instead of purifying our intentions of honouring as we ought to do one onely God when even under that pretence by the contagion of factious doctrine we Idolize to as many devils as mislead us in the wayes of faction and division For prevention whereof holy Church fitly prayes as above that our intentions may be purified by the unity thereof by intending Gods honour only in those services that are pretended done for Gods sake and not our own interest On the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 9. v. 7. THe sick then of the palsie took up his bed in which he lay magnifying God and all the people which beheld it gave praise to God Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt O Lord the operation of thy mercy direct our hearts because without thee wee cannot please thee The Illustration IF any man doubt what is meant by the operation of our Lords mercy mentioned in this prayer S. Paul in the first verse of this daies Epistle will tell him it is the actual grace of God which the Apostle alwayes gives thanks for as being the cause of the Corinthians conversion of their being enriched in all things appertaining to Christian religion so as to want nothing but the revelation of Christ in glory whom already they beheld in grace as also of their perseverance without crime till the day of doom in that belief unto which by this grace they had been called This is the summ of the Epistle and undoubtedly this is the sense of the prayer begging that as by the operation of Christ his mercy the Corinthians became Christians so we that are by the same meanes of the same profession may by the same help have our hearts directed by the operation of our Saviours mercy towards us by the encrease of his grace within us And indeed that encrease is also properly the operation of his mercy too for the first gift thereof was rather the exhibition then the operation of his holy grace and yet to us it seems like an operation of it too within his own bowels and so as we said above the exhibition of it in our eyes is as the effect of his mercie upon himself but the encrease thereof is the operation of it upon us to whom it is exhibited so by the exhibition of this grace we become children of God and by the encrease thereof we grow to be his champions to live his Saints and die his Martyrs rather then renounce the Faith of Christ Thus we see the first clause of this Prayer hath exhausted the whole Epistle of the day Now that the Gospel should be by the close thereof exhausted too would seem strange if already stranger mysteries had not appeared in the mysterious prayers of holy Church And certain it was for the depth of their spirit that S. Gregory the great collects them all together into a book intituled of Sacraments that is to say of Mysteries as in the preface of this book was hinted not that the stile of Churches prayers is other then plain and easie but that the depth of their meaning is prodigious We have examples in the simple stile of Thomas à Kempis authour of the following of Christ the plainest and the deepest book that ever was written next to holy Writ the fullest of common places and yet the most home to every mans particular that reads it So it is with the Churches prayers they are in words simple and facil but in sense such as the deepest understanding may not be able to sound the bottome of them For instance see how the whole story of the Gospel is wound off by the onely close of this daies prayer if yet the former clause thereof were not appropriable thereunto For what imports the pressing into Jesus presence of the paralytick and those who from the houses top did drop him down into the room where Jesus was when they found not entrance any other way but an infinite faith they had of being cured by the least touch of his sacred person and this to satisfie our selves with the letter of the story not recurring as we might to the mystery thereof What I say means this passage else then a remonstrance of this paralyticks faith in Jesus Christ And who doth not see the close of this prayer excellently well allude to faith since we read that without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Do not we Christians then implicitely beg if not the gift which we have already at least the encrease of faith when we end this prayer with confessing We cannot without God please his Divine Majestie that is to say as without the gift of faith we can be no Christians at all so without the encrease thereof through the operation of Christ his mercy in us we cannot become good Christians such as by works of charity still encrease our faith in Jesus Christ and by that encrease deserve with the paralytick as well the remission of our sins as the cure of corporal diseases since without such remission we cannot please Almighty God and without him no such remission can be had that is without his mercy operate first upon him to pardon us and then upon us when pardoned to offend no more not that this operation of Gods mercy upon himself is any new act but ever is ever was and will be one and the same act in him seeming new to us by the new effects it produceth in us So every way is it an undoubted truth that without him we can no wayes please him And thus do we still adjust the prayers of holy Church unto the other service of the day The Epistle 1 Cor. 1. v. 4. 4 I give thanks to my God alwayes for you for the grace of God that is given you in Christ Jesus 5 That in all things you may be rich in him in all utterance and in all knowledge 6 As the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you 7 So that nothing is wanting to you in any grace expecting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ 8 Who also will confirm you unto the end without crime in the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ The Explication 4. IN these words S. Paul gives thanks to God incessant for the grace of Christ which was given to the Corinthians who thereby were made Christians An excellent lesson and ought to be frequently practised by us to acknowledge that our perseverance is a continuation of our vocation to Christianity 5. In all things appertaining to your religion Rich in him rich by him that doth enrich you every hour by preserving you in the same vocation he hath called you unto In all utterance in all your words whereby is preached this faith In all knowledge in all true spiritual understanding the doctrine of Christ as who should say I thank God that hath by mine and by Apollo's preaching afforded you all understanding and true sense
Such as may prepare the way for Jesus Christ to come amongst us that by his coming we may deserve to serve Almighty God with purified Souls How purified By loving him and so deserving to be his Fathers Servants in a high degree indeed as fore-runners to his Sacred Son as Baptists as Angels sent before his face to prepare his wayes and consequently as men than whom greater did never arise amongst the sons of women Blessed God! to what a height of perfection doth holy Church invite her Children to day being but on Sunday last raised from their dead sleep their trance of Sin and yet no marvell for Christianity is in truth the summity or top of all perfection and of all Christians we know the Catholike to be Top and Top-gallant that is to say the highest of men which consequently so purifies their Souls as they become at least the lowest of Angels since in true morality the highest of the inferiour arrives to the perfection of the lowest of his Superiours whence we read of Saint John Baptist That he was an Angel sent before the face of Jesus Christ to prepare his wayes Luke 7. ver 27. Now lest this discourse seeme but gratuite and to have little or no connexion to the whole service of the day however we finde it genuine enough perhaps unto the Prayer see what Lessons of Purity and sanctity of Soules the Epistle gives us insisting altogether upon the highest of Sanctity mutuall peace and charity such as made the two most discordant people in the world united perfectly in one the Jew and Gentile who before they were in Christ united and had their hearts raised up to heavenly affections detested one another but once meeting both in the love of one God they became in Christ one Thing one Body of that undivided Church which hath the onely Son of God to be the head thereof our Saviour Jesus Christ Nay see further how this dayes Gospel makes of humane Soules thus raised up by mutuall love by having all one God and beleeving equally in the doctrine of his sacred Son Baptistick Saints and consequently spirits Angelicall whilst what is read to day of Saint John Baptist is spoken to us as either being or invited to be like him fore-runners to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ voices crying out in the desart of this world prepare the wayes of our Lord. O Christians O Catholicks at least remember we are now in holy Advent a time set out apart to prepare us for a worthy receiving of our Saviour at his Nativity into this world be it therefore spent as Saint John Baptist did imploy his dayes in pennance fasting praying in purifying of our Souls in raising mortall man up to the purity immortality and sanctity of Angels so shall we pray as all our Pastours preach to day which is I hope a sufficient adjusting of this dayes Prayer unto the following Epistle and Gospel of the day bidding us with one mind and one mouth glorifie God which then we doe when our practice and our Prayer is answerable to what our Pastors teach and preach unto us The Epistle ROM 15. ver 4. c. 4. VVHat things soever have been written to our learning they are written that by the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we may have hope 5. And the God of patience and of comfort give you to be of one mind towards one another according to Jesus Christ 6. That of one mind with one mouth you may glorifie God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 7. For the which cause receive one another as Christ also hath received you unto the honour of God 8. For I say Christ Jesus to have been Minister of the Circumcision for the verity of God to confirm the promises of the Fathers 9. But the Gentiles to honour God for his mercy as it is written Therefore will I confesse to Thee in the Gentiles O Lord and will sing to thy name 10. And again he saith Rejoyce ye Gentiles with his people 11. And again Praise all ye Gentiles our Lord and magnifie him all ye people 12. And again Isaiah saith There shall be the root of Jesse and he that shall rise up to rule the Gentiles in him the Gentiles shall hope 13. And the God of hope replenish you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope and in the vertue of the holy Ghost The Explication 4. SAint Paul alludes here to what was written in the old Law and makes it all wholly and entirely to have been a lessen for our instruction at least though not a rule to our actions since the abrogation of it and if he say thus of the abrogated Law much more ought we to receive and read for our instructions all thâ—â— is written in the new Law which shall remain to the worlds end unaltered But he applyes this speech particularly now to what he said in the immediate verse before citing the Prophet Davids words Psal 68. The curses of those that curse Thee have fallen upon me making Christ speak these words as taking upon his own person the Curses and Sins of the people committed against his Heavenly Father to restore to God as it were his lost honour if we may so say by assuming these Curses to himself as also by his suffering to appease the Divine wrath and in this sense he applyes his speech to the Romanes that they might convert to their instructions and comfort this which in their behalf our Saviour took upon himself namely the guilt and burthen of the Gentiles Sins as well as those of the Jewes so to ingratiate them also to his heavenly Father By the patience and consolation of the â—criptures meant the patience they teach us in their singular examples thereof and the comfort they bring us in letting us see we may by following the said examples hope for the like rewards which now the Saints in Heaven have for so the last words of this verse import 5. The Apostle calls him the God of patience and of comfort because he is infinitely patient infinitely comforting and because his Vertues are not as in Man his Ornaments but his Essence so that he is patience it self comfort it self and more if we could more express Then we are most properly of one mind one towards another when we wish and do as well to others as to our selves According to Christ as Christ was to us and as he gave us command to be saying Love one another as I have loved you This is indeed absolute perfection and this is the true Badge of a perfect Christian 6. That of one minde with one mouth c. Then we do truly glorifie God when we conforme our selves in all things to his holy Will and this we can not all do unless all our mindes be one as he is in us all to that one effect of glorifying him so when one pretends God is glorified thus and another will not
we lack but also whatsoever we can rationally ask of him who is no niggard of his favours and while the blind man askes his sight we may conceive he askes as much as his life too for a blind man is like a visible death to all other men and a sensible one unto himself since he can feele misery on all sides but see comfort no way to which purpose see Tobias Cap. 5. ver 12. and heare Saint Ambrose Uti tristes sunt c. As the day without Sun-shine is but sad and the nights without Moone-light not so pleasing so is the life of man deprived of the light of his body his eyes for they the Sunne and Moone are as it were the eyes of the world and without their lustre the heavens themselevs do suffer a deformity of blindnesse And S. Austine upon this place saies Tota igitur vita c. Our whole lifes exercise therefore is but to cure this eye of the heart to this end hath Almighty God instituted all the holy Mysteries to this end is the word of God preached to this end tend all Ecclesiastical exhortations c. Let us therefore all cry out O Lord give us the light of Grace to see the turpitude of sinne the vilitie of concupiscence the exilitie of pleasure the atrocity of hell fire the beauty of virtue the happinesse of Paradise the eternity of Glory Amen 42. No marvel our Saviour gave so speedy a reward to so strong a Faith the cause taken once away the effect must needs cease the cause of this corporall blindnesse was spirituall coecity the blind-mans infidelity which taken away by Faith he enjoyes immediately his corporall sight and so hath the effect gone upon surcease of the cause nor need we scruple to make this exposition when our Saviour saies in expresse termes This mans Faith was his cure for if so then Infidelity was his disease 43. We cannot read this story without being moved to imitate the gratitude of the blind man in giving thankes for the benefit received as we shall be forward enough to imitate his importunity in calling to God for help in our necessities and what was his gratitude his following our Saviour magnifying and praysing of him as also did all the people that were witnesse to the benefit received that we would our selves thus testifie our own gratitudes thus get all the world to help us expresse our thanks for such benefits as they all see we receive daily and hourly from almighty God since we have an assurance if we goe as farre with him as this blind man did to his passion to his Cross to his death to his grave he will raise us with him to a new life of grace here and to an eternall life of Glory in the next world The Application 1. AS it was this blind mans Faith that made him corporally whole so was it his love and charity that made him spiritually sound that did shake off the Fetters of his affection to sinne and kept him by that meanes from all adversitie while it fastned him to the purchaser of all prosperity our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ 2. It was indeed his Charity that made him leave all other company to follow Jesus and to magnifie his Deity by proclaiming his mercy in having delivered him from misery And whither did he follow him To Hierusalem to his Passion to his Death to his Sepulcher 3. O lively Faith that did not die in this poor man when Jesus dying for him left even his Apostles tottering in their Faith O burning Charity that like a flaming lamp hung ore the Sepulcher of Jesus dead and buried Adoring then and magnifying the Divinity which never did forsake the sacred corps of Christs Humanity though his living soul had left his dead body in the grave O admirable way to shake off the shackles of sinne and to keep us free from all adversitie thus firmely to believe thus ardently to love and so to follow Jesus from his grave into his glory O for this purpose well adapted Gospel of Faith to an Epistle of Charity O well adjusted Prayer as above to both On the first Sunday of Advent The Prayer called the Collect. ROwse up we beseech thee O Lord thy power and come away that from the emiâ—ent dangers of our sinnes thou protecting we may deserve to be freed and thou delivering us we may be saved Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen So end all Prayers The Prayer called the Secret MAy these Sacrifices O Lord by their powerfull vertue bring us cleansed and more pure unto their purifying fountain The Prayer called the Post-Communion LEt us receive O Lord thy mercy in the midst of thy Temple that we may prepare for the future solemnities of our reparation with congruous homages On the second Sunday of Advent The Prayer ROwse up our hearts O Lord towards preparing the wayes of thy onely begotten Sonne that by his coming amongst us we may deserve to serve thee with purified Souls The Secret VOuchsafe O Lord to be appeased by our humble Prayers and Offerings and whereas we have no title of merit succour us with thine own supplyes The Post-Communion BEing filled with the food of Spirituall Almes we humbly beseech thee O Lord that by the participation of this Mystery thou wilt teach us to contemn Earthly and to love Heavenly things On the Third Sunday of Advent The Prayer LEnd we beseech thee O Lord thine ear unto our Prayer and enlighten the darknesse of our minde with the Grace thy Visitation The Secret MAy the sacrifice O Lord of our Devotion be continually offered up both to perform the precepts of this sacred Mystery and admirably in us to produce thy saving work The Post-Communion VVEe implore O Lord thy clemency that these Divine helps may expiatâ— our sinnes and prepare us to the future solemnities On the fourth Sunday of Advent The Prayer O Lord we beseech thee raise up thy power and with thy mighty vertue come away to our succour that by the help of thy Grace what our sins retard the indulgence of thy propitiation may accelerate The Secret ORdain O Lord we beseech thee being by these present sacrifices appeased that they may avail to our Devotion and Salvation also The Post-Communion HAving received thy bounties we beseech thee O Lord that by frequentation of thy Mystery the effect of our salvation may increase On Sunday within the Octaves of the Nativity The Prayer OMnipotent Sempiternall God direct our actions in thy good pleasure that in the name of thy beloved Son we may deserve to abound in good Works The Secret GRant we beseech thee Omnipotent God that the offering which we have made in the eyes of thy majesty may obtain us the grace of holy Devotion and bring unto us the effect of a blessed Eternity The Post-Communion BY the operation of this Mystery may O Lord our sins be purged and our just desires be accomplished On Sunday within the
our Saviour Jesus Christ but the Majesty and power of Almighty God indeed all the three persons of the B. Trinity so that to requite the love of him who made his Body be our food we are bound to come unto this Sacrament with acts of charity and to avoid the danger of unworthy receivers we are obliged to come unto it with all the fear and trembling we can that is to say by going first to confession and purging our conscience not onely from such sins as we are guilty of but even from inordinate affections to things that are not sin since we see in this Gospel those who had onely such affections were excluded from the Supper that was a Type of this holy Sacrament 2. Again since it was an act of the highest wisdome the second Person of the B. Trinity to contrive himself a Tabernacle in the soules of men wherein his infinite glory might take delight to dwell in hearts that had but a care to keep themselves in his good grace as the Priest sayes to day in holy office Wisdome hath built her self a House meaning amongst other senses Jesus Christ hath made himself a Tabernacle in humane soules that worthily receive the B. Sacrament it is but requisite we shew some zeal to his wisdome as well as to his Love namely that we bring with us to this heavenly banquet such a holy fear as may give testimony we aym at a reverence to his infinite wisdome while we shew a sign that we begin at least our selves to be wise by the best argument of humane wisdome holy fear according to that of Eccles 1. The beginning of wisdome is the fear of our Lord. 3. Nor will it be against the main scope of Christianity which is now continually to perfect charity in us while we joyn other vertues with our acts of love because though love must ever be included in all we say or do yet there is no vertue therefore to be excluded but any one or more may well go hand in hand with charity nay she indeed should never go alone being the Queen and Soveraign of all other vertues so they do but usher her where ere they go in her company as to day we are taught to lead our charity into the Church with a holy feare of our Lord. For which purpose we pray to day that we may come unto this holy Sacrament with equal fear with equal love and that for the reasons alledged in the Prayer as was said in the application of this dayes Epistle On the third Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 15.8 WHat woman if she have Ten groates if she have lost one groat doth she not light a Candle and sweep the house and search diligently untill she hath found it Vers Let my prayer O Lord be directed Resp Even as Incense before thee The Prayer O God who art the Protectour of those that hope in thee without whom nothing is valid nothing holy multiply we beseech thee over us thy mercy that thou being our ruler thou our guide we may so passe by the temporal goods of this world as not to loose the eternall of the next The Illustration SEe how in this excellent Prayer are summed up the contents of the Epistle and Gospel of the day how exactly do we in the beginning of this prayer observe the counsel given us in the Epistle humbling our selves under the mighty hand of God when we implore his protection over us confessing that without him nothing is valid nor holy in us and that we have no other title to his protection neither then his multiplyed mercies towards us upon which mercy we cast all our care all our hope and in confidence thereby to have him our ruler him our guide we commit our selves to the combat against all our enemies which we are to encounter in our passage through this alluring world beseeching his Divine Majesty that by our sober vigilancy over our own actions day and night accompanying his never failing conduct we may maugre opposition obtain the victory and receive the crown of Glory which this prayer petitions Behold it also as well adjusted to the Gospel For who doth not clearly see that whilest he shall not with the Publican hang upon our Saviours lips to hear his counsels and commands but runs his own wayes with the murmuring Pharisee he is presently a lost sheep and falls into sin if not to heresie as this parable imports and so in stead of onely passing by the pleasures of this world as the Prayer above adviseth he contrariwise dwelling on them in the swing of his own inordinate desires indangers his loosing heaven unlesse the good shepherd leave his flock in the desert by his being content for a time to see them want the comfort of his presâ—nce and consolation whilest he runs after his lost sheep and with much care finding him out brings him with joy back again to the Catholike Church if he were gone quite out of it or to Sacramental pennance if he were plunged into the mire of other grievous sins not schisme nor heresie But to come more home to our purpose whenâ—e is all this trouble to our Pastour but because the sheep do not with zeal and fervour say this prayer above do not hope in God but in themselves do not flye the roaring and the ranging lyon but run into his Jawes do not content themselves to feed in the pleasant pastures of holy conversation but run a hunting after the food of vain and worldly pleasures and consequently plunge themselves headlong into hell unlesse by the mercy of this heavenly shepherd they be reduced to an amendment of their lives and at last rewarded with eternal glory Whereunto it will hugely conduce to repeat this prayer often with such relation as we see it hath to the other parts of this dayes Service that so the sheep may do as the Pastour sayes This is the end of all preaching This the end of all prayer The Epistle 1 Pet. 5.6 c. 6 Be ye humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in the time of visitation 7 Casting all your carefulnesse upon him because he careth for you 8 Be sober and watch because your adversary the devill as a roaring lyon goeth about seeking whom he may devour 9 Whom resist ye strong in Faith knowing that the self same affliction is made to that your fraternity which is now in the world 10 But the God of all grace which hath called us unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus he will perfect you having suffered a little and confirm and establish you 11 To him be Glory and Empire for ever and ever Amen The Explication 6. THis verse exhorts to resignation unto the Divine Will in all occasions especially of adversity No marvel the hand of God is here called mighâ—y when it is omnipotent See how we are wooed into our own felicity when we are exhorted to humility and
person of another man so he cannot mean himself when he sayes the Lord but must needs mean the Bailiffes real master did praise his own Bailiffe of iniquity that is did commend the invention or manner of the cheat not the cheat it self and said that the children of this world used more wisdome and prudence in their worldly wayes then the children of light This may put us in mind how ill it is that we study more to damne then to save our soules 9. This verse cleares the sense of the former to be spoken in the name of the master to the Bailiffe for here Christ having told us that masters sense now makes profession to speak in his own name in these words I say unto you give almes do good deeds unto the poor with your Mammon of iniquity your treasures for by vertue of these almes the poor may plead your admittance into heaven and obtain by their intercession that your almes may cover a multitude of your sins So this is a parable speaking properly to rich men of this world who are not true Lords of their own estates but owe them to God and have the portions of the poor in their hands and own all their treasure but as Lords of iniquity as heapers up of wealth which they have cheated the poor of and when they pay them not by Almes they lye lyable to the like censure of this Bailiffe to render account for they are such to God The Application 1. THis Gospel being wholly Parabolical we are at the greater liberty to make our applications thereof according as we can best avail our selves by it further then what by the Illustration and Explication above is already done First therefore albeit this Parable aymes directly at rectifying the inordinate excesses of Rich men who abuse the trust God hath reposed in them of relieving the poor when they lavish away their estates vainly and do not by their charities pay the poor mens Portions which are included in the rich mens revenues yet we may very properly here mind the Priests of Gods holy Church that as they are indeed the chief Bailiffes of their heavenly Master trusted with more of his Estate and Treasure then all the world besides namely the receiving and distributing his holy graces the livelyhoods of their own and other mens soules so when they waste these Treasures either by their own idle mispending them or by their undue dispensing them to others especially by palliating the sins of the people and flattering them with needlesse dispensations from their Christian duties never valid but when really necessary then are they most properly such ill Bailiffes as this Gospel specifies 2. Secondly in regard there is no Lay-man free from the Bailifship of a huge though lesser trust also reposed in him by Almighty God of all those rich graces vertues and gifts which are bestowed upon us in holy Baptisme therefore every Lay-man as well as the Priest may piously fear he playes this ill Bailiffes part and that chiefly out of this root his giving way to unjust thoughts such as propend him to unrighteous actions by not being rejected but disputed with untill the temptation of sordid gain or pleasure overcome him and make him unjustly act that which at first was but unrightly thought 3. Now this evil holy Church hopes to amend in us by prayer adapted to the Bailifship we are intrusted with absolutely of our own soules and partly of our neighbours too in point of edification to him at least whereby we are charitably to contribute also to his salvation which we shall then perform in act if our thoughts be first set upon the doing it Thus we see how the debt we owe of charity to our neighbour puts us in mind of the greater debt we owe thereof unto our selves and to Almighty God And by this charity it is we are best able to perform what we this day Pray for with holy Church that by alwayes thinking thus charitably right we may do uprightly we may live spiritually to that good God without whom we have neither spiritual nor yet corporal Beeing On the ninth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 19.46 FOr it is written that my house is the house of prayer to all Nations but you have made it a den of theeves And he was daily teaching in the Temple Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt the eares of thy mercy O Lord be open to the prayers of thy suppliants and to the end thou mayst grant the things desired to those that ask make them ask such things as to thee are pleasing The Illustration BLessed Jesu that the holy Ghost should teach us perfection of prayer in a language arguing imperfection in Almighty God mutation from his not bearing to the opening of his mercifull ears to the prayers of his Suppliants Whereas his eyes being alwayes open to see our actions his cars cannot be shut from our petitions since we can as little speak what he doth not hear as we can do what he doth not see It is not therefore because he at any time hears us not but that we deserve not to be heard sometimes even when we pretend to pray that we are taught to beg his open ears to our petitions and that if we will hope to be heard we must ask such things as are pleasing to his Divine Majestie rather then what is desired by us wherefore we were taught by our Saviour himself to pray that the will of God might be done in earth as it is in heaven which in effect though in other terms we pray to day when we begg that to the end God may grant what we desire he will make us ask such things as are pleasing to his Divine Majestie Yes beloved this is the full scope and sense of the prayer above and by this we see 't is one and the same spirit that now dictates the form of prayer to holy Church which our blessed Saviour had when in the garden he gave us the most excellent method of praying called to this very day our Lords prayer onely this we find peculiar now that all prayers of holy Church are so set after the stile of our Lords prayer which alone includes all the requests we are able to make that they are adapted to peculiar emergencies and do specially relate unto the present service of the day As for example the prayer above now doth unto the Epistle and Gospel of the Masse in regard they both mind us of the severe punishments inflicted both upon the Gentiles and the Jews who in their prayers runne after their own inventions and made their sacrifices which should appease the wrath of God to be the highest provocations of his fury as the Idolaters fornicatours and murmurers did whereof S. Paul here minds the Christian Corinthians who it seems were also inclined to make idols of their own desires rather then to adore in true
peace And here to shew the excesse of his grief he stops and sayes not what should follow to wit thou wouldest weep thy selfe as I doe now for thee thou wouldest weep to see what pains I have taken in my three years preaching of pennance to thee what more I am to take for thee whilest I die to save thee who wilt not be saved Yes all this sense runs through our Saviours soul and is genuinely taken out of this abrupt speech which because I see and thou dost not wilt not indeed therefore I weeep for thee O wretched city 43. This was to a title verified when Titus and the Romans laying seidge to Jerusalem after our Saviours death in three dayes space as Josephus writes built not onely Trenches but walls about them so as none could stirre out at any rate for relief whence mothers were fain to eat their own children So Josephus 44. So sensibly our Saviour speaks of this cities destruction that here he seems to exaggerate for it is not credible the Romans were either so curious or so idle as not to leave a stone upon a stone since there is now in that new city the old mount Calvary where many stones lay one upon the other So the meaning of this place is that the destruction of this city should be so great as if there had not been a stone left upon a stone within it whilest those that were left should be of no use nor profit By the time of the visitation understand this very time when our Saviour came a loving Messias to save this city and she would not receive him but plotted his death in requitall 45. See whither our Saviour goes as soon as he is entered the citie Into the Temple first to rectifie that which was out of order there So he first enters into our Temples into our souls when he adopts us to be his children It was not amisse to begin visibly to reform the visible abuses in the Temple especially since he see the hearts and souls of the high Priests would not be reformed by him 46. This was so palpable an abuse of the written word that none could question it and besides it was necessary to abolish open Sacriledge where there was to be established open Sanctity 47. To shew that thus Priests were to employ their times and their talents and not in secular companies or imployments at least not in merely secular but such as were mixed with Church duties The Application 1. HOw excellently wel doth holy Church follow her design in this Gospel which we perceive she had in the Epistle above For what else is meant by Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and foretelling her destruction but because she did to him while he marcht before her eyes as we have heard her children did to God while he mercifully led them through the red Sea and many other dangers out of Egypt into the land of promise What was their buying and selling in the Temple other then Idolatry to Mammon other then robbing God of that honour which they paid even in his own house unto his greatest enemy the devill For which you see our Saviour whipt them out of the Temple as was said in the Illustration above and not unnecessarily repeated here 2. O Catholick Christians how do we act this Jewish part how do we do our best to make our Jesus weep in Heaven if it were possible to see us Catholickes degenerate into the sordid actions of the Jewes What is it else to hear us murmure against our Lord for commanding us to he meeke and humble who have nothing in us but passion and pride who are with the Jewes ashamed of holy poverty while we clad our selves in nothing but gauderies more vainly farr then those whose Religion binds them not so strictly from such braveries as ours While instead of renouncing the vanity of the world we sell even God himself for hope of onely popular applause by frequenting the Church for vain respects to see and to be seen under pretence of praying there or of hearing the word of God which is to make Gods holy House a denne of thieves to rob him of his honour in that very place appointed onely for honouring and adoring of his holy Name 3. O how rarely well doth holy Church rebuke the Priests and Lay-men too in the Prayer she makes to day as an abstract of all the doctrine on those holy Texts when what so ever we do at other times she bids us while we pray at least refrain as is our duty to commit Idolatry to Fornicate to Tempt our Lord to murmure to swell with Pride to dissemble and to Simonize in holy Church For this were but to shut those sacred eares we praying doe pretend to open This were to aske unpleasing things to God not such as we are bid petition in the Prayer above pleasing to his heavenly Majesty On the tenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 18. v. 14. THis man went down to his house justified more then he for that every one who shall exalt himself shall be humbled and he who humbleth himself shall be exalted Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who doest manifest thy omnipotency most of all by pardoning and taking pittie multiply on us thy mercy that we running unto thy promises thou maist make us partakers of thy heavenly treasures The Illustration STrange that holy Church should teach us in this Prayer the omnipotency of God is most manifested by his pardoning and pittying of us True his goodnesse and his love is thereby most of all made manifest but his power or his omnipotency seems manifested more in his creating all things out of nothing in his governing the world created so as to make contrary natures combine all in one to the fulfilling of his holy will and pleasure and in his punishing offenders who if they could resist his power would never indure eternall damnation as all the devils and accursed souls in hell are forc'd to do But if we look more narrowly into the businesse we shall find Gods power most manifested in his pardoning and pitâ—ying offenders For as by their sinnes they relapse into a far worser nothing then that they were created out of first of all so to be recreated as often as they sinne is to keep in exercise Gods omnipotency every minute in a manner since they hardly passe a minute without a sinne and if this be mortall they as often disannull themselves as they sinne mortally and since in this case they cannot be re-made again but by the omnipotency of him who can make all things out of nothing this omnipotency being manifested by the pardon and pitty God Almighty doth afford a sinner thus relapsing it followes evidently that the said omnipotency is made most manifest by such pardon and pitty as God affords to sinfull souls Which pitty being an Act of mercy we had need petition that
so we must live rather content to die poor then seek to live rich after God will have us die beggars Note it is onely excesse of care or anxious solicitude that we are forbidden not ordinary diligence in our occasions 33. By first is here understood chiefly or principally so that we are allowed a secondary care of our temporals though our main imploy and study must be to get heaven for that is the Kingdome of God By Gods justice is here understood those virtues and good deeds that render us just in the sight of God and so capable of that heaven we are in the first place to seek since it was the end for which we were first created By those things which shall be given us besides are understood things of lesse moment and consequently which ought to take up lesse of our care such as are meat clothes and other temporalls The Application 1. GOd and Mammon are not so here declared to be the two masters meant who cannot be both served at once but that we may also take the spirit and the flesh for these two masters and this the rather because so the Gospel is more literally suting the Epistle and besides S. Matthew in the following verses of this present Text doth aim directly at the service we pretend unto the flesh when we neglect our souls to provide for our bodies 2. And see how to prevent this poor pretext our charity is led to day by Providence to shew us that we cannot any way pretend to corporall duty for excusing us from our spirituall obligations since God Almighties Providence is here brought in to furnish us with all things necessary for the body and so to ease us of that care and to send us about our main and onely businesse our secking in the first place the kingdome of heaven and the justice thereof by the works of charity such as in the Epistle above are enumerated and assuring us all things wanting else shall be provided us by his Providence who never relinquisheth the just man nor permits his seed to seek their bread so if neither for our selves nor for our posterity we need to interrupt our spiritual duties or to renounce our service to our souls for any tie we have to serve our bodies we have no pretence then left at all for our so doing 3. Yet least we be withdrawn from the saving works of charity by the hurtfull ones of the flesh which humane frailty would easily incline us to therefore we are taught upon the reading of this holy Text To pray as above alwayes for the help of Christ his perpetuall propitiation by the cordiall of his passion to relieve our fainting charity withall in her march to heaven On the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 7. v. 16. A Great Prophet is risen amongst us and because God hath visited his people c. Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt thy continued mercy O Lord both cleanse and defend thy Church and because without thee it cannot stand securely be it alwayes governed by thy bounty The Illustration WE heard in the exposition of the last Sundayes prayer that the perpetuall propitiation there begged was the continuation of our Saviours passion to be our continuall help in all occasions and now that to day we beg to have the mercy of our Lord continued to his Church we seem but to repeat the same prayer again in a varied phrase But if we cast our eyes upon the Epistle and Gospel here below and observe how the Expositours upon them apply the same as declaring all the office of Priestly function and telling us what should be the duty of the people thereupon we shall soon perceive as well a difference in the substance as in the phrase or language of these two prayers That alluding to the immediate influence of the passion into us by the personall help which our Saviour affords in the grace he gives us to repent us of our sinnes which relating to himself is fitly called his perpetuall propitiation but reporting to the mediate helps we have from our Saviour by the mediation of his Ministers the Doctours Teachers Preachers and Priests of holy Church it is rather stiled his continued mercy towards us because it was his mercy that moved him to supply his own personall presence amongst us by the mediation of the Priests whom in his place he left by means of catechising preaching and administration of the Sacraments to continue his mercy towards us and by the continuation thereof to cleanse and defend his holy Church cleansed indeed by participation of the Sacraments defended by the communication of the Priests their functions sacrifices and prayers in her behalf and yet our holy mother closeth up this Sundayes prayer with an immediate addresse again unto the fountain it self when she concludes affirming it is as well his bounty as his mercy that she subsisteth by when she professeth she cannot stand securely unlesse she be alwayes governed by his bounty that is to say by his holy grace derived unto us through the hands of his Ministers the Priests of holy Church so that this prayer instructs us whence our helps do flow and by what hands they are conveyed to us And requisite it is that we do pray in this sort to day when the Epistle runs all upon the Priests office to the people and their putting in practice the Christian doctrine taught them by the Priest all which is neatly couched under the spirituality wherewith the Epistle tells us both are rendred compleat as signifying neither the Master nor the Schollar must sow fleshly seeds since both must live by spirituall fruits And for the Gospel we hear the Fathers of the Church avouch it to be a parable alluding to the death of sinne and life of grace which is coincident with what the Epistle taught us of sowing spirituall seeds that might bring forth fruits of grace of Christ not fleshly which produce nothing at all but corruption and death Since then we have this prayer adjusted to the sense of the Expositours upon the other parts of this dayes service we make good our designe as hitherto we did in some one of the latitudes in the preface of this work allowable unto this mysticall Theologie The Epistle Galat. 5. and 6. Chap. Chap. 5. v. 26. If we live in the spirit in the spirit also let us walk let us not be made desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Chap. 6. v. 1. Brethren if a man be preoccupied in any fault you that are spirituall instruct such a one in the spirit of lenitie considering thine own self lest thou also be tempted 2 Bear ye one anothers burthens and so you shall fulfill the Law of Christ 3 For if any man esteem himself to be something where as he is nothing he seduceth himself 4 But let every one prove his own work and so in
once would let us know the dead child being a Jew represents the expiration of the Jewish Synagogue by the plantation of the Church of Christ For as this diseased Gentile fell sick when Jairus his child was born so the Gentiles fell to their brutish Idolatry figured by the Bloudy Flux when the Jewes were born to right belief in Abraham and therefore as Christ went to raise this child from death to life and by the way first healed the diseased woman so he came first to the Jewes yet the Gentiles received and believed in him before the Jewes whose conversion or being raised from the death of infidelity to the life of Faith is not to be till after all Gentiles are first reduced and then at last even the Jewes shall generally be converted This is the mystical sense of the present story prosecuted in these three verses onely we are to observe by this womans Faith that the Gentiles are of much more easie and entire belief then the Jewes besides this place gives a great ground for the Catholick doctrine of revering reliques since here the woman was cured by the onely touch of our Saviours garments hemm and Eusebius writes that she in memory of this favour shewed unto her made a coat like that of our Saviours and kept it religiously in her house and that diverse who were diseased went away from her perfectly cured upon the sole touch of this garments hemm also 23. 24. The musick our Saviour found here was onely such as usually in those dayes did accompany all burials Our Saviours saying the child is not dead did not deny but she was so for all that onely his meaning was she should live again and therefore he accounted her death but a sleep in the sight of God because her soul was not summoned to the barre of Judgement being to return and lead a longer life in this world though this saying of Christ might also import his modesty in not making difficult his works to get thereby popular applause However they knew and so did Christ the child was really dead to all humane power of recovery but that they might see death to God was but as sleep to nature since he that could out of nothing make all things could much more easily out of a dead body make a living creature and so as to God death and sleep are much alike in respect of privation of life whence it is frequent for Christ to call death obdormition or sleeping onely thus he did in Lazarus his case after he was four dayes buried Joh. 11.44 and thus you see here he doth in this present case of the dead child But as commonly men judge of all things by outward appearances and of other mens powers by comparing them to their own so here these mourners laugh at Christ for saying the dead child was onely asleep as who should say they held it impossible for him to revive her which argues they were sufficiently satisfied she was truly dead to all this world 25. 26. Note his bidding them depart when he sayes she is not dead argues that their diffidence in his power did not deserve the honour to be eye-witnesses of the miracle how it was done though afterwards they had proof enough it was most true and again it argues he was not seeking popular applause when he went in alone leaving the company without taking onely the child's parents and his disciples with him S. Mark sayes Peter James and John to shew it was not ultroneous fasting that conferred sanctity of which you heard before but a lively Faith and an ardent love to God wherewith his Apostles were endowed and so fit to be now witnesses of his and after workers of as great miracles themselves though they did not run the vain-glorious wayes of Pharisaical fasting or the like Note the Scripture phrase is here pathetical saying Christ held the childs hand in such sort probably as officers take hold of such as they arrest to carry away with them and so shew their power over them for thus our Saviour seemed to snatch the body of this child from death and to command her soul from entring into hell but to animate again the body thereby to shew he had perfect dominion over life and death And it seems the manner of this was extraordinary when the story of it ends by saying it was divulged all the countrey over for a famous miracle though St. Mark sayes Christ gave the girle to her parents bidding them say nothing Mar. 5.43 to shew his modesty and that he sought not the worlds applause but onely Gods honour and glory Yet their disobedience in this was not unseemly The Application 1. THis Gospel of the Jewes and Gentiles Infidelity is as we heard in the Explication made a whole Type of all Iniquity whatsoever and yet is most peculiarly proper to the Epistle inculcating so sincere a sayntity as above because as to that sayntity pardon of iniquity is necessary and this pardon is mystically represented in the raising Jairus his daughter from the brink of death which is the natural punishment of sinne so to the said sayntity there is also necessary a detestation of all affection to sin which detestation is also represented by the cure upon the woman sick of the Issue of bloud not unfitly likened to reiterated or accustomary sinne which argues a huge affection thereunto 2. What then more proper for Christians at the reading of this holy Text then first to procure an act of contrition for all guilt of sinne upon their soules and next to detest all affection to any sinne whatsoever especially to those which have been formerly to them accustomary for those are properly bonds which we have sealed to the devil while we hamper our selves with giving them up as our well advised acts of our yet most abominable wicked deeds 3. Say now beloved if our holy Mother have not fram'd a fitting Prayer when to this purpose she brings charity to day upon her knees preparing her self for the grand account she is next Sunday put in mind to make By petitioning as above an acquittance of her sinful debts by absolution from the guilt thereof and a cancelling of all her bonds to the devil by teating her affections to sin in pieces and planting her love from hence upon Almighty God above On the four and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 24.34 AMen I say to you this Generation shall not passe untill all be done Heaven and Earth shall passe but my word shall not passe saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer STirre up we beseech thee O Lord the wills of thy Faithful that they more diligently preparing the fruit of thy divine work may receive the greater remedies of thy mercy The Illustration WE are this day closing up the Ring of our devotion which we desire all the devotes of our sodality to wear in testimony they are of
bounty we bring unto thee that these sacred mysteries by the operative power of thy grace may sanctifie us in the conversation of this present life and lead us to eternall joyes The post-Communion BE O Lord unto us this heavenly mystery a reparation both of soul and body that whose worship we perform his effect we may feel On the ninth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer LEt the ears of thy mercy O Lord be open to the prayers of thy suppliants and to the end thou mayst grant the things desired to those that ask make them ask such things as to thee are pleasing The Secret GRant unto us O Lord we beseech thee that we may worthily frequent these mysteries because as often as the commemoration of this Hoste is celebrated the work of our Redemption is exercised The post-Communion VVE pray O Lord that the communion of thy Sacrament may confer purity and give unto us unity On the tenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God who doest manifest thy Omnipotence most of all by pardoning and taking pitty multiply upon us thy mercy that we running unto thy promises thou maist make us partakers of thy Heavenly Treasures The Secret BE the consecrated sacrifices rendered unto thee O Lord which thou hast granted us so to be offered in honour of thy name that withall thou hast allowed them to be remedies unto us The post-Communion VVE beseech thee our Lord God that whom thou dost not cease to repair with divine Sacraments thou wilt not deprive them of thy favours being as thou art benigne On the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who out of the abundance of thy pity doest exceed as well the merits of thy suppliants as their desires pour out thy mercy upon us that thou maist forgive what our conscience is afraid of and add even what our prayers dare not presume to ask The Secret LOok we beseech thee O Lord propitiously upon our service that what we offer may be to thee an acceptable gift and to our frailty a support The post-Communion MAy we find O Lord we beseech thee by the receiving thy Sacrament help of soul and body that beeing in both preserved we may glory in the plenitude of the heavenly remedy On the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer OMnipotent and most mercifull God from whose bounty it proceedeth that of thy faithful people thou art worthily and laudably served grant unto us we beseech thee that we may runne unto thy promises without offence The Secret LOok we beseech thee O Lord propitiously upon the hosts which on thy holy altars we offer unto thee that giving us pardon they may also give honour unto thy Name The post-Communion LEt the holy participation of this mystery quicken us O Lord we beseech thee and equally give unto us expiation and defence On the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer ALlmighty and everlasting God give unto us the increase of Faith Hope and Charity and that we may deserve to obtain what thou doest promise make us love what thou doest command The Secret BE propitious O Lord we beseech thee unto thy people and to their offerings that appeased by this oblation thou both pardon us and grant us our requests The post-Communion HAving O Lord received the heavenly Sacraments we beseech thee let them avail us to the increase of our eternall Redemption On the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer KEep we beseech thee O Lord thy Church with perpetuall propitiation and since without thee humane mortality faileth let it alwayes by thy help be withdrawn from such things as are hurtfull and directed to those that are saving The Secret GRant unto us we pray thee O Lord that this wholsome offering may be a purgation of our sinnes and a propitiation of thy power The post-Communion LEt thy Sacraments O God alwayes cleanse us and bring us to the effect of our eternall salvation On the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer LEt thy continual mercy O Lord both cleanse and defend thy Church and because without thee it cannot stand securely be it alwayes governed by thy bounty The Secret LEt thy Sacraments O Lord keep us and alwayes defend us from the assaults of the devil The post-Communion VVE beseech thee O Lord let the operation of thy heavenly gift possesse our minds and bodies that not our sense in us but continually the effect of thy said gift may prevent us On the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer LEt thy Grace we beseech thee O Lord alwayes go before and follow us and make us continually intent unto good works The Secret CLeanse us O Lord we beseech thee by the effect of this present sacrifice and mercifully work in us that we may be sharers of the same The post-Communion VVE pray thee O Lord to purifie benignely our souls and to renew them with thy heavenly Sacraments that consequently we may have both present and future helps for our bodies On the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer GRant we beseech thee O Lord that thy people may flye Diabolical contagion and follow thee the onely God with pure intention The Secret O Lord we humbly beseech thy Majestie that these holy things which we bear about us may divest us of our present and future offences The post-Communion BY thy sanctifications Almighty God be our sins cured and may eternal remedies accrue unto us On the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer LEt O Lord the operation of thy mercy direct our hearts because without thee we cannot please thee The Secret O God who by the venerable commerce of this sacrifice dost make us partakers of thy onely and highest Deity grant we beseech thee that as we acknowledge thy truth so we may by our behoofeful comportment attain the same The post-Communion WE give thee thanks O Lord for being nourished by thy sacred bounty beseeching thy mercy that thou wilt make us worthy to partake thereof On the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer ALmighty and mercifull God vouchsafe propitiously to exclude all things which are adverse unto us that being set at liberty both in mind and body we may with free souls execute those things that appertain unto thee The Secret THese offerings which we make in the sight of thy Majestie grant O Lord we beseech thee that they may be saving unto us The post-Communion MAy thy medicinall operation O Lord clemently free us from our perversities and make us alwayes adhere to thy commands On the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer VVE beseech thee O Lord thou being pacified grant unto thy faithfull people pardon and peace that they may be both clean from all offences and serve thee with secured souls The Secret WE pray thee O Lord to let these mysteries afford us heavenly remedy and to purge away the sinnes of our heart The post-Communion THat we may be
have it so but in a way clean contrary then we are not of one minde nor do we speak forth his praises with one mouth which yet we doe when out of severall mouthes we express one and the same will and way to praise Almighty God The Apostle seemes to insert the glorifying God and the Father of Jesus Christ under two severall notions to let us see that as Christ was man he was also truly the Son of God because as the second Person had in Heaven a Father without a Mother so in Earth Christ had a Mother without any Father save onely God in Heaven 7. For the which cause that is to shew you are all of one mind c. receive help and cherish one another being Christians or in order that you may be so as Christ hath received you that were Gentiles unto the honor of God to the same Church with his native and chosen People th◠Jewes and of all severall nations made up one joynt honour and glory to the Divine Majesty 8. True it is Christ was sent by his Heavenly Father with Commission as it were unto the Jewes onely and therefore he did live and die amongst them to verifie those promises which God had made them in Abraham and the Prophets for as the law was onely given unto and kept among the Jewes so the promises and predictions of that law did onely appertain to them and were necessarily to be made good amongst them as indeed most exactly they were by Christ and this in virtue of Cōmission from his Heavenly Father For which cause he is called here Minister of the Circumcision though he abrogated that law in regard he did all his life time administer to the circumcised his labours and pains by Teaching Preaching Curing and infinite other wayes serving the Jewes in order to their Redemption and this directly and principally to prove the veracity of God who had promised to send the Jewes a Messias that should do this and by doing this he was truly and properly their Minister 9. But not to the Gentiles so because he came to them for mercy onely and ultroneously to shew his goodnesse was not limited to the bounds of his Commission to the Jewes but might and did mercifully extend it self also to the Gentiles thereby to amplifie the honour and glory of God in doing more than could be expected of him and that to a people who had no promise nor any hope thereof Though it was not onely foreseen that Christ would doe this act of ultroneous grace and mercy but fore-told by the royall Prophet Psal 17. ver 50 as followes in this nineth verse of the Epistle 10. And as Deut. 32. ver 43. The Prophet sayes of the Gentiles Rejoice ye Gentiles with his People that is with the People of God with the Jewes for your Conversion also and sing forth praise to God for his mercy shewed to you therein 11. Here it is declared that not onely some few Nations of the Gentiles but even all of them shall be first or last made partakers of these mercies and thereby are bound to praise our Lord. 12. By the root of Jesse is here meant a Branch of that root namely Christ Jesus the son of David and of Jesse as Isaias saith in another place There shall spring a rod from the root of Jesse Isai 11. ver 1. which Rod is Iesus descended as above and yet with reason enough Christ is called the root of Iesse too for though as man he was but a branch of David his root yet as God he was the root of David his Creature again David was rather his Seed than his Root because he had not from David to be Redeemer of the World but was himself the Root of Davids and all Mankinds redemption and sprouting forth as from the Root of goodnesse in himself branches of Grace and Glory to David and all those whom he was graciously pleased to predestinate for Heirs to God and Coheires to himself in his Heavenly Kingdome The hope of which Kingdome he hath mercifully given as well to the Gentiles as faithfully by promise he gave to the Iewes 13. The Apostle here calls him the God of Hope as above Verse 5. he did call him the God of Peace and Comfort and prayes he will replenish them with all Ioy and peace as who should say both Jew and Gentile setting aside former distances now are to Joy in this that they are made one in Christ Iesus and therefore must live in peace together as the members of a naturall Body since they are become Members of Christ his Mysticall Body that by so living they may both abound in hope of one reward enough for both the Kingdome of Heaven and this through the Vertue that is Charity or the Grace of the holy Ghost wherein he also prayes they may both abound The Application 1. IF what is here written be to our Instruction 't is to make us be the Saints we are not yet 't is to facilitate the way by shewing us how the Jew and Gentile were both Saincted by Christianity The Roots whereof are the three Theologicall Vertues Faith Hope and Charity which indeed doe briefly summe up this whole Epistle in the last Verse thereof and are given us as the best preparatives to make way for Jesus into our Hearts Faith we see made Jew and Gentile both one Church O may it grow to such an excellence in us to abolish Heresie from Christianity and because it is a speciall gift of God let it be our daily Prayer that he will give it unto all the World Turk Heathen Pagan Jew 2. Hope keeps together those that Faith uniteth and like an Ancre in a storme secures the Ship of Christ in highest seas of Persecution May then the Hope of future mercy inable us to undergo our present Misery may the example of the Saints before us encourage us to be like patterns unto our Posterity as they have been to us that were our Predecessours 3. Charity makes operative both our Faith and Hope sends the Believer with the hazard of his life to propagate the Faith of Christ throughout the World and directs our present actions to such a rectitude of their intentions as may secure a future possession of their Hopes So without Charity in vain we Hope in vain men doe believe and are rather nominall than reall Christians such as cry out at the latter day Lord Lord and shall hear him say I know you not while you professe belief in Jesus Christ and offer dayly sacrifice to the Devill while you pretend a hope of Heaven and doe such actions as can onely merrit Hell while you call one another brethren in Christ and bear a mutuall hatred greater than the Gentile bore the Jew for want of those Heart-raising virtues this Epistle recommends and bids us Pray as above that by the frequent acts thereof we may both prepare the way of Christ and be able by his coming
Spirit of Servitude and Fear being onely a shadow of that Truth which was to come after it Lastly and most properly because he is the Author of all Truth whence Christ said of him Cap. 16. he shall teacb you all truth 27. See the infinite Dignity of the Apostolate and of their Successors the Prelates of Gods Church that they are joyned in testimony of Christ his Deity and of all the other mysteries of Faith even with the holy Ghost himself and yet the Hereticks so undervalue Church Authority as if it were onely Humane and Fallible whereas indeed it is Divine because supported by Divine Power promising it should be Infallible and it is as little derogatory to God his veracity to say that failing man supported by God cannot erre as it is to say God cannot erre in that he undertaketh so the Infallibility is radicated in God however by his gracious vouchsafing it is also attributed to man as exercising the ministery of God not otherwise C. 16. 1. Many take scandal here in diverse Sences but the best and genuine is that they be not offended at their persecutors when they shall finde them to oppose Gods holy Ordinances and Ministers and that for this reason they do not slacken in their Faith or Zeal as expecting God should being Good and Goodness it self defend them from evil while for his sake and for his Name they were doing well and executing his commands but should rather remember he had foretold them these things would happen and that if his heavenly Father permitted him who was actually God to be in his own sacred Person abused and persecuted to Death they should not being but men expect to have more regard shewed them by Gods enemies then was shewed to God himself but should rather conclude he suffered for them to give them example to suffer for him and for their own and others sins besides 2. The Synagogue imports either the Congregation of the Jewish people or the place wherein they were to observe their ceremonial Rites in serving God as now the word Church signifies the believers in Christ and the place where Christians assemble to attend the Divine Service so by being cast out of the Synagogue imports excommunicated as cast out of the Place or Society of men serving God for so odious were the Apostles to the Jews upon the account of Christ Jesus their Master that they were not esteemed worthy of the name or company of Gods people and Christ comforts them against this disgrace by making them the Heads of hiâ— Church who were not held worthy to be members of the Jewish Synagogue Further he tells them they shall have the honour to be as he was offered up a Sacrifice for the sins of the people by the Jews who are so obstinately blinde as to esteem they offer sacrifice to God for their own sins while they persecute the servants of Christ Jesus the Son of God nor doth our Saviour here onely foretel the personal persecution of the Apostles but that also of all Christians which was to continue till the worlds end and the causes of this persecution are many The first the Devils and his Ministers malice to see Saints prefer Gods Service before the respect even to the proud Princes amongst men the second the destruction of Idols by the erecting a worship to one onely God The third because it was presumed as false as it was new to preach a crucified man to be eternal God The fourth because Christians do not onely beat down the false Religions of the Jews and Gentiles but even reprehend the manners and proceedings of those who profess such false worship of God as the Jewes and Gentiles did exhibite The last because the Devil and his adherents perswaded the world that all the miseries of Famine Plague Warre and Death which befell mankinde were just punishments of God inflicted on them for letting Christian Religion be professed and this saith he they will do to you because 3. They neither know my Father nor me that is they will not know either of us for this is not an excusing but an accusing phrase of Christ so this ignorance was not alledged as extenuating but as aggravating their fault and our Saviour animates the Apostles to suffer these temporal Scorns with as much neglect as a Prince would do who coming singly to Town without any visible attendance or retinue after him should be refused entrance and kept out as a private person for instead of being angry he would comfort himself with the redouble honour it would be to him to have these people let him in with their excuses and apologies for the affront as soon as his train appeared to testifie what he was and such a Train of holy Saints every Christian ought to believe will follow him to make the world with shame cry him mercy for affronting him whom God himself esteems and loves 4. The reason why I tell you or foretel you rather these things is not to disanimate but to hearten you to suffer them with alacrity because I shall as surely help you out of these bryars as I have told you that you should fall into them for my sake and if you remember I foretold you this you shall need no other comfort in your afflictions for you know sufficiently who I am your Jesus your God and when I tell you I shall give you the honour of suffering for me be confident I shall not fail to attend you with a Crown of Glory for your Martyrdoms The Application 1. THe two first Verses of this Gospel run wholly upon the Hope our Saviour put his Apostles in for the coming of the holy Ghost and so do fitly now exhort us to the practice of that Vertue according as we have been taught we must between Ascension and Whitsuntide And what more comfortable exercise can we desire then to expect the holy Ghost to come and take possession of our hearts on Earth while Jesus is gone to take possession of our Mansion House in Heaven A happy and a hopeful parting from our Ascending Saviour when we are left in expectation of our Descending Saintifier 2. In the three next Verses our Blessed Lord tyes the strongest link of Charity that of dying for the Faith to this above of Hope so is the Gospel suitable to the Epistle of the day Just in this sort he welcom'd St. Paul to his conversion promising to shew him what he was to suffer for his holy Name O admirable spirit of Almighty God! making that to his Saints a ground of Hope which were to sinners the greatest Motive of despair How comes this to pass but onely as the Royal Prophet sayes Because thou eternal God hast singularly placed me in Hope that is to say hast made thy servants contemn this tempting world and life it self the sweetest thing on earth in expectation of an everlasting life or to use thy words divine meerly for the Hope of Israel 3. The last
resignation as a meanes to our exaltation in the time of visitation which is to be understood when God shall think fit to look upon us with the eye of mercy 7. It were an injury to Gods goodnesse for us to cast about for that which God himself takes care for that is our soules good the care of that is his and our rule of that is by him laid unto us so in that affayre we have rather to do what is commanded already then to be solicitous about it as if it were not done And to be solicitous of Temporals is an unchristian care and therefore often forbidden in point of perfection however tolerated in regard of humane infirmity but moderate care is alwayes allowed Christians in order to Temporals when anxious solicitude is forbidden them by many texts of holy writ 8. Sobriety is the best companion of watchfulnesse and therefore both are recommended And because our watchfulnesse is to be perpetual therefore our sobriety must be so too but especially towards night when our hearts onely are to keep the watch whilest our senses are asleep and this because the devil is then most busie in temptations when men are least able to resist having as it were but their wish awake and their will asleep hence all spiritual men recommend temperance towards bed-time both in meat and drink hence the Completory begins alwayes with this very verse to put us in mind with what purity we ought to go to bed having our profest enemy alwayes awake and ready to devour us if he find us off our sober guard 9. Happy we that by the least resistance are sure of victory against this ravenous devil for maugre all his malice and all his power he cannot hurt us unlesse we yeeld our consents to his Temptations Here is added that we must stoutly resist him and believing too because so we get compleat victory for by resistance we overcome him by fortitude we bind him captive by Faith we take away all his armes and power that is by firm stout and constant Faith And again our resistance will have the more force because of what followes in this verse we never are left alone but have alwayes our fellow Souldiers to help us in this Fight against our enemy who never tempts us alone but all other good men at the same time and we have share in their greater resistance by adding what our weaknesse is able to do 10. This next verse comes yet more home to our comfort and assistance telling us besides the help of our fellow creatures we have the help of our omnipotent Creatour against this enemy of mankind the God of all grace who having called us to everlasting glory will not if we help our selves permit the devill to snatch us away into his kingdom of darknesse so that being designed for glory we cannot fear the want of grace for that is the seed and glory the fruit of Gods goodnesse in us O who seeing how much Christ suffered to purchase us patience would not gladly suffer this little we are told must be indured if we will hope for victory Let us therefore with the same zeal begin to suffer as we would desire the happy end of it which is assured victory and glory 11. This last verse minds us that the victory is Gods and the honour of it his though the reward by his mercy be our eternall glory too The Application WE have had hitherto the holy Ghost the sacred Trinity and the blessed Sacrament to help us on in our long journey between Pentecost and Advent which we are to march all upon the feet of Charity but now we must expect no more such speciall helps suffice it we have had last Sunday the corroborating repast whereof Elias his refreshment under the Tree in the desert was but a type or figure when yet he was told that little bread should inable him to his journeyes end although he had a great wâ—y to go after that before he came to the mount Horeb so beloved must our charity from this day forward march upon the late refreshment of the blessed Sacrament till we come in our annuall journey to the mount of Advent the mount of expectation the mount that leaves us on the top of the highest mystery of our redemption the Incarnation of our Lord God where his first stoop to earth was our first step to heaven 2. Now for as much as we shall in this march find charity sometimes handed on by other vertues as last Sunday most properly by holy fear sutable to her in so long a journey and through the many dangers which she was to meet withall in the desert of this world and because at other times she will be in a manner out of sight and carried on with the crowd of other vertues thronging about her to secure themselves by her and to be her guard as they are bound she being sovereign to them all we must not therefore think our design is ill laid and that our obligation ceaseth as to the practise of charity when in the holy Text other vertues are more visible then she for there want not good Divines who grounded on S. Paul his definition or description at least of this majestick vertue affirm there is indeed no other vertue but charity both because God himself is called charity and because in heaven all other vertues are refunded into her so that in these Divines opinions even Faith Hope Humility Patience Obedience and all other vertues whatsoever are but charity believing hoping submitting suffering obeying or the like as one and the self same man by the severall faculties of his soul by his severall senses and members of his body is doing those exercises that such faculties such senses and such members are necessary for Be these Divines right or wrong it boots not to our purpose more then thus to let us see all our actions are good or bad according as they partake or want of charity to give them life or to declare them dead 3. This premised see how humility resignation to Gods holy will sobriety vigilance and a strong faith bring charity along this first-dayes journey after the repast she had last Sunday as above And though the Text tell her she is to carry us through the ravenous Lions walk yet we see the close of this Epistle is that the God of all Grace the God of charity will secure us through these dangers for his own glory if we but love him and will cast our cares on him and will rely upon his multiplied mercies whereof we have dayly and hourely huge experience if we will make him our Ruler him our Guide and if we do not loose our charity to him our Creatour by wasting it away upon creatures unworthy of our love because we cannot grasp temporall felicities without hazard of loosing eternall happinesse Yes yes assuredly this ought to be our duty now Whilest to this very purpose holy Church prayes to day
Ghost is made manifest who is the Authour of all supernatural gifts The profit whereunto these gifts are given is rather to the Church then to him that receives them for gratuite graces ever avail the Church but not so him who receives them as miracles may be wrought by a sinner who doth not profit by them perhaps at all yet the Church doth 8. By the word of wisdome is understood the power to explicate deep mysteries of Faith as of the B. Trinity Incarnation praedestination or the like By the word of knowledge or science is understood the power to direct mens actions or manners that they be rational at least Thus S. Augustine lib. 12. Trinit cap. 14. 15. distinguisheth between wisdome and science or knowledge 9. By Faith here is not understood that act of Theological vertue which is common to all Christians but an act of particular confidence in God whereby it is believed he will by vertue of that our confidence work a miracle being asked so to do by such a Faith as is able to remove mountains Others understand by Faith here a deep understanding inabling to contemplate and explicate the mysteries of Faith 10. By miracles here are understood those which are extraordinary and are exercised not onely upon the body but even on the soules of men such as was that of S. Peter upon Ananias and Saphyra commanding them to dye By discretion of spirits is meant when God gives one man the grace to see into the very thoughts and intentions of others to know when an action is done by a good or evil spirit by God or the devil a gift to be begged by ghostly Fathers and conducing to their conduct of soules These gifts S. Hilarion was noted to have By interpretation of languages is understood a special gift frequent in the primitive Church whereby men illuminated for that end did give the true sense of Scripture and of those who being ignorant yet had the gift of Tongues and to spake more then themselves well understood but were by Interpretâ—rs expounded 11. Namely as that Spirit as the holy Ghost pleaseth The Application 1. St. Paul in this Epistle first puts the Corinthians and â—n them all other Christians in mind of the horrid Nothing that they were before their conversion from Gentilisme to Christianity And his aym in this is that as nothing was more abominable to the Gentiles then the name of Jesus Christ so nothing ought to be more reverential to Christians then that most sacred and most saving name insomuch as S. Paul concludes it is an Apostacy from God a relapse to Gentilisme not onely to use irreverence to the name of Jesus but to conceive we have any other life or being then what is purchac'd in that sweetest name 2. Notwithstanding true it is we have life often given us by the holy Ghost the special giver indeed of holy grace which is the â—ife and being of a Christian and hence it is S. Paul had no sooner inamoured the Corinthians on the Name of Jesus then he falls instantly upon the gifts of the holy Ghost sent from his heavenly Father and from his sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to multiply on us the mercies of Almighty God as if to have been once redeemed by Christ had not satisfied his infinite goodnesse without he had also made this Redemption copious by sending his holy Spirit to re-redeem us by his graces from the relapses into sinne that render our first redemption fruitlesse unlesse it had been more copious yet by the multiplyed mercies of the holy Ghost applying the Passion of our Saviour to us by some new gift of grace bestowed upon us as often as we take religious breath into our bodies by calling on the Name of Jesus with an aweful reverence thereunto as befits all Christians to do and for this purpose it is S. Paul falls into the enumeration of the gratuite gifts of God the graces that are meerly gratis given not such as are usual and absolutely necessary for our sayntification or justification but such as rather serve to shew the multiplication of Gods holy Power and Mercies over us 3. Blessed God! how art thou perpetually out-doing thine own goodnesse by thy continual effusion of thy self upon our iniquity how art thou giving daily more and more manifestation and consequently much more admiration to the blessed Angels and Saints in heaven by multiplying thy mercies on us sinners here in earth whom all those happy spirits may give a thousand thousand times for lost when they see how we run after nothing but the sordid gain and pleasure of the world the sweets that poyson the contents that damne our soules and yet by the multiplication of thy mercies we are sweetly forc'd maugre the impulse of devil flesh and bloud to let go all our hold on the possessed shadowes of this world and to run after the promised substances of the next But how my God are we forc't to this by the manifestation of thy Power in the multiplication of thy mercies according as was said before in the Illustration Say now beloved the Prayer above and see if it be not excellently well adapted to this holy Text and to this application of the same unto our best improvement The Gospel Luke 18. v. 9. 9 And he said also to certain that trusted in themselves as just and despised others this parable 10 Two men went up into the Temple to pray the one a Pharisee and the other a Publicane 11 The Pharisee standing prayed thus with himself God I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men extortioners unjust advouterers as also this Publicane 12 I fast twice in a week I give Tythes of all that I possesse 13 And the Publicane standing afar off would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven but he knocked his breast saying God be merciful to me a sinner 14 I say to you this man went down to his house justified more then he because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted The Explication 9. 10. By a Pharisee is understood a proud by a Publicane an humble man in this place 11. By the word standing the pride of the Pharisee is insinuated With himself 't is true for he prayed neither with nor to God for his prayer is rather a vaunting of his own then a seeking of Gods glory And his insolence is great whilest he sayes he is not as other men as who should say all besides himself are sinners had he said as some other men there had been lesse arrogancy yet too much and out of this arrogancy he passeth a rash Judgement upon the Publicane whom he points out for a notorious sinner and insinuates himself to be just 12. By twice a Sabbath is understood twice a week as naming the principal day for the whole week By Tythes of all he possesseth he meanes not onely
ordinary but ultroneous Tythes of things he needed not to pay Tyâ—hes for This relates to what went before as vaunting himself to be the only chast the onely just man living chast as fasting which is the mother of chastity just as giving Tythes of all he had 13. The Publicane a true Type of humility standing his reverential distance from the Altar confessing him elf unworthy to come nearer to the place where the Pharisee proudly stood not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven where he had offended the whole Court the Saints and Angels whose inspirations he had contemned whose prayers defrauded God whose commands he had broken he knocks his breast his heart in token of sorrow and repentance for his sinnes By saying he is a sinner he confesseth his habit of sin by saying have mercy on me he doth not blame either fortune the world or the devil but himself meerly and layes all the load on his own shoulders as true penitents ought to do 14. More then he is as much as to say not absolutely but in respect of the Pharisee he was justified because the one humbled himself the other exalted himself Whence Optatus Milevitanus sayes well lib. 2. against the Donatists Better in some sort are the sinnes of an humble spirit then the pretended or boasted Innocency of an arrogant person The Application 1. THis whole Gospel is summ'd up in these few words of the Publican God be merciful to me a sinner For we see there is nothing else aym'd at in the whole Text but a condemnation of the Pharisees pride and a commendation of the Publicans humility or rather of his humble charity That is such a love as renounceth all proper merit and hath recourse to nothing but the mercy of Almighty God such a love as likes but dares not look to heaven such a love as hates all sin but hath no other hope of sayntity then from the mercy of God Almighty such a love as believes God hath power to save a soul but that he cannot manifest this Power without his mercy first appear because he cannot save a sinner unlesse he mercifully give him first leave to repent his sins 2. Thus we see beloved how charity goes shod with humility when in her journey she is handed on by Faith and Hope But that which to me is most admirable in this dayes service is to see the little end for which Almighty God is manifesting his power most of all by his mercy and how he is besought to multiply that mercy for the maâ—ifestation of his power both to men and Angels upon so small an account as making us pursue our own felicity onely that is to say the Promises he hath made unto us of much better gifts in the dayes of glory then he hath yet bestowed upon us in these our dayes of grace 3. Yes yes beloved our good God hath much to do with wicked sinners We may say with much more reason of mans salvation as the Romans did of erecting their Empire Tantae molis erat O what a huge attempt it was to set up the Roman Nation and to make them Monarchs of this world So if we look upon the final end of God Almighties exercised power and multiplyed mercies over us it is meerly to save his Christian people meerly to make them Monarchs of the next world eternal Emperours everlasting Triumphers over death sin devil and damnation after they had been slaves to them four thousand years together Nay so fond Almighty God is of his darling man that he is even content to bestow his utmost Power his extended omnipotency his multiplyed mercies on him to beget but a desire in him onely of his own felicity which consists in the promises of the next world not in the possessions of this Say then the Prayer above and see how it petitions onely this desire here to make us capable of all the joyes in heaven and of all the Treasures there On the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Mark 7. v. 37. HE hath done all things well he hath caused the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who out of the abundance of thy pitty dost exceed as well the merits of thy suppliants as their desires pour out thy mercy upon us that thou mayst forgive what our conscience is afraid of and adde even what our prayer dares not presume to ask The Illustration HOw apposite is this admirable Prayer unto the Epistle and Gospel of this day which are nothing else but meer relations to the abundance of that pity whereby God doth exceed as well the merits as the desires of his suppliants and whereby he did pour out his mercy upon his people forgiving them what their own conscience was afraid of and adding what their prayer durst not presume to ask Say beloved was it not an abundance of pity that Christ gave us S. Paul and other Apostles to preach unto us the story of his life passion death and resurrection were not these works of his pity exceeding as well the merits as the desires of his suppliants when no mortal durst have desired so much misery to Christ because no man was able to deserve his God should suffer so much for him were not then the mercies of Heaven poured out upon us when our redemption was purchased at so deare a rate to Jesus Christ and was not St. Paul justly afraid something might lurk in his conscience unforgiven when he ends this dayes Epistle saying his having persecuted the Church of God made him unworthy to be called an Apostle and that since he was what he was by the grace of God he durst not presume to ask so great a favour O how literally is this whole Epistle exhausted in this excellent Prayer And what are the cures done upon the deaf and dumb related in the Gospel but an abundance of like pity in Jesus Christ but like excesse of his mercy poured out upon these diseased people what the amazement in the beholders of these miracles closing up the said Gospel but an acknowledgment that the guilt of their consciences made them afraid to be in the presence of so good a God and that the grant of the cure was a thing added freely by Christ as done in more ample manner then they durst presume to aske though with a faint desire and a fainter faith they had presented those diseased people to our Saviour to be cured Say now beloved was I rash in falling upon this bold attempt to shew a sympathy between the Prayers of holy Church and the preaching part of her Services Rather I am to ask God pardon that I did often doubt it was not true because I was many times too lazy to beat it out by way of meditation but now that I see the thing is certainly true I shall not be troubled if I fail at any time in so
clear a demonstration of it as deeper souls may make encouraged by these beginnings of my shallow understanding Mean while I shall beseech our whole sodality to say these Prayers with all devotion possible as being such indeed that rightly understood do ravish any tender soul and will make them see the fondnesse of a single-soled devotion in comparison of this which is the Universall Churches Prayer Let me conclude with this one question onely tell me beloved what we may not daâ—e to aske of God Almighty who in this dayes prayer are bid demand more then we dare presume to aske And why because no guilt of conscience is so great but he that is the searcher of our hearts can see the depth thereof and seeing mercifully pardon it through the abundance of his pitty towards us nay then he commonly gives a more ample pardon when we acknowledge his mercy exceeds as much our desires as it doth our merits when we rely upon him for prevenient grace to ask him pardon for our sinnes and that done with a soul contrite then build upon his goodnesse for the rest when we leave it to him what proportion of mercy he will show us since he being God cannot give so little but it is much more then we his creatures can deserve and since his goodnesse is such as he cannot chuse but give more then he bids us aske since we must alwayes ask as wanting creatures he alwayes gives as an abounding Creatour giving all things to nothing rather then want a subject to bestow his bounties on and we are lesse then nothing when he gives repentance to our sinfull souls O! this beloved is the pouring out of his mercy this is the out-doing goodnesse of Almighty God which in the prayer above we so much magnifie and in so doing glorifie his blessed name whence we may one day hope to see our blisse our glory flowing also since therefore God is glorified here in time that he may render us in heaven glorious for all eternity The Epistle 1. Cor. 15.1 c. 1 Brethren I give you to understand the Gospel which I have preached to you which also you received in which also you stand 2 By the which also you are saved after what manner I preached unto you if you keep it unlesse you have believed in vain 3 For I delivered unto you first of all which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures 4 And that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures 5 And that he was seen of Cephas and after that of the eleven 6 Then was he seen of more then five hundred brethren together of which many remain untill this present and some are asleep 7 Moreover he was seen of James then of all the Apostles 8 And last of all of an abortive he was seen also of me 9 For I am the least of the Apostles who am not worthy to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God 10 But by the grace of God I am that which I am and his grace in me hath not been void but I have laboured more aboundantly then all they yet not I but the grace of God with me The Explication 1. THat is I call again here to your mind So runs the Greek Text where the Vulgar sayes we are given to understand 2. Meaning if you work according to your belief so here faith without works was preached by Saint Paul to be vain as who should say no faith were saving but that which by charitie is operative 3. Hence it is clear the Apostle did first deliver by word of mouth the doctrine which he after writ so by tradition we come first and chiefly to Christianitie by preaching not by writing for faith is by hearing Rom. 10.17 And whereas here we read of delivery the Greeks write tradition and that according to the Scriptures 4. That is as was literally foretold by the figure of Jonas three dayes in the Whales belly allegorically of Isaac delivered safe to his mother three dayes after he had been preserved from death though offered up thereunto by Abraham 5. By Cephas understand Peter who was the first man Christ appeared to though he had before appeared to Mary Magdalene as we read Mark the last v. 9. Then to the eleven Apostles That was in the Octave of Easter when Saint Thomas was also present for at first he appeared onely to the other ten though the Greeks read to twelve meaning to the whole Colledge of Apostles which may stand good though one or two were absent as an act is said to be the whole Councills act when it is past by the greater number 6. He was seen to those five hundred as in the aire or from some high place that all might see him at once to shew them rather then to tell them he was risen for it is not said in this Text that he spoke to any of these five hundred persons And it is most probable this apparition was in the mountain of Galilee which was by our Saviour foretold so that this company probably went thither purposely and as foretold what would happen This apparition was before the Ascension for this mountain was in Galilee not in Judaea as was the mount Olivet whence our Saviour did ascend 7. This was an apparition of speciall favour to Saint James of Alphaeus called the brother of Christ and succeeding him in his sea at Hierusalem So our Saviour was not content once onely and that in common to appear unto Saint James with the rest of the Apostles and peradventure with the five hundred in the verse above but he was pleased specially to grace his brother so called because he was like our Saviour by a private appearing to him after these publick apparitions to him and others 8. Saint Paul calls himself abortive because he was born to the Apostolate after the time of Christ his choosing his Apostles by a speciall calling even from heaven after Christ had ascended to his heavenly Father So S. Ambrose and S. Chrysostome expound it Yet there want not other pious expositions of this word by other Fathers as if by this S. Paul would render himself lesse considerable So the next verse clearly saies and needs no further exposition 9 10. By the grace of God I am an Apostle and the Doctour of the Gentiles and this grace hath not been void idle or lazie in me but operative according to the diligence of a soul inflamed with the love of God and making his free will a servant to grace by acting freely what by holy inspirations he was called unto The Epistle ends at void but the verse goes on as above He saies more aboundantly then all they this may seem an ill arrogancy after so much humiliation of himself but it is not so for by more aboundantly he means onely by overcoming more vice not that he professed more virtue namely
following law of Christ who had power as God to abrogate what he pleased of Moyses law and to confirm what he pleased thereof and to make what new law best liked himself as he did when he made our saving law of the Gospel To conclude these words God is one import the Saviour of the Jews was not Moyses but even that one God who also saveth all other Nations and therefore he is emphatically called here one God that is to say one Saviour 21. This verse onely reduplicates the former senses and sayes that neither the law of Moyses was against the promises of God made to Abraham nor yet was it that law which did or could justifie the people but that it was as it were a stay or prop a pedagogue indeed as follows v. 24. of this chapter unto them to keep them in aw and order untill Christ came in whom the promises made to Abraham were to be performed and he coming the pedagogue of Moses law was to cease at his pleasure 22. By the Scripture concluding all things under sin is here understood Moyses his written law which then was and still is called the Scripture even to this day yet by this concluding is not understood the Scripture orders sinne to be but onely that this Scripture notwithstanding all men then living lay under the yoke of sinne and were not by virtue of that Scripture freed from this yoke but by Jesus Christ in whose person and not in Moyses law did consist our justification promised to Abrahams seed that was to Christ Jesus Note here the promises said to be given to those that believe do not exempt from good works nor make faith alone even in Jesus Christ without works to be saving but such a faith onely saves which works by charity The Application 1. THe scope of this Epistle is to tell us with how ample a reward Almighty God did recompence the obedience of Abraham in being ready to sacrifice his onely sonne Isaac according as he was commanded by the Authour of life Namely with such a blessing upon his seed as should bring a benediction upon the whole seed of Adam all mankind So that since the first root of all mans misery was Adams disobedience in a triviall thing an apple therefore God was pleased to take an occasion of making Abrahams obedience in a weighty thing the apple of his eye his onely Joy the rise of all mans happinesse not that Abrahams obedience did satisfie God for Adams disobedience but that the sonne of God who was to satisfie the Divine Justice for this sinne did please to take that first mans flesh upon him who first by his obedience taught man the way to keep the law of God by doing his commands 2. And certainly it was with deep designe Almighty God delayed his promise unto Abraham four hundred and thirty years before he was pleased to make a beginning of performance in giving by Moyses a Law to lawlesse man and by that Law to try the children of Abraham the Jews before he gave a better Law to them and all the world besides by Jesus Christ The design we may both piously and profitably presume was as well to prove the faith and hope of Abraham as his obedience and his love were proved in the sacrificing little Isaac For probably there passed not one minute of time over Abrahams head nor over the heads of his posterity wherein they did not give themselves an infinite content in thinking on the goodnesse and on the veracity of God that surely he would not fail to verifie his promises which he had graciously made unto them the frequent memory we find in holy Writ and the gladsomenesse wherewith the mention is made of these promises testifie as much and consequently prove Abrahams whole life time was in a manner one continued act of faith and hope in the Messias to come 3. O beloved how can we read this Text and not be animated to an imitation of like acts of virtue of like obedience to so sweet a Law as we enjoy when all the end thereof is felicity without an end Or if we cannot think our selves so much concerned as Abraham who had as vve the comfort of having concurr'd to the salvation of all mankind as of himself at least let us not come short of Abrahams posterity of the Jews see how they boast here how they vaunt themselves thence the sole people of Almighty God because they were descended but from Abraham When did the cease to glory in the promises made of Jesus but to come and that as they thought to make them onely rich onely honourable here on earth onely temporally happy whereas we Christians know he is actually come hath left us rich here in grace and made us sure of heavenly honour of eternall felicity and of greater riches yet in glory if we be not defective to our selves O how should our whole lives be one act of faith one act of hope one act of charity one continuall indeavour to prove all this by a perpetuall obedience to the Law of Christ from whom we are extracted in a righter line then the Jews yet were descended from Abraham since their naturall conception was in sinne our supernaturall adoption is in grace What need we more say but the Churches prayer upon this holy Text and see by that what Christians should be at according to the will of holy Church and that 's the will of God no doubt Say then that prayer beloved and do as you pray so shall you be the Christians Christ desires The Gospel Luke 17. v. 11. 11 And it came to passe as he went unto Jerusalem he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee 12 And when he entred into a certain town there met him ten men that were lepers who stood afarre off 13 And they lifted up their voice saying Jesus master have mercy upon us 14 Whom as he saw he said go shew your selves to the Priests and it came to passe as they went they were made clean 15 And one of them as he saw that he was made clean went back with a loud voice magnifying God 16 And he fell on his face before his feet giving thanks and this was a Samaritan 17 And Jesus answering said were not ten made clean and where are the nine 18 There was not found that returned and gave glory to God but this stranger 19 And he said to him arise go thy wayes because thy faith hath made thee safe The Explication 11. HE was then going from Cesarea to Jerusalem to the feast of the Tabernacles and was willing to passe by Samaria and Galilee the right way indeed he was to go yet he went that way with speciall zeal to requite the discourtesie he received in being cast out of a village in that countrey and ill used after a cure he did upon one of that countrey men a Samaritan shewing us by this an example to requite evil turns with good