great for it hath all the dimensions of greatness it reacheth from Heaven to Earth even to the Gates of Hell It is extended from one pole to another nay it is immense as God himself participating of his Divine nature it searches the abstrusest corners of our Heart and if the least Crany be put open to his light and grace it is presently replenished by this great mercy Ah! did we but know what mists of terrene affections the beams of his mercy have dispersed within us what a change they have made in our bad inclinations what dangers they have met and diverted from us We should even repine at Nature that hath not furnished us with more Hearts and Tongues to love and praise this great mercy He adds likewise secundùm that is according to the custome of thy great mercy which uses not to boggle at the remission of any sin nor to look so precisely upon the degree of the offendours past malice as upon his present repentance whence he grounds the Communication of his Grace by which we may discern the Sense our Holy King had of his transgressions which made him willing to huddle up his score and without giving in any particular to desire they mighâ—â—…ther in a cluster be cast and drowned in the Ocean of his Mercy We are taught by this two things First not to presume upon the value of our own actions so farr as from them to justifie our selves for in this kind none could plead more for himself than our holy petitioner he had with a Piety and fortitude unequalled run through many difficult and glorious enterprises wherein God was pleased to appear for him and own him his champion Yet he thinks good to hush up all this well knowing that praise is due alone to him under whose guidance and protection he had begun and set a fortunate period to them Next we are taught that reflecting upon our sins past we should never despair for as our good deeds we owe to God alone by whose inspiration moving us we do them so we must submit our bad deeds whereof we our selves are the sole Authors to his Mercy Whence we may see though he cannot concurr with us in doing ill his unspotted Nature being incapable of any obliquity yet it being done he will share with us in the undoing or repairing of our misfortunes And which is more no sooner hath this Mâ—rciful Hand dragg'd us out of the mire of Sin but 't is stretched forth to be joyn'd to ours in a happy nuptial bond promising by his Prophet to espouse us unto himself for ever in misericordia in the inseparable Union of his Mercy It is this great Mercy without end or beginning which hath decreed from all eternity to bring us off clear from all misery and place us glorious in his light inaccessible from the time that God was and loved himself he disposed us for his love and mercy have we not therefore reason to spend every moment of our Life in loving praising and glorifying this great mercy It is in all kinds infinite no excess of malice obstructs it no frequency of Commission or reiterated guilt renders it inexorable no time excludes it no not a desperate delay to the last moment O God thy judgments may be well said to be unfathomed Abysses wherein are lost our most Enormous crimes and from that loss we find our selves transferred unto the enjoyance of thee irradiated with the comfortable beams of thy mercy But above all this mercy never appears so great as in the admirable Mystery of the Incarnation where we behold the eternal Father giving up his only Son in behalf of Mankind vitiated and defiled with Sin rebellious and insolent against His Sovereign a Worm and poor scantling of putrefaction a prey for the Flames of Hell That I say a God most perfect in himself who hath no want should love so vile a Creature at such a distance from him and who could stand him in no stead and yet this eternal God full of greatness hath cherished Man in such a manner as to bestow upon him the dear production of himself coeternal consubstantial and equal to him in Greatness and Majesty and for what end To save him from ruine to enrich him with eternal Life this is that great mercy our Penitent now implores and he claims it by vertue of a promise made to Abraham that since he had not grudged him his only Sonne all Nations should be blessed in his Seed that the Eternal Death of him who is temporal should be redeemed by the temporal Death of him who is eternal How many Miracles found birth in the execution of this act of love and mercy First Nature was stopt as to the result of a humane subsistence in whose place was intimately applyed the personality of the Divine word and this infinite subsistence was adorned with graces vertues and priviledges supereminent a Mother enjoyed a fruitful Virginity and a delivery without pain in the fruit was found at the same instant the blood consolidated organized animated and deifyed So that the Second Person of the blessed Trinity assuming a new Being newly produced that is the essence of a holy humanity attyred himself with it becomes a good man and a master piece of love and mercy A remedy so necessary that without it all the purity of Angels and Holy Souls all the inflamed desires of the Patriarchs could never have merited with condignity this incarnate mistery For were all the groans put together all the tears sufferings and exquisite torments which Saints have endured for the love of God and on the other side but one single tear thrown in of Jesus Christ shed either at his birth or any time of his life this tear issuing from the flaming Furnace of his Heart Sacred and united to the Divine Word would exceed in value all you can think or imagine in the meritorious actions of Creatures So that this adorable mistery is not a mistery of just retribution springing from any humane or Angelical merit but 't is a mistery of goodness and supereminent mercy and in consideration of that prodigious design of love he is animated in his suit and believes he cannot receive a repulse because he acts it Secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam in the name of the Messias in whom all the Divine mercies from the beginning of the World issued forth unto mankind are comprised and consequently may be stiled a great and the greatest of mercies The Application Our Holy penitent having in the clear prospect of his prophetick View beheld this great work of mercy brake forth into this happy expression and couches a clause of all others the most efficacious to obtain the end he sues for we may learn from hence that our Mediator Jesus Christ is the best Sanctuary in all our distresses whether in regard of our past offences or of our impotency to repair our failings Methinks I hear our Petitioner to say O God what
slight wound received upon their score would have little effect wherefore he used all the endearing motives imaginable to work them to their duty and what greater than to receive upon his Back the stripes due to anothers transgression It is related of St. Gregory the great that he never beheld the pourtraiture of Abraham with his Arm lifted up to Sacrifice Isaac but it drew Tears from him and for us to behold the Eternal Father abandoning his own and only Son to all the outrages which accursed miscreants could inflict upon him without any resentment of our obligations especially since they were directed to lead us into the enjoyment of eternal felicity is certainly a wonder beyond all the prodigies he ever wrought we see that very Tygers are won by the unresistable power of good turns wherefore Christ our Lord hoped by this Engin to make a breach into us and if once he made an Entry into our Hearts he knew we would presently Capitulate and surrender at least with colours flying that is conform our selves to his commands though upon the large Articles of enjoying many sensual pleasures which his indulgent Rules allow to the more Earthy part of Mankind Besides this rational design of working us to a Complyance with his precepts he had yet another more sublime in his superabundant satisfaction which was to teach us the Law of love now this is an Enemy to mercenary aims and carryes us beyond the Crude principles of doing no more than what is precisely commanded St. Peter tells us his drift in this so rigorous a discharge of our debts that sayes he we might follow and trace his steps For he knew this afflictive way so necessary to us as things now stand after our corruption in sin that albeit one groan of his had been sufficient through the dignity of his infinite person to have redeemed a million of Worlds yet he was content to load himself with all the injuries that Man can endure believing his commands would prove less efficacious than the model and pattern of an immense love represented lively unto us in his own actions It is storied of a King amongst the Grecians that he had a person very deformed as it could not but create in the sense of the beholders a great distast However his goodness and wisdom so wrought upon his Subjects that all the irregular Lines of nature in their Sovereign they looked upon as strokes of perfection If then opinion had so much power as to work Men into a belief that very Monsters of nature are quaint perfections why should not the authority and ever adorable example of our Lord Jesus Christ find so much credit amongst Men as to effect That poverty chastity contempt patience persecutions and the like which till then the VVorld had entertained with horrour might afterwards be had in as much veneration since he had daigned to honor them by his sufferings raise them by his greatness fix them by his authority and fortify them by his admirable example He had reason to perswade himself that Men would no more spartle at fasting hair-cloths watching in prayer unwearied labors and austerities of all kind since he himself their Lord and Master had followed the same track all the Documents he hath chaulked out to us from the Crib through the whole course of his mortal life even unto the Cross had no other aim than to draw us from the love of fading objects and to divert us from placing any felicity in them Nor truly Madam hath this design proved unsuccessful for his example hath put millions of generous hearts upon the task of sufferings and justly possessed them that the greatest honor is to be humble the greatest victory to be patient and forgive the greatest abundance to be poor the greatest delicacies to fast the greatest pleasures to macerate their Bodies the greatest happiness to enjoy nothing of what the World calls happy And all this because their Heavenly Master had read this Lesson to them in his own actions and though they could not by all their crucifying inventions in contemning the World and themselves for his sake reach to a compleat return at least they hoped by them to express their gratitude and manifest how truly they were the spoils of his amorous conquests This little Treatise Madam is grounded upon a famous President to publish to the world what pennance can do It sets before our Eyes a King who had great failings but by penitential acts he so redeemed them as I question whether succeeding ages gained not more by his misfortunes than if he had never lost his innocence and as it is said of the incredulous Apostle that his slow belief cleared to us all mists of doubt so the miscarriages of our great Penitent warn us both of our own weakness not to trust to our selves in dangerous occasions as also of God's enclining mercy so to shield us from despair Next we are taught by this Royal Penitent that being drawn from the mire of sin God confines not his mercy to a bare pardon but afterwards gives us means to arrive at a high pitch of perfection I confess Madam I have a holy ambition to see you great in this noble warfare since the most eminent Saints and most innocent Souls that ever were upon Earth have made it their glory to fight under these colours and this passion in me springs not only from a common zeal of Christianity to promote others in Gods favour but out of a particular respect to your person having had the happiness to be employed and serve many of your relations in affairs of no small importance Wherefore fear not to take up the arms of pennance they will not blemish your fair hand but prove to your advantage in what posture soever you stand with your dear Creatour for in these Christian conflicts simply to obey secures you from being overcome and every vertuous sally beyond what is commanded will purchase fresh Laurels to you the greatness of your birth prompts â—ou not to be ungrateful and the temper of your Sex is not usually of Adamant against the impressions of love especially when wrought upon by an accomplished perfection and by all the endearing obligations imaginable and albeit before this address you may have happily rendered your self a Captive to the sacred charms of your suffering Redeemer yet if the perusal of these poor descants may add but one Spark to those your holy enkindled flames I shall think my labour in this Subject well spent by which I hope will be evidenced how much your eternal good is valued by MADAM Your truly devoted Servant Nicolas Cross ERRATA Read Page 9. Line 14. conservation p. 16. l. 26. God-man p. 26. l. 19. resolved p. 37. l. 12. unto p. 38. l. 11. He who knew no sin p. 64. l. 15. bestialized p. 64. l. 12. incompatible p. 79. l. 14. wry p. 92. l. 27. submission p. 94. l. 24. extended p. 100. l. 14. a habit p.
in his Throne drawing from thence the eternal Son of God O who can be so wicked to behold the lines of this merciful proceeding drawn forth and not presently joyn issue with our holy preacher to abandon the pernicious wayes of sin and become a Disciple in the Rudiments of vertue To behold a Redeemer living in the Hearts of Men before he came to live upon Earth to see all the Sanctity of the World addressed to him to speak of nothing but him and all conspire to his glory If before he came he had so many tongues and voices to set him forth and that the Law and service of God had no other aim than to engrave the Messias in the Hearts of Men what expressions ought to enflame our zeal after his birth life cross and triumphant glory These are the wayes our Graduate will distill into the Minds of the wicked and certainly he did it with an excess of fervour and delight helped on by the consideration that out of his seed the Saviour of Israel was to be born And it is clear he kept close to this Theam even to the last making it his Testament and the subject of his expiring words to his Son Solomon That he should be sure to walk in the wayes of the Lord that in the exact observance of his judgments and Commandment written in the Law of Moses were fastned the succession of his Crown saying This done thou shalt not want one of thy posterity to sit upon the throne of Israel These are the wayes if happily taken will preserve the wicked from ruine give them eternal life secure them from Hell and open a passage to all the delights of Heaven as St. John sayes To the end that all who believe in the should possess eternal bliss Wherefore our Penitent egged on by so many powerful motives to the discharge of his task will never fail in what he hath promised to teach the wicked the wayes of God The Application Our Penitent instructs us here by his example that there is no employment so acceptable unto God as to disperse in our Neighbour the clouds of Ignorance and imbue him with principles of wisdome His Son Solomon was perhaps taught by this clause to address so happily his petition And Joel the prophet makes it the great subject of good tydings he foredeclared to the Church Be glad yea Sons of Sion and rejoyce in the Lord your God who hath given you a teacher of righteousness Aristotle being asked why Commonwealths did not assign pensions for Masters that taught and instructed others as they did to other offices of the State made this reply because there could be no reward answerable to their desert if he thought certain notions in natural knowledge to be so valuable what a price would he have set on such as convey the sublime mysteries of heaven unto us Let us then instruct our Neighbour by good example by doing charity to the distressed and by wholesome Documents every one according to his Talent and Ability And in doing this we follow the steps of a great Saint who believed he could in nothing better express his gratitude and zeal for God's honour than in the Reduction of Souls to the way of Salvation Amen CHAP. XXVIII Et impii ad te convertentur And the impious shall be converted to thee BY this clause our Penitent destroyes the Opinion of some in those modern times who assert that Christ died not for all Men but only for the elect for if the impious be not excluded from the participation of his precious Blood surely there is none that are impiety being a crime that directly strikes against the honour of God and is a complaet rebellion against his Divinity Now if our Divine by his preaching was confident to reduce such offendours whom can we imagine shall be excepted nor can they say we are put into a worse condition by the Evangelical Law in which a plenitude of benedictions are showred down upon us and which as far exceeds the Mosaick as a thing real the type and figure that represents it St. John Chap. 1.2 sayes Christ is a propitiation for our sins and not only for ours but for the sins of the whole World First Christ satisfied for Adam's disobedience and original sin witness St. Paul ad Rom. Chap. 2. As death entered by the default of one so life by the justice and obedience of one Again St. John sayes Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World that is original sin for the Greek version puts it in the Singular Number so Bede Theophilact and St. Thomas understand it The Angelical Doctor adds that the Son of God was incarnate rather for original sin which was an universal evil whose venome infected all Mankind than for the actual and personal sins of the World but as no sin is irremissible to an infinite mercy by consequence after original sin he made satisfaction for all actions and transgressions which were mortal The reason is that mortal sins not only deprive the Soul of the vision of God for all eternity but likewise exposes it to the everlasting torments of Hell the Son of God then whose nature is all goodness considered the misery of these sins and offered up his life and death for their expiation For without sanctifying grace our works are not meritorious nor can they satisfy for any venial sin Wherefore deprived of grace by original sin we could not by our selves no not by the assistance of the blessed Angels satisfy for the least venial sin Because though they be endued with grace yet no pure Creature can merit condign grace Wherefore it was necessary that Jesus Christ should make satisfaction for our least failing as St. Austin sayes excellently well that to save an infinity of VVorlds we ought not to cast one glance of the Eye contrary to the will of God Whence it is clear no Creature can satisfy for the least sin since to do it we must offer up something more valuable than the whole VVorld If then we could not free our selves from the least deviation without the interposition of his merits much less were we in a capacity to relieve our selves from the guilt of Enormous Crimes and if as to these the fruit of his passion was not applyed unto all it must be either from the inefficacy of satisfaction or a defect of commiseration and goodness towards his Creatures It cannot be the first for his merits are infinite by reason of the divine person from whence they proceed for actions belong to the person according to Philosophy It was likewise infinite in regard of his humanity because it was sanctifyed and deifyed by the divinity which was like a certain sanctifying and deifying form unto that sacred humanity now as the greatness of merit is not only measured by the quality of the work but also by many circumstances and especially in consideration of the dignity of the person that
its effects p. 158 159 Grace raises our hope to the expectation of a sovereign good p. 160 How sin is expulsed by grace p. 184 185 186 seq Grace compared to the essence of the Soul p. 192 How grace cleanses the Soul from all iniquity p. 193 194 Why grace doth not quiet all motions of sensuality p. 195 Grace purifyes all the powers of the Soul p. 196 God imparts his graces by degrees p. 224 The power of sanctifying grace p. 309 God God is the final end of all his works p. 337 God hath an essential glory and what it is ibid. He hath likewise an external accidental glory ibid. God is more glorified by a good than bad Soul p. 338 348 Every being glorifyes God p. 339 Why man above all in this world ought most to glorify God 340 341 Why God is delighted with our sufferings p. 385 Good works How do they merit a recompence p. 309 310 H Heart The heart the source of all evil and good p. 196 How St. Katharine of Sienna lost her heart p. 199 Character of a heart defiled with sin p. 201 God exacts only our hearts p. 202 The misery of a humane heart ibid. Honour Sacrificed by Christ on the Cross p. 429 Hope The comforts which hope brings to a Soul p. 160 161 The first sign of God's favour is to give us hope p. 332 The definition of hope p. 333 The motives of hope ibid. Holy Ghost His operations in a Soul p. 229 230 seq Humility Praise of this vertue p. 395 Not to be humble is to be disobedient ibid. Two kinds of humility p. 397 The effects of humility ibid. How pleasing to God p. 402 Homicide Terrours of mind which attend homicide p. 294 An injury not to be repaired p. 295 It destroyes God's image ibid. To prevent this he forbad in the old law the eating of blood p. 299 It is never left unrevenged ibid. Why a murthered body bleeds at the presence of the murtherer p. 299 300 I. Incarnation The wonders of this mystery set forth p. 16 No creature could satisfye for sin so that it was a mystery of love p. 17 Ingratitude The ingratitude of David p 232 Injury All injuries done are against God p. 89 307 Job Job excused from sin in cursing the day of his birth p. 116 117 Why God would not permit Satan to touch upon Job's life p. 384 Impiety Definition of it p. 285 seq Justice God's justice is distributive punitive and remunerative p. 318 319 seq To be just implyes an aggregation of all vertues p. 322 Justification The first step is not made without the concurrence of our wills p. 157 A justifyed Soul is filled with joy p. 156 seq Intention We shall be rewarded and punished according to our intention p. 204 Inspiration It highly imports not to reject the least good inspiration p. 224 Infirmity An infirm constitution and sickness not to be repined at p. 144 145 Instruction To teach others the way of salvation the highest employment p. 277 278 279 It is an employment envyed by the Angels ibid. Why Masters have not pensions assigned them by commonwealths p. 279 Ioy. Joy the effects of grace p. 56 seq Many blessings accompany a spiritual joy p. 162 163 Two kinds of joy p. 240 241 What ought to be the motive of our joy p. 243 The means to arrive at this joy p. 246 247 K. Knowledge Why it is good to know our iniquity p. 62 63 64 65 66 seq King In what sense Kings offend against God alone p. 81 The greater the person is that offends the greater is his offence 82 Why Kings are obliged to give good example p. 83 84 85 L. Love The properties of God's love p. 29 St. Peters love to Christ p. 233 Love assaults the Divinity in his throne p. 277 Why we should love our Neighbour p. 307 God's love in playing the merchant vvith poor man p 345 To overcome self-love the shortest way to perfection p. 382 Christ's love to man on the Cross p. 429 430 Christ's love to man in the institution of the Eucharist p. 436 seq Law What is law eternal p. 269 What is the lavv of reason p. 270 Positive divine lawes p. 272 The Mosaick lavv p. 274 275 The end of the Mosaick lavv perfection of the Evangelical lavv p. 419 420 421 Man Man is a vessel of mercy not merit p. 2 Man cannot persevere in grace without a special aid p. 3. Man is diverted from many sins as misbelieving his nature p. 290 How little man can do if left to himself p. 326 327 seq Man is created to praise God p. 349 Mercy It is God's mercy not the value of our actions by which we are saved p 9 His mercy is immense and exceeds all our demeries p. 12 His mercy is a Bulwark against despair p. 14 By Gods great mercy is meant the mystery of the incarnation p. 18 A series of Gods mercies p. 21 No Creature is destitute of Gods mercy p. 23 Why we have more Presidents of his mercy than justice p. 24. His mercy appears in reward of the elect p. 25 He distributes his mercies more in the measure of his love than wisdom p. 27 28 Martyrdom A description of what is requisite to be a martyr p. 150 151 152 Masters We owe more to our Masters than Parents p. 267 Why there is a dependency of one another in the conveyance of intellectual notions p. 267 268 Misery Miseries of this life set forth p. 114 115 No misery like to that of sin p. 174 Merit Definition of merit p. 310 We merit by vertue of grace but the effect of it comes from Gods promise p. 310 311 O Occasions of sin to be avoided p. 44 45 Omnipotency The belief of it raises our hope p. 290 P. Prophet Conditions requisite to a true Prophet p. 130 Several degrees of prophetick lights p. 130 131 Praise General heads of praise that man is to give to God p. 342 343 Pride and fear forbidden in those that would praise God p. 346 Prison Restraint occasion of much good p. 146 Providence How comfortable the belief of it p. 289 Persecution How beneficial p. 155 Passion How dangerous it is p. 301 302 Several benefits of Christs passion p. 431 Predestination No security of our state in this life p. 188 189. How we are predestinated p. 244 245 The effects of our eternal election Ibid. Perfection Praise of a state of perfection p. 440 What it is p. 252 440 The effects of perfection and its praise ibid. Perfect Souls if they fall do soon rise again p. 256 257 Three degrees of perfection p. 265 Pleasure Difference 'twixt corporal and spiritual pleasures p. 161 248 Pennance To pennance succeeds many glad tidings p. 162 164 seq Necessity of pennance p. 394 Prayer How we are to dispose our selves to prayer and what we are to ask p. 335 336 The power of prayer p. 405 Prayer works no change in Gods decrees p. 406 Prayer the first gift of God p. 408 How we ought to value it p. 413 seq R. Remorse Remorse of conscience alwaies attends sin p. 71 seq Resurrection Belief of the resurrection very comfortable p. 166 S. Sin The agitations of a soul defiled with sin p. 182. There is a period set to every man's sins which is called the measure of their iniquityes p. 220 221 The marks of this period p. 221 222 No less equal to what we lose by sin p. 233 Whilest in sin we are capable of no right to heaven p. 32 Why some are drawn from sin others not p. 33 Sin the greatest of evils p. 38 Greater sins require a greater mercy p. 45 46 47 The terrours of sin p. 76 seq p. 174 175 Man's imbecility caused by original sin p. 99 seq What remedy in the old Law for original sin in women p. 110 The penalty and consequencies of original sin p. 110. seq The benefit of confessing our sins 126 125 It becomes God to punish sin p. 176 Sacrifice Why God required not of David a sacrifice p. 351 Who the minister of a sacrifice p. 352 357. seq In the law of nature the first born male were Priests Ibid. That some sensible thing be offered is required in a sacrifice p. 353 Definition of a sacrifice p. 355 Other conditions of a sacrifice p. 354 Holocausts the most perfect sacrifice p. 363 Why sacrifices commanded p. 368 369 Divers sorts of sacrifices p. 370 The jews zeal in mater of sacrifice Ibid. Sacrifice of the new law most perfect p. 424 428. Sorrow There is a twofold sorrow p. 370 How pleasing a pious sorrow is to God Ib. What is a troubled spirit p. 377 Whether the soul or body most conducing to a sacrifice of a troubled spirit p. 377 Motives of a true sorow p. 390. seq Security No security from sin in this life Ibid. Speech How Croesus son came to his speech Ibid. How one is morally dumb and how cured Ibid. Seneca His opinion concerning such as lost their lives upon the score of friendship or a publick interest p. 148 249 T. Truth Three kinds of truth p. 121 Knowledge of truth most delightful p. 123 124 Trangressions Internal trangressions only punished by God p. 197 198 A certain period is set to every man's transgression p. 220 221 Signs of this helpless desolation p. 221 222 223 Tribulation Tribulation the securest way to heaven p. 147 Senecas opinion of tribulation manfully sustained p. 348 Temptation The difficulty to resist temptation p. 202 V. Vertue Moral vertues contribute a facility in doing well and wherein they consist p. 213 Vertue it self a reward to the actours p. 241 Delight of vertuous actions p. 242 243 Vncertainty All things uncertain as to the issue in this life p. 239 W. Will. The will is more prejudiced by original sin than the understanding p. 6. God doth never violence our will to our prejudice p. 35 The greatness of the soul by free will p. 313 Whether it had not been better to have done well by necessity 314 315 FINIS
104. l. 7. nor well p. 106. l. 12. a little after p. 111. l. 3. his future p. 136. l. 23. injure p. 151. l. 12. palms p. 158. l. 6. communicates p. 160. l. 20. object p. 161. l. 1. for that p. 162. l. 16. Deity p. 163. l. 3. most love p. 165. l. 6. heeld p. 183. l. 7. preceding p. 184. l. 16. decides p. 186. l. 21. punishment p. 189. l. 15. account soever p. 202. l. 5. it is only our heart p. 203. l. 5. she seemed and â—… 25. interiour p. 221. l. 21. in his mind p. 225. l. at a more p. 231. l. 25 entertains p. 236. l. 25. possible and l. 27. abstruse p. 237. l. 17. should p. 248. l. 12. incentives p. 263. l. 8. blot out degree and in the place read will p. 278. l. 16. believe in thee p. 280. l. 2. in these p. 284. l. 29. affect p. 297. l. 26. blot out his and read all material p. 324. l. 25. beating p. 325. l. 21. obstructed p. 343. l. 25. Quires p. 355. l. 2. appartment p. 363. l. 9. premises p. 366. l. 19. after love adde to p. 369. l. 8. danger and. l. 15. this instruction p. 370 l. 1. of his heart p. 403. l. 1. word p. 365. l. 5. since as I said it is engraven CHAP. I. Miserere mei DEUS Have mercy on me O GOD. AT the first entrance our Kingly Prophet prefers his Petition and without any circumlocution expresses in direct terms what he would have Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God and he do's it with such confidence as if he had a right to be forgiven which minds me of a rare sentence of S. Gregory Nissen that Man cannot more willingly ask pardon than God is ready to give it The Divine Majesty expects if it may be so express'd with passion the conversion of a sinner and no sooner a repenting motion animates his heart but the whole Court of heaven is alarmed with joy and this joy is followed with showers of mercy No wonder then if our Petitioner make his address with so little Ceremony since he speaks to a Judge resolved to mercy upon his submission to a Father who is transported with joy at the sight of his long lost Son to a Creatour who hath framed every particle of his being and perfectly knows how frail weak and prone to innumerable failings he is if left to himself wherefore he cryes Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God He shelters this guilty me t'wixt God that made him and Mercy that must save him on these two he anchors all his hopes which being let down by a vigorous faith renders him secure amidst all the storms that hell and earth can raise so that now like a rock he stands braving all his enemies assaults who not long before was handed like a ball from one pleasure to another as if he had been made up of sensuality passion and a neglect of God Next in this exordium our Petitioner would insinuate a great truth that the first grace is a free gift of God and man a vessel of mercy not of merit hence he cryes Miserere mei Deus that is to say let him pine away in sorrow and repentance let him produce acts of ardent affection by which he prizes God above all things imaginable yet when all this is done he is a Child of perdition and clouded with the guilt of Sin unless an act of Grace be made him from his Sovereign Wherefore we must know that Grace expelling Sin by access unto the Soul finds there no merit nothing that can pretend to a justification neither Faith nor any other Vertue strikes the stroak since Grace is the basis or ground-work of all merit whence it s being is derived no less than a beauteous Flower from the Plant that gives it birth This piece of Divinity lay not hid to our penitent hence he acknowledges his imbecility in meriting any favour only he strives by holy acts of love and grief to dispose himself for mercy Nay though he should comfort himself with Nathan's words that he was already possessed of the first Grace yet to persevere in it so as not to fall again he knew must be the work of the same merciful hand for it is no less out of our reach to become just than to remain so without a constant supply of many actual Graces which must issue gratis from Heaven This kept him still in humility as never to presume of his own strength alwayes in fear without any security of happiness in this life So that having throughly scann'd the Condition of Man in this present State he concludes the best lesson suitable to our continual wants here is incessantly to repeat and entreat under this effectual form Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Whil'st he thus layes all his hopes at the feet of mercy he cannot but bless the sweet proceedings of Heaven in requiring of us to compass our happiness that which is so conformable both to our Reason and Nature For can there be any thing more rational and delightful to Man than to love a Sovereign Good to congratulate the Divine Essence Divine Subsistences Divine Attributes and unchangeable perfections essentially seated in God Can there be any thing more just than to desire this greatness and goodness should have his Divine Laws fulfilled the Universe conserved for the Encrease and Accomplishment of his Service and that all praise and Benediction be poured forth before him by all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth Can there be any action more commendable than to conceive an extream detestation of Sin because injurious to His Supream Majesty and obstructive to his glory and yet in doing this we so attemper our selves for the reception of his favours that as in the Order of Natural things upon the Organization and fitted Dispositions of a Body he hath obliged himself to infuse a Soul so he hath no less engaged to vest that Mind with supernatural Grace which by acts of love and repentance shall be prepared for it But alas Amidst these pleasing reflections when he looks into himself he finds a check seeing he cannot even dispose himself for this happiness without a supernatural aid for though 't is true humane Nature by its own strength knowes that God is worthy of all love yet our knowledge in morality is much more capable of comprehension than practice 'T is not enough to have Wings to fly if they be so hamper'd as they cannot be display'd so this natural faculty in Man of loving God above all things is so weakned by original Sin and a million of Obstacles that we find the inclination of doing it far more ineffectual than the dictamens of our reason to have it done And no wonder when St. Thomas affirms our Will by original Sin is much more damnified than our understanding whence self love growes powerful in us and if it hath not a
counterpoise of supernatural succours we are violently hurried into the pursuit of Fading and sensible objects This consideration makes our penitent deplore the miseries of humane Nature so wounded and made impotent unto good as of her self she cannot pay what she owes to the most lawful object of all hearts for his just homages are not only Sighs Groans and Enthusiastick throwes but effective services as the exact observance of his commands an aversion from what may put a separation 'twixt God and our Soul such are sensual pleasures greatness in the World and honours in excess victory over Temptations and in many encounters this love exacts a perpession of all the Calamities to which Man is incident even to the privation of life that he may not fall into transgressions opposite unto it And these difficulties do so far exceed humane imbecility that at last he makes this result he must stick close to his praeliminary address miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Again when he reflects on the distance of these Terms Deus mei God and me methinks it should startle the greatest Assurance to consider the sublimity of him that is offended and the despicability of the offendour the one is immense and fills all places the other is contracted into the dimensions of a small Body the one is immutable and still the same the other is corruptible and mouldring away every Moment towards that nothing from whence it came the one is eternal the other subject to time the one is the object of Beatitude the other of Misery 'T is true our penitent in relation to earthly greatness was qualified with the highest Title the World can give as being Sovereign Monarch and sole Ruler of a chosen Nation a vast and numerous Body of People yet if compared to God he is not so much as an Atome in respect of the Sun And for this me this nothing to rise up in rebellion against such a Sovereign it must needs work a strange Confusion and Disturbance within him how to make his submission on the one side dejected by his own unworthiness on the other dazled and confounded by the glory of the incensed Yet at last he breaks through all obstacles and implores mercy he had rather perish in hoping too much than to commit a Sacriledge in distrusting the goodness of him who invites all without distinction unto him Nay I believe had the object against which he trespassed been any thing less than God he would never have opened his Lips in Order to a Remission For he knew well that he only to whom Goodness and Mercy is essential would or could obliterate his guilt 'T is true his power and greatness strike a terrour yet they are so contempered with a merciful sweetness that the Blackest Soul may there find wherewith to rinse her stains and exchange them for a pure Dye of innocency if she can with a Davids Heart and Tongue but issue forth Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God I observe moreover that Almighty God permits a Soul though very dear unto him to be often here exposed in troubled waters where she seems to be wholly lost and abandoned that Heaven appears to have no light for her and the Earth nothing but malice to work her ruine How many terrors and anxieties of Mind have Saints endured and been left without any glimps of Comfort even for some whole year And why all these rude tryals in the conduct of the most innocent Soul but that God seems to be delighted when his creatures tune forth Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Whence you may see that God will exempt no condition from this supplicating stile he will be sued to by the innocent as well as nocent and where the Formality of malice is wanting he oft gives the apprehension to the end that flying to this powerful miserere they might draw at least from his Goodnss the benefits of Conversation encrease of Grace addition of Vertue and other innumerable Mercies which he hath in store for those who trust in him So that there is no time nor place unseasonable for any person to prefer this Petition Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God The Application By this Petition we are taught not to presume on the value of our own actions For God is the Sovereign Lord of the whole World and particularly of the just all whose good works convey unto him a pleasing odour yet can they not arrive to that pitch as to have any Empire over him or force him to let them share with him in the participation of his Heavenly Kingdom Let the just perform all the good imaginable in return he may justly say I accept these services in discharge of your past debts and what you owe me for your Creation Conservation and the Grace I have given you to act So that we may truly say with St. Paul when we have done all we can we are useless Servants For whereas we were pure Negatives it was his Sole Mercy that extracted us from nothing it was this same Mercy which added to our natural Being a Being of Grace Lastly the accomplishment of this Mercy is to bring us into the possession of eternal Glory wherefore if we attire our actions in the colours of Mercy and alwayes beat upon this string we may justly hope one day to sing the praises of this incomparable Mercy with our holy penitent throughout the vast spaces of Eternity Amen CHAP. II. Secundum magnam Misericordiam tuam According to thy great Mercy OUr Holy Penitent having set a foot his Petition we have all reason to believe since it is in a matter of so great weight and from a person so accomplished that 't is framed and ajusted to the exactest rules of an effectual address wherefore let us examine what Arguments he uses to move for a grant I observe in the first place he alledges not the innocent and harmless life he led whilst he kept his Fathers Flock Nor his zeal for the honour of God's people in his Combat with Goliah He mentions not his constant sufferings wrought by the malice of Saul Nor his transport of joy and reverence when he danced before the Ark In a word he declines the memory of any action in his life past which might make him recommendable wisely considering as did Job that admirable pattern of patience Should he expostulate with God He would not be able to answer one word for a thousand Therefore he casts himself wholly upon the Favour of his judge saying Secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam according to thy great mercy He silences all the other Divine Attributes and conjures his Creatour by that which seems most appropriated to his condition Nor is he content to challenge his mercy without the specification of great mercy as if the Enormity of his Crimes were such as required more than an Ordinary Condonation Indeed his Mercy may well be stiled
shall I return thee in requital when I would praise thee an Abyss of Majesty exhausts in a moment all Encomiums and my Adorations appear nothing before thy Divine Essence could I unmake my self in deference to thee the Fountain of all Beings it were a poor homage to thy ineffable greatness Nay could I annihilate the whole World for thy glory yet would it nothing equal what thy immensity might justly exact But whilst I thus labour with my own poverty finding nothing created worthy thy acceptance behold the perfect oblation of thy Son a prodigious effect of mercy this I offer to thee he can best speak our gratitude who can only satisfie thy Justice since by this gift the very treasury of Heaven will be exhausted and the Earth enrich'd with a pure Sacrifice whose odour draws upon mankind a continued flood of mercies It is this eternal offering meant by our Petitioner when he mentions thy great mercy whose very thought and foresight at the distance of many ages replenished his heart with joy And if the expectation of him to come so transported what dilation of spiritual joy ought to invade us who now possess what they had only in hope who now reap a plentiful harvest of Salvation when before the World was blasted with sterility and doom'd to darkness untill the bowels of this great mercy were opened to store us with his light and grace Let us joyn our Petitions with Holy David and adore the wonders of this great mercy in which we behold humane flesh hypostasiated in a Divine nature a Creatour link'd to his Creature Death unto Life Glory unto Confusion and Iniquity stamped with Innocence And whilst we contemplate these admirable contrivances of the Divine Wisdom can they do less than ascertain us if we place in the Frontispiece of our supplications this compositum made up of so many contrarieties that our desires will take effect that under this Sanctuary we shall strike off all the scores of guilt and render a satisfaction as great as God can expect or require Hence you see how confidently every sinner may repeat with David Have mercy on me O God according to thy great mercy CHAP. III. Et secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum And according to the multitude of thy mercies OUr Holy Petitioner having expressed his relyance in general on Gods mercy next fixes upon its effects in particular and makes a series or list of all his mercies Wherein methinks I behold him just like one in desolation of Shipwrack fastning on a plank and though the storm continue darkness surround him and nothing but the Face of Death appears before his Eyes yet he remembers that many have been saved in his condition how some have been cast upon the shore others upon a Rock some by a passing Boat gathered up In fine he calls to mind a thousand wayes of preservation to consolate himself in this distress and every thought of hope makes him grasp with new fervour his floating support Even so I may say of our distressed Penitent his goodly Vessel of innocence was wreck'd dashed against the powerfull charms of a Woman from thence he was thrown into an Ocean of Sins where on all sides he beheld the menaces of eternal destruction in these perplexities he runs with his thought over all the passages of God's mercy from the World's beginning by the consideration of them a little to keep up his sinking Spirits He fails not to remember the mild proceeding of God with Adam in not punishing him irrecoverably as he had done the reprobate Angels but was contented to Exile him from the delicious place of his Creation and to expose him here to the Whirl-winds of passions in which contest if he proved faithful his reward was to be the same as first designed for him From thence he passes to the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah where though God's justice fell heavy upon those miscreants yet he layes it on their impenitency and admires his goodness that would notwithstanding have kept in his shafts of vengeance for the sake of ten just persons if that small number were but found in those populous Cities he goes on to the Ninivites and pleases himself to see them under the Lee born thitherby repentance even when the storm of God's wrath was ready to plunge them in an Abyss of ruine He insists much upon the prayer of Moses which still diverted the rigorous designs of God upon his people he fancies that every Groan and Sigh of his contributes something towards the making up of a brazen Serpent by whose Soveraign aspect his cauterized Soul might be unvenomed and made whole It was no small Consolation when he reflects on God's people in the Land of Egypt whose Oppression which their own Sins had drawn upon them was yet relieved at the rate of miracles and wonders and such as Israel had not seen And why all this But to make good his promise to Abraham Isaac and Jacob that he would never abandon a Truly-repenting Heart Thus he goes on enumerating a thousand other passages of God's mercy from the Worlds Creation until his time nor is he content with this but advances further displaying in his prophetick knowledge innumerable other effects of God's compassion to Mankind and at last begins to make this Application though he could not deserve to partake of his great mercy that is not only to have his guilt remitted but also to become the object of his choicest favours yet at least he hoped he might be hudled in amidst the multitude of his mercies How sweetly did those Attributes Divine resound in his Ears where God is stiled rich in mercies where his Mercy transcends all his other works and where his Goodness and Mercy are proclaimed inexhausted Sources He leaves not a Crany in the World unransacked and after the severest scrutiny finds and confesses there is no place destitute of his mercy no Creature that is not cheered and enlivened by the effects of his mercy this made him cry Lord when thou dost open thy hand all Creatures are filled with blessings and he tells us that every Being looks upwards depending on his Creatour and expects from him a seasonable supply of all wants Nay he excludes not Hell nor Souls doom'd to eternal flames from this mercy for he considers that God is bonus universis good to all and though his Justice have plunged them in that Calamitous State of misery yet that their torments are not more intense and in many circumstances aggravated they owe it to his mercy which still hath something to do even in the punishment of the highest offendours Having then survey'd Angels Man and sensible Creatures the Heavens Earth and Hell and found no Being that could in the least repine for want of mercy upon these reflections with just reason our Petitioner entitles them a multitude of mercies for on all sides they flow as from a natural Source Nor wonder that we have more Presidents of his
mercy than Justice for the one consists in a communicative vertue of what is good and as God is essentially good so he can alwayes breath forth these emanations of his goodness upon us Now Justice though it be equally essential to the Divine Essence with mercy and other Attributes yet in its operations ad extra or exteriour effects it depends upon the obliquity of our actions without which it hath no matter or Subject to work on So that mercy he can alwayes shower down upon us but Justice only when we offend he would not forget how the greater number of Angels stood the brunt of temptations when Lucifer perished with his proud adherents it was this mercy held them up at the instant of their Tryal and though our afflicted penitent found not this innocence preserving mercy yet he hopes to lay hold on that part where he is stiled a purifying mercy Let his Subjects fall from their obedience and throw curses at him let his Children prove unnatural and labour to dethrone him let a pestilential Disease depopulate his Country in fine let the Joy of his Life Absalom be sacrificed by the Hand of his own Souldier with smiles he will pass through all these Tests so they proceed from the hand of this all purifying mercy He values not the mediums but the end he tends to and when he thinks oâ— this he begins afresh to admire this mercy in the reward of the elect he knows not whether it exceeds more in the expectancy and furtherance of a sinners conversion or in those immense felicities he communicates by his presence For here he beholds a God courting his Creatures insensible as it were of injuries and dishonours from them and seconding their least good intents with the powerful succours of grace There he contemplates a God remunerating our small inconsiderable Acts of Vertue with the same Felicity wherewith he himself is blest and made happy For his Beatitude is to enjoy himself and contemplate his own beauty and perfections and this same Beatitude he imparts to us poor worms through the excess of his Mercy But whether our holy penitent more extolls the effects of his mercies in Heaven or Earth I know not yet of this I am sure he is reconciled to make it whilst he hath life the Theam of his Pen Heart and Tongue he will celebrate the praises of his innumerable mercies for all Eternity he hath scarce a Psalm which speaks not his zeal for this subject as if his quill had been dipped in this Fountain of mercies Another branch which growes up amidst the multitude of his mercies is that he distributes his blessings not so much in the measure of his wisdom as love and after his innumerable favours done to his Vineyard he defies the whole Mass of Creatures to tax him of any want on his part For should he reward us according to our actions which he in his praescience and eternal essence foresees will come to pass who of us should be left alive or who of us should be born Only the innocent should then be favoured and rather than it should be so he was willing to put it upon the Tryal how or what we might prove hereafter He foreknew that Lucifer should fall that Adam would sin Saul become disobedient and Judas betray him yet he forbare not for all this to throw his favours upon them to shew his mercy is ever in competition with Man's malice and like a good Physitian if one Medicine work no good he applyes another like a gâ—od Husbandman if his Land yield him no Crop one year he cultivates and labours it again the Second and Third by which it often happens that one fruitful season repaires the sterility of divers years past Just so God still goes on and though he sees no hope to stop our malice yet he stops not his mercy this proceeding made St. Austin cry Praise and Glory O Lord be to thee O Fountain of mercies the worser I grew and more perverse so much the nearer thou wast unto me It is said a small proportion of chastisement suffices a Father in order to his Son so God as a kind and loving Father thinks a little punishment enough for his Children St. Chrysostome says that after the Master of the Vineyard had his Servants beaten and slain by the Husbandmen he sent his Son and for all these their outrages required no other satisfaction than to see them abash'd and ashamed of their Cruelties and Ingratitude They will says he reverence my Son so that 't is evident their blushing not their bleeding he desired Whence St. Hierom makes a result of this Parable that in God's Clemency there was no Weight no Number no Measure nor likewise in the others Malice So that our holy penitent beholding in every transaction of God with Man this fulness of Mercy might with reason expostulate and entreat his pardon Secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum according to the multitude of thy mercies The Application Let every one examine his life from the time he had the use of reason and I am confident he will find many tyes of obligation to this great mercy nay amongst the mass of Christians I believe there is none but ranks himself a favourite in order to his largesses of mercy For his love is constant and knowes no change this great and good God hath persisted for an infinity of time in the perpetual resolution of gratifying us with his gifts his enflamed heart hath entertained a continual solicitude without any truce for our good Witness the Prophet Jeremy who sayes that God hath loved us with an everlasting Charity His love is eternal having alwayes decreed to enrich us with his favours St. Paul proclaims it that he hath loved us before the World was framed It is disinteressed without any advantage to himself or hope of return on our parts No other motive than the superabundance of his goodness like a fountain which runs over his natural goodness throwes blessings on all Creatures Plutarch speaking of love sayes it takes any occasion be it never so slight to oblige the beloved he wants no baits nor snares carrying about him the matter of his own bondage So God's love never takes leave of a Sinner nay where Man 's impiety extorts as it were from him the darts of his Justice he seems presently to relent and promises as he did after the Deluge to do so no more so that his love being eternal unchangeable and devested of all self ends what can we ask of God that issues not from his mercy wherefore let us with holy David cry have mercy on us O God according to the multitude of thy mercies Amen CHAP. IV. Dele iniquitatem meam Wipe away my iniquity OUr poor Criminal having thus prepared his Judge the next care is to lay open his condition and shew he implores God's purifying Mercy by whose vertue the Chains of our sins are loosened and dissolved Nor did it a
to those who use it in excess next he hints the reliques and dreggs it leaves behind that if God's grace joyned with a great resolution happen to dislodge this petulent Guest yet still some footsteps or impressions remain apt to reenter and claim an interest Wherefore he could promise to himself no security unless an inundation of mercy fall upon him to purify and carry away all the remainder of bad inclinations grown into a habit and become as it were a second Nature in him Cleanse me from my sin and as it was not a slight stain he had contracted but all circumstances weighed the most indelible that springs from inordinate acts in carnal pleasures For Lawes Divine Natural and Humane seem to be violated in Adultery Divine in that two persons by marriage are made one flesh and both pass into the incommunicable Nature of individuality becoming the essential part of each other whence violation cannot happen to one without destroying the life of the other and breaking that bond which God hath knit together Natural Law is likewise by an adulterous act infringed because Marriage consists not in the sole possession of the Body but also nay principally in the affections of a reasonable Soul For the bonds of Marriage are not wrought by copulation but mutual consent and under a sacred Vow never to be retracted who then infringes these engagements must needs contract a note of infidelity and consequently strike at the main Hinge of humane Society to preserve which Nature chiefly tends in all her principles and essential motions Lastly a breach is made in humane Law by Adultery in that Marriage is not a private but domestick good which concerns not one but infinite Families strengthened by the Laws of the Church and publick Faith of Nations From hence Nature finds those who carefully cultivate her plants hence Commonwealths are enriched with Citizens the Church with Children By this we may see the malice of Adultery that drawes along with it the violation of so many Laws Christ enjoyns us a love of our Enemies and that the Sun should not set in our anger Yet in the treachery of Marriage-Bed permits a separation between Man and Wife how strictly soever united by indissoluble tyes as if such crimes surpassed the limits of pardon as if an evil so destructive that remedies could find no place and that this individual life once dissolved could no more be recalled than habit from privation Many Tyrants have subdued to therage of their cruelties the wealth liberty and lives of their Subjects who looking upon this power as given from Heaven over them patiently sustained all those depredations but if once they touched upon their wives and would involve them in the Mass of their impurities this rowsed up their fallen spirits cast them into rebellion nay pushed them to that extremity as never to desist untill they had deprived those of life who had ravished from them what was more dear than life untill they had reduced unto ashes the Authors of their infamy and taught them for the example of posterity this violence of all others will not be left unrevenged in this World There hath scarce been any Nation though Pagan or Infidel which hath not punished Adultery with Death or exquisite Torments Some by fire others by wild Horses some by the Halter others in pulling out their Eyes cutting off their Noses some by stones as in Moses Law Whence 't is clear that even the light of Nature taught there ought for the good of humane Society that a stop be made to this disorder Our Penitent having in his thoughts lay'd open all those Enormities of an Adulterous Act is surprised to see himself plunged in so many abominations to have heaped up to himself so much ignominy and infection as the reproach of them would last as long as time How sparingly do good Men treat of carnal subjects either in Writing or in the Pulpit lest the very articulate sound or Characters in this matter might offend chast Ears or cause worse effects in Hearts already tainted If then this poyson carry with it so much of malignity in the very name or lightest thought what corruption and noysomness must the sin it self produce Oh! how strong did this scent breathe in the Nostrils of our Penitent when once his understanding was awake and beheld with an Eye free from passion his Body dissolved into so many contaminations no wonder than if he so oft repeat in this Psalm the cleansing from his sin Every glimps of his past foul delights casts him into a blush beholding no other consequence of them than shame confusion and the threats of eternal destruction notwithstanding all this he sues for a Vesture of innocence and he does it to him who with a fiat or blast from his Mouth drew out of a dark Chaos that glorious Body of the Sun which so revives us To him who hath promised to let fall all the darts of his anger upon the true repentance of a sinner on this basis he fixes his Petition and doubts not but at last to find a happy issue to be drawn out of the mire of his sensualities and his leprous condition changed into the consistence of restored grace after this he sighs and groans nor is capable of any consolation untill that happy moment arrive which shall put a period to this longing demand Et à peccato meo munda me cleanse me from my sin The Application We must consider that God is purity it self who hath nothing more in abomination than an impure Soul That Heaven inhabited by Angels is a place of honour where nothing defiled can have access Wherefore we ought to apprehend any stain of lubricity because most obstructive to our final Beatitude First in that it is according to St. Thomas peccatum maximae inhaerentiae a Sin that clings like Bird-lime to our Souls and of all others most hard to be clawed off it resembles a Phoenix who renews her self with the fire enkindled by the motion of her own Wings so a person inured to that vice even when he would give it over and bury it withall occasion of incentives doth often find the Coals to be blown afresh by the wings of thoughts so that whilst we live we ought never to be secure since 't is a combat of all others the most hazzardous and where the victory is most rare next it is a sin of impudency and when a Soul is devoid of shame what hopes can there be to reclaim her St. Hierom advises to a private admonition of our neighbour and gives this reason lest he break the curb of shame and dwell in his sin for ever By baptism we are made members of Jesus Christ and the chiefest homage we can pay to him as our Head is to preserve it unspotted from any smut of impurity A virginal integrity is so acceptable unto God that the Angels were they permitted would translate them Body and Soul into Heaven that
by the Heavens examine what Splendour hath issued from your Actions by which your Subjects might steer the course of their lives and be guided free from Shipwrack to the Haven of eternal rest For if they lose themselves on the Sands of misbelief or dashed upon the Rock of Vanity unlawful pleasures and the like for want of your directing beams their ruine will be laid to your charge and were it permitted you to hear the sad complaints and dire invectives those perished Souls do vomit forth against their Leaders who have deceived and tilled them on into misery it would certainly have influence upon you and oblige you to a greater circumspection in your wayes and manner of life If you own Nobility and Honour which the Mountains personate remember you are the Object of many inferiour eyes you are looked upon with respect and indeed as the Glass which should convey unto them the true representation of their Prince For he being but one and consequently not so communicable it is your parts who are dispersed through Kingdoms to supply what he cannot do to shew by your Justice Piety Devotion Charity and other Christian vertues that the practice of them can onely maintain your greatness and is the Foundation of all your hopes in another life which Principles lively set forth in your actions cannot but fix your dependants in a strange passion towards goodness and ground them in a Belief that it ought to be the ultimate scope of all their endeavours and enterprizes in this world Nor are those of the meaner rank hinted at by the Valleys exempt from all obligation in this kind There is not a Master of a family but is as it were a Sovereign to those who depend on him He ought to be the first at every pious duty to see his little flock fed with all necessary instructions in order to what Christianity obliges them to know and believe to carry a watchful Eye over them that he may know their faults to correct their vertues to reward and encourage if they fail in this they may say with David I have sinned against thee alone Though there be none under their roof can be a competent Judge yet this will not render them innocent and this our holy Penitent confesses who in this expression acknowledges the excellency and multitude of God's favours in being a King and consequently the highest ingratitude on his part towards the Author of them The Application By this clause we are further taught that if at any time we fail in our duty the principal motive of that ressentment must be in that it is displeasing to God whose onely frown we apprehend For when we trespass against our Neighbour the evil is in reference to God who forbids it whence every sinner may justly say I have sinned against thee alone So that we ought not to regard our temporal but eternal Penalties due to sin for that concerns our Soul which alone is the source of all our transgressions Wherefore our chief solicitude ought to be for its preservation Wherein we are to imitate St. Mary Magdalen who pressed in her spiritual necessity had a personal recourse to her dear Saviour but when concerned in the loss of her Brothers life she contented her self to dispatch away a letter by a servant insinuating by this the distinction she made between a soul and Body I wish we might all in this follow her Example that is espouse the Souls interest as the main concern Since in relation only to that we are to pronounce tibi soli peccavi I have sinned against thee alone CHAP. X. Vt justificiens in Sermonibus tuis vincas cum judicaris That thou mayest be justified in thy words and overcome when thou art judged OUr holy penitent tells us in this clause why he brought his guiltiness as King upon the Stage because by it the petitioned will be justified in his words which are these that he will never reject a truly repenting heart and he thinks they were never put more home to the Test than in his Person for who can despair after his admission into favour who had broken all the chains and tyes of duty wherein a Creature is linked and obliged by a most loving and liberal Creatour Besides the pardon of his ingratitude will serve as a fence against the rash judgements of the impious who are apt to lay severity to God's charge upon the reprobation of a sinner this makes our penitent to add that thou mayest overcome when thou and judged that is when his case shall be alledged it will stop and silence any blasphemous Tongue I believe also he reflected on the promise made by God that out of his lineâ— should issue forth the hope of Israel the Redeemer of mankind and lest his sin might divert the streams of God's mercy and frustrate his succeeding stemms of that glorious off-spring he minds him first of his promise to receive with open arms the most enormous if repenting Soul nextt his Foundation laid he would insinuate since by an act of mercy he was again planted in the Region of grace his hopes now are that the promises made by Heaven to him and his posterity might stand good that their accomplishment would be a confirmation to him of a plenary indulgence and a pledge that his punishment should not reach to so heavy a Confiscation in order to his temporal satisfaction But you must know when he sayes that thou mayest be justified c. This particle that imports not the efficient cause of the precedent verse to wit he had sinned against God alone to the end God may be justifyed as if the motive of God's justification gave rise to his sin No no it means only this that the eminency of his condition rendered him guilty of the highest ingratitude and since the torrent of God's mercy had born this clear away the publication of this pardon must needs exalt the divine goodness and testify to the World there is no iniquity so monstrous which may not if we will be overcome by his mercy whence he is justified in his words never to be a stranger to those who return with Repentance unto him How many times hath God been irritated by Man's ingratitude nay so touched to the quick as to declare he repented to have made him that is if God were capable of defect or change this exorbitancy in man might well deserve such a repentance have we not seen a Pharaoh prodigiously unmoved insensible as a statue at the sight of miracles which confounded all his inchanters and false Gods yet had not this unbelieving Prince hardned his own heart God had reserved one greater wonder to work in his behalf that is upon his sumission to receive him unto mercy what can be thought of more indulgent than his amarous care and conduct of his people through the desart and yet even when he was prescribing a Law and Rule for the observance of their Duties they frame
birth to the Soul and communicates unto her a new Being which is called Divine in that the Soul receives from it a resemblance unto God after a manner extraordinary whose more perfect knowledge is reserved for the light of glory which will make the discovery unto us All we can now say is that no sooner this divine gift inhabits our Souls but we are designed to eternal beatitude Almighty God beholds us with an Eye of satisfaction as his Children received into his Family as Solomon sayes by grace we contract an eternal alliance with God St. Thomas stiles Grace a participation of the Divine Nature for what the Divine Nature doth in God the same Grace by imitation doth in a Soul as the Divine Nature is in God the cause of his most transcending actions to wit love and union So Grace in a Soul is the spring of glory beatitude supernatural knowledge and heavenly affections by which she regulates all her works according to integrity and holiness Nay God obliges himself to give a Soul that can plead the title of Grace the Kingdom of Heaven and possession of eternal bliss No wonder then if after the sprinklings of Hysop that is penitential tears our Petitioner expects a Harmony of joy and gladness since the divine quality of Grace purchased by repentance is attended on by so many advantages What matter of joy to be spiritually regenerated the Son of God the Brother and Coheir with Jesus Christ wherefore St. Leo sayes this gift of being the Son of God to be authorized to call God Father exceeds all his other liberalities for by generation a Father communicates his Nature to his Son producing him in species alike So by Adoption he that adopts gives unto a stranger in desire and affection what he is in himself attributing unto him the prerogative of a Son entitling him to all his inheritance the same as if he were his Son by Nature now what Man doth to another out of affection God doth in effect For imprinting Grace in a Soul he gives himself and is really in her insomuch that were it possible God could be not immense Grace would render him afresh present to and in the Soul Certainly if ever that saying was verified where guilt hath raigned there grace did yet more powerfully sway it was in the person of our holy Petitioner his raptures and Enthusiastick throwes his prophetick notions Nay God's own Testimony of him that Repentance had moulded him even conformably to his own Heart sufficiently proved his Soul to float in floods of Grace and consequently must needs swell with a great portion of joy therefore with just reason he proclaims thou wilt give unto my hearing joy and gladness Again this possession of Grace is accompanied with the expectation of a Sovereign good For the understanding enlightned by Faith knowes that Mans's Beatitude is in God that this Beatitude is promised him as his final end and the means to attain unto this End is by Grace and acts of vertue So that he enjoyes it not but upon the terms of being one day eternally happy this certain expectation of Beatitude St. Bonaventure calls the Anchor and basis of Man in this life It keeps him from dejection placing still before his thoughts an infinite good and which is infallibly to be the abject of his future acquisition it choaks presumption casting him upon the mediums ordained to lead him to this end it draws his affections from terrene things and raises them to God as the supream object alone worthy to be loved and served What joy then to have our VVills carryed on by this gift of hope which sweetly entertains us in the contemplation of Eternity and this not as a thing doubtful for what would Cloud the severity of our comfort but as a reward to which we are entitled by grace and of which by this vertue of hope we have an earnest and pledge St. Paul to the Hebrews prescribes hope as a means to compass whatsoever we would have Let us approach with confidence to the Throne of Grace as if we needed only a firm hope to be able to scale the Throne of God and bear thence what so e're we desire St. Gregory observes there is no pleasure in this World which is not greater in the expectation than fruition by which we see what a strange Operation the very hope of some temporal object hath in us what ravishments then must needs proceed from a hope that is fixed on the source of perfections and to have this addition that after our imaginations have proposed all the delights that humane wit can frame yet they fall infinitely short of those joyes the Object of a supernatural hope will discover unto us Blame not then our Petitioner if he give himself the assurance of joy and gladness when once his Soul shall be enriched with Grace and divine hope inspired into him since their presence brings the highest satisfactions we are capable off in this World I observe after Christ had declared the remission of St. Mary Magdalens misdeeds he bids her go in peace to shew she is no more impious For as they are strangers to repose so rest and satisfaction are the natural effects of a good conscience When the Thief on the Cross had obtained mercy immediately follow the glad tidings he should exchange that very day his Gibbet into a Paradise St. Austin had no sooner stepped into the Paths of pennance but he found himself overwhelmed with joy which he thus describes On a suddain sayes he it grew delightful to me to be weaned from trifling pleasures and what before I feared to loose now with joy I dismiss for thou O supream Diety didst tear them from me and supplyedst them by thy own presence who art in all honour beauty and pleasure excelling You see what he got in exchanging a few Worldly joyes for a life of pennance in quitting a Creature he came to the enjoyment of his Creatour in abandoning that we must needs once lose and which we still apprehend will be ravished from us he arrived to an inestimable and never perishing good Nay reason may tell us as happy experience hath informed Saints that if his mercy be so great and transforms it self into so many Shapes of vertues in reward to sinners it must needs be much more admirable in order to the just For it is but equitable that those who must love and honour him should have a more ample share in the Treasures of his mercies than such who injure and daily offend him If when we are Enemies he fails not to give Testimonies of his love being reconciled and readmitted to his favour what will he not do If he bestow a kiss upon a treacherous Judas with what overflowing sweetness will he visit a loyal heart which breaths forth nothing but love and a conformity to his will if a sound of his voice as Man was so charming that many of the Apostles at his first call abandoned
of Justice which is the End we tend to in this motion Besides justification is not bestowed on us by God meerly to avoid punisment it is designed as well to fit us for Heavenly rewards this St. Paul testifyes ad Rom. 8. That God glorifyes whom he hath justifyed of which glory a simple absolution cannot be the Subject since no person by a judicial sentence clearing him from guilt is thought by that to merit a reward but to exchange the condition of an enemy for that of a friend of a domestick nay of a childe this must needs be wrought by something more than a bare condition In this Petition then he implores virtually the infusion of justifying grace a divine quality inherent it the Soul which like a bright ray of the Sun disperses all the Clouds of sin before whose presence without a miracle it cannot subsist one sole moment It likewise enclines the Soul to Christian duties and from that source do flow all the vâ—rtuous and pious action we perform For as sin expells justice being opposite to habitual grace not only by way of privation but contrariety So a supream act of love opposes habitual sin and by a contrary working as an efficient cause destroyes it Whence infusion of grace and deletion of sin do as infallibly succeed to such an act of love as the infusion of a rational soul into a Body after humane generation Thus our Petitioner like a quaint Pen-man so couches his demands as to comprize in them much more than the letter seems to express Wipe away all my iniquities This word all is emphatick and expresses with some energy a desire not only to have those sins which appear before him and reproach his ingratitude to be remitted But also what ever are set upon his score in that eternal Book of accounts and contracted by him either through ignorance inadvertence or oblivion in not discharging what he owes for their expiation Our Petitioner had reason to add this Particle and frame his Petition full if we reflect upon what Solomon sayes Ecclesiast ch 8. That all things concerning another life shall here be wrapt up in doubts and uncertainties No security of our state whether markt out to punishment or reward For were there any means to this discovery the benefits of God would lay it open yet we find these indiscriminately dispenced to the just and impious to preserve some in humility he loads them with afflictions lest others should despair he fills them with abundant consolations some he draws by the Lure of temporal blessings so to buoy them up from despair or in reward of some moral vertue others he steeps in the bitterness of wants and disgraces to stop the Carreer of pride and excess and by a paternal correction he presents an opportunity by which they are either deterred from sin or may satisfy in this life for their transgressions Sometimes again the doom of punishment begins here which is to last for eternity so that neither adversity nor prosperity give us any light into the state of Men's consciences whence our Penitent fearing lest any unknown guilt may stain his Soul petitions that all his iniquities may be taken away St. Paul confesses after a severe inquisition of himself though he found no matter of accusation yet he durst not trust to his own justification knowing well the judgments of God and Men are very different and if we groap so much in our own concerns what madness upon every slight conjecture and surmise to pass sentence of condemnation upon our Neighbour This savours not the Spirit of an Apostle who would have no other Vmpire than Christ the true searcher of hearts and the same maxime was fixed in our Holy Penitent who not daring to secure himself from all imputations cryes out wipe away all my iniquities that no sin upon what account contracted may escape the Seal of God's pardon How many have been seen who beheld themselves with an Eye of satisfaction as patterns of innocency as possessing within themselves the treasure of grace to a great proportion and yet brought to the Test were found empty Vessels and poor Objects of frailty and malice St. Peter told his blessed Master he was ready to attend him unto Prisons nay even to Death it self but the event proved he had not the Ground-work of such a fortitude within him St. Paul whilst he played the fierce Lyon preying upon the Blood of Christians believed all his flames were enkindled by a just zeal of God's Holy Lawes and how do we know but many actions of ours may proceed from a gross ignorance which will not render us inexcusable at the latter day what greater Evidence of integrity than to Sacrifice life in any cause and yet this we have seen done on either side of two opinions diametrically opposite to each other Both these propose unto themselves Almighty God above all things amiable as the motive of their sufferings yet without dispute one of the two must needs be involved in errours and in the total privation of grace Hhw justly then doth our Penitent suspending all judgement of his condition beg that all his iniquities may be taken away that if he have not perfect Charity he may obtain it if he go astray he may be reduced into the right path if in darkness he may be filled with light and since we are ignorant of our own state and that God hath reserved the knowledge of this Truth to himself he is resolved in his petition never to omit this clause Et omnes iniquitates meaâ— dele and wipe away all my iniquities The Application In pursuance of this design we are in regard of our own infirmity and indisposition never to Lull our selves in security since God's promises in order to the remission of sins require on our part that we be worthily disposed for the reception of the Sacraments Now to have an infallible assurance of this fitted disposition or that we are not guilty of some secret pride some mortal sin undiscovered some inordinate cleaving to the World and the like is by God's Providence locked up in his own Breast so to keep us humble wary and in fear of his judgments Wherefore all we have to do is to hope in the mercy of God in the merits of Christ's passion and efficacy of the Sacraments and then conclude with the same Prayer of our Penitent that all our defects and transgressions whether known or concealed to us may be blotted out Amen CHAP. XXI Cor mundum creâ— in me Deus Create in me O God a clean heart OUr Holy Penitent in the Ten precedent Verses working like an expert Carver by way of defalcation had still desired he might be brought into shape by cutting off all those Excrescencies which made him monstrous in God's Eye Now he petitions believing his whole frame vitiated and unfit for his design that a new model might be drawn up of him and new materials inserted in the whole structure
mediums consequent to our eternal Election For God first designs our Beatitude and after this the means to arrive unto it as to have true faith to observe the Commandements to avoid sin to practice works of mercy to have a sincere repentance a perfect charity towards God and our Neighbour to bear adversity with patience and finally to persevere in grace these actions he knowes are the proper instruments to cause joy within him in order to this he resolves upon the punctual accomplishment of his commands and this vigorously like a Giant both with firm footing and with large and nimble paces nor will he discharge this Obligation in a cold manner simply to pay what he owes but with a serious application of his Mind offering them up to God and directing them to his glory with a most holy and pious zeal Next he resolves alwayes to do that which is most acceptable to God knowing that we cannot give him too much honour and that our fidelity engages us not to omit any occasion of doing good Lastly he will be assiduous in framing interiour and exteriour acts of vertues especially such as more immediately lead unto him he will conspire with heart and affection to all the services to all the acts of love praise and glorification that the most perfect Creatures ever have or shall give unto him His next design in pursuance of this joy is to have an Eye to himself whom he beholds like a plat of ground which must be cultivated and emboweld ere it be fruitful He undertakes this melioration with the tools of fortitude temperance and other vertues nor is he set on work by the comeliness of vertue or turpitude of vice his final end is the object of all his motion it is meerly to please God and glorify him in his Salvation He knowes the condition of this life is alwayes beset with dangers and hazzards alas his own experience had too freshly taught him this Truth and that we are in the midst of sworn mortal Enemies wherefore he is resolved to bear a strict band and purchase victory by a perfect abnegation of himself of his senses both interiour and exteriour of his memory understanding and will knowing it is a Nice and Ticklish Combat to overcome by Love His third contrivance to joy is not to fail in what he owes to his Neighbour He considers Man issuing from the hands of God and in a capacity if faithful to his Graces to return unto the same fountain Wherefore he fears to hate that person whom God may have designed to love for eternity and as he loves God not as a particular but universal good so he will cherish love and honour all Souls as being in a possibility of enjoying him This is the foundation our Holy Penitent layes for the superstructure of his joy remitting the rest to the disposal of that all comprehending Architect whose lines are drawn severally according to the rule of his providence For when a Soul whom he hath gratified with endearments of spiritual relishes and ineffable delights happens to forfeit by some default the subtraction of his grace sometimes upon her repentance he not only admits her again to his favour but also to her wonted ravishments nay to that degree as even she seems to have gained by her loss Sometimes again he is pleased barely to Seal his pardon without any further communication of those Enthusiastick throwes she used to feel in her amorous transports Now I find our Penitent in this his petition is desirous to regain all and this appears in divers others of his Psalms where he suffers strange convulsions in his desires to be united unto God and now born up with a restless longing he sighs forth restore me the joy of thy Salvation St. Gregory puts this distinction 'twixt corporal and spiritual pleasures that the former not had push us on to vehement desires for the acquisition but when enjoyed they presently cloy and beget a nauceousness the other give very little insentives when absent yet being once possessed they are still coveted because still creating new delights and though to be kept in desire and hope be a kind of torment in Earthly enjoyments yet it is not so when they relate to Heavenly treasures the reason is God hath deputed Earth for our hopes and Heaven for our bliss If here we are mindful of Celestial glory and make it the subject of our thoughts and desires every the least glimmering hope of that blessed state will produce ineffable joy within us There is nothing sayes St Basil which ought so much to ravish Man as to reflect that he is designed to so noble an end as to enjoy God's immense perfections for all eternity Whence he inferrs the sole way to anticipate our happiness is to think continually on him to consider that our Souls shall be translated and as it were dissolved into his divine essence Wherefore he exhorts us to the imitation of Painters who aiming at the performance of a rare piece have their Eyes alwayes fixt upon the Original But if we pervert this order and make the Earth our Heaven enjoy that we should but use what must be the issue for after a long enquest passing from one delight to another our thirst is never satisfied Whence the pleasures of this life are resembled to brackish waters which still the more you drink the more you encrease your thirst nay they have this additional circumstance of woe that their drowth shall never be quenched in this life nor in the next not in this for Christ our Lord positively declared it to the Samaritan that those who swill themselves with the puddle of Earthly pleasures shall be alwayes thirsty and panting after new refreshments Not in the next life for the whole extent of Hell could not afford the unfortunate rich man one drop of water a little to allay the vehemency of his enraging heat I remember Philo the Jew treating of Earthly delights calls them furta Coeli the plunder of Heaven So that who enjoyes them steals them from thence now as a thief retains what he hath got by rapine with a continual fear and jealousy which still moderates and allayes the contentment of his acquests so doubtless there is nothing transitory can give a true satisfaction to the owner Our Holy Penitent was very sensible of this Truth and grown weary of the World's prosperity confesses in another Psalm that his Soul could find no comfort but in the meditation of everlasting joy as in this the whole scope of his petition is that as Abraham was ready at God's command to sacrifice Isaac his sole joy and contentment in this life so he is ready to renounce his lovely Absalom or any thing most dear to him in this World that by this dispropriation he may make a passage to that lasting joy which attends his Salvation Wherefore he will never cease to implore restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation The Application Our
Idols and plunge themselves in transgressions of the highest nature However he did not here forget his promise but at the prayer of Moses reassumed them into his Sovereign Protection the same Night which was blest with the institution of the sacred Synaxis or Eucharist was also conscious of the horrid Treason of Judas and yet this Monster of ingratitude according to all Divines might have sheltred himself from God's wrath by a true Repentance Thus all along we see God justifyed in his Clemency towards sinners so that victory must needs remain to him when questioned by blasphemous Tongues for creating those who were to perish A Nabuchodonozer speaks for him a Thief upon the Cross a St. Paul a Magdalen and a Million of others that have redeemed by a few hours repentance what had been contracted in many years impieties and wickedness Our holy Penitent will also come in for a witness First he cryes what return shall I make to my God for all he hath done to me he praises blesses his holy name and then layes open his enormous crimes believing it is but reasonable to do him all right that hath dealt to him so much of mercy and though every thought of his sins afflicts him yet he glories that his Creatour's goodness will appear resplendent through his deformity he is content to become nothing that he might add the least tittle to God's Honour and greatness He values not his own confusion so God may be justifyed and this sweet experienced truth made good that the Divine will is that all shall be saved and to this end proportions sufficient means to all so that none can perish but through their own Impenitency and Perseverance in sin The Church would not style Adam's sin a happy sin if our Redemption and the merits of Christ's sacred passion were not extenedd to all even the highest offendour St. Paul sayes as Death found its entrance by the default of one so life was restored by one whence it is clear the remedy brought to us by Christ reached as far as the Disease St. John entitles him a Sun which enlightens every one that comes into this World there is none wrapped up in so black a Cloud of sins who may not if they will take in the Rayes of his Mercy and by their Deliverance justify God's Promises to Man In the production of every the least Creature saith St. Thomas the power wisdom and goodness of God are made manifest how much more then are they exalted in the Transmutation of a Soul from the Privation of Justice to the Possession of a Supernatural Gift of Righteousness whence St. Paul sayes God doth predestinate us according to the councel of his will that we may praise and diffuse abroad his glory Ah then let us give unto God what is his due as near as we can by despair we condemn our selves in rendring our Judge Inexorable and deaf to Mercy By Hope animated with Repentance we quit our scores of guiltiness and justify the hand that wipes them off To our justification by his grace he doth not only invite us to dispose our selves for it promising to refresh such as are oppressed c. But declares he is at the door of our hearts knocks solicits and expects but our consent to enter in at last defies the World to object the least failing on his side having done to his Vineyard what ever could be required to make it thrive To conclude God will be still justified that sinner who doth finally perish is the Author of his ruine by his own impenitency rejecting graces abundantly sufficient offered to him So that in the height of his misery when it is too late he will be forced to acknowledge crying O Lord thou art just and thy judgements equitable That sinner again who hath imitated our Penitent in having had timely recourse to the throne of mercy will not blush to unfold his wickedness since he now breaths a new life of grace which obliges him to proclaim how just God is in his promises and glorious in his Mercies That thou mayest be justifyed in thy words and overcome when thou art judged The Application In this clause we read the clear view our Holy Penitent had of the unquestionable proceedings of God with Man for beholding in his all-displaying Eye the ingratitude of Millions of Souls who would abuse his favours yet did not this restrain his munificence to them he first gave them a Being added to this Being the exhibition of his Graces all sufficient nay in a greater proportion than to many of the elect and to the acquisition of these benefits he made his only Son instrumental by whose blood is conveyed to them a capacity of Salvation Now if afterwards they come to perish it is through their own malice in misusing his gracious endearments and proving refractary to his commands for since he had conducted them indiscriminately with the predestinate by a supernatural Providence with which all along he obliged them what wisdome prudence or justice were it to gratify Traytors obstinate even unto death in rebellion with his Glory So that the motive of their reprobation is a foresight of their final perseverance in Sin their guiltiness gives matter of God's hatred and eternal damnation the effect of their impenitency 'T is true it was not in their power to be born or not be born but to fight generously or be vanquished by the Devil this depends on us It seems unreasonable that a King opening a Tournament and proposing a reward to the Conquerour should admit onely that person into the list whom he feresaw would be victorious So God in Creating an infinity of persons whereof the greater part would become reprobate is not to be blamed no more than that Prince who lets all run at the ring though it cannot be gained but by one for if we be foyld it is by our own Cowardize and remissness Thus the goodness of God appears in the Creation of Reprobates and no less his justice in pouring vengeance upon them so that he would be justified in his words and silence any blasphemous Tongue nay though these unfortunate wretches miss of their particular end that is paradise to which they are created yet the general design of their Creation to wit the promotion of his Glory will take effect for after his patience hath been strained if it may be so expressed in supporting their insolencies he will give lustre to his Saints Glory by the opposition of their misery just as a Moor sets off a great beauty Wherefore let us keep consort with our Holy Penitent avowing his just providence and submitting to all his Decrees as most equitable and worthy our Adorations Amen CHAP. XI Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum For behold I am conceived in iniquity OUr Penitent here appeals to the World whether he hath not reason being reinvested with the rich ornament of Grace to stand up and maintain Gods proceedings with his
with sadness upon any rencontre since the effects do often prove far different from what they promise and this by the unresistable ordinations of Heaven which can draw riches out of poverty make us great by humility give us honour by contempts In fine who needs no previous dispositions in Creatures to frame his productions Now to lead us in this labyrinth that we may not erre Divines distinguish a twofold joy The one is temporal which hath for its Object riches honour sensual pleasures and the like So that when our joy reaches but to the petty interests of this World this is poor and argues a baseness of Spirit which is angustiated within the limits of flesh and blood and hopes or fears only what may prove distastful or pleasant to their present state of Being The other branch of joy is eternal taking its specification from the object which is God without end or beginning it only looks upon him and it is he alone that gives the rise to all its motions One part of this joy is proper for us here whilest we are in viâ as Divines term it or pilgrimes upon earth the completion of the other we must expect in patria when we shall attain to the mansion of the blessed it is this joy St. Bernard meant when he sayes O good Jesu if it be so sweet a thing to weep for thee what will it be to rejoyce with aâ—d in thee So that we are here by a compunctive sorrow to crucify our selves daily and by this means dispose our selves for that joy which is necessarily consequent to such acts Our Holy Penitent followes this method in his petition he knows the effects of a heart pierced with a vertuous sorrow and repentance is peace joy and the like So that though we labour here to steep our selves in bitterness and anguish there results out of these agonies a certain contentment in performing our duties to God and this so great as it surpasses all the delights of this World Many Heathen Philosophers have been of Opinion that vertue it self was a sufficient reward unto such as embraced it that is there springs from good actions such a satisfaction in conformity to the dictamens of reason as they have preferred it before riches honour or any sensual pleasure we have seen them endure torments of all kind the hardship of want the rough trial of disgraces and all this with smileing looks and meerly from this Principle they took their cause to be good and that vertue commanded it believing her Lawes to be more sutable to a reasonable Soul than all the glory and plenty of the World attended on by injustice and impiety Our Hoâ—y Penitent by his own experience had learnt that in works of Piety there is found something which sensibly affects the agent with delight and be they never so knotty yet they are still sweetned with this that reason is their guide that the whole intellectual part applauds the action which concurrence of the Souls faculties cannot but be followed with an universal dilatation of the spirits and what is this but the height of joy If then moral actions looked upon as apparallel'd in their simple natural colours that is meerly confined to the limits of what is good and just by the light of reason prove such an Antidote against adversity as to make them receive the most embittered Arrowes of fortune with cheerful looks What may we expect when these are directed to a supernatural end when they are enriched with the merits of Jesus Christ after which our Holy Petitioner languished and whose efficacy had influence upon his repentance at the distance of so many preceeding ages as now it hath on ours after so many subsequent revolutions It is then for the joy of this Salvation he makes instance and what a value must this addition set upon his smallest sufferings Whence I wonder not to contemplate much of serenity in the Fore-heads of afflicted persons crushed for vertues sake for the tempest wherein they are agitated doth only bluster about them within they enjoy a Harmony and full peace of Mind even tasting a kind of Antipast or fore-notion of Paradise I observe in the Gospel of St. Luke how Christ our Lord gave a check to his Disciples when returning from the exercise of their Apostolick Commissions they seemed to glory in their power of casting out Devils and when he had terrified them with a Memorandum of the Angel's fall he prescribes rules how they should lay the foundation of their joy and satisfaction amidst their transcending employments saying Rejoyce in this that your Names are written in Heaven First he disallowes not of their joy but rather animates them to it only he dislikes the motive or more properly to say sets down what they ought to lay hold on as the basis of their exultations Rejoyce because your Names are written in Heaven That they were zealous in God's service charitable had the gift of tongues of working miracles casting out Devils and the like these must not be the groundwork of their contentments but that they are by the efficacious Will of God transmitted to a supernatural end upon which foundation are built all the spirituall benefits of God towards them as their vocation justification and glorification From this Root springs their calling to be a Christian to be a member of Christ's true Church by means of which they obtain grace and by the right use of Grace eternal glorification This must give birth and life to their joy and no less to ours as it did to our Holy Penitent before his fall and now restored as he hopes to the wonted caresses of his Creatour he begins to breath after the assurance of his predestination which had often occasioned unto him abundant joy Wherefore he cryes restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation Yet whilest he petitioned for this solid contentment he was not ignorant that his Election must proceed from the merciful hand of God and the Collation of glory from the interest of his own merits God first puts us in an infallible condition to be happy and then so tempers the circumstances as we our selves may be a partial cause of our happiness he offers the occasions of merit this done he seconds our endeavours so powerfully as the effect to wit eternal glory cannot but follow So that the joy he sues for is an assurance to be in the state of grace and eternally predestinate that be his combats and assaults in this life never so furious he shall overcome Be his temptations never so vehement the issue will be glorious having his Eyes still fixt upon the Palms of Beatitude the assured guerdon of his conflicts in case I say he be in the number of the Predestinate But as to the infallible decrce of predestination our Holy Penitent knowes it is a secret shut up in the Cabinet of his great Councels the joy therefore he aims at here is that which arises from the