virtue to avoid that which is ill There are many from whom good works do escape while they both think and do ill Truth makes use of their tongues when Devils command their hearts It is this which makes us see our Saviours Empire and the extent of his conquests which is not limited by time he being already entred into possesson of eternity and it is not bounded by place because it contains all Immensity Night hath no power to cover it because it is light it self It cannot be shut up in any deceitfull shadow because it scatters and discovers all falshood It cannot be comprehended within our senses because it exceeds their capacity and it is present in all places being omnipotent and eternall in all time Aspirations O Jesus Father of all blessed unions who hast suffered death to unite all the children of God together who are scattered over all the countreys of the world wilt thou have no pity of my heart so many times torn in pieces and strayed among a great multitude of objects which estrange and draw me from the first of all unities My soul melts through all the Gates of my senses by running after so many creatures which do kindle covetousnesse but never serve to refresh or cool the heat of it Draw me O Lord from the great throng of so many exteriour things that I may retire into my own heart and from thence arise to thine where I may find that peace which thou hast cimented fast with thy most precious blood When shall I see the first beams of that liberty which thou grantest to thy Children When shall my thoughts return from wandering in those barren regions where thou art not acknowledged When shall I be reunited and so purified by thy favours that they may celebrate continuall dayes of feast in my soul I am already there in desire and shall be there in presence when by help of thine infinite grace and mercy I can be wholly thine The Gospel upon Saturday the fifth week in Lent S. Iohn 12. The chief Priests thought to kill Lazarus because the miracle upon him made many follow Jesus BVt the chief Priests devised to kill Lazarus also because many for him of the Iewes went away and believed in Iesus And on the morrow a great multitude that was come to a festival day when they had heard that Iesus cometh to Ierusalem they took the boughs of Palms and went forth to meet him and cried Hosanna blessed is he that commeth in the name of our Lord the King of Israel And Iesus found a young Asse and sate upon it as it is written Fear not daughter of Sion behold thy King cometh sitting upon an Asses colt These things his Disciples did not know at the first but when Iesus was glorified then they remembred that these things had been written of him and these things they did to him The multitude therefore gave testimony which was with him when he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from the dead For therefore all the multitude came to meet him because they heard that he had done this sign The Pharisees therefore said among themselves Do you see that we prevail nothing Behold the whole world is gone after him And there were certain Gentiles of them that came up to adore in the Festivall day These therefore came to Philip who was of Bethsaida of Galilee and desired him saying Sir we are desirous to see Iesus Philip cometh and telleth Andrew Again Andrew aâ—d â—hilip told Iesus but Iesus answered them saying The hour is come that the Son of man shall be glorified Amen Amen I say to you Vnlesse the grain of wheat falling into the ground die it self remaineth alone but if it die it bringeth much fruit He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life in this world doth keep it to life everlasting If any man minister to me let him follow me and where I am there also shall my minister be If any man minister to me my Father will honour him Moralities 1. ADmire here the extasies of our sweet Saviour He is ravished by the object of his death and is transported by the Idea of his sufferings The trumpet of heaven souÌ„ded in the voyce which was heard by this great multitude He encourages himself to his combat he looks confidently upon the Crosse as the fountain of his glories and planted his elevation upon the lowest abasements Shall not we love this Crosse which Jesus hath cherished as his Spouse He gave up his soul in the arms of it to conquer our souls We shall never be worthy of him till we bear the Ensigns of his war and the ornaments of his peace Every thing is Paradise to him that knows how to love the Crosse and every thing is hell to those who flie from it and no body flies it but shall find it It is the gate of our mortality whether we must all come though we turn our backs to it 2. What a great secret it is to hate our soul that we may love it to hate it for a time that we may love it for all eternity to punish it in this life to give it thereby a perpetuall rest in that to come to despise it that we may honour it To handle it roughly that it may be perfectly established in all delights And yet this is the way which all just men have passed to arrive at the chiefest point of their rest They have resembled the Flowers de-Luce which weep for a time and out of their own tears produce seeds which renew their beauties The salt sea for them becomes a flourishing field as it did to the people of God when they came forth of the chains of Egypt The cloud which appeared to the Prophet Ezekiel carried with it winds and storms but it was environd with a golden circle to teach us that the storms of affliction which happen to Gods children are encompassed with brightnesse and smiling felicity They must rot as a grain of wheat that they may bud out and flourish in the ear They must abide the diversity of times and endure the Sythe and Flail They must be ground in a mill and passe by water and fire before they can be made bread pleasing to Jesus Christ Our losses are our advantages we lose nothing but to gain by it we humble and abase our selves to be exalted we despoil our selves to be better clothed and we mortifie our selves to be revived O what a grain of wheat is Jesus Christ who hath past all these trialls to make the height of all heavenly glories bud out of his infinite sufferings Aspirations O God I have that passionate desire which these strangers had to see Jesus I doe not ask it of Philip nor shall Philip have cause to ask Andrew My Jesus I ask it of thy self thou art beautifull even in the way of the Crosse Thou dist shew thy self couragious in the Abysse of thy pains thou art
to abate and humble the proudest of all Creatures then to represent his beginning and his end The middle-part of our life like a kind of Proteus takes up on it severall shapes not understood by others but the first and last part of it deceive no man for they do both begin and end in Dust It is a strange thing that Man knowing well what he hath been and what he must be is not confounded in himself by observing the pride of his own life and the great disorder of his passions The end of all other creatures is less deformed then that of man Plants in their death retain some pleasing smell of their bodies The little rose buries it self in her naturall sweetnesse and carnation colour Many Creatures at their death leave us their teeth horns feathers skins of which we make great use Others after death are served up in silver and golden dishes to feed the geatest persons of the world Onely mans dead carcase is good for nothing but to feed worms and yet he often retains the presumptuous pride of a Giant by the exorbitance of his heart and the cruell nature of a murderer by the furious rage of his revenge Surely that man must either be stupid by nature or most wicked by his own election who will not correct and amend himself having still before his eyes ashes for his glasse and death for his mistres 2 This consideration of Dust is an excellent remedy to cure vices and an assured Rampire against all temptations S. Paulinus saith excellently well That holy Iob was free from all temptations when he was placed upon the smoke and dust of his humility He that lies upon the ground can fall no lower but may contemplate all above him and meditate how to raise himself by the hand of God which pulls down the proud and exalts the humble Is a man tempted with pride The consideration of Ashes will humble him Is he burned with wanton love which is a direct fire But fire cannot consume Ashes Is he persecuted with covetousness Ashes do make the greatest Leeches and Bloud-Suckers cast their Gorges Every thing gives way to this unvalued thing because God is pleased to draw the instruments of his power out of the objects of our infirmities 3. If we knew how to use rightly the meditation of death we should there find the streames of life All the world together is of no estimation to him that rightly knows the true value of a just mans death It would be necessary that they who are taken with the curiosity of Tulips should set in their Gardens a Plant called Napell which carries a flower that most perfectly resembles a Deaths head And if the other Tulips do please their senses that will instruct their reason Before our last death we should die many other deaths by forsaking all those creatures and affections which lead us to sin We should resemble those creatures sacred to the Egyptians called Cynocephales which died piece-meal and were buried long before their death So should we bury all our concupiscences before we go to the grave and strive to live so that when death comes he should find very little businesse with us Aspiration O Father of all Essences who givest beginning to all things and art without end This day I take Ashes upon my head thereby professing before thee my being nothing and to do thee homage for that which I am and for that I ought to be by thy great bounties Alas O Lord my poor soul is confounded to see so many sparkles of pride and covetousnesse arise from this caitiffe dust which I am so little do I yet learn how to live and so late do I know how to die O God of my life and death I most humbly beseech thee so to govern the first in me and so to sweeten the last for me that if I live I may live onely for thee and if I must die that I may enter into everlasting blisse by dying in thy blessed love and favour The Gospel upon Ashwednesday S. Matthew 6. Of Hypocryticall Fasting WHen you fast be not as the hypocrites sad for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast Amen I say to you that they have received their reward Put thou when thou doest fast anoint thy head and wash thy face that thou appear not to men to fast but to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret will repay thee Heap not up to your selves treasures on the earth where the rust and moth do corrupt and where thieves dig thorow and steal But heap up to your selves treasures in heaven where neither the rust nor moth doth corrupt and where thieves do not dig thorow nor steal For where thy treasure is there is thy heart also Moralities 1. THat man goes to Hell by the way of Paradise who fasts and afflicts his body to draw the Praise of Men. Sorrow and vanity together are not able to make one Christian Act. He deserves everlasting hunger who starves himself that he may swell and burst with vain glory He stands for a spectacle to others being the murderer of himself and by sowing vanity reaps nothing but wind Our intentions must be wholly directed to God and our examples for our neighbour The Father of all vertues is not to be served with counterfeit devotions such lies are abomination in his sight and â—ertullian saith they are as many adulteries 2. It imports us much to begin Lent well entring into those lists in which so many holy souls have run their course with so great strictnesse having been glorious before God and honourable before men The difficulty of it is apprehended onely by those who have their understandings obstructed by a violent affection to kitchin stuffe It is no more burdensome to a couragious spirit then feathers are to a bird The chearfulnesse which a man brings to a good action in the beginning does halfe the work Let us wash our faces by confession Let us perfume our Head who is Jesus Christ by almes deeds Fasting is a most delicious feast to the conscience when it is accompanied with purenesse and charity but it breeds great thirst when it is not nourished with devotion and watered with mercy 3. What great pain is taken to get treasure what care to preserve it what fear to lose it and what sorrow when it is lost Alas is there need of so great covetousnesse in life to encounter with such extream nakednesse in death We have not the souls of Giants nor the body of a Whale If God will me poor must I endeavour to reverse the decrees of heaven and earth that I may become rich To whom do we trust the safety of our treasures To rust to moths and thieves were it not better we should in our infirmities depend only on God Almighty comfort our poverty in him who is onely rich and so carry our souls to heaven where Jesus on
in sinnes and dost thou teach us And they did cast him forth Iesus heard that they câ—st him forth and when he had found him he said to him Dost thou believe in the Sonne of God He answered and said Who is the Lord that I may believe in him And Iesus said to him Both thou hast seen him and he that talketh with thee he it is But he said I believe Lord and falling down he adored him Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all brightnesse who walked accompanied with his twelve Apostles as the Sun doth with the hours of the day gives eyes to a blind man and doth it by clay and spittle to teach us that none hath power to do works above nature but he that was the Authour of it On the other side a blind man becomes a King over persons of the clearest light being restored to light he renders again the same to the first fountain from vvhence it came He makes himself an Advocate to plead for the chiefest truth and of a poor beggar becomes a confessor after he had deplored his misery at the Temple gate teacheth all mankind the estate of its own felicities We should in imitation of him love the light by adoring the fountain of it and behave our selves as witnesses and defenders of the truth 2. God is a light and by his light draws all unto him he makes a break of day by his grace in this life which becomes afterward a perfect day for all eternity But many lose themselves in this world some for want of light some by a false light and some by having too much light 3. Those lose themselves for vvant of light vvho are not all instructed in the faith and maximes of Christian Religion and those instead of approching near the light love their ovvn darkness They hate the light of their salvation as the shadovv of death and think that if you give them eyes to see their blindnesse you take away their life If they seem Christians they yet have nothing but the name the appearance the book of Jesus is shut from them or if they make a shew to read they may name the letters but never can produce one right good word 4. Others destroy themselves by false lights who being wedded to their own opinions adoring the Chimeraes of their spirit think themselves full of knowledge just happy that the Sun riseth only for them and that all the rest of the world is in darkness they conceive they have the fairest stars for conductors but at the end of their career they find too late that this pretended light was but an Ignis fatuus which led them to a precipice of eternal flames It is the worst of all follies to be wise in our own eye sight and the worst of all temptations is for a man to be a devil to himself 5. Those ruine themselves with too much light who have all Gods law by heart but never have any heart to that law They know the Scriptures all learning sciences they understand every thing but themselves they can find spots in the Sun they can give new names to the stars they perswade themselvs that God is all that they apprehend But after all this heap of knowledge they are found to be like the Sages of Pharaoh and can produce nothing but bloud and frogs Thay embroil and trouble the world they stain their own lives and at their deaths leave nothing to continue but the memory of their sins It would be more expedient for them rather then have such light to carry fiâ—e wherewith to be burning in the love of God and not to swell and burst with that kind of knowledge All learning which is not joined with a good life is like a picture in the aire which hath no table to make it subsist It is not sufficient to be elevated in spirit like the Prophets except a man do enter into some perfect imitation of their virtues Aspirations O Fountain of all brightnesse before whom night can have no vail who seest the day spring out of thy bosome to spread it self over all nature wilt thou have no pity upon my blindness will there be no medicine for my eyes which have so often grown dull and heavy with earthly humours O Lord I want light being alwaies so blind to my own sinnes So many years are past wherein I have dwelt vvith my self and yet know not what I am Self-love maketh me sometimes apprehend imaginary virtues in great and see all my crimes in little I too often believe my own judgement and adore my own opinions as gods and goddesses if thou send me any light I make so ill use of it that I dazle my self even in the brightnesse of thy day making little or no profit of that which would be so much to my advantage if I were so happy as to know it But henceforth I will have no eyes but for thee I will only contemplate thee O life of all beauties and draw all the powers of my soul into my eyes that I may the better apprehend the mistery of thy bounties O cast upon me one beam of thy grace so powerfull that it may never forsake me till I may see the day of thy glory The Gospell upon Thursday the fourth week in Lent St Luke the 7. Of the Widows Son raised from death to life at Naim by our Saviour ANd it came to passe afterward he went into a City that is called Naim and there wâ—nt with him his Disciples and a very great multitude And when he came nigh to the gate of the City behold a dead man was carried forth the only Son of his Mother and she was a Widow and a great muâ—â—itude of the City with her whom when our Lord had seen being moved with mercy upon her he said to her Weep not And he came near and touched the Cossin And they that carried it stood still and he said Young man I say to thee Arise And he that was dead sate up and began to speak And he gave him to his Mother and fear took them all and they magnified God saying That a great Prophet is risen among us and that God hath visited his People And this saying went forth into all Iewry of him and into all the Countrey about Moralities JEsus met at the Gates of Naim which is interpâ—eted the Town of Beauties a young man carried to burial to shew us that neither beauty nor youth are freed from the Laws of death We fear death and there is almost nothing more immortal here below every thing dies but death it self We see him alwaies in the Gospells we touch him every day by our experiences and yet neither the Gospells make us sufficiently faithfull nor our experiences well advised 2. If we behold death by his natural face he seems a litle strange to us because we have not seen him well acted We lay upon him sithes bows and arrows we
put upon him ugly antick faces we compass him round about with terrours and illusions of all which he never so much as thought It is a profound sleep in which Nature lets it self fail insensibly when she is tired with the disquiets of this life It is a cessation of all those services which the soul renders to the flesh It is an execution of Gods will and a decree common to all the world To be disquieted and drawn by the ears o pay a debt which so many millions of men of all conditions have paid before us is to do as a frog that would swim against a sharp stream of a forcible torâ—ent We have been as it were dead to so many ages which went before us we die piece-meal every day we assay death so often in our sleep discreet men expect him fools despise him and the most disdainfull persons must entertain him Shall vve not knovv and endeavour to do that one thing vvell vvhich being once vvell performed vvill give us life for ever Me thinks it is rather a gift of God to die soon then to stay late amongst the occasions of sinne 3. It is not death but a vvicked life vve have cause to fear That onely lies heavie both troubles us and keeps us from understanding and tasting the svveets of death He that can die to so many little dead and dying things vvhich make us die every day by our unvvillingness to forsake thë shall find that death is nothing to him But vve vvould fain in death carry the vvorld vvith us upon our shoulders to the grave that is a thing vve cannot do We vvould avoid the judgement of a just God that is a thing vvhich vve should not so much as thinke Let us clear our accounts before we die let us take order for our soul by repentance a moderate care of our bodies buriall Let us order our goods by a good and charitable testament with a discreet direction for the poor for our children kindred to be executed by fit persons Let us put our selves into the protection of the divine providence with a most perfect confidence and how can we then fear death being in the arms of life Aspirations O Iesus fountain of all lives in whose bosome all things are living Iesus the fruit of the dead who hast destroyed the kingdome of death why should we fear a path which thou hast so terrified with thy steps honoured with thy bloud sanctified by thy conquests Shall we never die to so many dying things All is dead here for us we have no life if we do not seek it from thy heart What should I care for death though he come with all those grim hideous antick faces which men put upon him for when I see him through thy wounds thy bloud thy venerable death I find he hath no sting at all If I shall walk in the shadow of death and a thousand terrours shall conspire against me on every side to disturb my quiet I will fear nothing being placed in the arms of thy providence O my sweet Master do but once touch the winding sheet of my body which holds down my soul so often within the sleep of death and sin Command me to arise and speak and then the light of thy morning shall never set my discourses shall be alwayes of thy praises and my life shall be onely a contemplation of thy beautifull countenance The Gospel upon Friday the fourth week in Lent S. Iohn 11. Of the raising of Lazarus from death ANd there was a certain sickman Lazarus of bethania of the Town of Mary and Martha her sister And Mary was she that anointed our Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair whose brother Lazarus was sick his sisters therefore sent to him saying Lord behold he whom thou lovest is sick And Iesus hearing said to them This sicknesse is not to death but for the glory of God that the Son may be glorified by it And Iesus loved Martha and her sister Marie and Lazarus As he heard therefore that he was sick then he tarried in the same place two dayes Then after this he saith to his Disciples Let us go into Iewry again The Disciples say to him Rabbi now the Iewes sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again Iesus answered Are there not twelve hours of the day If a man walk in the day he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this world but if he walk in the night he stumbleth because the light is not in him These things he said and after this he saith to them Lazarus our friend sleepeth but I go that I may raise him from sleep His Disciples therefore said Lord if he sleep he shall be safe But Iesus spake of his death and they thought that he spake of the sleeping of sleep Then therefore Iesus saïd to them plainly Lazarus is dead and I am glad for your sake that you may believe because I was not there but let us go to him Thomas therefore who called Didymus said to his condisciples Let us also go to die with him Iesus therefore came and found him now having been four dayes in the grave And Bethania was nigh to Ierusalem about fifteen furlongs And many of the Iewes were come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother Martha therefore when she heard that Iesus was come went to meet him but Mary sate at home Martha therefore said to Iesus Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died But now also I know that what things soever thou shalt ask of God God will give thee Iesus saith to her Thy brother shall rise again Martha saith to him I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection in the last day Iesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me although he be dead shall live And every one that liveth and believeth in me shall not die for ever Believest thou this She said to him Yea Lord I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of God that art come into this world Moralities 1. OUr Saviour Jesus makes here a strong assault upon death to cure our infirmities at the cost of his dearest friends He suffered Lazarus whom he loved tenderly to fall into a violent sicknesse to teach us that the bodies of Gods favourites are not free from infirmities and that to make men Saints they must not enjoy too much health A soul is never more worthy to be a house for God then when she raiseth up the greatnesse of her courage the body being cast down with sicknesse A soul which suffers is a sacred thing All the world did touch our Saviour before his Passion The throng of people pressed upon him but after his death he would not be touched by S. Mary Maudlin because he was consecrated by his dolors 2. The good sisters dispatch a messenger not to a strange
admirable in the contempt of death The heavenly Trumpet hath already sounded for thee and cheerfulnesse gives wings to carry thee to this great combat where death and life sight singly together which makes life die for a time and death live for ever I will forsake my very soul to follow thee in this Agony and find my life in thy death as thou hast extinguished death in thy life The Gospel upon Palm Sunday S. Matthew 21. Our Saviour came in triumph to Jerusalem a little before his Passion ANd when they drew nigh to Ierusalem and were come to Bethphage unto mount Olivet then Iesus sent two Disciples saying to them Go ye into the town that is against you and immediately you shall find an Asse tied and a colt with her loose them and bring them to me And if any man shall say ought unto you say ye That our Lord hath need of them and forthwith he will let them goe And this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet saying Say ye to the daughter of Sion Behold thy King cometh to thee mock and sitting upon an Asse and a Colt the foal of her that is used to the yoke And the Disciples going did as Iesus commanded them and they brought the Asse and the Colt and laid their garments upon them and made him to sit thereon And a very great multitude spred their garments in the way and others did cut boughs from the trees and strewed them in the way and the multitudes that went before and that followed cryed saying Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Moralities 1. OUr Saviour goes to his death in triumph he appears to be a King but a King of Hearts who requires nothing of us but our selves onely to make us happy and contented in him He triumphs before the victory because non but he could be sure of the future certainty of his happiness But he watered his triumphs with tears to weep for our joyes which where to proceed out of his sadness It is related by an ancient Oratour that when Constantine made his entry into great Britany where he was born the people received him with so great applause that they killed the Sails and Oars of the Vessell which brought him were ready to pave the streets with their bodies for him to tread on If they did so for a mortal man what should we not do for an eternal God who comes to buy us with his precious bloud and demands entrance into our hearts only to give us Paradise 2. He walks towards his Cross amongst the cries of favour and joy to teach us with what chearfulnesse we should conform our selves to abide our own sufferings imitating the Apostles who receiv'd their first reproches as Manna from Heaven He would have us prepared resolved alwaies to suffer death patiently whether it be a death which raiseth up our spirit to forsake sensuality ot a natural death Whatsoever it be we should embrace it as the day which must bring us to our lodging after a troublesome pilgrimage Doth it not appear plainly that those who are loth to forsake the world are like herbs put into an earthen pot amongst straw dung yet would be unwilling to come forth of it The forniture of out worldly lodging grows rotten the roof is ready to fall upon our heads the foundation shakes under our feet and we fear that day which if vve our selves vvill shall be the â—orning of our eternall happinesse It is not death but onely the opinion of it which is terrible and every man considers it according to the disposition of his own spirit 3. The Palm branches vvhich we carry in our hands require from us the renewing of a life purified and cleansed in the bloud of the holy Lambe In the beginning of lent we take upon our heads the ashes of Palm branches to teach us that we do then enter as it vvere into the Sepulchre of repentance But novv vve carry green bows to make us know that now vve come out of the tomb of Ashes to enter again into the strength of doing good vvorks in imitation of the trees vvhich having been covered vvith snovv and buried in the sharpnesse of vvinter do again begin to bud in the Spring time 4. The garments spread under the feet of Jesus declare that all our temporall goods should be employed tovvard his glory and that vve must forsake our affections to all things vvhich perish that vve may be partakers of his kingdome No man can stand firm that is delighted vvith movable things He that is subject to vvorldly affections binds himself to a vvheel vvhich turns about continually Jesus accepted this triumph onely to despise it he reserved the honour of it in his own hands to drovvn it in the floud of his tears and in the sea of his precious bloud If you be rich and wealthy do not publish it vainly but let the poor feel it You must live amongst all the greatnesse jollity of this world as a man whose onely businesse must be to go to God Aspirations O Soveraign King of hearts after whom all chaste loves do languish I am filled with joy to see tâ—ee walk amongst the cries of joy and the palms gâ—rments of thy admirers which served for carpets I am ravished wi h thy onours and the delights of thy glory and I applaud thy triumphs Alas that all the earth is not obedient to thy laws and that the tongues of aâ—l people do not make one voice to acknowledge thee sole Monarch of heaven and earth Triumph at least in the hearts of thy faithfull servants O my magnificent Master make a triumphall Ark composed of hearts Put fire to it vvith thy adored hand Send out one spark of that heat vvhich tâ—ou camest to spread upon the earth Let every thing burn for thee and consume it self in thy love I do irrevocably bind my heart to the magnificence of thy triumpâ— and I love better to be thy slave then to be saluted king of the vvhole vvorld The Gospel upon Munday in holy week S. Iohn 12. Saint Mary Magdalen anointed our Saviours feet vvith precious ointment at vvhich Iudas repined JEsus therefore six dayes before the Pasche came to Bethaenia where Lazarus was that had been dead whom Iesus raised and they made him a supper there and Martha ministred but Lazarus was one of them that sate at the table with him Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right Spikenard precious and anointed the feet of Iesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled of the odour of the Ointment One therefore of his Disciples Iudas Iscariot he that was to betray him said Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor And he said this not because he cared for the poor but because he waâ— a thiâ—fâ— and having the