sufferings not to handle any contention in matter of faith beleeving you have more neede of helpe against the fingers of Pursivants then against the armes of Pulpits and this reflexion may serve you to confute the arguments of your flesh and blood against patience in all your persecutions in that you suffer under that notion which only can sanctifie the sufferings of any persecuted Christians Conclude then your selves happy in these times since you are in a capacity of making treasure of all your tribulations when others who it may be are under as heavy a temporall yoake as you drawing not in the same cariage of the Catholike faith will find the weight even in this world more intolerable They are much more to be lamented to whom we cannot apply S. Iohns comfort to the distressed Catholikes of his daies when he saith Apoc. 1.9 I your brother and partaker in
tribulation and the kingdome and patience in Jesus Christ Ego frater vester particeps in tribulatione in regno patientiâ in JESU CHRISTO For it is a deplorable sight to see our kindred and friends out of that state which as S. Paul saith Operatur tolerantiam earundem passionum quas nos patimur 2 Cor. 1.6 Which worketh the toleration of the same passions which we also suffer For which cause one of our greatest prayers ought to be that as they are partakers of the passion so they may be also of the consolations for Saint Austin saith One may cary all things with him out of the Catholike Church but charitie as baptisme the sacramēts and the resolution of suffering But we know how little comfort S. Paul giveth to those who have all the materiall parts of Christianity and want the formall and animating spirit thereof which is Charity 1 Cor. 13. How much then ought you to praise God in all your Covenants of sufferings to see your selves comprised in the infallible Covenant and contract of reward which is passed to his Catholike Church Rejoyce be exceeding glad wherefore I may properly say to you Gaudete exultate because you are under the best notion of the afflicted in these times when sufferings are so vniversall and the cause of them so little Catholike Upon those words of the Apostle S. Paul Col. l. 24 I accomplish those things that want of the passions of Christ in my flesh for his body which is the Church Adimpleoea quae desunt passionum Christi in carne meâ pro corpore ejus quod est Ecclesia S. Augustine asketh how there can any thing be said to be wanting to his passions who was God and Man and taking vineger for his last tast of this world declared giving up the Ghost that all things were consummate that had been written of him and answereth the question thus that all the passions were compleated that belonged to the head there remained the sufferings of the body which is the Church to render it sutable to the head and the Apostle as a principall member of that body might well say he was to fill up his share of what was required thereof So as it is not the insufficiency of Christs passions that needs a supplement of his Churches pressures but the order of God who hath designed the application of Christs passions and merits to his Church by this her conformity to his passive peregrination through this world And may we not say that to unite his Church the more firmly to him he hath left her fastned to the Crosse upon earth that this his body might seeme to be so much his owne as it might appear rather his naturall body crucified then onely a mysticall signification thereof For his passions being continually iterated upon reall flesh and bloud which have the honour to be called the Temples of the holy Ghost they may seem to have a more then ordinary representation of the passive body of Christ For if all the sacrificed bodies of the Synagogue and all the blood of irrationall creatures effused in the Temple were figures of his naturall body why may not those sacrificed bodies which are themselves Temples of God well be said now to be an admirable manner of somewhat more then representing Christs living body Therefore it seemeth that Christ to have a continuall view of the glory of his suffering body hath lest his Church in a bleeding posture to present God his Father with a perpetuall show not only of a picture or image but as it were a reall exhibition of himself suffering in his Church and no sight propitiateth God to the sonnes of men so much as this of seeing them as it were acting the sons of God under this notion of hoasts and sacrifices In the quotidian unbloody sacrifice of his now impassible body the offering is of more dignity but the object seemeth not so affecting and moving compassion as the torne and wounded figure of his Churches tribulations the body whereof seemeth to be designed to bleed continually for a lively memoriall of Christs merits in the sight of God and for a solicitor of an effusion of fresh graces upon the necessities of this body untill the bleeding and the beatify'd body be both united into one conformity of glory This is the order God seemes to have setled in the continuation of his Churches sufferings the which attract succours convenient at the same time that it may remaine a perfect image of Christs body alwayes grieving and alwayes glorying in a complyance with the designe of God and in the proclamation of the triumph of Christ who when he led captivity captive gave these gifts unto men whom he left to triumph by the same Armes wherewith he had overcome which are Crosses Sufferances and Passions Which consideration may easily induce us to acquiesce to the order of the sufferances of the Catholike Church since the pressures thereof are not only continued memories or imitations of that object which is so pleasing to God the passions of Christ but even accomplishments of what was wanting of his passions according to the meaning of S. Paul before related which was the finishing and consummating the effect of his sufferings by rendring the body so fit for the head as Christ may have glory by the perfection of this work as wel as the Church beatitude by this sutable incorporation Since S. Paul saith Heb. 2.10 That it became God to consummate the Author of our salvation by his passion we must needs conclude it necessary that we who are to be the matter which is to be saved and glorified should be purged and perfected by the same manner and we may well say that to answer to the single bloody sacrifice of such a head the perpetuall sanguinary immolation of the body during to the end of the world is but a decent conformity With good reason therefore as the head of the Catholike Church was once victimated and offered up in bloud to the glory of his head a 1. Cor. 11.4 who is God it is but just that the body should be continually immolated as a bleeding hoast to the glory of his head who is Christ Whereupon Saint Paul expressing the proper state of the Church 2. Cor. 4.11 saith We that live are alwayes delivered unto death for JESUS that the life of JESUS may be manifested in our mortall flesh so as the Church seems appointed a durable sacrifice to manifest and set forth the life of Christ to his Father and himselfe And upon this ground the Church may be said to be in some degree to Christ what he is to his Father that is as he is the mirrour which reflects to the Father his eternall life and being so the Church in her passions reflecteth to Christ his owne mortall life and existence Which figure of Christ upon earth when the Father contemplateth Heb. 1.3
patient in tribulation knowing all our hope must rise out of sufferances as they are the ligaments and connections of the body to a crucified head Wherefore I will desire you for your comfort as well as your conviction in this point to cast your thoughts upon the Crosse and consider only the last miracle which Christ was pleased his body should exhibit to us after his soule was departed from it You may note how out of that wound which Longinus the Souldier gave him after he was dead there issued the two greatest mysteries of the Church to oblige us to beleeve that much more the head himselfe never woundeth or permitteth to be offended any of the members of his living body upon earth but upon some speciall reason which alwaies resulteth to the good of that part he striketh unlesse the part it selfe prove the impediment by some miscarriage in the state of cure Wherefore that portion of his body amongst you which is now bleeding under his hand need feare nothing but their own ill diet irregularity in their hurts for they may prove so healthfull to you as they may convert even the diseases of your naturall bodies into a good constitution of your souls and the regiment of your selves in this case is prescribed by S. Paul 1. Cor. 16.13 Watch ye stand in the faith doe manfully and be strengthened upon occasion of the same infirmity in his time Vigilate state in fide viriliter agite confortamini This prescript containeth a direction to your three constitutions of Sufferers Doe manfully relateth to you as you are men Be strengthened belongeth to you as Christians Watch and stand in the faith respecteth you as Catholikes and if you apply these remedies respectively to your infirmities even every one of these your three Vae Vae Vae's upon earth shall afford you a Sanctus in heaven and so as Men Christians and Catholikes weeping here you may attain to the singing eternally of Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus in heaven CHAP. IV. Of the manner of discharging these duties of Sufferings WE may observe that Christ spake neither so frequently nor so cleerly of any one thing to his Disciples as of the sufferings and passions he was to undergoe and yet they never understood him in them They were alwayes either in such feare or such wonder concerning them as they never durst aske the question for the explication of their perplexities They quickly sought the explication of all his Parables Mar. 9.31 that seemed referred either to his power or his promises but in this point of his disparagements and his passions they seemed so little desirous of an illumination as when he was ready to be seized according to his prediction and upon the point of separation from them he is faine to reproach them that they were dejected only not desirous to be informed whither he was going John 15.5.6 whereupon depended all their reperations The apprehension of sufferance and passion seâ—meth to have such a quality as is reported of the Torpedo for it often stupifies and benummeth our nature so as it leaves not so much as even curiosity stirring in it towards an inquisition of reliefe In like manner there may be many who have heard much of our exposure to sufferings and afflictions in this life and yet remain little inlightned in the right conception of them and which is worse little inquisitive of that method whereby we must extract benefit and utility out of them Wherefore it is requisite to exhibit as faire a copy of that method as I can let forth to their comprehensions that they may not be dismaied by this Onus Domini Jer. 23. The burthen of the Lord. nor be deluded by this supposition that they are all the spirituall children of Abraham who have this marke of the Covenant of sufferances upon their bodies or their fortunes for it is not this moral circumcision or uncircumcision that intitles us to the promises but the spirituall signature of Christ upon the heart it is not the exterior infliction of misery that qualifies us for the reward proposed nor a present immunity and quiet that ejects us out of the society of Christs passions it is the interior disposition in both cases that constituteth the rightfull title to remuneration In those who are actually exercised under their crosses it is the patient and pious resignation which intitleth them to the conditions of the Covenant and in those who are in a present suspension or truce enjoying a serene conveniency it is the preparation and disposure of their hearts to accept humbly all orders of God in how sharp a stile soever they shall be issued against their persons or estates This frame of the mind is their evidence before the eyes of God of their right to the contract of suffering members of Christ Job's disposition in his quotidian sacrifices was no worse an odour to God then the suavity of his patience fuming up from that meane altar whereon he lay offering up his ashes The materiall part of affliction doth not sanctifie no more then the same part in alms or charity doth expiate they are both but Egena elementa Gal. 4.9 Barren elements of themselves the heart and the spirit wherewith they are designed animateth and enliveneth them Wherefore we may say of sufferings that which Christ said of a case not much unlike to this Mar. 7.15 That no affliction which goeth into a man doth actually sanctifie him but it is the spirit of sufferance which resideth in him that must render him holy for out of the heart only good intentions and humble conformities doe issue so as the externall crosses that fall upon the man doe not formally purifie him it is what comes out of the heart as the emissions of humility patience and charity which his heart sendeth forth to meete and imbrace all Gods pleasures which can onely hallow and sanctifie the man Therefore I may very fitly say if any man hath eares to heare let him heare that you may not prove so unhappy as to beare the weight and heat of the day and to forfeit at last your hire for though God saith He chastiseth every child he receiveth he doth not say He receiveth every one that he chastiseth S. James therefore when he proposeth to his distressed country-men The esteeming it all joy their falling into various trialls and temptations coupleth this reason with his proposition James 1.2 Knowing that the probation of your faith worketh patience So that the benefit must be derived from the effect of tribulation which is the producing of patience the which doth not naturally spring out of misery for this is but the matter or the subject whereon this virtue is exercised not the spirit or forme of this holy disposition For which reason the Apostle compleateth his advise by proceeding to direct them how to compasse this necessary adjunction to the matter of their afflictions to render them subjects of joy saying
to accept the injuries of his maligners without converting all the dutifull offices of his adherents into seed of affliction This was the uneven and painfull way wherein Christ chose to passe through this life who is the way the truth and the life of Christians and since one drop of his blood had been a price sufficient for our redemption shall not the effusion of it all and the immensity of his griefs and labours be sufficient for our example It being especially notified unto us by the Apostle 1 Pet. 2.23 That he suffered for us to leave us an example that we might follow his steps wherein this print of sorrow seemeth unto me one of the most admirable markes of it that he suffered not so much by his passion as by his compassion He felt the torments of the Martyrs the miseries of the Confessors and the distresses and desolations of his Church which he foresaw in all ages more then the persons themselves who are under them can doe Vere labores dolores nostros ipse tulit He truly bore all our labors and our griefs All the anxieties and contristations that now oppresse you were in a sharper degree pressing upon his heart and since he was content to aggravate all his sufferings by taking on him the sense of your grievances may not you very easily alleviate all your heavinesses by taking into your mind the resentment of sufferings which were designed for your succor in your tentations by the reflection upon his precedent so that his example is not a simple injunction on you to suffer but a conferment of an ability to sustaine it and a meanes to improve and ameliorate your state in your coinheritance with him For the Apostle enforceth this Doctrine with this energy of 2 Tim. 2.12 A faithfull saying for if wee bee dead with him wee shall live also together if we sustain we shall also reign together Fidelis sermo si commortui sumus convivemus si sustinebimus conregnabimus This deserves well our contemplation that the fulnesse of the Divinity did inhabit in Christ and the cleere vision of God did alwayes illuminate him notwithstanding this it was so miraculously disposed by God that the affluence of joy springing from the Deity should not overflow his body and possesse the inferiour portions of his soule that there might be left room for paine and anguish the which was manifest in his Passion insomuch as stupendious miracles were requisite for an admittance of so much sorrow into his most sacred minde if God were pleased thus to multiply miracles that affliction might have accesse to his beloved Sonne in whom he was so well pleased shall we with whom he hath so much cause to be displeased wonder at any calamity or tribulation whereby he is pleased to correct us especially when it is a marke of our filiation and fraternity with Christ We who cannot be exempt from sufferings without a miracle as we are sons of Adam shall we be astonished at any imposition under this notion of Brothers nay even members of Christ In which respect S. Bernard saith excellently That delicate and tender members are not decent and becomming a head stuck full of thorns Therefore the pressures and pungencies of this life make the symmetry and proportion of the body of Christianity to the Head Christ Jesus who since he did not so much as speak one idle word all his praises and beatifications of the poore and the afflicted must needs verifie the good of adversity Mat. 5. And surely Christ did much lesse doe any idle deed and if the exemplary life of his labours and onerations had not been directed to our conformity therein there might seeme some supervacuousnesse and redundancy in his continuall hardnesse and asperity of life Would God have afflicted his onely Sonne so Rom. 8. if it were indifferent to doe or not to doe as he did or that it did not concerne those whom he had fore-known and predestinated to be conformable to the image of his Sonne in this point that he might be the first-born of many Brethren Our fraternity therefore is derived to us by this similitude Our sinnes might have been effaced not onely by a drop of Christs blood but even by a drop of his sweat wherefore this seemeth one of the chief reasons that did induce the atrocity of his passion and the austerity of his life the necessity of such a pattern for our imitation since our nature was grown so degenerous and effeminate as no lesse then Gods participation of all the sorts of grievances and injuries thereof would serve to forme in us a cheerfull disposition to the sufferings and infelicities of this life God therefore did not intend to vex us when he placed our salvation in difficulties and in our natures aversions for to sweeten the bitternesse of this strong necessity which was to work upon our nature to purge us from the love of this world he was so gracious as to infuse the company of Christ into this receipt that the tast of his society might make more pleasant to us the ill savour and acerbity of the remedy Well therefore may we say A greater then Elisha is here who hath mended these waters by but tasting of them and hath left neither death nor barrennesse in them for they are become rather waters springing up to life everlasting And we may observe that in conformity to Gods method with his Sonne Christ continued the same style to his Mother for she whom all generations were to call Blessed was not allowed any of what this world calls Blessings for She who had borne the Redeemer of the whole world was not able to go to the highest rate of the Temple for his Redemption her poor estate did not reach to pay so much as a Lambe for the Sonne of God and the Lambe who was to take away the sinnes of the world had not so much as a Lambe for his ransome The lowest price that was set for any of the Children of Israel was the rate her low condition was taxed at None was set at lesse then a paire of pigeons or a paire of turtles and the Mother of God was in this inferiour forme of the daughters of men This may serve to sweeten the bitterest waters of poverty When we ponder this that Christ would not allow his Mother to taste of any other spring and though he would not let her taste of the sowrenes of the forbidden fruit yet he fed her more then any other with these bitter leaves which grew out of the same root that is though he was pleased to exempt her from sinne yet he would not dispense with her in sufferings which we know are but the productions of sinne and so she whom we may suppose to have been excepted out of the rule of sinners was exalted above any in the state of sufferers And this seems to be very consonant that as she was Mother to the
be demonstrated by the cloquence of any living men or Angels and thus the tongues of the Martyrs spoke more plainly the mysteries of their faith when they were torne out of their mouthes by their tortures then while they were tutoring their Disciples Whereupon Tertullian saith to the Persecutors Exquisitior quaeque iniquitas vestra illecebra magis est sectae the more exquisite their iniquity grew the more efficacious allurement it proved to Christian Religion For as he explains it every one being struck with wonder at the vertue and patience of the sufferers began to think that worthy the enquiring into which men thought so much better worth then their lives and these reflections converted more then the best verball expressions to such auditors as thought life not to be equivalenced by any compensation Wherefore Saint Cyprian who was one of the brightest mirrors of these reflections saith The Heathen were wont to conclude that it deserved to be studyed and fully penetrated that perswasion which could induce a man to suffer so much and to dye so willingly And this Lecture of the bodies of the Martyrs convinced more then the books of the Fathers it wrought more upon flesh and blood to see as it were the whole body set to their faith then the single hand as we saw in Malta the Vipers teeth moved them more then S. Pauls tongue and in like manner this wrought those present effects frequently upon multitudes the considering the mindes of Christians shaking off the stings of tortures which hung upon their bodies the peace of their soules remaining inviolated and unoffended by them And those admirable effects of such causes as were naturally opposite to them were demonstrations of this dictate of Saint John You are of God 1â— Joh. 4. and overcome the world because greater is he that is in you then he that is in the world whereof he was one of the most egregious marks being preserved for a spectator after he had been himselfe a patient in the scene of Martyrdome for being condemned to suffer at Rome in a caldron of scalding oyle he came out of it more refreshed then the Emperor out of his baths of precious oyntments he rested in it with little lesse case then he had done in the bosome of his Master For Martyrdome may well be termed the bosome of Christ as it is the neerest part of his body joyning to the suffering head upon the Crosse and as it is the neerest accesse towards a conjunction with the glorified head in heaven And thus the Martyrs did daily verifie this position That he that was in them was greater then the world for they who had subdued the world could not suppresse Christianity Christ chose to triumph over the tyrannie power of the Emperors of the world before he would vouchsafe to be served by them to evidence this for his glory that it was not his necessity that required but his grace that admitted Kings to be nursing-fathers Queens to be nursing-mothers to his mysticall body upon earth This also deserveth our animadversion that soone after the Church came to suck at those brests she fell into fits of Convulsion interiour Heresies which endangered her more then all the exteriour wounds of Persecution she had received Whereby appeareth that the milk of Princes was not so healthfull for her as the blood of Martyrs For even in Constantine the Great his time who was the first Princely Foster-father of the Church Arianisme began to breed in her The denying the Divinity of Christ and this disease in his time notwithstanding all his cures and remedies administred lay still so neasted in her as presently after his death the corruption broke out into desperate convulsions and the very brest of her temporall nursing father was cancer'd with this Heresie For the second sonne of Constantine named Constantius to whom in the partition of the Empire the East was assigned revolted professedly to Arianisme and in a few yeeres this poyson had so spread by his diffusion as the leprosie had over-run almost all the Easterne Churches insomuch as Christianity seemed more endangered by this canker in the breast of an Emperour professing to nurse it then it had been by all those raging Lyons that sought to devoure it So much more dangerous was it to part Christs Divinity from the Church then to have the whole world united against her while that was acknowledged and relyed upon for the support This perill sprang out of Prosperity when the Emperours of the East seemed to think their Religion supported strongly enough without the Divinity of Christ whereas Rome which was then fallen away in all temporall diminution maintained the intire profession of Christian faith against all the gates of hell which the Emperours under pretence of being watchmen upon the tower had opened against her and for many yeares S. Peters barke floated as it were in an Ocean of Arianisme which had covered the Eastern and had broke in upon many parts of the Western Empire It were too long a work to make a journall of the voyage of S. Peters barke through all those ages in which it hath beene exposed to the stormes of diverse persecutions and the sands of innumerable heresies it hath passed over with safety That which respecteth most my purpose is to clucidate to you how temporall adversity and tribulation have alwaies contributed to the purity of the Doctrine and manners of the Catholike Church for I doe not meane to touch any Controversie but in defence of those you may unjustly account your adversaries which are the crosses and afflictions of these times and to dispute for the use and benefit of them against your diffidence and irresolution in this hower of your examination which I hope by the grace of God may be effected in some degree by this suggestion to you of those Covenants and obligations of suffering wherein you are engaged which I may urge to you in the termes of the mirror of sufferers S. Paul 1 Thes 3.2 I have sent this to you and exhort you for your faith that no man be moved in these tribulations for your selves know that we are appointed to this Me thinks this should lenify and disasperate all the sense of our afflictions to reflect how under these two notions of the Sonnes of Adam and the Brothers of Christ we are designed to sufferings For as men the holy spirit telleth us Job 5.7 Man is born to labor and the bird to flight insomuch as we should wonder no more at our troubles then at our nature Wherefore S. Gregory upon Jobs scraping his soares with a piece of a broken pot saith He made clean one dirt with another for the holy man reflected from whence that was taken which he wore and with a fragment of one piece of clay he scrapes another broken vessell so as considering himselfe in that fragment of clay in the cleansing and extersion of his sores he did also dresse and