what was paid him by the way of Sacrifice and that by how much the victime excelled his glory went in the like proportion He presented his sacred humanity personally united to the Word by way of Justice on the Tree of the Cross as a just compensation of all indignities thrown upon him by the World and for this end he exposed his Body to all the highest severities of Justice Thus God accepting this oblation of Justice punished in his Son all the sins of Mankind Wherefore as a disobedience to God's Law a Pride in thwarting his greatness and a pleasure in our conversion to a Creature are found in sin all these were confronted in Christ's passion by a prodigious obedience an incomparable humility and a perpession of the most exquisite torments that could be inflicted so that there was not the least punctilio of equity wanting in this oblation of Justice Our Holy Penitent weighing this terrible account could not but tremble It is true God was contented with Abrahams good intention and stopped the Execution of Isaac but when his eternal Law to punish sin was in question which he will have inviolable he spares not his only Son and if on him the darts of his anger fall so heavy and this for anothers transgression what may not a miserable sinner justly expect for his own sins in his own person If this be done on the green branches what havock will be made of those that are withered if the Innocent have this measure what will become of the Guilty but however these dismal reflections may affright our penitent yet he is still boyd up with hope and confidence in this oblation of Justice Lastly this Sacrifice is a perfect Holocaust the excellency of which consists in the total destruction of the thing offered In confirmation of this St. Paul asserts that Christ annihilated himself in becoming obedient to the Death of the Cross Look on his passion and you will see him reduced to a moral nothing First at his last Supper he throws himself at the Feet of his Apostles he washes dryes and kisses even those of a perfidious Judas in the garden of Olivet he not onely prayes with bended knees but is prostrate on the ground bedewed with a bloody sweat the most prodigious effect of terrour that ever hapned in nature In the sequel of his passion he is branded with false accusations and ignominious reproaches derisions and scorns He receives the highest indignities from the vilest of persons as to be buffeted spit on crowned with Thorns fastned on the Cross between two Thieves as the ring leaders and this at their Paschal solemnity in the populous City of Jerusalem where he forfeited all that reputation which the wonders of his power and sublime communications of his wisdom had purchased to him so that many who had been his spectators and of his audience in whose opinion he had passed for a signal person a great Prophet a Man incomparable in vertue and sanctity nay who looked upon him as the promised Messias and Son of God gave him then the Character of an Hypocrit and condemned all his miracles as meer illusions and the effects of Art magick and his Sermons as dreams of phantastick babling Nay the Prophet Esay stiles him the last and outcast of Men disfigured mishapen and laden with infirmities insomuch that he was esteemed as one Leperstrook and the object of God's vengeance O what a Holocaust was this He that is Lord and Creatour of the World King of Heaven and Sovereign Judge over the living and the dead is destroyed in his honor and reputation his Eyes wax dimm and dark his Face pale and wan his Tongue furred and swoln his Lips black and blew and his whole Body mangled in such sort as they numbred all his Bones so that it was as it were but one wound and all these outrages are compleated in his Execution upon the Cross which kind of death was so abominable as Tostatus sayes it is an injury done to God himself that a Creature created after his Image should dye on the Cross Cicero sayes it is an act very hainous to bind a Citizen of Rome a Villany to scourge him and in a manner a Parricide to kill him but what then will it be to put him on a Cross Heretofore God made himself known by destroying Pharaoh and all his Host but now he will get himself a Name and Fame by playing the Holocaust and dying upon the Cross Thus you see how justly our Petitioner might assert this Sacrifice to be an oblation of Justice and a Holocaust or whole burnt offering which would be accepted off For certainly God was never more honoured than by Christ offered up on the Cross because the glory there given him outvyes all the injuries and affronts that had been or ever shall issue from the ugly Face of sin But the Fire of his love stopt not here his sacred humanity would further yet honour God by a Sacrifice which should not be confined to a short space of three hours to a little 〈…〉 Nation of the Jews nor to the narrow hill of Mount Calvary wherefore by a generous design he instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist where this same humanity without effusion of blood might honour God by a Sacrifice that would last to the worlds end and be every day reiterated not upon one single mountain but in millions of places throughout all kingdomes where there is any Priest to offer up this Sacrifice to God's honor and as a tribute to his infinite greatness Our great God beholding this admirable contrivance of his incarnate word and of a Soul most pure and holy allyed to his Son by a personal union and relishing this honor he should receive from this Sacrifice begun at a great distance to nose the sweet odour it would evaporate even up to Heaven this gave him a distast as it were of the Mosaical Sacrifices which revealing to our Holy Penitent made him cry thou art not delighted with Holocausts But this is more clearly expressed by the Prophet Malachy where God requires the Temple Gate to be shut the Fire of his Altar for the destruction of victimes no more to be kept in and confesses he is cloy'd with them upon the prevision of that excellent Sacrifice to be made to him in the Evangelical Law Again as a Sacrifice is directed not only to express God's supream Dominion over us but likewise to acknowledge our thanks for his divine favours now the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ accomplished in vertue would not be ungrateful For God had given himself unto it by a personal union in a manner the most obliging and most sublime that is any way consistent with a Creature in return of this he would consecrate himself unto him with all the circumstances of perfection by which a Creature can be made his And which cannot be more than by a Sacrifice wherein he himself is destroyed and as much as may be
all their VVorldly interests and engagements to follow him what transports do the sweet whispers of his Divine Spirit occasion unto his dear Servants what internal consolations what tranquility of mind St. Austin terms them certain previous relishes or Antipasts of Heaven which far transcend all the contentment and satisfactions of this world In a word that Seraphim of love St. Austin gives us the perfect Character of a spiritual joy by his own experience Saying O Lord sometimes thou dost lead me into unknown delights which were they compleated in me I know not what they would be but certain I am it would not be this life that is such a Dilatation of Spirits he found to attend those spiritual comforts that he saw were they accomplished a ruine of his mortal Being must needs ensue This is the joy and gladness our Holy Petitioner expects and that he was not deceived in his expectation scarce a Psalm of his that proclaims not the sweetness and superabundant satisfactions issuing from the love fear and service of God and therefore when he had petitioned for persecution adversity and the Crown of Martyrdom he might justly solace himself with the sequel and fruits of sufferings which are joy and gladness To my hearing thou wilt give joy and gladness The Application Ah who would not then protest against the vain joyes of this world to tast the sweetness of spiritual entertainments St. Gregory puts this difference 'twixt Corporal and Spiritual delights that the former whilest in expectation are coveted with much vehemency but when once enjoyed they presently become nauseous and distastful the other we pursue but coldly and with little heat of desire yet when once we have a relish of them we still languish after the encrease This made St. Francis that blessed despiser of the World to make a Covenant with his senses never to fasten with the least Contentment on any sensual object and truly he was so exact in the performance as he went up and down like the meer shadow of a Man that had nothing humane in him but his shape his better part ever dwelling in the Mansion of the Blessed These are joyes that will not be held by Repentance may we then still languish after them Amen CHAP. XVIII Et exultabunt Ossa humiliata And humbled Bones shall rejoyce THis encouragement which our Petitioner allowes himself corresponds with the second part of the former verse where he was willing to Sacrifice his life For he doth not only cheer himself in reflecting upon the reward which repentance will bring to his Soul but likewise upon the future condition of his Earthly mould which he beholds as matter of great consolation and therefore upon the same score he prosecutes the Subject of his hope saying that his humbled Bones shall rejoyce Amongst all the comforts Christian Religion affords there is none hath so much influence upon Man as the expectation of a future resurrection the motive of this consolation springs from the belief we have of God's Omnipotency For as we believe he hath created us of nothing so we must acknowledge his power to restore us and raise our ashes to a better and more happy condition Nay if we observe the course of Holy Scripture we shall find the expiration of Saints hath a particular expression given it For they are not said to dye but to fall into a sleep as if their Bodies after separation retained a certain vertue which had resemblance with their glorifyed Souls In the Fourth Book of Kings Chap. 13. We read that a Carkass being thrown into the Sepulchre of Elizeus was by a touch of his Bones restored to life St. Hierom relates how Constantine the Great conveyed with much Solemnity the relicks of St Andrew and St. Luke unto Constantinople Areadius likewise the Emperour translated the relicks of Samuel the Prophet from Judaea into Thrasia where they were received with great veneration and joy of the people All which shews our Forefathers looked upon the remainder of Saints Bodies not as liveless fragments but as the Fountains of life and health as certain pieces God would make instrumental to miracles and to works above the power of nature Therefore the Bones of Holy Persons endued with such vertue may justly be qualifyed with joy and consequently it is not improper to say That humbled Bones shall rejoyce Again St. John Damascene hath a fine conception saying those who imitate the vertues of Saints may be more truly said their relicks or impressions than the lump and mass of Earth they leave behind He who hath the zeal and ardours of a St. Paul in the Conversion of Souls may be stiled his lively Image Who can claim the fortitude of a St. Stephen in accepting the stroke of Death for Justice sake will infallibly bear the stamp of that Protomartyr Who can perform the humble and spiritual life of a St. Francis will prove a better pattern of him than his own Body which at this day remains entire at Assisium as a Testimony of that Glory his Soul enjoyes in Heaven so that when we cast our selves into the mould of their vertues we become their animated statues and make them rejoyce in our imitation as the Angels do at a sinners Conversion it is not unlikely our Holy Prophet alluded to such living relicks vvhen he said humbled bones shall rejoyce Since good Men are here for the most part crushed in the Worlds esteem that values nothing but what is great in vanity Yet amidst these Clouds of oppression and scorns thrown at them they find within themselves a satisfaction in performing their duty to God for the fruit of the spirit sayes St. Paul is joy peace and a thousand other contentments which attend a state of innocence so that it is an ingenious Expression of our Penitent that humbled bones shall rejoyce I have many times wondered why Almighty God should give unto the Ashes of Saints what he had denyed them whilst they were alive and made not use of any limb or vital motion but for his sake that is many miracles have been wrought by touching the mouldred dust of Saints who living were never favoured with the power of any Miracle but as the lives of Saints are admirable so the proceedings of Almighty God with them seem very mysterious yet I have proposed some reasons of this to my sell First Almighty God will shew by this how dear his Servants are unto him and if he give so much vertue to their Ashes what may we expect he doth to their Immortal Souls Next it argues how grateful a thing humility is in the sight of God that those who have Crucifyed their flesh and daily Sacrificed their Bodies for his name should have the very Ashes of that Mortified Body cure Diseases restore sight to the blind and raise the dead to life Thirdly Almighty God will manifest the difference between a pampered Body and one mangled by acts of pennance the one by all manner of
give life to them and truly it is rational that since God threatens punishment to the wicked deeds of Men he should likewise propose a recompence to vertuous actions otherwise he might be said to be more enclined to severity than sweetness which is much repugnant to his nature Again sanctifying grace is a quality so sublime that it dignifies and exalts the works of that subject it informs above all the Worlds greatness Now there being nothing but eternal glory which surpasses grace a meritorious action animated by grace cannot be recompenced to the worth but by glory whence it followes that grace by a title of right and condignity merits eternal glory Lastly sanctifying Grace is communicated by God unto a Soul with the circumstance of an affectionate Amity by which in the first place he loves her and this love of friendship moves him to pardon all her offences to receive her into his favour and adorn her with the incomparable Ornament of this Celestial quality This done Man becomes a Friend of God in his first justification is raised to a pitch of greatness so transcending as his works are worthy of Heaven as performed by a friend of God who hath an affection for her and by that will render her compleatly happy Upon these motives and supposition of a grant to the preceeding clause of his petition he will blazon forth the Iustice of God not in the remission of his sin for this he acknowledges to his pure mercy but upon the score of a recompence which his goodness hath promised This consideration awakens him from sluggishness and as the Labourer endures patiently the fatigues of his task in hopes of his salary at Night so will our Petitioner unweariedly sustain the traverses of this life and amidst his tribulations every thought of Paradise shall move his Tongue to exalt O Lord thy Justice Merit is defined a service which obliges to a retribution or a good work done freely and which God accepts of as the price of eternal life Now albeit good actions arising from grace by which they are supernaturallized are in a certain manner rendered worthy of eternal life even without the promise of God yet they can no wayes oblige God to give it unless he first engage his word to this effect For he is the Sovereign Lord of the World and most particularly of just Men and their good deeds yet can they not so much sway with him as to put a constraint on his will to let them share with him in his Heavenly Kingdom For when all the just had consecrated to his honour all the good works imaginable he might justly say I accept of these in discharge of your past debts and obligations due to me for your Creation conservation grace and power I have given you to act So that when any one makes an oblation of his person fortune or any other his goods unto God he must not present it in way of a gift but with humility as in satisfaction of a debt nor yet as if he would clear all scores but as a small parcel of that great Summ which he owes Wherefore that Man may have an unquestionable right to Heaven by the value of his good works being so engaged to God as he is it was necessary a contract or stipulation should pass by which God should please to declare he would give him Heaven in recompence and upon this ground he should have a title to demand and obtain it In this proceeding his Mercy and Justice meet his mercy in that he accepts the works of the just for more than the bare discharge of their obligations His Justice in that he is pleased to give the rate of Heaven in return of their good works by this means Saints are humbled in the excellency and value of their merits for by it they know that Heaven is so bestowed by way of Iustice as they are notwithstanding unspeakably obliged to the Divine mercy which passing over the debts accepts of their works for Heaven this certainly will give them immortal resentments of gratitude for which they will powre forth an infinity of praises and benedictions throughout the vast spaces of eternity to a Benefactour who treats them so nobly with such signal favours as to become a Debtor even to his own debtors St. Austin admiring this Mystery sayes God hath made himself a Debtor to us not by receiving any thing from us but by promising what he pleased unto us For all things are depending on him nor can they oblige him but as far as he will oblige himself by his incomparable Charity and inviolable Fidelity Our great Penitent ravished in the contemplation of these truths cannot but unloose his Tongue to celebrate the praises of the Divine Iustice which so attempers the circumstances of our Salvation that we may claim it as our due He hires us into his Vineyard and if we prove faithful to our task he will not fail in his promise to give us a salary he often reflects what a comfort it will be to a beatifyed Soul to have contributed something to her own happiness In this liberty and free will which God hath given us he beholds the perfection and greatness of the Soul that neither the most charming beauties the most ravishing delights the most glorious dignities the most amiable vertues in spiritual entertainments nay nor the most eminent hopes of glory can work any impression or impose any necessity upon her actions but according to the mtasure of her will Again she hath a vigour impregnable fortifyed with God's grace against all sin and misfortunes that neither the allurements of what is lovely nor the horrid face of what is frightful can make any entrance by force for the Soul is above all the machinations of Men can resist them and meerly because it pleases her so to do Let them speak fair let them bribe threaten weep attack thunder lighten muster the Elements into storms and fury nothing finds admittance but at her disposal So that these words in the Apocalips may justly be applyed to her I have been dead and am living She was dead by Original sin and is revived by the Grace of Jesus Christ she hath put into her Hands the Keys of life and death that is free will which may open to her either Paradise or Hell After this survey of Man's liberty in this life by which he is free either to the acting of what is good or bad he makes a pause upon the apprehension that Man would have been more perfect were he limited to vertue and incapable of any vitious action as God himself is and all the blessed by a clear vision But he solves this objection considering that God alone by nature is impeccable it is a priviledge wherein none can share with him as being infinitely perfect and can admit of no imperfection St. Ambrose sayes that only the substance of the Divinity is a Being that cannot dye to wit by the death of
reduced to nothing that his immense greatness might appear by his opposite subjection Now having done this once by the bloody Sacrifice of the Cross he would perpetuate the same in the Sacrifice of the Altar that whilest the fabrick of this new Jerusalem should stand he might alwayes render acts of thanksgiving for the graces conferred on his humanity and on the members of his Church By this Sacrifice we are enabled to pay our debt of thanks to God for the rich present of his only Son which we return unto him as a due and equal acknowledgment and if it be proportioned to what we owe for a gift so pretious much more will it serve to discharge our duties of gratitude for other benefits as when he is pleased to make us victorious over temptations and all the Enemies of our Salvation Lastly his Sacrifice on the Cross was to allay God's anger against the sins of Mankind and this same design is carried on in the Sacrifice of the Altar and aims chiefly to render God propitious to our transgressions In the works of St. Iames St. Basil and St. Chrysostom speaking of this Sacrifice is found this expression Lord accept of this Sacrifice as a propitiation for the sins and ignorance of the people by which you may see this Sacrifice doth not only appease God's anger discharge our large score of gratitude but also is effectual to purchase a supply for all our wants So that our Petitioner in the prospect of this bloody and unbloody victime might confidently usurp this pleasing air Then he will with a satisfyed Eye behold a Sacrifice oblation of Justice and a whole burnt-offering The Application Our Holy Penitent in another Psalm expresses the resentment of the Children of Israel when in captivity they sat weeping upon the Banks of the River of Babylon at the remembrance of Sion and of those Religious acts they were wont to perform in that holy place I am confident our zealous Petitioner felt no less the bitter throwes of affliction and langutshments after the Evangelical Temple wherein would be offered up a Sacrifice so full as the Justice of God could exact nothing more with what satisfaction did he reflect on this then to wit that time we now possess wherein we can daily adore Jesus Christ in his sacred throne of the Eucharist as Children paying the duty we owe to so indulgent a Father as Subjects to a lawful Prince as Criminals to a most equitable Judge as slaves to a Redeemer and as Creatures to a Sovereign Creatour Let us beg that since he hath daigned to expose himself a daily victime upon the Altar for all Mankind that there may be no Soul who shall deny him the just tribute of love praise and Adoration Amen CHAP. XL. Tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos Then they will lay Calves upon thy Altar OUr holy Penitent having decipherd this bloody and unbloody Sacrifice as Jerusalem's greatest Glory and the Ornament of Sion that is the Church of Christ he carries on in his prophetick view his thoughts to other inferiour offerings as the off-spring and result of this supreamly great one Such are the oblation of persons who raised above the charms of flesh and blood embrace the Councels and Rules of highest perfection given by our Saviour and quitting all Earthly interests consecrate themselves totally to God These our Petitioner shadowes under the name of Calves according to Enthymius because having never tasted the Yoak but let loose to their full swinge and liberty do yet of their own accord make themselves a daily Sacrifice unto God For he that embraces such a state of perfection forsakes all first he forsakes himself renouncing in some sort all right over himself and to become a slave to God in the person of another who in the name of God and in his stead accepts the donation and surrender of himself and it is upon these terms that he may be conducted to perfection so that the Final motive of this Sacrifice is the exact and universal practise of all kind of vertues Riches honour and pleasure are the three main Enemies to perfection all which are clearly subdued in the essential obligations of this perfect State Poverty choaks the desire after temporal goods Chastity allays the concupiscence of pleasure and obedience stifles all appetite to Worldly greatness But besides all this we are to give to God our actions our time and employments and this gift consists in the punctual observance of certain Rules which allot to every one how to spend the Year the Moneth the Week the Day nay every Hour So that persons who devote themselves to such a state need not be solicitous for directions leading to perfection the Commandements of God and zealous performance of such prescripts as are given by spiritual masters afford abundant matter for this noble design What a comfort must it be to those who are setled in this state to think that there is nothing more excellent in a Creature than to belong in a particular manner to God their Creatour who hath power to glorify and enrich them with all good What can be more desirable than to grow every Day and hour in perfection and this in spirituality which is beyond all others a treasure of highest value We see all Beings strive to their utmost in this ambition Plants spring up and bear the fairest Flowers that possibly they can Trees afford liberally their best fruit Bodies issue forth all their strength and vigour to become more powerful in which their vertue consists And what invention is not hammered out by Women to add the least stroak to their natural beauty shall the Soul then be alone insensible in this propriety of nature No no our new Law-giver hath planted in Man a holy ambition after perfection and this seed hath been so fruitful and so efficacious that one might judge the abstracted lives which so many have led in all ages since his visible appearance upon Earth were the effects of a severe command rather than a Paternal Councel and that such a Sacrifice of Calves that is a religious simplicity and total abnegation of Earthy interest could not spring from a frank choice of the will but from an absolute necessity Wherefore our Holy Penitent all ravished with admiration points out that time wherein these wonders shall be wrought Then will they put Calves upon thy Altar The great Wheels which give motion to all our actions in this life are what is beneficial pleasant and glorious As to the first those who addict themselves to a state of perfection find good rules good example spiritual documents knowing directours several exciting graces and all things that lead to the accomplishment of vertue and encrease of merit Besides he is secured from innumerable miseries of the World which is nothing else but a Chaos of trouble and confusion a Theatour of envy ambition luxury tyrannical oppressions a place of errour and darkness overspread with nets