extream inclination to save us an infinite Vertue to confer Graces and Succours and in the mean while we oppose Obstacles to them and offer violence to Christ himself in this Mistery This may happen divers ways First it may be we bring not necessary dispositions to render this Sacrament efficatious but rather we receive it in the state of Mortal Sin and thus trample the pretious Body and Blood of Christ under our feet he gives us his Sacred Body to be the Means and Cause of Grace and we by a Sacrilegious Communion make the same Body the Instrument of our Sin and so change the Sacrament of Love into a Sacrament of our Rage and Malice and as the Apostle says we become Guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ But suppose we come fee from Mortal Sin and in the estate of Grace as much as we can assure our selves yet we come with a certain tepidity and negligence which hinder us from receiving the fervour of Charity and the active quality of Grace which gives not only the Power but the Inclinations and Motions to good works And again If we are well disposed and receive an encrease of Sanctifying Grace and by the vertue of our Communions God gives us the Succours of actual Graces we may put another Obstacle to their efficacy in not cooperating with them by not seconding their influences but rather refusing their impressions and therefore no wonder if our Communions are so unprofitable And thus truly one may say of us in this condition as St. Paul said of the Infidels Veritatem dei in injustitia detinent Rom. 1. they detain the truth of God in injustice Jesus Christ the Truth which we have received in Communion his Grace his Lights and his Inspirations we hold Captives in our hearts and commit a high injustice by hindring them from produceing their effects in us A Last Reason of this sterility may be because we consider not the Communion we have made nor the Obligations it imposeth on us to render them efficatious After the use of Communion we should often think of it and amongst the occasions of sin or doing of good we should receive this Sacrament Spiritually in our minds saying be pleased my Saviour that I do not any thing unworthy your Pretious Blood Live in me continually by your holy Operations that I may one day receive from your hands the recompence of it in glory It is St. Chrysostom's Advice and Councel Hom. 60. ad pop to consider this our dignity in the occasions of sin to the end that such a consideration may serve us as a Bridle to Curb our Passions and as a Spur and excellent Motive to excite us to good Quaenam erit nobis excusatio what excuse can we have that being partakers of such Mysteries we commit such Crimes So the Holy Father farther especially exhorts that we ought to be Good and Vertuous before and after Communion before to render us worthy to receive the Sacrament after not to appear unworthy of having received it And by this means our Communions will produce in us Perseverance in Grace and Consummation of a Spiritual Life which is the last end of the Sacrament and the Object of our Hopes FINIS ERRATA Page Line Read 1 12 alone 10 16 Ad Pop. 26 6 anathema esse 29 10 on 33 14 pimp 45 5 preferred 46 5 meo  17 Christian  20 Infirmaâ—ian 49 24 fides 62 3 languet 71 1 A Treatice 93 1 Mecum eraâ— 94 5 cubiculo  13 retire so 97 9 dispised 101 19 De Orando 110 22 do not only
on Earth to labour in this work By this we may easily apprehend how we ought to employ the things of this world and expose our life too if it be necessary for our Salvation our great affair in this world But this which concerns us so much is so slightly passed over that we may justly complain with those Prophets Jerem. Daniel Osee Desolatione desolata est omnis terra quia non est qui recogitet corde The whole Earth is become desolate because there is not any one who seriously considers in his heart We may find many who think of their Salvation but it is only superficially not with the heart and so their thoughts are cold and barren cold because they produce not an ardent desire to execute what they think they are barren because they produce not holy motions and actions The Devil and Reprobate have the like the thought of their Beautitude lost is continually present to them they know the excellency of it by suffering the privation thereof but this is not with the heart with a consideration which is affective ardent effective When we Will a thing efficatiously it doth not only busie our thoughts but employs our hands and industry to labour our tongues frequently to speak of it the heart the hand the tongue are joyned in this work the heart to meditate the hand to execute the tongue to publish it Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh The second Manner or Condition requisite in this work From the Zeal and serious consideration of our Salvation ordinarily proceeds an exquisite diligence for the procuring of it which is the second Condition necessarily required in this work Our B. Saviour hath given us an admirable example in this kind the sacred Scripture Heb. 10. saith of him that entring into the world by the mistery of his Incarnation he said unto his Heavenly Father You Will not the Sacrifices of the Law therefore I offer up the body you have given me for a Victime to honour your Majesty to satisfie your Justice to appease your Anger He did not delay his sufferings to the end of this life but the first moment he entered into the world as Man he presented himself as a Victime And when he was then adored by the Angels at the command of his Heavenly Father even then he would honour him as his Servant and Victime In the whole course of his life he travelled in this affair with such diligence as the Psalmist resembles him to a Gyant exulting to run his course with an incredible vigour in all the wayes wherein he might work our Salvation His Espouse admiring this in her Canticles Cant. 2. compares this course of his to the swiftness of a Roe and Hart. The Angels descended and ascended in Jacobs Ladder without repose in the exercise which they continue indefatigably for the Salvation of men Job by his own example shewed us with what fervour and diligence we should proceed in this affair Job 29. Causam quam ignorabam diligentissime investigabam If I did not understand the rights between parties to accord them I used most exquisite diligence to understand it I did not defer till to morrow what I could do to day but apply'd my self without delay to all the good works I could perform for the advance of my Salvation Tobias did often rise from the Table left his refection quitted the Company of his Friends to bury the dead and to exercise works of mercy towards the poor and needy Abraham stood in the common ways to find and invite Pilgrims to his house where his Wife and Domesticks were busied in preparing a refection for them St. Paul Acts 5. protested to the faithful that he used all possible diligence in his Apostolical function That which the examples of the Saints inform us the Wise man Councelled in his Proverbs Diligenter exerce agrum tuum diligently cultivate thy field We must not imagine that he speaks here of good Husbandry but under the symbol of a field he insinuates that we should labour with diligence to extirpate vices to acquire vertues to increase in grace which God bestows upon us to work out our Salvation by Besides the Examples and Instructions of the Saints for our diligence in this affair reason perswades also this truth we see that a man applyes himself with diligence to affairs of importance and to things of consequence which have an indeterminate and uncertain time of which he knows not the length or shortness Our Salvation hath these two circumstances the thing is most pretious and of the greatest concern the time to compass it is altogether uncertain Death after which we cannot work often steals upon us as a Thief in the Night when we think our selves most secure of life and therefore it concerns us to attend to our Salvation with all diligence lest we be surprised unexpectedly as the foolish Virgins were and the rich Glutton in the Gospel If we have a Suit in Law for the gaining of a possession for the reparation of an injury or the like we apply all our endeavours we regard not the rigour of the seasons nor the suffering of our bodies nor length of ways we move every stone that might obstruct or further our designs but for our Salvation which is the greatest concern we have in the world we think much to spend an hour at a Sermon where we may be instructed in this and the means to obtain it to spend half an hour in a day to hear Mass or to Pray where we may receive grace to carry on this affair with fervour we are loath to give an Alms to a poor body to merit the divine succours such is our blindness and stupidity When we suffer any maladies in our bodies as St. Chrysostom Hom. 22. ad pop affirms we presently send for Physitians we think no cost much for the cure of them Animam vero vitiis laborantem negligimus But we suffer our Souls to corrupt and putrifie in sin To procure a remedy and to purchase an immortal life for them we are extream negligent This unreasonable preferring of the Body before the Soul the immortal and divine part of us ought to cover us with Confusion in this world where we would appear judicious wise in the mean time we shew our selves to be unreasonable and senceless It was a complaint of St. Bernard Aspicio genus humanum I behold mankind walking from the rising of the Sun to the going down of it through the spatious Mart and Market of the world where some hunt after Riches others gape for Honours many pursue Pleasures most spend their time in Vanities and Impertinencies few mind the eternal good of their Souls for which they came into the World Seneca discovered this truth si volueris attendere if thou wilt consider thou maist discern that a great part of mens lives pass away in doing Ill the greatest part in
Idleness and nothing the Image of Death and pomp of Vices the whole in minding and doing another thing than which they came for We read of a Phylosopher who busied himself thirty years in observing the Oeconomie of Bees of a Graver who spent his whole life in Carving and Pollishing one Statue of Isocrates who studied ten years to compose an Oration which he was to pronounce at the Olympick Exercises of many Phylosophers who Travelled divers Countries with many dangers and inconveniences to acquire humane knowledg and experience shall not these rise up in judgment and condemn us if we think any time tedious to imploy in the affair of our Salvation The third and last Condition necessary for this work If we desire efficatiously to be saved we must labour with perseverance according to the example of our B. Saviour on the Cross who would not descend from thence to put an end to his sufferings and to the incredulity of the people who desired it but as he says himself he would there finish and consummate the work his Father had recommended to him which was the Salvation of men for his glory The Wise-man said that omnia tempus habent there is a time for all things a time to Sow and a time to Reap and the like and out of these Seasons they are not to be done But the affair of our Salvation hath no certain time assigned for it but the whole course of our life from the first moment that we have the use of reason to the last is to be employed in it Reason perswades us this truth and gives us to understand of what importance the assiduity of this work is because our Salvation depends on the last action of our life if that be good meritorious and agreeable to God it will save us if bad sure enough we shall be damned for as the Tree falls so it shall lie But here our death is uncertain and every moment of our life may be the last and the fatal stroke may surprise us when we think least of it have we not reason then to travel incessantly in the affair of our Salvation to secure it as much as possibly we can for unless we persevere unto the end in it we cannot be saved And the breaking off this work and declining out of the right way though it be but for a time may be the cause of our not persevering to the end and consequently of our eternal perdition Many examples in this kind Sacred and Ecclesiastical History afford us and happy are we if we become so wise by them as at all times to be vigilant about this affair The Manner of Life to obtain Salvation SECOND PART CHAP. I. Of the divers Lives of Christians ST Augustine speaking of the Antient Patriarks and Prophets sayes Re non nomine Christiani they were not Christians in Name but in effect and action But we may affirm the contrary of many in our times who stile themselves Christians they are not such really and in effect but only by Baptisme and Name To discover fully this truth unto you I shall shew you the divers lives of Christians and what is the true one necessarily required to obtain Salvation For we be such as the lives are we lead good if they be such bad if they be bad To have life saith St. Thomas is to have in one the principle and cause of Motion when a Woman with Child perceives the fruit she bears in her begin to move she sayes I know well my Infant is alive when one is on his Death-bed if we see he hath not any more motion neither in hands eyes lips or pulse we say he hath no life in him From hence we give by a Metaphor the name of Life to a running water to a flame ascending in the Air not that they have properly life in them but because they move being not in their Center but tending to it We find in the world four sorts of Lives according to four divers principles which give motion to all the actions of living Creatures The Vegetative Life which is that of Plants which is imployed to nourish and increase The Sensitive Life that of Beasts and Animals which conduct themselves by sence The Rational Life which is guided only by Natural Reason The true Christian Life which is governed by Faith If we look amongst Christians and Catholicks with the true eye of the Spirit we may discover many fair Plants good Beasts and honest Men as the world stiles them but few true Christians Of the Vegetative Life of Christians We may begin this with the saying of the blind Man in St. Mark when Christ had open his eyes he said Video homines sicut arbores ambulantes I see men walking as Trees Many persons who are in esteem in the world have no other Life but that of Plants no other principle of their actions than that of Trees Behold a Merchant who with care and diligence Travelleth by Sea and Land coucheth late riseth early what is the principle of this Motion why doth he all this to purchase a House a Farm a Possession or the like to establish himself on Earth as a Tree which spreads its Roots on every side to encrease and fix it self deeper and firmer in the Earth and so of a petty Mercer at the first in time become a rich Merchant as a Plant which of a petty Shrub at the first grows up into a great Tree in time See here again Parents of no great extraction and of small revenue at the first but so vigilant and active in managing their affairs that they come to be a great Family and Marry their Children to persons of honour and quality One may say here behold an excellent and fruitful Tree which produceth so many fair graffs to propagate withal what is this but the life of a Plant and in the mean time have no more spirit in them than a Plant nay in some respect far worse See a Tree placed by a Wall it doth not extend its branches on that side where the Wall casteth its shadow but which is warmed and heated most by the comfortable and cherishing beams of the Sun You breed up and dispose of your Children which are your branches Quorum filii sicut novellae plantationes Psal 144. Whose Children as young Plants amongst the Grandeurs of the world which are but shadows of true greatness and less regarded and visited by the Sun of Justice and gratious influence of Heaven and not on the side of Humility and Vertue which God most willingly respects for which many of them thrive so ill The like Errour we may discover in multitudes whose aime and endeavour here is only to advance themselves and their Families in worldly wealth and greatness to extend and dilate themselves and their Posterity on Earth do not Trees do the like and can we esteem better of the life of such than of that of Plants which naturally covet a deeper root