and hath taught me he hath spread a net for my feet he hath turned me backward he hath made me desolate all the day consumed with sorrow NUN The yoke of mine iniquities hath watched they are folded together in his hand and put upon my neck my strength is weakned our Lord hath given me into the hand from which I cannot rise Jerusalem Jerusalem Convert unto the Lord thy God If the Jews deservedly suffered all those Miserie 's foretold by the Prophet Jeremy what Calamities do they not merit for putting to death the Saviour of the World who suffered Death only because he was charged with the Sins of Men and because he would satisfie for us the Rigor of the Justice of God his Father R. Behold we have seen him and there was no sightliness and we were desirous of him he hath born our infirmities and our sorrows he hath carried But he was wounded for our iniquities and with the weight of his stripe we are healed He surely hath born our infirmities and our sorrows he hath carried with the weight of whose stripe we are healed V. Behold we have seen him and there was no sightliness and we were desirous of him he hath born our infirmities and our sorrows he hath carried But he was wounded for our iniquities and with the weight of his stripe we are healed THE SECOND NOCTVRN PSALM 71. The Church represents us with the Reign of Solomon as being a Figure of the Reign of Jesus Christ shewing us with what Zeal King David desired the Reign of this Divine Saviour whom he acknowledged to be his Lord and King according to his Divinity as he ought to be his Son according to his Humanity Ant. Our Lord shall deliver the poor from the mighty and the poor which had no helper O God give thy judgment to the king and thy justice to the son of the king To judge thy people in justice and thy poor in judgment Let the mountains receive peace for the people and the little hills justice He shall judge the poor of the people and shall save the children of the poor and he shall humble the calumniator And he shall continue with the sun and before the moon in generation and generation He shall descend as rain upon a fleece and as drops distilling upon the earth There shall rise in his days justice and abundance of peace until the moon be taken away And he shall rule from sea unto sea and from the river even to the ends of the round world Before him shall the Ethiopians fall down and his enemies shall lick the earth The kings of Tharsis and the Islands shall offer presents the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts And all kings of the earth shall adore him all nations shall serve him Because he shall deliver the poor from the mighty and the poor which had no helper He shall spare the poor and needy and he shall save the souls of the poor From usuries and iniquities he shall redeem their souls and their name shall be honorable before him And he shall live and there shall be given him of the gold of Arabia and they shall adore it always all the day they shall bless him And there shall be a firmament in the earth in the tops of the mountains the fruit thereof shall be extolled far above Libanus and they shall flourish of the city as the grass of the earth Be his name blessed for ever before the sun his name is permanent And all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in him all nations shall magnifie him Blessed be our Lord the God of Israel who doth only merveilous things And blessed be the name of his Majesty for ever and all the earth shall be filled with his Majesty Be it Be it Ant. Our Lord shall deliver the poor from the mighty and the poor which had no helper PSALM 72. The Church represents unto us by the example of the Sufferances of Jesus Christ the Grace of the New Testament which this adorable Saviour came to declare unto the World appertains to Life everlasting and not this transitory one which passes with the Time wherein God bestows even on the Wicked worldly Felicities to the end that the Rich and the Good should not propose to themselves a Reward of Happiness in this World for such Services they render God She likewise shews that this Truth was declared even to the Saints of the Old Testament She therefore proposes unto us the 72. Psalm wherein the Royal Prophet mentions a Man who repents himself for having served God out of Self-interest not having a just Heart but ever inclined it self to temporal Rewards seeing that the Wicked abounded in the Goods of the Earth and who was much troubled almost to despair thinking God took no care of Human Affairs But these criminal Thoughts being laid aside by the Authority of the Saints he is forced to penetrate into so profound a Secret as with all his Endeavors and Studies he can never discover until he is entred the Sanctuary of God and known his last End that is to say until he hath received the Holy Ghost who instructs him to desire better things and shews him what Pains the Wicked will suffer after they have enjoyed the fleeting and transitory Pleasures of this World Ant. The wicked have thought and have spoken wickedness they have spoken iniquity on high HOw good is God to Israel to them that are of a right heart But my feet were almost moved my steps almost slipped Because I have had zeal upon the wicked seeing the peace of sinners Because there is no respect to their death and stability in their plague In the labors of men they are not and with men they shall not be scourged Therefore hath pride held them they are covered with their iniquity and impiety Their iniquity hath proceeded as it were of far they have passed into the affection of the heart They have thought and have spoken wickedness they have spoken iniquity on high They have set their mouth unto heaven and their tongue hath passed in the earth Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them And they have said How doth God know and is there knowledge in the Highest Lo the sinners themselves and they that abound in the world have obtained riches And I said Then have I justified my heart without cause and have washed my hands amongst innocents And have been scourged all the day and my chastisings in the mornings If I said I shall speak this behold I reproved the nation of thy children I thought to know this thing it is labor before me Until I may enter into the sanctuary of God and may understand concerning their latter end But yet for guiles thou hast put it to them thou hast cast them down whilst they were elevated How are they brought into desolation they have failed suddenly they have perished for their iniquity
years and the more of them labor and sorrow Because mildness is come upon us and we shall be chastised Who knoweth the power of thy wrath and for fear to number thy wrath So make thy right hand known and men learned in heart in wisdom Turn O Lord how long and be entreated for thy servants We are replenished in the morning with thy mercy and we have rejoyced and are delighted all our days We have rejoyced for the days wherein thou hast humbled us the years wherein we have seen evils Look upon thy servants and upon thy works and direct their children And let the brightness of our Lord God be upon us and direct thou the works of our hands over us and the work of our hands do thou direct Ant. Our Lord was led like an innocent lamb to the slaughter and he opened not his mouth â—â—ALM 62. In one part the Church represents unto us in the Person of King David the Happiness of those who esteem this World but as a Wilderness and 〈◊〉 extreme Grief because they yet enjoy not God but who make their hopes of possessing and enjoying him their sole Joy and Comfort preferring the Delights they find in the Mercies of God before all the perishable Goods and transitory Pleasures of this World and who in their Afflictions and Persecutions put all their Confidence in God who makes them in the end victorious over their Persecutors On the other part the Church represents unto us the Misery and Unhappiness of the Wicked and such as are Enemies to the Just ANTHYMN The Church having in the precedent Psalm shewed unto us how terrible and irresistible Gods Anger is She now shews us in this Antiphon taken out of the Twenty third Chapter of the Prophet Jeremy that his Wrath is so terrible that the very Prophets themselves were not able to express and declare his Threats without trembling for fear Ant. My heart is broken in the midst of me all my bones have trembled O God my God to thee I watch from the morning light My soul hath thirsted to thee my flesh to thee very many ways In a desert land and inaccessible and without water so in the holy have I appeared to thee that I might see thy strength and thy glory Because thy mercy is better than lives my lips shall praise thee So will I bless thee in my life and in thy name I will lift up my hands As with marrow and fatness let my soul be filled and my mouth shall praise with lips of exultation I have been mindful of thee upon my bed in the morning I will meditate on thee because thou hast been my helper And in the covert of thy wings I will rejoyce my soul hath cleaved after thee thy right hand hath received me But they in vain have sought my soul they shall enter into the interior parts of the earth they shall be delivered into the hands of the sword they shall be the portion of foxes But the king shall rejoyce in God all shall be praised that swear by him because the mouth is stopped of them that speak wicked things PSALM 66. The Church represents unto us First With what Fervor and Ardency the Royal Prophet and the Saints of the Old Testament expected and covered the Coming of the Messias as being the Author of their Sanctification and Salvation Secondly With what a fervent Charity they desired the Conversion of Insidels to the end that God might be acknowledged and adored by all the Nations of the Earth O God have mercy upon us and bless us illuminate his countenance upon us and have mercy on us That we may know thy way on earth in all nations thy salvation Let peoples O God confess to thee let all peoples confess to thee Let nations be glad and rejoyce because thou judgest peoples in equity and the nations in the earth thou dost direct Let peoples O God confess to thee let all peoples confess to thee the earth hath yielded her fruit God our God bless us God bless us and let all the ends of the earth fear him Ant. My heart is broken in the midst of me all my bones have trembled THE CANTICLE OF MOYSES Taken out of the Fifteenth Chapter of Exodus The Church shewing the Faithful that the Deliverance of the People of Israel from the Captivity of Egypt is but a Figure of God's Goodness in delivering them by his Son Jesus Christ from the Tyranny of the Devil and Slavery of Sin She also shews them how much they are obliged to sing Canticles of Praise to the Glory of our Lord with much greater joy than did the Israelites when they were delivered from the Tyranny of Pharao and the Persecution of their Enemies ANTIPHON taken out of the Fourth Chapter of the Prophet Barach Lord thou hast exhorted thy people to put their trust in thee and thou hast comforted them with thy holy grace LEt us sing to our Lord for he is glorious gloriously magnified the horse and the rider he hath thrown into the sea My strength and my praise is our Lord and he is made unto me a salvation This is my God and I will glorifie him the God of my father and I will exalt him Our Lord is a man of war Omnipotent is his name Pharaos chariots and his army he hath cast into the sea His chosen princes are drowned in the red sea the depths have overwhelmed them they are sunk into the bottom like a stone Thy right hand O Lord is magnified in strength thy right hand O Lord hath stricken the enemy and in the multitude of thy glory thou hast put down thy adversaries Thou hast sent thy wrath which hath devoured them like stubble and in the spirit of thy fury were the waters gathered together The flowing water stood the depths were gathered together in the midst of the sea The enemy said I will pursue and overtake I will divide the spoils my soul shall have his fill I will draw forth my sword my hand shall kill them The Spirit blew and the sea overwhelmed them they sank as lead in the vehement waters Who is like to thee among the strong O Lord who is like to thee Glorious in sanctity terrible and laudable doing merveils Thou didst stretch forth thy hand and the earth devoured them thou hast in thy mercy been a guide to the people which thou hast redeemed And in thy strength thou hast carried them unto thy holy habitation Nations rose up and were angry sorrows possessed the inhabiters of Philisthiim Then were the princes of Edom troubled trembling seised on the sturdy of Moab all the inhabiters of Canaam were confounded Let fear and dread fall upon them in the greatness of thy arm Let them become unmovable as a stone until thy people O Lord shall pass until thy people shall pass this which thou hast possessed Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thy inheritance in thy most firm
habitation which thou hast wrought O Lord. Thy sanctuary Lord which thy hands have confirmed our Lord shall reign for ever and ever more For Pharao on horseback entred in with his chariots and horsemen into the sea and our Lord brought back upon them the waters of the sea But the children of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst thereof Ant. Lord thou hast exhorted thy people to put their trust in thee and thou hast comforted them with thy holy grace ANTIPHON taken out of the Fifty third Chapter of the Prophet Isaie The Church having represented unto us under the Figure of the Delivery of the Israelites from the Captivity of Egypt God's Bounty in freeing us from the Tyranny of the Devil and Slavery of Sin by the Merits of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ She now shews in this Antiphon after what manner he bought us to wit by voluntarily sacrificing himself for us Ant. He was offered because himself would and he carried our sins PSALM 148. The Church in the following Psalms shews us the Obligation we have to praise God and to give him Thanks that he has created us and redeemed us from the Slavery of Sin by his only Son and for the Care he has to preserve us and deliver us from the Temptations Persecutions and other Miscries of this Lise and for the Promise he has made us of Life everlasting PRaise ye our Lord from the heavens praise ye him in the high places Praise ye him all his angels praise ye him all his hosts Praise ye him sun and moon praise him all ye stars and lights Praise him ye heavens of heavens and the waters that are above the heavens let them praise the name of our Lord. Because he said and they were made he commanded and they were created He established them for ever and for ever and ever he put a precept and it shall not pass Praise our Lord from the earth ye dragons and all the depths Fire hail snow ice spirit of storms which do his word Mountains and all little hills trees that bear fruit and all cedars Beasts and all cattel serpents and feathered fowls Kings of the earth and all peoples princes and all judges of the earth Young men and virgins old with young let them praise the name of our Lord because the name of him alone is exalted The confession of him above heaven and earth and he hath exalted the horn of his people An hymn to all his saints to the children of Israel a people approaching unto him PSALM 149. SIng ye to our Lord a new song let his praiâ—â— be in the church of saints Lord â—â—â—el be joyful in him that made him and let the children of Sion rejoyce in their king Let them praise his name in quire on timbrel and psalter let them sing to him Because our Lord is well pleased in his people and he will exalt the meek unto salvation The saints shall rejoyce in glory they shall be joyful in their beds The exaltations of God in their throat and two-edged swords in their hands To do revenge in the nations chastisements among their peoples To bind their kings in fetters and their nobles in iron manacles That they may do in them the judgment that is written This glory is to all his saints PSALM 150. PRaise ye our Lord in his holies praife him in the firmament of his strength Praise ye him in his powers praise ye him according to the multitude of his greatness Praise ye him in the sound of trumpet praise ye him on psalter and harp Praise ye him on timbrel and quire praise ye him on strings and organ Praise ye him on well-sounded cymbals praise ye him on cymbals of jubilation Let every spirit praise our Lord. Ant. He was offered because himself would and he carried our sins The Chapter and Hymn are here omitted The Chapter is not here said to shew us that the Jews profited themselves nothing from the Instructions of the Prophets The Hymn is also here omitted to shew that the Honor due to God was violated through the Wickedness of the Jews and Persidiousness of Judas which the Fortieth Psalm represents unto us by the Treason of Achitophel V. The man whom I loved and in whom I confided R. Who did eat my bread betrayed me through great perfidiousness ANTHYMN taken out of the Twenty sixth Chapter of St. Matthew Ant. But the Traytor gave them a sign saying Whomsoever I shall kiss that is he hold him Canticle of Zachary taken out of the First Chapter of St. Luke The Church proposes unto us this Canticle of Sr. John Baptist's Father to represent unto us the greatness of Gods Bounty and the excessive Baseness of the Jews because God sent them not only his Prophets to declare unto them the Coming of his Son the Redeemer of the World but likewise his Forerunner to advertise them he was now come and to shew them him Yet were they so unhappy as to blind themselves and in stead of owning and acknowledging him they by a most persidious Treachery put him to death BLessed be our Lord God of Israel because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people And he hath erected the horn of salvation to us in the house of David his servant As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets that are from the beginning Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us To work mercy with our fathers and to remember his holy testament The oath which he sware to Abraham our father that he would give to us That without fear being delivered from the hand of our enemies we may serve him In holiness and Justice before him all our days And thou child shalt be called the prophet of the Highest for thou shalt go before the face of our Lord to prepare his ways To give knowledge of salvation to his people unto remission of their sins Through the bowels of the mercy of our God in which the Orient from on high hath visited us To illuminate them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to direct our feet in the way of peace All the Tapers being extinguished saving one shews us that the Light of Faith wherewith the Prophets enlightned the Jews was extinguished in them by putting to death the Saviour of the World The Church also represents unto us by that one Taper left lighted during the singing of the foregoing Canticle that JESUS CHRIST whom St. John declared to be the true Light though he died according to his Humanity yet always lived according to his Divinity Ant. And the Traytor gave them a sign saying Whomsoever I shall kiss that is he hold him Here the lighted Taper is hid to shew that the Divinity of CHRIST was concealed in his Humanity according to which he suffered himself to be delivered into the Hands of the Jews by a most profound and incomprehensible Obedience V. Christ was made for us
dead or shall physicians raise to life and they confess to thee Shall any in the sepulcher dâ—â—â—e thy mercy and thy truth in perdition Shall thy merveilous works be known in darkness and thy justice in the land of oblivion And I O Lord have cried to thee and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee Why dost thou O Lord reject my prayer turnest away thy face from me I am poor and in labors from my youth and being exalted humbled and troubled Thy wraths have passed upon me and thy terrors have troubled me They have compassed me as water all the day they compassed me together Thou hast made friend and neighbor far from me and my familiar because of misery Ant. I am become as a man without help free among the dead V. His place is made in peace R. And his habitation in Sion LESSON VII Taken out of the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews Chap. 9. The Church teacheth us by those words of the Apostle That the Mediator of the Old Testament who was the High-priest was not able to cleanse Mens Souls from their Sins nor to open Heaven for them either by the quality of his Priesthood of the Old Law or by the nature of the Sacrifice and Testament The High-Priest of 〈◊〉 was a Sinner like other Men he entred only into the maâ—â—â—â— Sanctuary and into a Tabernacle built by the Hands of Men he only offered Calves and other lawful Victims unto God and they could only receive from him Temporal Blessings It was therefore needful to have a Mediator of the New Testament and that was JESUS CHRIST who being both God and Man could not sin and was the Source and Fountain of all Sanctity Who by Sacrificing himself purified us by his one Blood with an Interior and Spiritual Purity delivering us from our Sins to make us in a condition to render God a truly faithful Service and entring into the true Sanctuary that is into Heaven and into the Bosom of God his Father he profered us to him and made us by his Will and Testament Partakers and Heirs of his Heavenly Inheritance CHrist assisting an high priest of the good things to come by a more ample and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand that is not of this creation neither by the blood of goats or of calves but by his own blood entred in once into the holies eternal redemption being found For if the blood of goats and of oxen and the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled sanctifieth the polluted to the cleansing of the flesh How much more hath the blood of Christ who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God cleansed our conscience from dead works to serve the living God RESP. The Church minds to give thanks unto JESUS CHRIST for vouchsafing us his Mercy and Sacrificing himself on the Cross for our Salvation We must also abhor the Wickedness of the Jews who to satisfie their Malice put to Death this Divine Saviour R. The kings of the earth have risen up and the princes are assembled together against the Lord and against his Christ V. Why have the nations raged and the people meditated vain things Against the Lord and against his Christ LESSON VIII The Apostle instructs us That the Death which our Mediator was willing to suffer was to repair those Prevarications committed during the Old Testament and to render us capable of the effects of the Divine Promises of the New Testament and this founded on the natuere of the Testament For in the first place JESUS CHRIST being willing to give unto Man a New Testament it was also but requisit that it should be firm and unalterable the which to render it 't was necessary he should die for the Wills and Testaments of Men take no effect till after their Death for whilst they live they may either change or absolutely cancel them Secondly The New Testament was to correspond with the first neither was the Fire given without the effusion of Blood as appears in Exod. chap. 24. ANd therefore he is the mediator of the new testament that death being a mean unto the redemption of these prevarications which were under the former testament they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance For where there is a testament the death of the testator must of necessity come between for a testament is confirmed in the dead otherwise it is yet of no value whilst the testator liveth Whereupon neither was the first certes dedicated without blood RESP. The Faithful consider that the Jews put this Divine Testator to a most Ignominious Death who came to give them by his last Will and Testament a Heavenly Inheritance if by their Impiety and Ingratitude they had not made themselves unworthy it They likewise consider that as the Jews had no power to put our Saviour to Death but because he would himself so in voluntarily dying he triumphed over Death R. I am accounted with them that descend into the lake I am become as a man without help free among the dead V. They have put me in the lower lake in the dark places and in the shadow of death I am become as c. LESSON IX In this Lesson the Apostle represents unto us That in the Old Testament the Purifications were made by the shedding of Blood without which the Remission of Sins had not been given since it is that which is the confirmation of all Alliance FOr all the commandment of the law being read of Moyses to all the people he taking the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet-wooll and hyssop sprinkled the very book also it self and all the people saying This is the blood of the testament which God hath commanded unto you The tabernacle also and all the vessel of the ministery he in like manner sprinkled with blood And all things almost according to the law are cleansed with blood and without shedding of blood there is not remission RESP. In the Old Law in the Seventeenth Chapter of Leviticus God Commanded that the Blood of Victims should be covered to shew unto us that it was an effect of his Bounty that he vouchsafed to receive the lives of Innocent Beasts instead of that of Sinners But on the contrary the Jews instead of covering the Blood of JESUS CHRIST that is instead of acknowledging the excess of his Bounty wherewith God would that his Son who was the God of Man should die for them who deserved Death and that he should die on the Cross even for their Salvation who nailed him thereon But they instead of repenting themselves or being confounded for having put to Death their Saviour they moreover persecuted him even in his Sepulcher And this it is which the Faithful consider in the following Versicles R. Our Lord being buried his monument was sealed rolling a stone against the mouth of the monument setting soldiers who might guard it V. The chief priests came unto Pilate