had not this mystery been attended with other consequences and had not the holy Sacrament been added to the Incarnation the Man-God had not communicated to us his qualities and remaining still the children of Adam we had never been made the children of God This great effect was reserved for the Eucharist 't is in this mystery that whole Nature was Deified and we may say that if the Communication of the Word in the Incarnation was infinite it was not immense but in the holy Sacrament of the Altar There it is that we become Gods without committing a crime there Piety satisfies our Ambition there the union we contract with the Word imitates and honours That it contracted with the Father from all Eternity Finally there it is that the onely Son becomes the first-born and taking us for his Brethren makes us the Children and withal the Images of his Father After this great advantage 't is not hard to conceive that he was willing to content our third desire and having made us Gods hath indued us with Knowledge to bestow upon us in earnest what the devil promised us in jest For this Spirit who still retains so much light amidst the thickness of his darkness perceiving that the desire of Knowledge is one of the strongest Passions of Man perswaded him that God had not forbidden him the use of the fruit he advised him to eat but to keep him in ignorance and to deprive him of those innocent pleasures Science brings with it into the minde This temptation proved so powerful that it prevailed upon man for his consent and he that had resisted the promises of Glory and Life suffered himself to be charmed with the hope of Knowledge Indeed we must confess that of all the Passions this is the most reasonable Beasts are moved with the love of Life and Glory they fear Death and Dishonour They fight to be secured from both these and those that are accounted the noblest are as ambitious in their victories of the increase of their reputation as of the preservation of their life But the desire of Knowledge is peculiar to Man there is no creature but he that takes pains to be delivered from Ignorance His combats for Glory are not more famous then his disputes for Truth and Conquerors take less pleasure to gain Slaves then Philosophers do to purchase Disciples The contestation of Wits is nobler then that of Bodies and if there be any conflict among the Angels it more resembles that of Philosophers then that of Conquerors The Understanding and the Will are the onely Atms made use of either for offence or defence whole Nature is the Field the differences spring not from the divers interests of Soveraigns but from the contrary opinions of Masters the recompence of the Victors is not so much the Conquest of Glory as of Knowledge they are never more satisfied with their advantage then when of their Enemies they make their Partisans and delivering them from Errour and Falsehood enrich them with Knowledge and Truth Therefore did the devil make use of this stratagem to gain man to his side and believed that if any thing in the world would make him forget his duty 't was his desire to Know Good and Evil. In the mean time Man lost his Light by losing his Innocence the father of Lyes plunged him in darkness and falling into the pit of Sin by a just judgement he fell into the abyss of Ignorance But Jesus Christ all whose Promises are Truth opens the eyes of the soul to the Faithful that receive his Body he enlightens their Understanding and warms their Will he manifests himself to those that receive him in this Sacrament and leading them to Knowledge by the mystery of Faith may be said to give them sight by making them blinde 'T is in the breaking of this Bread that his disciples know him 't is by the vertue of this Drink that the scales are taken from their eyes and 't is by the Grace of this Food that the Just who are nourished therewith receive Understanding together with Life If Jesus Christ raign upon our Altars as a Soveraign he instructs thence as a Master if we are his Subjects in that condition we are also his Disciples and if he gives us Laws to regulate us he gives us Counsels to inform us From all this Discourse 't is easie to infer that Jesus Christ is the God of Truth and the Devil the Father of Lyes That the One promising us Honour Knowledge and Life involved us in Shame Ignorance and Death the Other giving us his Body made us Wise Immortal and Glorious The Fifth DISCOURSE That this Nourishment unites the Christian with the Son of God INasmuch as Unity is the most excellent perfection of God all the works of his hands bear the Character thereof there is no creature that in his composition maintains not this advantage he ceaseth to subsist or live assoon as he begins to be divided and if S. Augustine judged rightly that grief was nothing but the division of the soul we may say that death is nothing but the dissolution of the body Thence it comes to pass that God in Nature and in Grace that he may preserve his creatures maintains them in unity and makes his noblest operations and his highest mysteries serviceable to this design His Providence that guides the Universe takes no other care but to associate the creatures together that their union may compose the worlds Harmony As the Battles of Princes tend to peace the jar of the Elements wrangles out a concord if they recede from their contraries 't is to embrace their like and when they seem most incensed they intend not so much a mutual destruction as to remove those obstacles that hinder their alliance That which is done in Nature is effected in Grace all the operations thereof mean only to reconcile us to God Teneamus charitatem fine qua etiam cum Sacramentis cum fide nibil sumus tenemus autem charitatem si amplectimur unitatem Aug. This noble expression of the Divine Essence breaths nothing but Unity and these austere Vertues which seem to annihilate the sinner have no other end but to destroy his sin to re-unite him to his Principle All our Mysteries and all our Sacraments seek the same end by different ways Baptism unites us to Jesus Christ as to our Head Repentance as to our Surety the Eucharist as to our Beloved because compleating all the other unions it happily converts us into him that nourisheth us with his Flesh and Bloud This design hath excellently appeared in the choice he made of the matter of this Sacrament For the Bread whose substance is changed into that of the Body of Jesus Christ is made up of many grains of corn which being kneaded and baked together composeth that Sacrifice which is offered upon our Altars The Wine whose substance is turned into the Bloud of Christ is compounded of many Grapes which
being trodden in the same Press sends forth that juice which is exhibited in this oblation So that the Son of God prepares the heart of the Faithful by a sensible union to a spiritual one and teacheth them that he will unite them with him in a Sacrament whose outward appearances breathe nothing but unity The Flesh which the outward species cover is so one that its multiplication cannot divide it it is produced in a thousand places to re-unite those that receive it and contrary to that of Adam is one in its substance Omne bellum oritur ex carne homo enim si carnalis non esset nunquam cum alio homine pugnaret Aug. as well as in its effects For the flesh of our first Father is a fruitful and unhappy spring of division it is parted into as many bodies as there are children and we may say that all men are the wretched portions of this guilty flesh The souls are divided with it to inanimate it and acting by its Organs contract its bad qualities whence arise quarrels and disputes that distract States and Fam lies But the most Tragical division is that being the channel of sin it makes the souls guilty assoon as they touch it and separate them from God by an offence which was free in the first man and natural in all his posterity For 't is enough that they are blended with the flesh of Adam to make them become guilty 'T is from this unhappy mixture that those fatal rents issue and proceed which occasion all our disasters and if we did not communicate in flesh with Adam we should not partake of his sin nor be liable to his punishment But this of Jesus Christ more happy and more innocent then his heals our division and leads us to unity it is one in substance and though a part of Adams is exempt from all sin because the work of the Holy Ghost and the Word that sustains it renders it impeccable He that communicates life to it communicates innocence in so high a degree that he imparts it to those that receive it It s multiplication dissolves not the unity the same Word that produceth it upon our Altars gives it the impress of its qualities and contrary to all the rules of nature which cannot multiply things without dividing them finds a secret to give it a Beeing in a thousand places without impairing its unity There is this difference between Nature and a Word the former is fruitful only by division 't is wonderful how from a grain of corn she extracts a whole Harvest pays the labour of the Husbandman with usury recompenseth his pains with plenty and imitating the power of her Creator which makes all things of nothing makes a great deal of a very little But she cannot accord multiplication with unity she must divide whatever she produceth and her liberality is founded upon the fraction of her Presents A Word more powerful then nature is brought forth without partition it is communicated through the fullest Auditory without wronging its Unity and though always one fils the ears of all those that are within the sound of it It seems that the Body of the Son of God which produced by the Word Vnusquisque accepit partem suam unde ipsa Gratia partes vocantur per partes manducantur manet integer totus per partes manducatur in Sacramento manet integer totus in coelo manet integer toâ—us in corde tuo Aug. Serm. de Verb. Evang. hath borrowed this Vertue from its cause is multiplied in the world and is not divided it is received into the heart of all the Faithful and this kind of Immensity that multiplies its presence alters not its unity It is whole and entire under every part of the Hoast though they break it they cannot divide it but preserving its unity in the fraction of the species remains always the Numerical body of Jesus Christ Thence it comes to pass that it unites all the faithful that receive it For though they be as different in conditions as generations as contrary in humours as interests as great strangers in their inclinations as climates they doe notwithstanding make up one body because they are nourished with one bread and all eat the same meat which having the power to assimilate the feeder into the food communicates unto them a wonderful unity which composeth all their differences But to comprehend this last miracle we must remember that this viand being of another nature then common meat is not disgested by the natural heat nor converted into the substance of those that take it only the accidents that cover it resent that injury and yielding to that fire that animates and consumes us becomes a part of our selves Being impassible and glorified 't is free from corruption acting upon those that eat it and having the same effect upon them they have upon other nutriments converts them miraculously into it self Thus every Christian if he bring not resistance with him becomes another Jesus Christ he parts with the bad qualities of Adam to assume the glorious ones of the Son of God if he share not in his impassibility he does in his innocence if he become not immortal he becomes in some sort glorified and if he change not nature he alters at least his inclination Therefore is it that all the Fathers of the Church admiring the holy stratagems Jesus Christ makes use of to unite us to himself Qui vult vivere habet unde vivat accedat credat incorporetur vivificectur inhaereat corpori vivat Deo de Deo nunc laboret in terra ut postea vivat in caeâ—o Aug. call this Sacrament a Divine Transformation wherein man losing what he had of corruptible and criminal gains the advantages of the Blessed and is happily changed into him that nourisheth him Indeed experience teacheth us that nature and love have found out no better invention to convert Essences then Nutrition Every day the meat we eat is assimilated into our substance the wine altering its qualities by a natural Chymistry is turned into our bloud bread without any other additional supplement then the natural heat becomes our flesh and all the nourishments we take by a wonderful metamorphosis pass into our nature The union they contract with us is so great nothing can break it all the endeavours of men cannot dissolve it and it is easier for the cruelty of the Executioner to bray the chains that fasten the soul to the body then to unravel those links that doe consubstantiate the food with him that hath disgested it Being changed into his substance and blended with all the parts that compose him the inquisition must search for it in his Arteries and break his very bones to extract it with the marrow Love also that takes pleasure to imitate nature hath found out no more powerful means to unite lovers together when one of them hath bid farewel to the world then in making the
puts us in the same Liberty and reducing us to things absolutely necessary rids us of superfluities This is it that confines the Anchorites to their pulse that gives them sackcloath for a garment a Den for a Lodging a Mat for their Bed This is it that enricheth them by making them poor makes them finde Liberty in servitude and equalling their condition with that of Angels frees them from the need we have of the Creatures If the Blessed have no communication but with God if they have quitted Earth to live in Paradise if the Love and Magnificats they bestow upon God be their whole employment and if in this one object they finde all their Happiness and their Diversion Pennance and Solitude procure the same priviledges to the faithfull Their heart is no longer in the Earth they mount up to heaven by their desires converse more with Angels then with Men and already enjoying the priviledges of the Resurrection lead a new life in their Banishment and a happy life in their wilderness Let us imitate their holy Examples fit our selves for Glory by Austerity and subjecting the Body to the soul and the soul to God set us to shake hands with the world that our Conversation may be with Jesus Christ The Tenth DISCOURSE Of the Miracles which are found in the Beatitude of a Christian AS Nature and Grace have their extraordinary proceedings so have they their Miracles Haec utique Deus potestatis suae proponit signa suis in solatium extraneis in testimonium Tertul. and in Both of them we behold changes which require the endevours of an absolute omnipotence When the Sun stands still in the midst of his course when the Earth cleaves from her foundations and opens her bowels to devour her Children when the sea passeth his bounds and makes inquisition after Delinquents beyond his Banks There is no body but looks upon these irregularities as Prodigies and who conceives not that the author of Nature disorders her to punish us Though Grace be so powerfull and its victorious sweetness so often triumphs over the libertie of sinners it many times produceth occurrences which pass for Miracles When it converted the Doctor of the world disarmed his heart and his hands and changing his will in a moment of a Persecutor made him an Apostle it seems so strange a proceeding may well be ranked in the number of prodigies when it touched that Comedian who laughed at the Ceremonies of our Religion enlightened his spirit upon the Theatre made use of the water he prophaned to make a Sacrament and by a wonderfull conduct made him finde his salvation in his very sin we shall not offend its power if we call this effect a Miracle If Nature and Grace have their Prodigies Glory which is their perfection may boast of those it hath and as its order is the highest so is it most miraculous Therefore did the Great S. Bernard confess That there were Three Unions that ravished him The first That of Virginity with Pregnancy in the person of Mary The second That of the Humanity with the Divinity in the person of the Word and the Third That of Glory with the spirit of Man in the person of the Blessed For he could not comprehend how it came to pass that the Creature was not dazled with the brightness of the Creator that a drop of water should not be lost in an Ocean and that an Atome should be preserved in the Abysses of a Divine Essence But certainly he that shall well consider the state of Glory will finde it a perpetuall Miracle and that the Circumstances that accompany it are so many Prodigies whereof the first is that God communicates himself entirely to every one of the Blessed The Goods of the earth are such scantlings that they cannot be divided without being diminished we ravish that from our neighbour which we possess our selves we cannot grow rich but must inaccommodate him and whatever care we take not to deal unjustly we finde by experience that our Plenty is an occasion of Misery and Indigence to others Monarchs cannot enlarge the borders of their State but must encroach upon those of their Neighbours they cannot widen their own Kingdom but must make a breach in that of their Allies and all worldly things are so small that being shared occasions the division and poverty of Families But inasmuch as the Good which the Blessed are in possession of is infinite it is communicated to all without being divided The Felicity of one is no hinderance to that of another and as Vertue though common is nevertheless chaste the Divine Essence though wholly shed abroad into a man ceaseth not to be entirely infused into an Angel It takes not from the Cherubims what it indulgeth the Seraphims and communicating it self indivisibly to all its Subjects occasions neither Jealousie nor Envie Great Goods have this advantage that they never suffer by division Magna vera bona non sic dividuntur ut exiguum in singulos cadat ad unumquemque totū perveniat Sen. Ep. 73. They make some rich without making others poor and as they are conferred in full weight and measure every one is content and none miserable Covetousness which hath divided Sea and Land hath not yet divided Time That which measures the life of Kings measures that of their Subjects every one possesseth it in common and though we make divers uses of it it runs along equally to all people Ambition which hath cantonized Honour hath not yet found out the Secret of parting the Light this daughter of the Sun never thinks she sullies her purity by rendering it common she equally shines upon all Nations and did not the Earth interpose between the effusion of her brightness she would banish Darkness from the face of the Universe The Divine Essence whereof the Light is but a shadow is shed abroad into the soul of the Blessed without being divided is not parted by being communicated All Angels and all Men fully possess it and if it make some difference in their happiness 't is without want or jealousie The Second miracle of Glory is that one and the same Good produceth all kinde of content and satisfies all sorts of desires Seeing the Creatures are but weak rays issuing from God as from their Sun there is none of them that possesseth all perfections Nullum est bonum praeter summum quo vere possimus esse boni aut beati Aug. They are bounded in their Qualities as well as in their Essences They cannot relieve us in all our necessities and had not sin made them rebel against us there was not one of them could remedy our evils Light enlightens us but cannot warm us without its heat Meat nourisheth but clothes us not Garments cover us but cannot feed us Gold enricheth but cannot defend us Iron defends but does not enrich us One Good produceth but one single commodity that which serves for one use does not for
necessity of Grace in the state of Innocence and of Sin 156 Disc 3 That the Grace of a Christian ought to be more powerfull then that of Adam 160 Disc 4 Different opinions of the power of Christian Grace 166 Disc 5 Wherein precisely consists the power of Grace effectual 170 Disc 6 That the names that S. Augustine gives Christian Grace do sufficiently testifie that it is effectuall 175 Disc 7 That we may judge of the power of Grace over a Christian by the power of Concupiscence over a Sinner 180 Disc 8 That Grace effectuall doth not destroy Grace sufficient 186 Disc 9 Answers to some Objections against Grace effectual 193 A Prosecution of the same Discourse 197 Disc 10 That the Christian finds more rest in placing his salvation in Grace then in Liberty 202 The fifth TREATISE Of the Vertues of a Christian Disc 1. Wherein consisteth Christian Vertue 207 Disc 2 Of the Division of Christian Vertues 212 Disc 3 Of the Excellency and Necessity of Christian Faith 217 Disc 4 Of Christian Hope 222 Disc 5 A Description of Christian Charity 227 Disc 6 Of the Properties and Effects of Christian Charity 233 Disc 7 Of Christian Prudence Iustice Fortitude and Temperance 238 Disc 8 Of Christian Humility 243 Disc 9 Of Christian Repentance 248 Disc 10. Of Christian Self-denyall 253 The sixth TREATISE Of the Nourishment and Sacrifice of a Christian Disc 1 Of three Nourishments answering to the three Lives of a Christian 259 Disc 2 Of the Nourishment of Man in his Innocency and of that of a Christian 264 Disc 3 That the Body of Iesus Christ is the same to a Christian that Manna was to the Iewes 269 Disc 4 That this Nourishment bestows upon the Christian all that the Divel promised Man in his Innocence if hee would eat of the forbidden Fruit. 274 Disc 5 That this Nourishment unites the Christian with the Son of God 279 Disc 6 Of the Dispositions that the Christian ought to bring for the receiving of this Nourishment 283 Disc 7 That the Christian ows God the honour of the Sacrifice 288 Disc 8 That the Christian had need that the Son of God should offer up for him the Sacrifice of the Crosse and of the Altar 293 Disc 9 Of the Difference of these two Sacrifices and what the Christian receives from both of them 298 Disc 10 Of the obligation the Christian hath to sacrifice himself to God 303 The seventh TREATISE Of the Qualities of a Christian Disc 1 That the Christian is the Image of Iesus Christ 308 Disc 2 That the Christian is a Priest and a Victime 313 Disc 3 That the Christian is a Souldier and a Conqueror 317 Disc 4 That the Christian is a King and a Slave 322 Disc 5 That the Christian is a Saint 327 Disc 6 That the Christian is a Martyr 332 Disc 7 That the Christian is a Lover 338 Disc 8 That the Christian is an Excile and a Pilgrime 343 Disc 9 That the Christian is a Penitent 347 Disc 10 That the most glorious Quality of the Christian is that of a Christian 352 The eighth TREATISE Of the Blessedness of a Christian Disc 1. That every man desires to be happy and that he cannot be so but in God 357 Disc 2 That the Perfect Felicity of a Christian cannot be found in this world 361 Disc 3 That the Christian tasts some Felicity here below 365 Disc 4 That Happiness consists not in pleasure but in grief 368 Disc 5 That Happiness is rather found in Poverty then in Riches 372 Disc 6 That the Felicity of a Christian upon earth consists rather in Humility then in Glory 377 Disc 7 That Felicity is rather found in Obedience then in Command 381 Disc 8 What is the happinesse of a Christian in Heaven and wherein it consists 385 Disc 9 That the Soul and Body of the Christian shall finde their perfection in the Beatifical Vision 391 Disc 10 Of the Miracles that are found in the Christian's Beatitude 396 THE CHRISTIAN MAN OR The Reparation of NATURE BY GRACE The first TREATISE Of the Christian's Birth The first DISCOURSE That the Christian hath a double Birth IF MAN have pass'd for a Monster in the opinion of some Philosophers * Est inter Carnem Spiritum colluctatio discordantibus adversus se invicem quotidiana congressio ut non ea quae volumus ipsi faciamus dum spiritus coelestia divina quaerit caro terrena secularia concupiscit Aug. lib. 1. contra Julian because he is compos'd of two parts which cannot agree certainly the Christian may very well pass for a Prodigie in the judgement of the faithfull since the parts whereof he is made maintain a war as long as life For though the body of man contain within its Constitution all the Elements these four Enemies agree when they are mixt together The Fire is confounded with the Water without losing its driness and the Earth is united to the Air without losing its heaviness if they are at odds by reason of their Contrariety they embrace by reason of their sympathie and if somtimes they grow irregular there is always some external Cause that produceth the Disorder The Soul and Body are yet more opposite then the Elements it it is the strangest Marriage within the Confines of Nature Mirus amor corporis animi in tanta disparitate non potest esse sine fato Pla. and when God associated them together to make Man he had a minde to shew that he was absolute in the Universe In him we observe Sense with Understanding Passion with Reason Heaven with Earth Nevertheless God hath so well temper'd their qualities that these two so different parts cease not mutually to love one another The Soul stoops below the priviledg of her Birth to succour the Infirmities of the Body and the Body soares above the meaness of its Extraction to be serviceable to the more noble operations of the Soul If they are exercised at the provocation of some rebel-lust there is always found some common friend that takes up the difference Self-love is content to set them at one thereby to establish his Empire over sinners Haec cupiditas vana ac per hoc prava vincit in eis ac frenat alias cupiditates Aug. lib. 4. contra Julia. c. 3. and accompanies his Commands with so many charms that these two subjects wrong one another to obey him The spirit basely submits to the Body in the unclean conversations of the wanton and the body does homage to the soul in the pleasing caresses of the Ambitious these two parties joyn their forces to bid Grace battail and though Divine Justice hath divided them for their punishment they forget their quarrel and are reconcil'd to execute their vengeance But the Christian is of such a Composure that he can never taste any peace in his person Division seems to constitute one part of his Essence and till Glory shall put a
mistrust their merit They neither apprehended the greatness of the danger that was threatned nor the cruelty of the Tyrant that condemned them to death nor the fury of the Executioners that searched them out to massacre them their happiness was as unknown to them as their misery they were ignorant that they suffered for Jesus Christ that in their person they sought for Him and that receiving the stabs of the ponyard thrust at their heart they had this double honour to die for their Saviour and by yeelding up their own life to secure his Neverthelesse all the Fathers of the Church confess that their Martyrdome was true that the power of God supplyed their weakness that his grace prevented their will and that their sacrifice fayl'd not to be meritorious though it was not voluntary Amongst all those that have been their Advocates there is none hath pleaded their cause with more Eloquence then St Bernard his Reasons and his Words are equally powerfull and it seems that preserving the glory of their Martyrdom his designe was to preserve that of their Baptism Si quaeric corum apud Deum merita ut coronarentur quaere apud Herodem crimina ut occiderentur An forte minor Christi Pietas quà m Herodis impietas ut ille quidem potuit innoxios neci dare Christus non potuerit propter se occisos coronare Bern. de natal Inn. If you ask saith he what desert they had in the sight of God to merit a Crown ask what their crime was against Herod that deserved such a butchery shall the Piety of the Son of God be less powerful then the Impiety of Herod Shall the Tyrant be able to massacre Innocents and their Saviour not able to crown their sufferings Their Martyrdom exalteth the mercy of Jesus Christ and their example teacheth us that as good desires without works are sometimes recompensed in men works without desires may be recompensed in children If we doubt of their Martyrdom Ille pro Christo trucidatos Infantes dubitet inter Martyres coronari qui regeneratos in Christo non credit inter adoptionis silios numerari Idem ibid. as the same Father goes on we must doubt of the salvation of all those that are baptized and if we beleeve that Baptism sanctifies Infants though they cannot speak we must beleeve that Martyrdom consecrates these though they cannot expresse themselves After this example we need not think it strange that the Eternal Father acknowledgeth those for his Children whom the Son acknowledgeth for his Brethren nor doubt that imitating his Justice he saves by borrowed merits those he had condemned for accessory crimes But one of the most remarkable resemblances between our Recovery and our Fall is that both of them began by the Body For though this be lesse guilty then the soul neither did the corporal revolt sollicite our first Father to sin yet is it the pipe through which his offence passeth into the essence of his posterity Certum tenemus quia caro contracta de carne per legem concupiscentiae quam cito vivificatur originalis culpae vinculo premitur cjusque affectionibus anima quae carnem vivificat aggravatur sub hoc peccati vinculo demerguntur parvuli qui sine remedio baptismi moriuntur Habent enim originale peccatum non per animam sed per carnem utique contractum animaeque infusum carni namque ita unitur anima ut cum carne fit una persona Aug. lib. de Spir. Anim. c. 41. if they were not a part of his flesh they should inherit neither his sin nor his punishment and if concupiscence were fully extinguished by grace Generation would not be criminal Man is not faulty in his conception but because he is cloathed with Adam's flesh 't is by means of it that sin overspreads the soul for issuing from the hands of God 't is stain'd with no impurity but no sooner is it united to the body but it becomes guilty their marriage begets sin and having quickned that unhappy moity it enters into its imperfections and disorders it begins to affect terrestriall things it dwels upon perishable goods and is at a distance from eternall ones lest it should sad the Body it readily complyes with all its desires and as if it were become corporeal it longs for those objects that please and entertain the senses Though it be not carried yet by deliberation this way 't is by inclination and though it offend not willingly we may say it does naturally and that the privation of Grace joyned to its union with the body is the source of its transgression and misery In this point the Regeneration of the Christian holds so full a proportion with the Generation of the Man that the one is as well the proof as the Image of the other Quaeris in parvulis culpam invenis ex carne traductam Quaeris in eis gratiam invenis à Deo collatam Aug. de Spir. Anim. c. 41. For Grace though spiritual enters not into the soul but by the mediation of the body The Sacraments that dispense it communicate not their vertue to the Spirit till they have first imparted it to the flesh God is pleased to imitate his enemie and following his steps he cures the noblest part of man by the more ignoble Caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur caro ungitur ut anima consecretur caro corpore sanguine Christi vescitur ut anima saginetur Tert. de resurâ—ect carnis The spirit of the Christian Champions is not strengthened in Confirmation till the holy oyl is sprinkled on their fore-head Their soul to use Tertullian's expressions is not fatted with the Eucharist till it receives the body and bloud of Christ by their mouth nor is their spirit purified in Baptism but when their body is dipt in water The Remedy is symbolicall to the nature of the disease 't is affix'd to the prime delinquent and this maxime admits of no contradiction that the soul is uncapable of being healed assoon as it is separated from the flesh It seems the divine Justice will have Grace enter by the same passage into the soul that Sin did Nulla omnino anima salutem potest adipisci ni dum in carne est Id. Ib. and that the flesh should be the Christians ligament to Jesus Christ as well as the sinners to his first Progenitor Neither truly is it harder to conceive one then the other for as grace is insinuated into the soul by Baptisme of an offendor making an Innocent despoiling us of Adam and putting us on Jesus Christ ' Anima in corpore tanquam in vitiato vase corrumpitur ubi occulta justitia divinae legis includitur Aug. and finally passeth from our body into the Essence of that part that inanimates us so also may we easily comprehend that concupiscence is the conduit of sin that the miseries of the flesh make an Impression upon the spirit that this is
he hath made her worthy of his Love from the very first moment he began to love her and more powerful then those Bridegrooms who can onely advantage those they love in riches or honours he hath adorned her with all the graces her dignity could require or her condition suffer For if she be not yet glorious in all her Members if she sigh in the Poor be a captive in the Prisoner 't is because the Land of dying mortals where she lives is not capable of all the priviledges of her Bridegroom yet may she boast that she possesseth in her Head what she wants in her Body tastes that in the Blessed which she cannot taste in the Faithful and if she be Militant upon Earth is Triumphant in Heaven But nothing so much advanceth the Graces she hath received from Jesus Christ as the offences she committed during her Infidelity For she broke her word in the first of her children she listened to the promises of the Serpent by the ear of our first mother she erected Altars to devils by the hands of Idolaters she uttered blasphemies by the mouth of Libertines she had committed as many Adulteries as she had adored False Deities and her crimes emboss'd one upon another had branded her with the ignominious titles of Perfidiousness Adultery and Impudence In the mean time her Beloved forgave her all these faults wip'd away all her spots in the Laver of Baptism and making her a Bath of his own Blood returned her at the same time Holiness Innocence and Beauty But as his Power is equal to his Love he undertook a thing that Nature never durst attempt For finding her saith S. Augustine in her prostitution he restored her her Purity of an Adultress he made her a Virgin and repeating that miracle which he never wrought for any but his Mother and his Spouse Nuptiae Spirituales in quibus nobis magna castitate vivendum est sunt Christi Ecclesiae quia Ecclesiae concessit Deus in Spiritu quod mater ejus habuit in corpore ut Mater Virgo sit Aug. he bestowed Virginity with Pregnancy that being pure she might not complain that she was barren and being fruitfull she might not bee reproached as impure Thus the Church is treated by Christ her Beloved as he treated Humane Nature he hath honoured her with all the priviledges he bestowed upon his own Body and letting us see an Image of the Hypostaticall Union in the Mysticall Union he contracted with his Spouse he hath shewed us the dignity of a Christian that being a member of Iesus Christ he may aspire to the Glory of his Head and promise himself that having suffered with him upon Earth he shall one day reign with him in the Heavens The Fifth DISCOURSE That Jesus Christ treats his Mysticall Body with as much Charity as his Naturall Body THere is no Christian so little acquainted with the Mysteries of our Religion but knows that the Son of God hath two Bodies the one Naturall the other Mysticall the former he had from his Mother who yeelding her consent to the Angel furnished blood whereof the Holy Chost formed the Body of her only Son The second he hath from the Church which springing from his wounds upon Mount Calvary gives him as many Members as she bears Beleevers in her chaste Bosome Nonne in figura Mariae typum videmus Sanctae Ecclefiae ad hanc utique â—â—scen lit Sanctus Spâ—ritus huic virtus altissimi obumbravit binc Christus potens vi tute egrâ—ditur Ecclesia viro immaculata concubitu foecunda partu conc pit non viro sed Spiritu Aug. ser 10. de Temp. and makes him Head of all that acknowledge her for their Mother and whom shee owns for her Children These two Bodies have so much affinity that 't is hard to judge which of them Jesus Christ loves best and their priviledges so like that 't is easily perceived they belong both to one God For besides that they are both formed by the Holy Ghost and the Mothers that conceived them cease not to be pure notwithstanding they are pregnant they enjoy the same favours and are equally precious to the Son of God His Naturall Body by time received its full growth though he were perfect at the moment of conception he was so little that nothing but Faith could comprehend him to be the Temple of the Eternall Word his Members were fashioned in the space of nine moneths the naturall heat enlarged and fortified them and the nourishment they received gave them that just proportion Children ought to have at their Birth It was no small proof of the Humility of Iesus Christ saith Saint Augustine that he was willing to condescend to the Laws of Nature and waving his absolute power expect with patience till his members were fashioned to be born in the fulnesse of time Statim lucem lacrymis auspicatus molestus uberibus diu infans vix puer tarde homo Tert. He handles his Mysticall Body after the same manner expects its perfection with gracious tendernesse waits for those members his Father pleases to adde in the continuance of years he sees his Spouse grow up with joy and from heaven above is ravished when the Church by Baptism or by Repentance bestows upon him new Subjects to the compleatment of this Mysticall Body Sometimes he sees the Sauls become part of that whole they have endeavoured to destroy Sometimes he receives Augustines and drawing them from Errour to Truth makes them his Disciples and his Members Sometimes he converts other sinners and associating them to his Person with himself compleats his Church 'T is true as this Body is much greater then the Naturall there is required much more time to give it its ultimate perfection The Naturall was accomplished in twenty five years it had all its bignesse when ' rwas nailed to the Crosse neither was any thing wanting to that Master-piece of the Holy Ghost but Glory which was deferred till the Resurrection because it had hindered the work of our Salvation But the Mysticall commenced with the world nor shall end but with that Fabrick Adam and Abel were the first parts the Patriarchs and Prophets the Apostles and the Faithfull continue it and the last predestinated shall accomplish it at the end of the world It s full measure shall not be till the generall Resurrection and there will something still bee wanting to its perfection till the number of the Elect be compleated The Naturall Body could not grow but all the members must grow with it For there is such a Harmony in mans body that nature travels at the same time to perfect the whole Compositum The nourishment turned into blood passeth through the veins to the remotest parts one and the same matter takes a thousand different forms and the same aliment changeth the qualities that it may equally supply the needs of all the members Jesus Christ was subject to these Laws whilest he lived
agnosce â—e in ipso tentatum te in illo agnosce vincentem Aug. Jesus Christ saith he was tempted by the evil spirit in the desart or rather we were tempted in him for 't is from us that he took Flesh from him that we derive Salvation 't is from us that he receives his Death from him that we receive our Life 't is from us that he had these affronts cast upon him from him that we have Honours conferred upon us 'T is therefore for our sakes that he suffered Temptation and for his sake that we carry away the victory Or to say the same thing in other words If we were tempted in him 't is in him also that we overcame the devil our enemy He certainly could have difcarded him from his person and using him like a rebellious slave have punished his rash boldness by commanding him to hell but had he not been willing to be tempted he had not taught us to overcome by his example nor had the combat he fought in the wilderness procured us the honour of a Triumph Thus the quality of Head is injurious to Jesus Christ and honourable to Christians because in that exchange it obliged him to make with them he endured the shame of the Temptation and purchased for them the advantage of the Victory Finally to conclude this Discourse The Son of God was willing to bear the reproaches of the Cross and to merit for us the priviledges of Glory For being charged with our iniquities he suffered death the punishment of them permitted Shame to be added to Cruelty that spoiling him of Life Si moriamur saltem cum libertate moriamur Cicero in Verâ—em de Crucis supplicio agens they might withal rob him of his Honour and he might give up the ghost as an Offender and a Slave together In the mean time his Punishment purchased our Glory his Death merited our Immortality and in stead of taking vengeance of our crimes he procures us his own advantages It seems saith S. Augustine the Father mistook himself he treats his onely Son as a Delinquent and handles Men as Innocents he crowns him with Thorns these with Glory and confounding the Sinner with the Just confounds Chastisements with Rewards But if we consider that the Son of God took our place and we his that he is our Head and we his Members we shall finde that his Father had reason to punish him and to reward us because having made a change with us he is become Guilty we Innocent Let us therefore be thankful to Jesus Christ who disdained not a quality which investing him with our Nature chargeth him with our sins and our infirmities and uniting him to us as to his Members obliges him to be tempted to make us victorious Ille quippe Christianorum caput in omnibus tentari voluit quia tentamur sic morivoluit quiae morimur sic resurgere quiae resurrecturi sumus Aug. in Psal 9. Serm. 2. and to suffer the death of the Cross to obtain for us the glory of Immortality The Ninth DISCOURSE Of the duties of Christians as Members toward Jesus Christ as their Head THough the duties of the Head and of the Members are reciprocal and that composing one Body they are obliged to a mutual correspondence arising from Necessity as well as Love yet there is no man but will acknowledge that as the Members receive more assistance from the Head ten the Head from the Members so are they tied to greater expressions of dependence Nature which is an excellent mistress in this matter instructs us that the life of the Members depends upon the Head and their very preservation obliges them to three or four duties without which they can no ways subsist Their Interest requires that they be inseparably fastned to that from whence they receive their life lest their division with their death deprive them of all those advantages which spring from the union they have with their Head Thus we see that the Hand which is one of the most ingenious parts of the body and which may be called the Mother of all Arts and the faithfullest Minister of the Soul loseth its dexterity and comeliness as soon as separated from the Head that enlivens it The Feet though not so noble as the Hands are yet as necessary being the moveable Foundations of this living building are destitute of all strength when they have no commerce with the Head This indeed ceaseth not to act and move though provided neither of Hands nor Feet when Nature fails it hath recourse to Art and being the throne of the Soul ransacks all her treasures of Invention to execute that by it Self Omnis salus omnis vita à capite in caeterae membra derivatur Galen was wont to be put in execution by its Members But though the hands are so industriously subtil and the legs so vigorously strong they are absolutely useless because their separation deprives them of the influences of their head This Maxime so notorious in Nature is much more evident in Grace For the Son of God hath no need of his Members 't is Mercy and not Necessity obligeth him to make use of them He is not at all more powerful when united to them nor more feeble when separated from them Faith tells us he can do all things without them whereas they can doe nothing without him Therefore is he compared to the Vine and they to the Branch to acquaint them that all their vertue flows from his and being pluckt from his Body can as the Branch expect nothing but the fire Therefore the first obligation of Christians is to unite themselves to Jesus Christ to seek their life in this union and to believe that their death is the infallible consequence of their division This is it that Saint Augustine represents us in this Discourse which though long cannot be tedious because there is nothing in it that is not delightfull and necessary As the Body hath many members which though different in number make up but one body so Jesus Christ hath many members which in the diversity of their conditions constitute also but one body so that we are always with him as with our Head and drawing from him our strength as well as our life we can neither act nor live without him We with him make up a fruitful Vine that bears more Grapes then Leaves but divided from him we are like those Branches which being good for nothing are destin'd to the slames when stript off from the Vine Therefore doth the Son of God so earnestly affirm it in the Gospel that without him we can doe nothing that our interests as well as our love Domine si fine te nihil totum in te possumus Etenim quicquid ille operatur per nos videmur nos operari potest ille multum totum sine nobis nos nihil sine ipso Aug. in Psal 30. may engage us to be united to his
temptation if it appear more agreeable then the Law of God Therefore when Jesus Christ undertakes our Conversion he infuses into our souls innocent pleasures which are more prevalent then those of sin he unmasks the beauties of vertue he charms us with her allurements and ravisheth our hearts by holy delights that make his Grace victorious Then is it that we resist the temptations of Satan that we contemn the revolts of the flesh and raised above our selves are amazed that such weak enemies have been able heretofore to worst us Then is it that the Martyrs runne to the Faggot that enchaunted with this pleasure that overcomes their spirit they triumph over Devils and Executioners trample upon flames and wilde Beasts and turn the cruelty of tyrants into wonder and admiration Must not the pleasure that charms them be exceeding powerfull when they tumble upon hot burning coals as upon a bed of roses When they swallow down melted lead as most delicious liquours Receive wounds a favours Prefer Prisons before Palaces Gibbets before Thrones and Crowns of Thorns before those of Diamonds Is not this that victorious pleasure that transports maids out of the dwellings of their parents burying them alive in cloysters and changing their inclinations obligeth them to quit gold and silk to put on hair and sackcloth Is it not this innocent pleasure that makes them neglect the advantages of their birth and perswading them that vertue is the beauty of the soul obliges them to despise the charming comeliness of the face Is it not finally this Grace as imperious as agreeable that animates the Religious against themselves that arms their hands to revenge the Son of God whom they have offended and making a just indignation the parent of a holy love obliges them to persecute themselves Let us conclude then from all this Discourse that Grace cannot force man because it is so sweet and that the most prevalent never destroys our liberty because its power consists in gentleness But withall let us confess that she is victorious in all her designs that she finds no resistance in the most obstinate sinners because she charms their wils by pleasures which seem the first fruits of those they shall reap in glory and which make the miserable taste one part of that felicity here the blessed feed upon in Heaven The Eighth DISCOURSE That Effectuall Grace destroyes not Sufficient Grace IF it be a truth that Nature hath some secrets that cannot be discovered that she conceals her vertue when she means to produce a wonder and steals out of the sight of her dearest lovers when she deals in mysteries we need not think it strange that God the Authour of Nature reveals not his designs to all the world and that there are some so profound that his most intimate friends are not acquainted with The Oeconomy of mans salvation is so involv'd that all those that goe about to explain it are in danger to mistake all foundations their reason relies upon in this matter are so infirm that having well discoursed they are obliged to confess their ignorance and adore the wisdome of God that hath reserved to himself the disposall of his creatures Neither indeed doe I pretend to examine his designs nor to penetrate his intentions but to search out the meaning of Saint Augustine and to see in this Discourse whether he believed the order established in the state of Innocence to be so ruined that there remained no footstep of it in the world and whether he judged Effectuall Grace so absolutely necessary that he held Grace sufficient merited by Jesus Christ to be altogether useless Though the sin of Adam hath corrupted the Nature of man though all men are born Delinquents their inclinations irregular and the faculties of their souls weakned yet must we confess with Saint Augustine that this disorder cannot deface the Characters God hath stampt upon his workmanship Reason serves for a Law to Insidels and teacheth them what the Law of Moses taught the Israelites all her lights are not put out and in the midst of that darkness wherein infidelity hath plunged her Nulla est anima quamvis perversa quae tamen ratiocinari potest in cujus conscientia non loquatur Deus quis enim legem naturalē scripsit in cordibus hominum nisi Deus Aug. she retains some knowledge of her Creator The passions that trouble her and the senses that seduce her cannot yet perswade her that the body ought to be her Soveraign neither is there any sinner so brutish but knows that of two parts that compose him the noblest ought to be the most absolute Notwithstanding all the injustice which swarms amongst men it cannot blot out of their souls this maxime that Nature hath engraven there What thou wouldst not have done to thy self doe not to another and had neither Law-givers nor Philosophers forbidden Murders Adulteries there was a Judge within them had made an Edict against both these iniquities So that we may say in their very infidelity they had the first Principles of Religion and Morality and if they discerned not in God the Trinity of Persons they knew at least the Unity of his Essence If all these advantages be the reliques of Original righteousness and the splinters of that great shipwrack where Nature was wholly lost in one man If the seeds of vertues be the steps of the innocence in men and if Conscience that punisheth Criminals be an expression of Divine Justice I am easily perswaded to believe that there remains some assistance for Infidels that sollicites them to the practice of vertue and gives them some thoughts of their salvation in the midst of Paganisme it self Qui est salvator omnium hominum maxime fideliū 1 Tim. 4. For if the Son of God died for all men and hath merited some favours for them which Nature since her prevarication could not hope for without him I doubt not but the Eternall Father inspires them with some good motions to satisfie the desires of his only Son and that those glorious actions they have performed and which according to the judgement of Saint Augustine deserve some commendations are the price of the bloud of that dying sacrifice If they have not faith they had perhaps some glimmerings which as the dawning had something of the brightness of the day something of the obscurity of the night if they wanted charity they have had some supernaturall love which was not strong enough to defend them from self-love and as fear though servile is the gift of God this love though interessed may be the effect of Grace They acted not always according to the motions of Concupiscence Their captiv'd will had some release according to the assistance they received from Heaven Their reason illuminated with a divine light and their will seconded with a supernaturall force resisted some sins and made them more innocent or lesse guilty then others Saint Augustine acknoweldgeth their actions profitable to the
to know our power Fortitude to employ it Temperance to moderate it Justice to rule it and as this Divine Spirit can never be exhausted but knows how to give a hundred colours to the same thing thereby to discover all the different beauties thereof Let us adde with him that Prudence concerns the choice of means Temperance the use of pleasures Fortitude that of afflictions and Justice the distribution of all these Finally he concludes that it belongs to Prudence to foresee hidden things to Temperance to desie pleasures to Fortitude to attaque them and to Justice to regulate their interests But because these duties savour still of the description let us speak of those that denote the necessity of these Vertues and say that honesty which is inseparable from them is composed of four parts without which it cannot possibly subsist The first is Knowledge which serves it for a conduct and a light The second is the Interest of Society which ought always to be preferred before that of particulars The third is a certain magnanimity which seems as it were the soul of all honourable Actions and the defence of all Vertues The fourth is Moderation which keeps every one within his duty not suffering him to undertake any thing that may be disadvantageous to his neighbour Light appertains to Prudence the care of the Community to Justice Glorious enterprises to Fortitude and the regulating of Pleasures to Temperance Therefore hath that excellent Copier of Saint Augustine venerable Bede who being able to be a great Master of his own Head chose rather to be an humble Disciple of that learned Doctor observed that the Vertues coming in to the help of man a sinner seemed to have a mind to cure four great wounds which Original sin had inflicted upon him The first is Ignorance which is born with him which involves him in darknesse assoon as ever nature exposeth him to the light For he is Ignorant assoon as Criminal and as Grace is necessary to deliver him from sin Prudence is requisite to defend him from Errour and Falshood she irradiates his mind with a Heavenly Light gives him the spirit of discerning between Good and Evil and severing apparent good from reall keeps him from wandering in the course of his life The second wound is that of Concupiscence which seems particularly to have set upon the Concupisicible appetite which she hath engaged in the love of sinful sensualities and diverts from innocent contentments against this agreeable enemy Heaven hath given him Temperance whose businesse 't is to undeceive this irregular appetite to make use of charms to suppresse his unjust inclinations and to reduce him to a condition where he wisheth only reasonable things The third wound is Weakness which plungeth man in idleness suffering him not to act frights him from Vertue because of the difficulties 't is accompanied with and representing Death as a Spectrum Grief as a Monster strives to deter him from his duty by such fearful apprehensions against this great inconvenience which may be called the root of all other Fortitude stands up which heightens our courage fils the man with hope and activity animates him with glory the companion of difficulty and changing our diseases into remedies makes us find honour in pain and Immortality in Death The fourth and deepest wound is the malice of the will which may be called a Natural Injustice which is troubled at the prosperity and rejoyceth at the adversity of his neighbour when a man minds nothing but his own interests believes whatever is profitable is lawful placeth right in force duty in pleasure and is perswaded that glory being inseparable from profit there is nothing beneficial which at the same time is not honourable Morality to rid him of so Potent an enemy hath given him Justice which supplying the loss of Original righteousness teacheth him to prefer his duty before his interest and his conscience before his reputation This excellent Vertue which is the soule of all the rest undertakes to regulate mans actions to appease all disorders wherein his guilty birth hath engaged him For she submitteth his mind to God his body to his mind and having made this double agreement tries to accommodate man with his neighbour and to establish peace in his state after she hath brought it into his person Nothing distinguisheth this Vertue from Original righteousness but the resistence it meets with in those things it would regulate for the first took no pains to be obeyed she had to doe with tractable subjects the soul and body had not as yet clash'd their inclinations though different were not opposite and these two parts that make up man were not contrary in their designs so that Original righteousness had no hard task to manage a peace which seemed founded as well in Grace as in Nature But Christian Justice meets with insolent subjects who acknowledge not their Soveraign obey her not but by compulsion who being born in sedition think it their duty to live in disobedience nevertheless when assisted with Prudence to chuse means of accommodation seconded with Temperance to suppress pleasures and manfully supported by Fortitude to overcome grief she gains that by violence which Original righteousness did by sweet compliance and if she be not so quiet she may boast at least she is more glorious To express the same Truth in other words and to give it a new beauty in setting it out in new colours we may say that Prudence is busied in discussing those things that deceive us to discern truth from falshood and to secure us from being surprised with a lye Temperance is employed to suppress those things that charm our affections and whose allurements pleasingly heighten our appetites Fortitude is engaged to vanquish those things that terrifie us it revives our spirits and as a General of an Army that heartens his soldiers endeavours to rally that Courage Grief or Danger had in a manner routed Justice is busied in regulating those concernments wherein lies our interest and which under a colour of some gain would set us upon some violent course to compass it Wherefore Seneca said that perillous things were to be mastered by Valour pleasurable things to be moderated by Temperance Things that abuse us to be examined by Prudence and those that tempt and fain would corrupt us to be regulated by Justice If it be true that Vertue respects only our person and that according to the opinion of some Philosophers who would make her the slave of our interests her sole object is man we may say without thwarting their conceit that Prudence considers things without us which being hid and obscured by the distance of places and times cannot be foreseen but by the light of this Vertue which seems to be a natural kind of prophesie According to this principle Temperance regulates things that are below us in the inferiour Region of the soul reduceth the passions and the senses to their duty and entertains reason
the heat of self-love makes in our souls In which respect 't is certainly the truth of the Tree of Life and the accomplishment of that figure For though Innocent Man had other meats besides that and excepting the forbidden fruit all others that Paradise afforded were allowed him yet was he obliged to take of this from time to time as a medicine which the mercy of God had prepared for him to defend him against the Natural heat which insensibly wasted him Whence it is easie to infer that in the state of Innocence the body of man was composed of parts that could not agree That fire which makes man live devoured the radical moisture on which it feeds and though he daily took in nourishment which being much purer then ours might preserve life much longer yet had he need of an extraordinary diet which might repair the ruines the natural heat made in his body and Divines Providence which never abandons that sinner provided the Tree of Life for Innocent Man to defend him against the internal enemy who had insensibly brought him to death by means of old age and consumption Thus may we say that the body of the Son of God shields us against that forain heat Concupiscentia carnis in Baptismo dimittitur non ut non sit sed ut non obsit non imput tur Aug. lib. de Nup. Concup cap. 25. which setting upon the warmth of Charity threatens the Christian with death For though Concupiscence since Baptism be no longer sin and if sometimes they give it this name 't is because it is the principal effect yet is she not idle in our souls she makes strange progresses when her fury is not stopt she makes use of all occasions that are offered and holding under her command the passions and the senses she endeavours by their mediation to enslave the understanding and the will Though never so weak and langnishing in Christians she hath still vigour enough to engage them in sin if their reason assisted with grace continually oppose not her designs The little remainder there is makes them they cannot live secure and as long as they nourish the least degree of self-love there is no crime whereof they have not the seeds in them What the Son of God hath said of the grain of Mustard seed which is so small at first and so prodigious in the progress is not comparable to Concupiscence whose least sparks are able to kindle mighty conflagrations which only the Grace of Jesus Christ can extinguish Indeed his Body the noblest Organ of his Spirit moderates daily these heats in the Eucharist smothers the flames Concupiscence stirs up to consume us he gives beeing to that vertue that fight obscenity weakens that strange burning which glows against divine heat without which a Christian cannot live He produceth two contrary effects which manifests his power to be infinite For by kindling one fire he quencheth another and warming us with his own love happily delivers us from that of self 'T is a a wonderful Wine which contrary to the nature of ordinary wine bears Virgins and renders them pure thereby to render them pregnant in Vertues Finally 't is a Bread of Life that nourisheth soul and body carrying vigour into the one and light into the other to the end that preserving the whole man it may be his food in health and his remedy in sickness Having contrary to the Laws of Physick cured him contrary to the Laws of Nature it endeavours to make him young For Religion more powerful then the Fable hath found out a secret to renue the Christians youth in the Eucharist and to discover in Mysteries what it made us believe in Types and Figures Indeed all the Fathers are of opinion that the Tree of Life defended man from old age and preserved him from that languishing consumption which disposed him insensibly to his death if common fruits could preserve his life they were unable to maintain his vigour Though they had all the purity Innocent Nature could furnish her works with yet in repairing mans strength they had not restored that freshness which accompanies youth To secure himself from that mischief which had not respected his Innocence he was obliged to have recourse to the Tree of Life and from time to time to take an agreeable Physick which being no way distasteful restored him his primitive vigour and re-instated him in that flourishing age he was at first created in It is true that as Prudence was natural to him he never expected length of days to impair his beauty nor that old-age should print wrinkles upon his face he made such seasonable use of this remedy that the freshness of his complexion never faded The Roses and the Lilies were always mingled on his cheeks age and deformity never seized a body whose soul was exempt from sin and the fruit of the Tree of Life seconding his ordinary food maintained him in a vigorous constitution which was afraid neither of Sickness nor Weakness In this happie state Man had the advantages of the Aged and not their imperfections his Reason without the tedious trouble of Experience was furnished with all Lights requisite to conduct him he had no need to enfeeble his body to fortifie his minde but both the parts that composed him being equally innocent he had no occasion to wish that age might weaken the one to make it more obedient nor strengthen the other to render it more absolute Thus the fruit of the Tree of Life maintained Man in Youth and Innocence and these two inseparable qualities combating Old-age and Sin made him spend his life happily and holily Although Christians have not this advantage upon the earth and that their body being still the slave of Concupiscence cannot avoid the infirmities incident to old-age yet in their souls they fail not to enjoy the priviledges of Innocence they finde in the holy Sacrament what Adam found in the Tree of Life they receive a new vigour in the Eucharist their souls grow young as often as they approach to Jesus Christ when like Eagles they soar as high as this Sun lodg'd in a cloud they are astonished that in the infirmity of their flesh their spirit is renewed and that the outward man falling to decay by yeers and penance the inward man recruits by the heavenly meat he feeds upon This Miracle passeth sometimes from the soul to the body yet there have been some holy persons who taking no other sustenance but what is offered upon our Altars have lived many yeers Many times this Nutriment hath imprinted its qualities upon their bodies and darting forth certain rays of Grace upon their countenances communicated to them a part of that beauty which the blessed spirits shall possess Post primā caenam it a similes evascrunt Christodiscipuli ejus ut vix ab illo possent discerni Chrys S. John Chrysostome was of opinion that the Apostles participated of this priviledge in their
contrary to all the laws of Nature that the Accidents subsist without their Subject and that the Substance of the Bread and Wine being turned into that of his Body and Blood keep notwithstanding its Colour Taste and Form He is multiplied without being divided to satisfie the love of his Spouse and admitting his Humanity into the priviledges of the Divinity filleth his State with his presence We are in a doubt whether he does not work a Miracle for the Faithful which is not indulged the Blessed and we are yet ignorant whether this divine multiplication be an effect of his glory or of his power For though there are some Divines who believe that glorified bodies may be in divers places without a miracle and that the part they have in the Immensity of God multiplies their bodies without dividing them the Schools have always lookt upon this effect as a prodigie and have taught us that the order of Glory had its Miracles as well as that of Nature and Grace Finally it seems that the Son of God to make his power and his love admired Dicitur virgini supervenient in te Spiritus sanctus dicâ—tur etiem Sacerdoti superveniet in te Spiritus sarctus efficiet quod intelligentiam tuam excedet Joan. Damasc had a minde in this Mystery to repeat all the Miracles he had wrought during the course of his life For if he were born of Mary without interessing her Virginity if making her a Mother he left her a Virgin if the Fruit she bare deflowred not her Purity he is produced in our Sacrifices without violating their Accidents and changing their substance into his alters not the Species that cover them If he turn water into wine at a Marriage in Cana and manifest himself the Master of the Elements in changing their qualies he appears no less absolute in a Sacrament where he turns the Bread into his Body the Wine into his Blood and the Creature into his Creator If he multiply the loaves in the wilderness and operate this prodigie by the hands of his Apostles they being ignorant of the manner he daily multiplies his Body by the hands of the Priests who cannot comprehend a miracle whereof they are the witnesses and the Ministers If heretofore he cured the sick that came unto him here he cures the diseased that receive him and if he raised the dead by his touch or by his Word here he promiseth life to all those that feed upon him and engageth himself by a promise as sure as an Oracle that he will draw all those out of the grave that have served him here for a Temple Thus this adorable Sacrament deserves the name of Manna better then Manna it self and ought no less to fill our hearts with astonishment then with love But to continue our resemblances and to manifest the truth in the figure The Psalmist hath observed that Manna was not a bare Nutriment but a preservative and a remedy For while the Israelites made use of it in the Desarts they were never molested with any infirmities Though they so often changed their Quarters marched through a Wilderness where the want of water and the multitude of serpents might make them fear an infection nevertheless this food which participated of the Tree of Life and made them taste in the Desarts the delights of Paradise so well suited with their temper that though they daily beheld rebels in their Camp they never saw any sick In Tribubus eorum non erat infirmus There by a strange prodigy diseases were not the harbingers of death they gave up the ghost without any pangs some small weakness gave them notice of the houre of their departure the soul fairly took leave of the body and the Feaver which seems the forrager of death durst not set upon men whom Manna served for nourishment The Eucharist works the same miracle in our souls that this Heavenly food did in their bodies It is at the same time diet and an Antidote it gives life and preserves it it delivers us from evil and then protects us against it it maintains the constitution of the soul in a regulated evenness of temper and much happier then physick which cannot tame the disease without weakning nature it deals so critically with the sins that it never prejudiceth the sinner Many times when Faith seconds Piety this Celestial viand extends its effects as far as the body it maintains health as well as salvation and cures the diseased as well as the wicked In the Primitive Church it wrought wonderful cures and the great Saint Cyprian tels us that Physitians were useless in those days because Christians found their cure in the Eucharist and proved there was the same Jesus present whose Word was heretofore so fatal to infirmities and so favourable to the infirm If in this particular it supass Manna in another it equals it Manna non solum sanitatem sed animum Judais conserebat Josâ—ph because in restoring health it infused strength and inspired courage For there are some Writers that are of opinion that the valour of the Israelites was an effect of Manna that they owed those formidable victories they gained from their enemies to this meat that came down from Heaven Neither ought this to seem strange to the incredulous since experience teacheth us that wine which is the pure work of Nature produceth daily the same effects drowns fear in its vapours inspires men with the contempt of dangers gives a new vigour to soldiers and constitutes the best part of their courage Therefore I am easily perswaded to believe that Manna wrought the same wonder in the Israelites whilest nourishing their body it maintained their valour and making them sound and lusty made them withall magnanimous and valiant Indeed inasmuch as this food was more miraculous then natural and acted rather by the directions of Heaven then the properties of its own nature it lost this faculty assoon as the Israelites lost grace and as if it had changed quality when they changed disposition it produced fear in the same hearts where it had formerly produced courage and assurance All these wonders were but the shadows of what we adore in the Eucharist which is not only the food but the force of the Christian we come from the Altar as Lions terrifying the Infernal Spirits they cannot endure our sight the presence of Jesus Christ wherewith we are surrounded startles them into a disorder and remembring that we bear about us the same slesh and bloud which triumphed over them upon Mount Calvary they dare not set upon us They flie such men who lodge a god in their souls and beholding their Judge seated in our hearts as upon his Throne they are afraid lest he pronounce sentence against them re-doubling their pains and aggravating their torments It was this Heavenly Bread that animated the Martyrs to the combat this adorable Bread that gave them courage to daunt their executioners and the sword of
their torments God hindered the commerce that Nature had placed between these two parts whereof we are composell a contented mind inanimated a wretched body love divorced him from his prison and by a kind of prodigious extasie disingaged him from all the painful vexations of his slave In every Christian might be seen an Image of Jesus Christ and as he during his life accorded pleasure with pain in his person and his glorious soul enlivened his passible and mortal body this miracle was repeated in favour of the Martyrs who preserved their joy in the midst of their torments They made Invectives against Tyrants laught at the weaknesse of their Executioners and lifting up their soul to him that inspired them with strength breath'd forth his Panegyrick whiles the flames devoured their bodies or the wild Beasts tore them in pieces But the Christians are bound to make war against both bodies and souls to struggle against their inclinations and their senses to exercise their just indignation against these two Delinquents nor to divide those in the correction who were united in the crime These Martyrs had only grief to master and having tamed this unruly enemy were certain of a triumph But the Christians are engaged to combat pleasure and as this pleasing enemy knows the secret of gaining love it is very hard to stand out against his charms Grief is violent astonisheth those that it sets upon quels their courage by the pomp of torments and he that is assisted with strength cannot resist the fury of its onsets In the mean time experience teacheth us that it is oftner foiled then pleasure and that there are more Christians fit to be Martyrs then to be Continent The soul barracadoes it self against grief but lyes open to pleasure The will stands out against the evil that would force her but gently surrenders to the delectation that would corrupt her her forces are rallied close when she combats grief but lie scattered when opposed to sensuality Grief holds no intelligence in the place it sets upon to facilitate a surprisal but pleasure finds a thousand passions that favour her entrance follow her motions Donat Deus ut delectatio peccati justitiae delectatione vincatur Aug. and sight under her ensigns Thence it comes to pass that when God intends to gain a soul or the Devil to seduce one neither of them employ any other thing then pleasure and knowing very well that they have to doe with a free creature make use only of allurements to win his consent without forcing it God deals only with Grace in the conversion of sinners and 't is by this victorious suavity that he gains the Conquest where honour is the Trophy of the Conquerour and profit the reward of the vanquished The Devil also employs no instrument but Pleasure to corrupt them he studies their inclinations followes their humours flatters them to their destruction and being not ignorant what sway pleasure bears over the wil promiseth glory to the ambitious riches to the covetous or in a word proposeth to every sinner the accomplishment of all his desires Therefore we need not wonder if the Christian suffer more then the Martyr because he hath a more redoubted enemy to grapple with nor can hope for any recompence except he triumph over pleasure The great Saint Augustine hath pronounced sentence in their behalf and comparing believers with Martyrs hath said that not to diminish the honour these have purchased by their constancy he did verily believe that a Christian who mortified his body resisted his inclinations and defended himself from pleasure might lawfully pretend to the Crown of Martyrdom But if the sweetness that accompanies pleasure give Christians such an advantage above Martyrs we must confess that the glory which accompanied the Conflict of the later greatly lessened their sorrows Nature who hath no other conduct then that of Providence hath been pleased that whatever was difficult should withall be glorious Quae pulchra difficilia quae difficilia gloriosa Pla. that glory which is attended with so many charms may give us strength to master the difficulty she hath so well linkt these two things together that they are inseparable and wherever she hath planted pain she hath hedged it about with honour It is a hard matter to perswade men to change their minds to calm their passions and to reduce them to their duty Thus is it glorious to be eloquent to be acquainted with all the secrets Orators make use of to conquer without armes and to gain obedience without violence 'T is a business of much industry to rule States to govern people to prescribe laws which may keep them Loyall without interessing their Liberty 'T is also a high honour to know the mystery of the Politicks and to pass for a great Prince or a wise Statesman There is nothing that labours under more difficulties then to tame Nations subdue Rebels force Enemies to submit to the Conditions of Subjects or Allies Neither indeed is there any thing more illustrious then victorious proceedings and the glory which is but faintly and in part bestowed upon Orators and Politians descends unanimously and in a full gale upon the head of Conquerors We see nothing in the Church more Noble then Martyrdome 't is the highest form of Vertue the last expression of Charity and when a man hath shed his bloud and parted with his life for Jesus Christ there is not any instance can farther be expected from his love Justly therefore may we acknowledge nothing more august in Religion then Martyrs They are the Heroes of Christianity the Gallant men of this State the Noblest parts of this Mystical Body there is no greatnesse that gives not way to their dignity whatever we admire is below their merit and according to the opinion of one of the wisest Fathers of the Church Plus est esse Martyrem quam esse Apostolū Cyp. 't is more to be a Martyr then to be an Apostle Neither hath any thing been ever more honoured in the world Heaven hath wrought a hundred miracles to discover their innocence Wild Beasts have respected them the flames have spared their garments Tyrants have admired them and many times their Executioners have become their Disciples insomuch that these renowned Champions had great reason to be afraid of vain-glory at the same time that God delivered them from sorrow But Christians want this consolation in their Martyrdom they suffer more then they fight they are Martyrs because they endure pain to master pleasure they give proof of their courage because they resist temptation but their Martyrdome is secret it passeth in silence or in solitude they have no witnesse but their Judge If the Angels surround them they are invisible and if they undergo the hardships of Martyrs they have neither their comforts nor their indearments For as Saint Augustiue saith the soul of a Christian hath inward conflicts and domestick enemies she struggles with grief and expects her crown
looks upon the sin in it self considers only the interests of the state and provided that by punishing the wicked she may stop the current of Evil accounts her self sufficiently happy But Repentance illuminated by the Light of Faith mounts as high as God considers his Majesty offended and full of zeal and love endeavours to satisfie him by punishing the sinner Thence it comes to pass that 't is more severe then Justice and comparing the Excellency of the Creator with the meanness of the creature condemns him to sufferings which last as long as life When strength fails it hath recourse to tears and gives it self over to sighs to expiate the offences committed Morality hath observed that tears serve us in all our passions Joy hath its tears as well as Grief and when excessive hath a spice of groaning Love cannot avoid them when the heart is wounded it bleeds at the eyes and that Lover had reason to blame the Stoicks who allowed their Scholars to love but by no means to weep Mercy is never without Tears it daily lets fall some drops as witnesses of her compassion When she cannot relieve the distressed Lacrymis altaria sudant parca superstitio Stat. she bewails them and this remedy is so common that when the Pagans made a Goddess of this vertue the Victims they offered were Tears and Sighs But if there be any passion which profitably makes use of them we must confess it to be Sorrow this affection is better expressed by weeping then speaking her Tears are more eloquent then her Words and she gains more victories by her groans then by her reasons Thence it comes to pass that Repentance being nothing else but a Sorrow for sin it swims continually in tears interrupts its prayers with sobbings Purgatorium animae Baptismus Poenitentiū diluvium pecca torum Hiero. Chrys Greg. and mingles bloud with tears in all its sacrifices Therefore do the Fathers of the Church call it sometimes the Purgatory of the souls sometimes the Deluge of sins sometimes the Baptism of sinners and sometimes the Bath of Penitents For this reason all those that have gone about to appease the Justice of God have had recourse to their Tears David mingled them with his drink and that famous Penitent watered his Couch with them in the night season Mary Magdaleu obtain'd pardon for her sins by that innocent Stratagem she bedewed the feet of her Master with her tears wip'd them with the hair of her head and making that instrumental to her Repentance which had been to her Vanity deserved the glorious name of the Beloved of Christ But he himself whom we may style a publick Penitent bewail'd our sins to expiate them he mingled his sighs with his words upon the Cross and for the consummating of his sacrifice he was pleased that the Victim should be bathed in his bloud and in his tears In the mean time all sinners despise this condition of Repentance they bewail their miseries but never weep for their transgressions and knowing not well how to apply this remedy vainly sigh for the loss of their honour or their goods but are never seriously sad for the loss of Grace Saint Augustin blames himself in his Confessions that he lamented the death of Dido but wept not over the death of his soul that he bestowed some tears upon a woman that loved a man too much and denyed them to a sinner that was deficient in his affection to his God Though Tears make up one part of Repentance they may be sometimes wiped away these fountains dry up with time and there are few sinners who like Saint Peter can bedew their cheeks as often as they call to mind their offences But they ought always to abominate them and if there be some truce with their tears their hatred must have no intermission The vertues are not always active inasmuch as they have none but particular enemies they take their rest when they have either defeated or worsted them Continence lays aside her arms when she hath mortified the Body Humility takes some respite when the spirit is tam'd and Patience is satisfied when she hath calm'd the motions of anger But Repentance is a publick vertue whether she make war upon all kinds of sins revenge the outrages done against God set upon his enemies she is never at rest Her employment is continuall and as long as she sees any remainders of pride or impurity in the soul or body she spends all her power to stifle them The havock that sin bath made in our nature maintains her in this humour she cannot away with our irregularities at sight of them she presently meditates vengeance and as often as she considers our understanding darkned and our will depraved she resents a just indignation which awakens her against the sin Nothing so much incenseth a Prince against an enemy that hath wasted his state as when pursuing him with his Troops he sees the Fields desolate the Towns beaten to the ground the Villages burnt to ashes and which way soever he turns himself meets with the marks of the fury of a stranger Neither does any thing so much set an edge upon Repentance as when bidding sin battle she beholds the disorders it hath wrought in sinners and perceives neither parts in their body nor faculties in their soul which are not out of order Her just anger reacheth sometimes over the very men and finding they have taken this Tyrants part she animates them against themselves and making them serviceable to her indignation changeth their love into hatred and their pleasures into punishments Indeed every Penitent is his own Judge he enters into the interests of God and as if he were elevated above himself he conceives he hath some right to revenge the former and punish the later Anger according to the opinion of Saint Augustin is nothing else but a desire of vengeance and vengeance according to the sense of Tertullian is only the fruit or effect of anger But inasmuch as this passion is extreamly violent and that it is a hard matter to keep a just measure when we are Arbitrators in our own cause God was willing to reserve the disposal thereof to himself He it is that revengeth the Innocents and punisheth the Guilty and among so many things that belong to him there is none that he is so jealous of as this Mihi vindictam ego retribuam If he give some persons leave to make use of this right 't is after he hath made them his Images and of so many men that people the world there are none but Kings and Parents that have a power to correct their subjects or their children But as the Penitent holds the place of God here below and takes part in his Interests he shares also in his Justice and Power he pronounceth sentence against himself condemns himself as a Judge punisheth himself as an Executioner and being not able to endure himself dischargeth his fury upon all
from this misfortune it carries Eternity along with it and were it not engaged in a subject changeable and obnoxious to mutability it would be as Immortal as it is Holy Let us adde to this advantage that Grace cannot be taken from us against our will 't is a treasure we never lose but by our own default Perishable goods cannot be preserved with all our care cunning or violence may rob us of them and whatever prudence we use to keep them we are many times constrain'd to fear or feel the loss of them Calumny takes away our good name Injustice or misfortune spoils us of our riches a disease deprives us of health and death of life All these goods though precious cannot avoid the disasters that threaten them The Innocent lose their honour as well as the Guilty The rich are as much afraid of sickness as the poor nor are Kings more secure from death then their Subjects But Grace is a good which cannot be taken from us without our consent Potes aurum perdere nolens potes domum bonū autem quo bonus es nec invitus accipis nec invitus amittis Au. There is no violence can plunder us of it and men though in league with the Devils cannot make us lose it if we favour not their design by our weakness This is the difference Saint Augustine hath put between earthly goods and heavenly Those are many times lost in spite of the owners these are never lost but by the fault of those that neglect them so that the condition of the Faithful is very little inferiour to that of the Blessed because that if the one be certain their glory shal never have an end the others are sure their Grace shal never be lost unless they wil not preserve it out of malice or not consent to secure it out of cowardise Indeed inasmuch as they know that their wils are impotent and their inclinations bad they place all their confidence in the mercy of God they hope that he that converted them will make them persevere and having assisted them in the combate will crown them in the trumph The Fourth DISCOURSE That Happinesse consists not in Pleasure but in Grief OF all the Sects which have opposed Truth the most dangerous is that of the Epicures For though base and unjust in that it gave the Body preheminence over the Minde and Pleasure the right hand of Vertue Nevertheless it surprised men at first sight and seduced them by a name which bears some analogy with that of felicity For whatever Idea men fashion of this it is impossible to separate it from Pleasure and very casie to confound them together We cannot imagine such a thing as the supream Good but we must conceive it agreeable nor can we perswade our selves that there is felicity where there is not content This hath procured more Disciples to this shameful Sect then to all the rest and made it triumph over the reason of the Academicks and the supercilious vanity of the Stoicks Allsinners took part with this Philosophy Christian Religion which destroyed Idolatry hath not been able to ruine this and the Church bears those in her bosome who boast themselves Christians but are indeed Epicures The whole world courts pleasure by different addresses 'T is the Idol that hath most Altars and receives most Sacrifices The Ambitious are her slaves they adore Voluptuousness under the name of Glory and suffer themselves to be charm'd by the allurements that attend a great reputation The Covetous are her Votaries they offer Incense to this false Deity they seek for pleasure in the arms of profit nor do they so much doat upon riches because profitable as because agreeable Indeed the Supream Good is inseparable from pleasure and as you cannot see the Sun but must be enlightned no more can men behold the Supream Good without being charm'd Delectatio ex fruitione summi boni necessario sequitur Aug. If delectation be but a consequence of Happiness as some Philosophers affirm it is at least necessary and I account it no more impossible to see God and not love him then to love and see him without receiving contentment in him Therefore the errour of the Epicures consists not in placing Beatitude in Pleasure but in placing pleasure in the body because man being compounded of a body and a minde ought to be happy in both these parts Let us combate this Monster which against nature destroys not men but because he flatters them nor is dangerous but because he is over complacent There is no body but confesseth that Beatitude consists in a union with God by means of the understanding and the will we must renounce reason to oppose this truth and cease to be men to doubt of a Maxim authorised by all profane Philosophy God is the Ultimate End of his creatures and consequently their perfect Happiness The Understanding and the Will are the two noblest faculties of the soul the wings that make her soar aloft and the chains that fasten her to the object she loves so that she is never more happy then when united to the Supream Good by Knowledge and Love whatever hinders this union is contrary to it and whatever separates or removes her from God is the enemy of her felicity It is easie thence to infer that sensual pleasures cannot cause our felicity because they suffer not our souls to be united to God and imbark her so strongly in the flesh that she seems to have lost all the qualities of a spirit Impurity produceth store of miseries in the world nor can we invent too many invectives against a sin that defiles a man and of an Angel makes a Beast But the greatest of its enormities is that it inebriates our soul with its poison and makes us lose the remembrance of all Divine things Nothing pleaseth the slaves it tyrannizeth over but sensuality whatever affects not the senses seems not true they take the pleasures of the minde for meer illusions and as if the glory of Heaven were but a fable or an imposture they are less affected with the consideration of them then reasonable men with the reading of Romance This misfortune produceth another For as pleasure separates men from God it fastens them to the creatures their inferiours and debasing them below themselves Quisquis quod seitso est deterius sequitur fit ipse de erior Aug. communicates the bad qualities of the things they doat upon Love is a kind of medley it confounds those subjects it unites and by a wonderful Chymistry makes them pass one into another Thence it comes to pass that Kings become Slaves when they love their Subjects and renounce their power when abandon'd to dalliance They fall from their Greatness when they engage in an affection and as the noblest metals lose their purity when mixt with those of a baser allay Soveraigns quit their Majesty when allied with their Subjects Thus the man who gluts
between Life and Death Finally our Creator never loses his right over his creatures they are at his disposal in what place soever they are Their changing of form makes them not change condition and because they pass thorow three or four Elements they depend not lesse upon his Omnipotence The body of man is always the work of God and he may after its corruption restore its beauty and re-unite it to the soul like a wise Artist having reduced a statue to powder may by his skil restore it to the primitive form All the difficulties our spirit can suggest in this miracle are easily master'd by him that can do all things and having well weighed the wonders of the Creation it will be no hard matter to comprehend those of the Resurrection Inasmch as the body receives life in this and is re-united with the soul it is happily delivered from all the miseries it had contracted in its birth or during its life If Nature were mistaken in forming it the Authour of Nature corrects the faults in raising it He gives it its just dimension its lawful proportion and retrenching whatever was superfluous makes it a compleat piece But because it is not enough to take away the defects to render it happy God gives it advantages in glory which it had not in innocence For although the body before it was infected with sin was not rebellious against the minde nor subject to grief and death it was nevertheless capable of corruption The Natural heat consumed the substance and the waste it made was to be repaired by nourishment Though he were obedient yet was he an Animal and though he felt no disorders yet was he liable to infirmities his weight would have hindered him from following his soul to Heaven he could not walk upon the water nor penetrate the Chrystal and had he not prevented hunger and thirst by eating and drinking he had never held out against griefe and death Finally though he enjoyed the priviledges of Original Righteousness he wanted those of Glory and though innocent was neither incorruptible nor illuminated But in the Resurrection he shall receive all these qualities and as the soul is now corporeal because wholly engaged in the body by a happy retaliation the body will be spiritual because perfectly submitted to the soul and as the soul saith Saint Augustine though corporeal ceaseth not to be a spirit the body though spiritual ceaseth not to be a body It will change condition though it change not nature and will have advantages which shall set it free from all the miseries it now endures It s subtilty will surpass that of the light will penetrate all solid bodies nothing shall be able to withstand its desires and being no longer the Prison but the Temple of his soul will find no obstacles that stop it nor chains that intangle it It s agility will be so great that it will outstrip the winds and lightning will fly without wings thorow the spacious regions of the air will walk upon the water and not sink and in a moment passing from one end of the world to another will be no longer the clog and torment of the soul It s impassibility will free it from all the injuries of the Seasons and Elements the naturall heat which now consumes him shall no more corrode the naturall Moisture The Contraries that compose him will agree and being no longer tormented with hunger and thirst will stand in need neither of meat nor drink He will be in a state of consistency wherein he will have his just proportion nor will he expect from time his youth or old age he will enjoy an eternall spring of years which will never wither he will see the dayes passe on and never feel any declension in himself his budding verdure will fear no winter the Lillies and the Roses of his countenance will keep their freshness and as original righteousness served for a Garment for innocent man glory will be insteed of a robe to the blessed His brightness will surpass that of the Sun the raies which dart from his eyes will dim those of this Glorious Luminary and he will cast such lights and flames that the least glorified Body will be able to illuminate the Universe His immortality will be the Crown of his Happiness That pittilesse monster which exerciseth his rigour upon all men pursues them into the Grave reduceth them to powder after the worms have devoured them This Cruell one I say will have no more power over the Blessed he will discharge his fury upon the damned in Hell he will make a league with life to torment them Eternally and that which endures here but for a moment will last for ever in that dismall habitation to lengthen their pains according to the obstinacy of their crimes But he will respect his Conquerors and beholding the Blessed as the Members of him that hath defeated him upon the Crosse will not dare to set upon them afresh nor so much as appear in their presence Then shall the happinesse of men be perfect when a glorified soul shall inanimate an immortall Body and mutually communicating all their advantages the soul shall be happy in the felicity of the Body and the Body happy in that of the Soul All their differences shall be composed in this General peace the Soul shall forget all the Revolts of the Body nor shall the Body any more complain of the severities of the Soul but both of them remembring onely the Good offices they have done each other they shall reign in Heaven in a Community of Glory as they lived upon Earth in a Community of Merits But to arrive to this Happy condition the Spirit must war against the Flesh and Repentance give the faithfull those Priviledges Glory instates the Blessed in For though there be nothing more opposite to Rest then a Conflict yet is it the Conflict that gains us the victory Ex bello pax pugna enim nos praeparat victoriae victoria nobis obtinet triumphum Chry. and the victory that procures us the peace Though there be nothing more contrary to Happiness theu Pain it is notwithstanding austerity that subjects the Body to the Soul and makes us see in our Banishment a perfect Image of Glory For if it be true that the Blessed feel no Rebellion in their person and if their Body be perfectly subjected to their minde we must acknowledg that the Christian cannot pretend to any part of this advantage but by the help of repentance It is this vertue that tames the Pride of the flesh this faithfull minister of the Divine Justice which makes Charity reign in spite of Concupiscence and all the peace we have in the earth we owe it to the zeal and austerity of crucifixion If the Blessed be disengaged from the world if their condition be separated from ours and if finding all things in the Divine Essence meat cloaths and lodging be useless to them it seems Repentance
of God who made use of sin to destroy sin as saith the Apostle of the Gentiles De peccato damnavit peccatum and changing his death into a sacrifice made it a satisfaction for all our iniquities For if Baptism make us die to sin it is upon no other ground but because it imprints in our souls the merit and image of the death of Christ and by an invisible but a true and real grace works in us a desire to part with all that is derived from Adam This makes the * Infelix ego homo quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus Rom. 7. Saints that they cannot endure the rebellions of concupiscence that they employ all their strength to smother these embryo's that being true to Grace they resist all the motions of its Enemy groaning when they are compelled to follow or suffer his disorders They know that Christ died to oblige them to die to sin that he was not nail'd to the Cross but to crucifie them to the world nor buried in the grave but that the earth might be their sepulchre All that is in the world Crucifixus est Christus ut vos crucifigamini mundo mortuus est ut vos moriamini peccato saeculo vivatis Deo sepultus est ut vos consepeliamini illi per baptismum Apostolo dicente Consepulti sumus c. ut sicut ille semel surgens à mortuis jam non moritur ita vos vetustate mortalitatis per Baptismum mortificati vitale indumentum induti non iterum per peccata in anima in morte retrahamiâ—i Aug. de Expos Orat. Dom. Symbol Serm. 3. displeaseth them diversions are their torments that which is a recreation to sinners afflicts them and knowing very well the minde of the Lord Jesus they endeavour to fulfil it even with the loss of their own lives Saint Augustine entertained the Catechumeni heretofore with these obligations and expounding to them the doctrine of the Gospel taught them that Baptism engaged them in death Jesus Christ said he was crucified that you might be so to the world he suffered death that you might die to sin he was buried that you might be together with him and having put off the old man Adam and being cloathed with the new man Jesus Christ you may die no more in your souls by sin All the other Fathers speak the same language teaching us that there is a death and a life hid in Baptism producing real effects in our souls Thence ariseth the inclination all Christians have to die and to live thence proceed those obstinate conflicts they entertain self-love with thence spring those violent desires to be separated from the world and the flesh that they may be no longer subject to their tyranny But because this Mystery very much concerns our salvation it deserves a more ample explication from us that we may disclose the truths and obligations that lie wrapt up in it The Son of God is willing that as his death is the Principle so it should be the Rule and Example of our salvation as he died to deliver us he would have us die to honour him and as he entered not into glory but by the door of the Cross neither must we pass to the resurrection but by the gate of the Grave He died saith the great Apostle that by his death he might ruine the Empire of sin He died that losing all the imperfections he drew from Adam he might rise again to life everlasting He died that satisfying his Father we might be no longer responsible to his Justice All these considerations oblige us to die in Baptism Pro omnibus mortuus est ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est debet ergo vita hominis in se deficere in Christo proficere ut dicat cum Apostolo Vivo ego jam non ego Aug. Serm. de Epiphan if we intend to be the images of Jesus Christ we must destroy sin by death that dying we may be born again and making a sacrifice of our death we may be changed into spotless Victims But as the Son of God was not content onely to die but was willing to joyn the ignominy of the grave to the bitterness of his death Sicut Christus sepultus fuit in terra sic baptizatus mergitur in aqua Nicol. de Lyra. because there was a second punishment of sin comprised in those words of our Arrest Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return he will have our death followed with a funeral and that the same Sacrament that makes us die bury us together with him Consepulti sumus cum Christo. Burial addes to the dead corpse two or three notable conditions The first is Coemeteria extra urbes utnullum esset viveniuÌ„ cum mort uis mmercium that he that is buried is separated from the company of the living that he remains in the regions of death and hath no more commerce with the present world So the Christian is buried with the Son of God because he is removed from amongst wicked men neither doth the state of death into which he is entered suffer him to converse with them Quid est mori peccatâ— consepeliri cum Christo nisi damnandis operibus omnino non vivere nihil concupiscere carnaliter nihil ambire sicut qui mortuus est carne nulli detrahit nullum aversatur Prosp de vita contemp c. 21 He hath now no ears to hear calumnies no eyes to gaze upon the beauties of the earth no desires nor pretensions after the honours of the world and his death being attended with a funeral he protests aloud that he hath renounced all hopes of the things of the world The second condition of this state is the duration that goes along with it For though death be eternal in respect of the Creature nor can any but an Almighty power re-unite the soul with the body when once separated yet there seems to remain some faint hope as long as the body is not committed to the grave we watch it to see if that which appears a death be but a swoon or trance and there have been those that have died and rose again the same day without a miracle But when the body is laid in the sepulchre drooping Nature is then past all hope This dismal abode hath no intercourse with life 't is an everlasting habitation whence there is no return but by a prodigie Sepulchra eoruÌ„ domus illoruÌ„ in aeternuÌ„ jam quia constructa sunt sepulchra domus sunt sepulchra quia ibi semper crunt ideo domus in aeternum Aug. in Psal 48. 't is the place where worms serving for ministers of the Divine Justice discharge their fury upon men till being reduced to powder there remains nothing of these famous criminals Thus the Christians when baptized are as it were interred to
to make them fructifie by good works whoever neglects this care cannot preserve his grace any long time and he that resists not Temptation which remains after sin is in great danger to be speedily deprived of the Innocence of Baptism To all these internal evils which seize us may be added those external ones which surround us for if Regeneration reform not the disorders of our soul nor of our body it never asswageth the persecution of the Elements Though we be justified by Baptism we are not instated in our primitive advantages The Curse issued out against the Creatures is not taken away by Grace and as we experience revolts in our person we resent them also in our state The Earth hath not recovered her former fruitfulness it brings forth thorns to this day to punish us it nourisheth monsters that make war against us it rends asunder in gaping chasms to swallow us up and levels mountains to overwhelm us Every Element mindes us of our misery they make no difference between an Infidel and a Christian Though the Angels respect their character Creatures despise it or know it not The Sea drowns Our Vessels as well as those of the Turks To be reconciled with God makes us not friends with the Windes a man must be a Saint that commands the Waves And if together with our Charity we have not also the gift of Miracles we know not how to calm the Sea nor to appease Tempests The Fire spares not all Innocents it hath burnt Martyrs who had no less faith then the Three Children that walk'd untouch'd in the midst of the fiery furnace it sometimes blends it self with Thunder and being blinde strikes the Just as often as the Guilty The Church canonizeth some Saints which that element hath reduced to Powder and because she knows that the sentence of our death speaks of dust and ashes she wonders not if Thunder have the same operation upon some Saints which Time is designed to have upon All men Finally all the Elements teach us that we are Miserable though we be not Criminal Baptism that delivers us from Sin frees us not from Punishment God will have the World persecute us that we may hate it he hath ordained the place of our banishment to be troublesome lest it should make us forget our Country This is the Advantage we draw from our Evil the Comfort we retain in our Miseries and 't is enough to make us stoop with all humility to the Justice of God inasmuch as we know that our Punishment may as well be serviceable to our own Salvation as to his Glory The Second TREATISE Of the Spirit of a Christian The first DISCOURSE That every Body hath its Spirit and what that of the Churches is IN Nature every thing hath its own Spirit and if we believe Chymists there is no element though never so simple out of which the Essent though never so simple out of which the Essence may not be extracted They make daily Experiments hereof with the Fire and dividing what Nature had united they separate the Form from the Matter The World according to the relation of some Philosophers hath a Soul that inanimates it which is shed abroad thorow all its parts and which according to their divers dispositions produceth divers effects 'T is this Divine Spirit that gives it motion that waters it with fruitfulness whereby it hatcheth all those wonders whose causes men are ignorant of As Artificial things are the images of Natural neither do men make any thing whereof they take not the Copie from Nature as from a perfect Original there is not any Sect that hath not its particular humour and difference The Peripateticks take all their light from Argumentation and Experience Alii alia de anima disceptant prout aut Platonis honor aut Zenonis vigor aut Aristotolis tenor aut Empedoclis furor aut Epicuri stupor aut Heracliti maeror persuascrunt Tert. de Ani. Authority hath no credit in their School they desert their Master when he agrees not with Truth and laughing at the blinde obedience of the Pythagoreans they believe nothing but what they discover by Sense or by Discourse The Platonicks march upon the higher ground but less certain less solid Animus cernit animus audit reliquae surda caeca sunt impedimentum est corpus non socium ad cognoscendam veritatem Tert. de Plato for they withdraw from the Senses as from the enemies of truth they look upon them as upon faithless ministers or pleasing impostors which beholding nought but the shadows of things present us with nothing but Errors and falshoods Their Spirit savours more of Intelligence then of Science as if individuals were unworthy of their observation they consider nothing but generals and leaving men and beasts Iste Academicue quiae omnia esse contendit incerta indignus est qui habeat ulld in his rebus authoritatem August de Cice. they contemplate only Angels and Ideas The Academicks are parted between these two they allow something to Reason and Intelligence they are more noble then the Peripateticks but not so credulous as the Platonicks they make the senses servants to Reason but having a minde to see a part of what they believe they make a Sect whose principall difference is doubt and uncertainty The Stoicks are as capacious as they are proud Magna promittitis quae optari quidem nedum credi possint deinde sublato alte supercilio in eadem quae caeteri desceuditis mutatis rerum nominibus Seneca ordinary proceedings please them not nothing seems generous that is not extravagant all common Opinions stumble them they judge so ill of the people that they take all their votes for Errours Their Pride which is the very soul of their Sect formes Ideas of vertue which not one of them can reach unto and they propound a Sage so exactly perfect to their Disciples that they put them past all hope of imitating him at the very same time they stirre up a desire in them to become their Proselytes The Epicures search after nothing but pleasure because they conceive it inseparable from vertue Their Sect which is soft onely in expressions is austere really and in deed Mea quidem sententia est Epicurum sancta recta praecipere si propius accesseris tristia voluptas enim illa ad parvum exile revocatur quam nos virtuti legem dicimus eam ille dicit voluptati Jubet illam parere naturae parum est autem luxuriae quod naturae satis est Senec de vita beat cap. 13. they reduce the desires of men to things meerly necessary they part with superfluities joyfully and placing their felicity in their Conscience they count themselves happy in the midst of Torments These Philosophers speak not of pleasure but to make their Disciples in love with vertue and if there have been found some who have deserted vertues side to embrace that of pleasure it
provoke him The Third TREATISE Of the Christians Head The first DISCOURSE That the CHRISTIAN hath two Heads ADAM and JESUS CHRIST IF Bodies with two Heads passe for Monsters humane Nature may very well passe for a Prodigie in that it hath two Chiefes upon which it depends and that as Adam communicates his Sin to it by Generation making it guilty and miserable Jesus Christ communicates his Grace to it by Baptisme making it innocent and happy 'T is true Nature might have expected great advantages from this first Head had he kept his originall Righteousnesse for our Divines confesse that Adam being Chiefe of all men received Grace not onely for himselfe but for all his Posterity that as his sinne passeth into his children by Generation Grace had passed into them by the same conveyance and that then they had been borne innocent as now they are borne criminall Together with grace he had communicated to them all the Priviledges he had received from God in the Creation Their bodies had been freed from those troublesome maladies that exercise our patience and originall righteousnesse had knit the body so close to the soule that their peace had never been disturb'd by these intestine divisions that set them so much at distance Nourishment had repair'd the radicall moisture that the naturall heat had consum'd and the fruit of the Tree of Life retaining something of our Sacraments had imparted to them a new vigour that had secur'd them against old Age and Death Their soul had not been worse provided for then their body for with Grace they had received all vertues and according to Saint Augustine either they had had the use of reason for their service or they had learn'd with so much easinesse that Ignorance had never been their Torment In this happy condition the Will had been more free then now it is the passions were so subject to reason that they had never been up but by his order Concupiscence that tyrannizeth over the children of Adam Summa in carne sanitas in anima tota tranquilitas Aug. lib. 14. de Civ c. 26. had not enslav'd the soule to the body and though the inferiour part had felt it's naturall inclinations Grace had so well moderated them that they had never undertaken any thing either against justice or honesty Thence it comes to passe that these austere vertues that have nothing else to do but to combate the motions of the flesh had serv'd rather for his ornament then for his defence Thence it followes that Grace had not been the Mistresse of the Will because having no bad inclinations she might have guided her selfe provided she were but supported nor had there been any danger that she that was not yet a Captive to sinne should have the chiefe disposall of his salvation we are not certain that if Adam had preserved his innocence his children had been impeccable neither know we if the sinne of other men had injur'd their posterity and if having lost the advantages of originall righteousnesse in their own behalfe they had lost them also as concerning their successours This condition is so conceal'd that we have nothing but weak conjectures of it every one extolls or debaseth it according to his humour and having neither Scripture nor Tradition for their rule all the world may diminish or adde something to their happinesse 'T is certain neverthelesse Sicut in Paradiso nullus aestus aut frigus sic in ejus habitatione nulla ex cupiditate vel timore bonae voluntatis offensio Aug. lib. 14. de Civ c. 26. that all the torments that came into the world with sinne had never discompos'd his quiet The Seasons had not been irregular the Elements had not bid him battel the Earth had been fruitfull without tilling and thorns that are the fruits of sinne had not dishonoured the face thereof Deluges that drowned the world Drought that makes the fields barren Pestilence that depopulates Cities and mows down the Inhabitants having no other cause but sinne had made no devastations in an innocent State and men being upon good terms with God had found their happinesse under the protection of his Grace having lived some Ages upon the earth Proinde si non peccasset Adam non erat expoliandus corpore sed supervestiendus immortalitate Aug. they had been translated into heaven where Glory consuming what they had of perishable had made them perfectly immortall without passing them through the pangs of immortality The two parts that compose man had not been separated the Master-piece of the Creation had not been ruin'd and the soul reigning with Angels had not beheld her body devoured by worms in the Sepulchre See here a rude draught of the state of Innocence and a slight shadow of the glorious advantages children had derived from their father had he kept originall righteousnesse but the evils he procur'd them surpasse the priviledges in number and quality For his sinne is the source and fountain of all misfortunes we are not guilty but because we are his Members we sinn'd by his will because we lived in his person and the offence of one man is become the obliquity of whole Nature because it was included in him as the Tree in the Kernell or as a River in the Head Quia vero per liberum arbitrium Deum deseruit justum Dei judicium expertus est ut cum tota sua stirpe quae in illo adhuc posita tota cum illo peccaverat damnaretur Aug. This is it that Saint Augustine teacheth us in those no lesse handsom then solid expressions Adam felt the just judgement of God because abusing his free will he was unjustly separated from him and punishment was inflicted upon him with his whole race because being in him as in the stock they had wholly transgress'd with him The same also he delivers with as much or more eloquence in his Enchiridion for searching out the cause of so many evils that assault us he concludes that the sinne of our first father is the originall thereof and that we are therefore criminall and miserable because we are a part of him Thence it comes to passe saith he that being banished out of Paradise after his transgression he was condemned to death with all his Posterity who living in him as in their Principle were infected with his prevarication as the branches wither in their stock and die in their root Thence it comes to passe that all children that descend from him and from his wife the Complice of his offence and of his punishment are the heirs of his corruption This sinne passeth into them by the channell of concupiscence and makes them sensible of a torment which seems the image of their disobedience since one part of themselves is revolted against the other This revolt engaging their soule in vanity and their body in pain leads them insensibly with the rebellious Angels to that last Judgement which will never have an end Let us
kingdom of Life but by Jesus Christ As all that are born of Adam are sinners all that are born again of Jesus Christ are justified and as all the sons and daughters of Adam are the children of the earth and death all the children of Jesus Christ are the children of heaven and of life This Maxime is so true that man makes no more progresse in perfection then according as he doth in allyance with Jesus Christ The more Faith he hath the lesse hath he of Errour and Falshood the more hope he conceives in the mercy of God the lesse confidence hath he in the favour of men the more he burns with the fire of Charity the lesse is he scorched with the flames of Concupiscence the more he is united to this innocent and glorious Head from whom all grace is derived the lesse is he fixt to that infamous and criminall Head from whom all sin takes it originall so that Christians as we have already proved ought to have no other care but to make Adam die and Jesus Christ live in their person if they intend to be innocent they must be Parricides if they will bestow life upon the Son of God they must inflict death upon their first Father if they meane to be quickned with the spirit of humility which raiseth men in debasing them they must renounce the spirit of vain-glory which lays men low in lifting them up and under a colour of making Gods of them makes them nothing but Devils or Beasts Finally mans unhappinesse flows from the shamefull alliance he contracted with Adam in his Birth Ex transgressione primi hominis universum genus humanum natum cum obligatione peccati victor Diabolus possidebat si enim sub captivitate non teneremur redemptore non indigeremus venit ad captivos non captus venit ad captivos redimendos nihil in se captivitatis ha bens sed carne mortali pretium nostrum portans Aug. de Verb. Apo. Ser. 22. and the Christians happinesse proceeds from the glorious alliance he contracted with Jesus Christ in Baptisme Thus the quality of a Chief in Adam is the source of all our Evils and the quality of a Chief in Jesus Christ is the Originall of all our Good and as Adam did not so much destroy us in being our Father as in being our Head neither doth Jesus Christ save us so much for being his Brethren or his Children as because we are his members because 't is in effect this quality that procures us all the rest neither is God our Father but because Jesus Christ is our Head The Second DISCOURSE Of the Excellencies of the Christians Head and the advantages they draw from thence THough all the alliances Jesus Christ hath contracted with men be as beneficiall to them as they are honourable yet must we confesse that the relation that unites him to them as their Head is the strictest and most advantageous 'T is much that he would be their King and giving them Laws had owned them for his Subjects 'T is more yet that he condescended to be their Brother and sharing his Eternall Inheritance with them made them Co-heirs together with Himself 't is more yet that he made them his Children and conceiving them in his wounds suffered death to give them life But 't is yet a more signall favour that he vouchsafed to make them his Members and joyning them to Himself in one body he is constituted the Head from whence they receive all those indearing influences which communicate to them the life of Grace and merit for them that of Glory Therefore also doth Saint Augustine when he examines the favours we have received from the Father preferre this before all others Nullum majus donum prastâ—re posset hominibus quam ut verbum suum per quod condidit omniâ— faccret illis caput illos ei tanquam membra coaptaret ut esset filius Dei silius hominis unus Deus cum patre unus homo cum hominibus Aug. in Psal 36. Ser. 3. and confesseth he never more sensibly obliged us then when he gave us his onely Son to be our Head God saith he could bestow no higher honour upon men then by uniting them with his Word by whom he created all things as the Members with their Head that he that was the Son of God might be the Sonne of Man and that by reason of his Divine Person subsisting in the Humane Nature he might be God with his Father and Man with his Brethren 'T is in effect from this glorious co-habitation that all our blessings are derived If the Father look upon us 't is because we are the Members of his onely Sonne If he hear our prayers 't is because Jesus Christ speaks by our mouth if he receive us into Glory 't is because he sees us cloathed with the merits of our Head if he admit us into his bosome 't is because the quality we bear renders us inseparable from his Word But if this alliance be beneficiall to Christians 't is honourable to Jesus Christ For though nothing can be added to his Grandeur who is equall to his Father and all the Priviledges he received from his Incarnation may passe for so many Humiliations Neverthelesse the dignity of being Head of the Church is so eminent that after that of the Son of God there is none so Venerable and August It gives Jesus Christ the same advantage over the Faithfull that the Head hath over the Members and to conceive what he is in the Church we must observe what this is in the Body The Head is the noblest seat of the Soul 't is that part of the Body where she acts her highest operations 't is there that she debates those subjects that are presented to her that she deliberates upon the accidents that happen 't is there that the memory preserves the species which may be called the treasures of wisdome and the riches of the Intellectuall faculty 't is there that the understanding conceives truths and the will pronounceth determinations In a word 't is there that the affairs concerning Peace and Warre Salvation or Damnation Time or Eternity are treated of Thus also is it in Iesus Christ that all those lights reside that govern the Church 't is in him that are shut up all the treasures of wisdome and from him that all Oracles proceed whereby the Faithfull are instructed The Head is the most eminent part of the Body Nature was willing that as it is the noblest so it should be placed nearest Heaven and the very situation should oblige all the other parts to shew it reverence It is the most exalted that it may more easily dispence its orders and that the spirits which convey sense and motion by the nerves may descend with more facility into all the parts of the body Iesus Christ also is in the highest place of his State he reignes in Heaven with his Father from thence he views all
the necessities of his Body he sends those influences that are needfull to every particular member distributing light and heat according to his own designes and their necessities The Head is the most illustrious throne of the Soul she hath all the senses for ornament or for defence The Ears serve as Scouts which exactly report whatever the confusion of noises or distinction of voices can inform either doubtfull or certain The Eyes are faithfull Guides discovering the Essence of things by discovering the accidents under which they are veiled The Palate is the taster of meats judgeth of good and bad and following the orders of his Soveraign receives the one and rejects the other The Nose is not only the unloader of the Brain and the ornament of the Face but the seat of smelling and discerns of sents that as the Head is the Queen Regent of the Body she may have all things necessary for the preservation of her Subjects Thus may we say that the Son of God possesses all the Graces that are dispersed amongst the Faithful that he hath all the gifts of the holy Ghost which are as the senses of the Mystical Body and includes all the vertues that serve either for the ornament or defence of his members Omnia fere dona nostra habent adjunctam imperfectionem unde continentia est hostis testis concupisâ—entiae Aug. He hath moreover some advantages which others enjoy not and as he is the Head of the Church his Father was pleased that he should be happy in his mortall passage that his light should have no shadow of darknesse that he should preserve his Innocence in the midst of our sins whereof he was the pledge that he should have the gift of Prophecy without obscurity and that all his Graces should be free from those imperfections in men they are accompanied with If this wonderfull Chief have some priviledges common with the Head he hath others that are particular and which force us to confesse that hee is much nobler then that goodly part that commands all the rest For the Head can neither be younger nor elder then the Body Nature forms them both together and at the same time that she lengthens the arm extends the Shoulders fastens the Legs she opens the Eyes boars the Ears fashions the Nose and pefects the Head But Iesus Christ is Independent of his Members he was born at the very instant he chose with his Father and as he quickens his Body before his Birth so doth he after his Death All the Faithfull that were before him lived by the Grace they drew from him and all that come after him live now by the influences they receive from his Sacred Person He acted in the world before he came into the world He sanctified the Patriarchs of whom he was to be born He inanimated those Kings that were his Ancestors and contrary to all the orders of Nature he gave life to those from whom he was to receive it We cannot deny but his Grace was more powerfull in this particular then the sin of Adam for this wretched Parent communicated not his poison but to those that descended from him he made none but his children heirs of his misfortune and whoever sprang not from that unfortunate stock may boast himself innocent But the Son of God acts indifferently upon all men his power is not bounded by Ages the Future depends upon him as well as the Past and the Saints that saw the Deluge of the world owe their grace to him as well as those that shall see the Conflagration of it He hath this advantage common to him with those causes which act before they are and being the last in execution cease not to operate because they are the first in intention Thus the Son of God produceth wonders at the birth and at the dissolution of Ages though he were not born till the fulness of time because he is the first in the intention of his Father the Faithful are but for him and all the Elect are the Members which make up that Body whereof he is the Head Vicerunt sancti in sanguine Agni Apoc. Agnus est occisus ab origine mundi caput nostrii Christus est Corpus capitis illius nos sumus nunquid soli nos non etiam illi qui fuerunt ante nos Omnes qui ab inicio saeculi fuerunt justi caput ChristuÌ„ habent Aug. Serm. 3. in Psal 36. This is the truth that S. John teacheth us when he saith that the Saints overcame by the blood of the Lamb that was slain from the beginning of the world For though he died not till the reign of Tiberius his blood failed not to produce effects in all the differences of time and as the Martyrs of the Old Testament were not less his Members then those of the New they owed their conflicts their victories their triumphs to his vertue This circumstance greatly magnifies the power of Jesus Christ and makes us see that the treasures of his merits are infinite in that he is not onely unable to be exhausted by all the Faithful that are enriched by him but because his liberality was laid open from the beginning of the world The Kings of the earth act not but during their life if they exercise some desires in the hearts of their Subjects before their death they are blinde velleities which are many times attended with repentance and sorrow if they leave some regret after their death it is quickly buried by the vices or vertues of their Successors and when we no longer feel the benefit of their Protection we are no longer mindful of their Persons But Jesus more powerful and more necessary then Monarchs acted before his Birth and after his Resurrection Christus ante profuit quà m fuit Bern. he governed his Kingdom before he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin he won battels before he had any hands to fight he maintained the Faithful before he had a Soul and gave life to his Members before he received it from his Mother he lived not as yet in Himself and was alive and already in Others he acted not in his Natural body and yet he acted in his Mystical body not being able to express himself by his own mouth he spake by that of the Prophets and gave Laws to all the Jews in the person of Moses His Power was increased by his Death that which ruines the dominion of Princes served onely to establish his Kingdom he was never more absolute then upon the Cross and that head crowned with thorns was never more active then when he stood at bay This Sun never darted forth more rays then when he was in an eclipse nor did the Son of God ever so gloriously triumph over his enemies as when they upbraided him with his weakness and rejoyced at his sufferings Then was it that he conceived the Church in his wounds that he gave his children life by his own death that
Fourth DISCOURSE That the Vnion of Christians with their Head is an Imitation of the Hypostaticall Vnion CHristian Religion acknowledgeth three wonderfull Unities which exercise her Faith enflame her Love and entertain her Piety The first is the Unity of Essence which is found in the Trinity For the same Faith that â—eacheth us there are three Persons in one God teacheth us also that he subsists in one and the same Essence and that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are but one God This Truth soares so high above Humane Understanding that it cannot be conceived otherwise then by the light of Faith Reason would deceive should she be consulted with in this mystery Man would not be more faithfull Considera quod voceris fidelis non rationalis si dicas hoc non est exponcre sed expositione fugere respondeo in die judicii non damnor quia dicam nescivi naturam Dei mei si aâ—tem aliquid temere dixero temeritas poenam habas ignorantia veuiam meretur Aug. Ser. 1. de Trinitate should he labour to be more rationall in this subject and hee will fall into the Heresie of the Arrians or into that of the Sabellians did he not subject his Reason to his Faith The second is the Unity of Person in Iesus Christ which honours the Unity of Essence in the Trinity though it be in some sort opposite thereto For as there are three Persons in God which preserve their differences in the Unity of their Nature that the Trinity is neither confounded by the Unity Decuit cum summa quâ— in Deo est unitate congruere ut quomo o ibi tres personae una essentia it a hic convenientissima quadam contrarietate tres essentiae fint una persona Bern. lib. 5. de Consider cap. 9. nor the Unity divided by the Trinity There are three Natures in Jesus Christ that subsist in one and the same Person and which without losing their proprieties make one composition which is called God-Man There by a strange prodigie Flesh and Spirit agree with Divinity neither are the two Others swallowed up in This Each Nature preserves its rights and as the soul is not debas'd by being engaged in the Flesh the Divinity is not disparaged by being associated to both This shines forth by Miracles the Other Two are obscured by Injuries In a word the Son of God never loseth his Equality with his Father nor the Son of Man his Equality with his Mother The third Unity is that of the Body which is found between Christ and his Church for though there be so much difference between these two Persons Love hath combined them so neer together that not confounding their properties he hath made there of but one Body whereof Jesus Christ is the Head and the Faithful the Members They live of one and the same Spirit their Interests are common though one raign triumphantly in heaven the other suffer miserably upon earth they fail not to be so perfectly knit together that the Body is happie in the Head and the Head is afflicted in the Members Of these Three admirable Unities the Second adores the First and the Third the Second For the principal designe of the Word in his Incarnation is to honour the Trinity of the Divine Persons by the Trinity of his Natures and to pay homage to the Unity of the Divine Essence by the Unity of his Person This Divine Compound is an Image of the Trinity it declares the wonders thereof by its constitution neither did he take pleasure to unite the Flesh and the Spirit with the Divinity but to express to the Faithful the ineffable Unity between the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit in the difference of their personal proprieties Indeed this incomprehensible Mystery was not preached among the children of men till the Word became Incarnate and their Understanding clarified with the light of Faith began not to conceive the Trinity of the Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence till it conceived the Trinity of the Natures in the Unity of the Person of the Word Finally the Third Unity renders honour to the Second seeing Jesus Christ entred not into society with his Church but in pursuance of the affinity he had contracted with Humane Nature It seems he was willing to extend the mystery of the Incarnation in that he made all men his Members to make them the children of God and not being able or not vouchsafing to unite himself personally with every Christian he became united to them in the unity of the Spirit and of the Body The First of these Marriages is the example of the Second and we cannot well express the Union of Jesus Christ with his Church but by that of the Word with our Nature The Resemblances are so wonderful that they justly deserve this Discourse to see if we can clear them The chiefest secret of this mystery is that the Plurality of Nature destroys not the Unity of the Person Verbum caro factum unus est Christus ubi nihil est alterius naturaeâ—quod sit utriusque D. Leo. Serm. 10. de nat Dom. For though the Flesh have its weaknesses and the Divinity its perfections in Jesus Christ 't is nevertheless an admirable Compound that preserves its unity in the difference of its Natures he acts sometimes as God sometimes as Man receives the adorations of Angels and the injuries of Men that obeys his Father and commands with him suffers upon the Cross and reigns in Glory that 's buried with the dead in the Grave and triumphs over the devil in hell But in these different conditions he ceaseth not to be one and the same subject who accommodating himself to the proprieties of his Natures mixes Greatness with Humility Joy with Sorrow Repentance with Innocence without interessing his Person The same wonder is met with in the Marriage of Christ with his Church they are different in their qualities and 't is a strange effect of Love that was able to finde out a means to unite together two subjects whose conditions are so dissonant The one is Soveraign because God the other a slave because redeemed the one innocent the other guilty the one reigns in Eternity the other sighs and groans in Time nevertheless their Union is so strict that without confounding their properties they compose one and the same Body and both together make up but one onely Jesus Christ Whence it comes to pass that S. Augustine who after S. Paul hath best understood this Mystery Totus Christus secundum Ecclesiam caput corpus est non quia sinc corpore non est integer sed quia nobiscuÌ„ integer esse dignatus est qui sine nobis semper est integer Veruntamen fratres quomodo corpus ejus nos si non nobiscum unum Christus Aug. in Serm. Quod tribusmodis Christus intelligitur delivers these words One onely Jesus Christ is the Body and
the Head of the Church not that he is not entire without this Body but he that is entire without us as Man and God was pleased to be entire with us as Head For how shall we be one Body with him if he were not one Christ with us and how shall he speak in our person if he give us not the liberty to speak in his Jesus Christ then and the Church make up but one Body and both of them together make that admirable Compound which by reason of the difference of its parts bears sometimes the name of Jesus Christ and sometimes the name of the Church This leads us to the second Resemblance between the Union of the Humanity with the Divinity and that of Jesus Christ with the Faithful For the former is so perfect that without offending the two Natures that subsist in the Word all that may be said of the one which is said of the other The Communication of Properties produceth that of Idiomes and without uttering blasphemies we attribute to Man all that may be attributed to God Thus without doing any violence to Truth we say that God is Man and that Man is God that Man commands over Death that God is subject to the dominion thereof that Man contains the whole world in his Innocency and that God is inclosed in the chaste womb of a Virgin that Man bears rule with his Father and that God obeys with his Mother All these manners of speech which else had been blasphemies are now great Verities and as if the Word had been willing to satisfie the unjust passion of Man that desired to be God he hath exalted him to his Greatness in uniting him to his Person and by priviledge hath conferred that upon him by Grace which by Nature he was no ways able to attain unto Such is the Union of Jesus Christ with his Church the communication of their Goods hath produced the communication of Dialects we speak of them so confusedly that there are no Elogies given to Jesus Christ which may not be given to his Spouse he loads himself with her sins and cloathes her with his merits he gives her part of his innocence and covers himself with her unrighteousness so that without prejudicing the Greatness of Jesus Christ and the Modesty of the Church we may say The Church is perfect in her Head and the Head imperfect in his Members the Church knows all things in her Head and Jesus Christ learns in his Members the Church is innocent in her Head and Jesus Christ guilty in his Members Thus is it that S. Augustine interprets the words of the Prophet Deus Deus meus ut quid me dereliquisti Quare hoc dicitur nifi quia nos ibi eramus nisi quia corpus Christi Ecclesia quomodo dicit delictorum meorum nisi quia pro delictis nostris ipse precatur delict a nostra sua fecit ut juftitiam nostram suam faceret Aug. in Psal 24. Expos 2. Longe à salute mea veâ—ba delictorum meorum and findes that this language that so happily expresseth the love of the Son of God does no way prejudice his innocence Indeed because he is the Head of the Church and this quality unites him with his Members it obliges him to speak of their sins as of his own to pay those debts for them he never contracted and in their name to satisfie the justice of his Father he had no ways offended How saith the same S. Augustine could Jesus Christ make this discourse without wounding his Innocence and Truth it self How could he attribute sins to himself that never committed any How can we believe him true when he made his confession upon the Cross were it not that we acknowledge he applied our offences to himself that he might communicate our righteousness to him and by the communication between the Head and the Members he is charged with our Crimes to enrich us with his Merits This will not seem strange to those that shall consider another parallel between the Marriage of the Humanity with the Divinity and that of Jesus Christ with the Church For though Joy and Sorrow be as incompatible as Sin and Innocence since according to the doctrine of S. Augustine man became not miserable till he became criminal we observe nevertheless both of them in the Person of the Son of God from the very moment of his Incarnation he joyned pain with pleasure during the course of his whole life he tasted the felicity of Angels and resented the miseries of men he is happie and afflicted and contrary to all the laws of Nature and Grace a glorious soul informs a passive body and that which beholds the Divine Essence Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem is obliged to make complaints and shed tears Therefore is it that I have always reverenced that Ancient who call'd Jesus Christ a Paradox because his composition startles Humane Reason associating in his Person Joy and Grief Innocence and Guilt in a word the Majestie of a God with the Weakness of a Man But inasmuch as this Mystery was unconceiveable because hid Jesus Christ was willing to manifest it by the union he contracted with the Church For there may be seen an Image or Representation of that which passed heretofore in the person of the Son of God pleasure may be observed with pain and by a strange wonder Jam in caelo est hic laborat quamdiu laborat Ecâ—lesia his Christus esuris hic sitit nudus est hespes est quicquid enim patitur corpus ejus se dixit paetâ— Aug. the condition of the Blessed twisted with that of the Miserable one and the same Jesus is still a Sufferer and still Glorious he reigns with his Father in heaven and suffers with his People upon earth he triumphs in the Angels and sighs in the Martyrs he is rich in Eternity and poor in Time he makes liberal largesses in his Glory and receives presents in his Poverty and he that possesseth all things in Himself hath need of all things in his Members Finally to conclude these Resemblances the Word uniting it self to the Humanity stoops to exalt it and enters into its Imperfections to give it admittance into his Power For though the Manhood remain in its natural condition yet was it adorned with so many Graces by this sacred Marriage that it became happily acceptable and found it self in a free necessity to love God without being able to offend him it appeared sanctified as soon as conceived glorious as soon as reasonable and by a priviledge which neither Men nor Angels shall ever enjoy it was no sooner drawn out of Nothing but was united to the Eternal Word These Miracles would remain without an Example did we not perceive some shadows thereof in the conjunction of Jesus Christ with the Church For in chusing her for his Spouse he hath endowed her with all the advantages so noble an Alliance could exact
august solemnity then what appeared at the Death of Jesus Christ Men lament the death of their Soveraigns they expresse some sadnesse though for the most part 't is either counterfeit or interessed Those that expected their liberality are afflicted at their death those that feared their power or their displeasure rejoyce But were they so generally beloved that the regret was universall at least we must confesse that Nature would not weep over their Funerals she would be insensible of their death nor would she disorder her Course to witnesse her Lamentation This honour was reserved for Jesus Christ There was never any King but he registred by quick and dead None but this Innocent drew tears from the Stars and the Son of God is the only Soveraign whose obsequies all creatures solemnly attended 'T is true his Mysticall Body partakes of this honour with him Nature hath many times wrought miracles to publish the Innocence of Martyrs the fire hath lost his heat that it might not be instrumentall to their punishment wilde Beasts have waxed tame at their feet Omnes Martyres Deus Spiritualiter liberavit neminem Spritualiter deseruit visibiliter tamē quosdā deseruisse visus est quosdam eripuisse sed ideo quosdam eripuit neputes illum non potuisse eripere ubi non cripuit secretiorem intelligas voluntatem Aug. Tract 8. in Epist 10. and acknowledging in them a Grace more powerfull then that of Originall Righteousnesse they have many times forgot that fiercenesse the sin of man indued them with The Sea hath suffered violence to preserve them hath gently transported them upon his waves or suspending his waters as it were into Wals and Arches hath erected them Temples in his lowest Abysses But the Scripture whose every word is an Oracle teacheth us that the death of the Mysticall Body of Christ shall receive the same honours at the end of the world that his Naturall Body received in Mount Calvary For when the number of the Elect shall be perfect when Jesus Christ coming to judge the quick and the dead shall cut off the corrupted members from his Mysticall Body and remove those from his person that were united to it only by a vain Character and an unprofitable Faith the same prodigies that appeared at his death shall appear at this Judgement and according to the language of the Fathers Nature that bewailed Jesus Christ in his Naturall Body shall bewail him again in his Mysticall Body and all creatures shall put on mourning for the death of their Soveraign Finally these two Bodies shall have the same destiny after their Resurrection as they had the same during their Life for the one shall be glorified as the other and they shall both receive the recompence due to their labours The Son of God rose gloriously out of his Tomb after he had given assurance to his Apostles he was taken up into Heaven to reign there eternally with his Father The Angels made a part of his Triumph the Captives he delivered from the Lymbo's waited upon him those gates of Brasse and Steel that had been shut since the sin of Man opened at his word and his Body that was pierc'd with the nails rent with stripes torn with thorns was set at the right hand of his Father upon a Throne whose ornament was Justice and the foundation Mercy His Mysticall Body shall always receive the same glorious entertainment the Faithfull are admitted into the company of the Blessed the Saints shall reign in Heaven with the Angels they shall be mingled in their Hierarchies according to their merits and as heretofore of the Jew and Gentile was made one Church Militant of Men and Angels is daily made one Church Triumphant The bodies of the Faithfull shall accompany their souls in glory in the generall Resurrection those members that have suffered in the quarrell of Jesus Christ shall be freed from all miseries the Divine Providence shall rouze them out of their dormitories by the clattering sound of a miraculous trumpet it will find in spite of the flames those that have been burnt to ashes in spite of the waters those that have been swallowed up in the deep and working as many miracles as there shall be diversities of death to overcome shall treat the Faithfull as it hath already treated Jesus Christ so that we may say of both the Bodies of the Son of God those glorious words of the Apostle Great is the Mysterie of Godlinesse Indeed 't is a Sacrament of Piety that the Word was pleased to be allied to our nature and to the Church to have a Naturall Body and a Mysticall Body Which was manifested in the flesh both of them were manifested in the flesh because it was requisite that the Word should be made Incarnate to Espouse his Church Justified in the Spirit Both of them were justified in the Spirit because they are purely his work and the Regeneration of Beleevers is an Image of the Birth of Jesus Christ Seen of Angels Both of them appeared to Angels in that the same Spirits that waited upon the Son of God assisted his Spouse and extend their care over all her children Preached to the Gentiles beleeved on in the world Both of them were preached to the Gentiles by the Apostles and the mystery of the Incarnation joyned to that of their Vocation hath made up the best part of the Gospel Both of them were beleeved on in the world nor hath any thing more perswaded us of our future greatenesse then the condescention of the Eternall world Received up into Glory Finally both of them were exalted into Glory there to reign everlastingly that the blessedness of Iesus Christ may have its accomplishment and he be as happy in his Members as in his Person The Sixt DISCOURSE That the Church is the Spouse of Jesus Christ because she is his Body and of the Community of their Marriage ONe of the ancientest qualities of Iesus Christ is that of a Bridegroom Tanquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo Psal 18. the Prophets have honoured him with this title in the Old Testament David in the forty fifth Psalm hath made his Epithalamium and Saint Iohn who was the end of Types and Figures and the Silence of the Prophets gave out that he was the Friend of the Bridegroom But Adam is the first that descovered to us this mystery and by his marriage represented to us that of Iesus Christ with his Church For besides that his wife was taken out of his side whilst he lay asleep as the Church was out of the side of the Son of God when he was dead we know that the Laws of that marriage more respected the second Adam then the first He having neither Father nor Mother was not obliged to forsake them to cleave unto his wife But Iesus Christ at his Incarnation left his Father when he took upon him the form of a Servant and his Mother at his Passion when he suffered death for
of the same Body Non est Judaeus neque Graecus non estliber neque servus non est masulus neque foemina omnes enim vos unum estis in Christo Jesu Gal. 3. nothing but sin can separate Believers As long as they remain in the Church they keep their alliance though removed by distance of place they are always united in the person of their Head though they speak divers tongues they have but one faith though they live under divers Soveraigns they have no law but charity and making up the parts of the same body they have this advantage that they are quickned with the same Spirit This is the second difference I observe between brethren and members for though brothers have tumbled in the same belly issued from the same Father have been nursed with the same milk and brought up in the same family yet many times their minds are as different as their bodies and nature that takes pleasure in the variety of her works or sin that travels to divide them puts so little correspondence in their wils that those that have lived in the same womb cannot live in the same house The Scripture tels us that in the Infancy of the world Cain and Abel were more different in their humours then in their conditions that envy stealing into the heart of the elder defaced all the feelings of nature and counselled him to commit a Parricide The same Scripture instructs us that Jacob and Esau could not agree in their mothers belly that their being twins hindered them not from being enemies that their hatred preceded their knowledge their inclinations set them more at variance then their interests that being not yet in the world they disputed the right of Primogeniture and already fought for the inheritance of their Father Collidebantur in utero ejus parvuli Bonorum malorum in Ecclesia simul pugnantium figura fueruut Jacob Esau in sinu matris sese collidentes Aug. I know very well their division was mysterious that these two brothers represented two people and that this Mother being a Type of the Church bore in her womb an Elect with a Reprobate but before Grace had sanctified Jacob the hatred he bore his brother Esau was founded in nature nor were they disaffected so much from the difference of their destiny as from the contrariety of their humours Now this mischief is never found amongst the members of the same body jealousie hath no dominion in so near an alliance and being quickned by one and the same Spirit they never have any contestation or quarrell Folly or madness must needs have infatuated that man who useth one hand to cut off the other or divides those parts whose preservation consists in their mutuall correspondence What therefore never fals out among members happens many times among brethren notwithstanding all the care nature takes to unite them hatred divides their hearts and experience teacheth us there is no more deadly nor bloody fewd then between persons of so near a relation The most memorable revenges Antiquity mentions are such as men have taken upon their own blood their rage was never more violent then when it succeeded fraternall love and Tyrants may goe to school to those that have executed their fury by taking vengeance on their brethren If the story of Eteocles and Polynices pass for a fable that of Romulus and Remus is reckond for a truth and if we can hardly believe what the Poets tel us of Thyestes and Atreus we dare not question what the Prophets write of Iacob and Esau But should Nature bee so much mistresse as to preserve amity among Brethren there is one mischief she can no ways remedy which proves the ground of wars among Princes and of Law-suits among private persons For the division of goods occasions that of hearts the parting of portions sets men at enmity and as they know their inheritances cannot be divided but they must be diminished they are unwilling to have brothers lest they should be troubled with co-heirs This was the reason Tertullian sometimes made use of to let the Heathens see the Christians much better deserved the name of brothers then those that came from the same Father because the sharing of goods divided the affections of these and covetousnesse which admits of no companions made them contrive the death of their brothers after they had longd for that of their Fathers Indeed the Son of God hath remedied this disorder in his Church because the Inheritance of Christians being infinite cannot be divided They enjoy one and the same good in common they spoil not others of what they possesse themselves and as light communicates it self intirely to every person felicity is wholly imparted to every Beleever Neverthelesse we must acknowledge that the quality of members addes something in this point to that of brethren for whatever good intelligence there is between these it never equals what is between those Brothers alwayes study their own advantage as they are separated by birth so are they parted by interests neither can charity well regulate their desires that the one doe not many times enrich themselves with the losse of the other Qui enim non est Christo contrarius in corpore ipsius haret membrum computatur nunquam sibi sunt membra contraria corporis integritas universis membris constat August But the members are so closely combind that the good fortune of the one contributes to that of the other the unity of the body they compose gives them not leave to have divided interests whatever difference nature puts in their functions they live always in community and whilst they are united in the same body they enjoy a common felicity But to make this conception a little clearer we must repeat what we said in the beginning of this Discourse and take notice that the alliance we have with Jesus Christ is much different from that we have from Adam That of Adam commenceth in unity and terminates in division we are all descended from one Father we were but one the same thing in his Person but the succession of time hath so divided us that of brethren we are become strangers and unknown For the family of Adam multiplying by the birth of his children made Towns which by their number grew into Provinces Provinces formd Kingdomes and Kingdomes at last peopled the Universe Thus men who were brothers at their birth were estranged by distance of place divided by languages parted by interests and opposite to each other by the contrariety of their humours The Son of God finding us in this deplorable condition makes us return to unity by all the degrees that tumbled us from it His love assisted with his power hath placed us in the same Kingdome given us the same Soveraign under whose Laws we breath an acceptable liberty Fecisti nos Deo nostroregnū But because all the Subjects of a Kingdom know not one another the distance of
more sensible express more regret they are not content only to look upon the offended part but they shed tears to comfort it and many times cure it by that innocent remedy The Head which is seated in the most eminent place of the body stoops to succour this poor afflicted he forgets his condition to satisfie his love and giving a fair example to Soveraigns instructs them they ought to be sensible of all the miseries of the meanest of their subjects the Heart Nemo regi tam vilis sit ut illum perire non sentiat qualiscunque pars imperii sit Senec. which from the centre where it is lodged equally enlivens all the parts discovers its sense of pain by its regrets and mixing its sighs with the tears of the eyes and the complaints of the mouth gives a loud testimony it cannot be at quiet when the members it inanimates are afflicted The Hands that are the faithful ministers of the body discover their sorrow by their quickness of dispatch being more active then the rest they presently visit the distressed part they sound the malady apply remedies to it and evidence that if they be not so tender they are more serviceable then the Eyes or Tongue If all things were well regulated in the Church if the Faithful acted according to the motions of Grace and if Charity that combines them together were as lively in their Hearts as in those of the primitive Christians we should see in the mystical Body of Jesus Christ what we behold every day in the natural body of Man The affliction of one of these quickned Members would equally touch all the rest every one would do his office according to his power and imitating the good intelligence of parts composing the same body some would weep as the eyes others complain as the mouth and others assist as the hands This certainly was the consideration that wrought so much upon S. Paul's affections Docet utique Paulus saue veritatem patitur sua aliorum simul mala infirmitates tolerat solatur simul de communisalute de toto orbe sollicitus Ansel and obliged him to pronounce those words flowing from the greatness of his love Who is weak and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not For as he came neerer Jesus Christ then other Christians did being closer united to this Head he sunk deeper into his minde and remembring the complaints he himself had drawn from his mouth when he persecuted the Church he endeavoured to repair that offence by compassion and in Mercy to imitate him whom he represented in Authority All Christians are bound to live in this disposition if they mean to satisfie their duty they must be afflicted with the miserable weep with those that weep and calling to minde that they are the Members of the same Body they must see no Innocents persecuted no Godly distressed but they must do their utmost to comfort them by condoling their misfortunes 'T is perhaps for this reason that the Church is called a Dove because sighs are as natural to her as to that Bird who having lost her mate spends her life in grief and solitude The Church is a widow and consequently solitary her Husband left her when he ascended up to heaven and though she be honoured with his presence being deprived of his sight she cannot secure her self from that anxiety her love works in her but she mourns as the Dove because being made up of as many Members as she hath Believers she is constrained to give her self over to Sorrow when she sees them in Calamity or in Danger Having considered the Afflictions of the Church let us consider the subject of her Joy and behold the community of Goods she hath set up among her children in that which Nature hath erected among members of the same body The union of these later is so great that though they have different offices yet cease they not to take pains one for the other The eyes see and hear not saith S. Augustine the ears hear and see not the hands act and hear not the feet walk and act not nevertheless their correspondence is so good that the eyes hear by the ears the ears see by the eyes the hands walk by the feet and the feet act by the hands so that if we ask the ears Can they judge of Colours they would answer Being in the unity of the body they are always with the eyes and if they see not themselves they are inseparable from those whose office it is to see for them Thus continues S. Augustine as the eyes say we hear by the ears and the ears We see by the eyes and both of them We act by the hands all is common among these parts their difference destroys not their unity and though their employments be divers they live in so perfect a society that the advantages of the one part make up the riches of all the rest If Christians be Members of Jesus Christ they enjoy the same priviledges all their goods are common and if envie divide them not from their Head they possess in Him whatever is wanting in Themselves The Alliance they have with his Body enriches them with another's good without any injustice and like the members of a man which act in one anothers behalf they foretel things to come by the mouth of the Prophets they are understood of all Nations by those that have the gift of Tongues they work miracles by the hands of the Apostles and they attribute to themselves without vanity whatever the Saints are able to do in the mystical Body of Jesus Christ For one of the secrets of the Natural body saith S. Augustine is that the relation of the members is so perfect that each particular labours not so much for it self as for others The eye is the onely part that can see but it sees not for it self alone it is the candle of the feet in their walking of the hands in working and of all the other members in their employments Indeed if it discover any danger threatning the foot it endeavours to protect it and gives notice that it may be avoided The hand acts onely but not for it self alone it defends the face if stricken at courageously opposeth any enemy that braves it and knowing that their interests are common valiantly suffers the evil to deliver the body from it All the members are silent there is none but the tongue that speaks but she is their interpreter and furnisheth them with words to express their like or dislike their sorrow or joy Thus must we confess in the mystical body of Jesus Christ the Faithful receive no benefit which is not reckoned as pertaining to the rest If they be prudent 't is to counsel the simple if they work miracles 't is to convert Infidels or to confirm weak Believers if they have the spirit of Prophecie 't is to instruct the ignorant if they have the gift of
Soul as with the Body this cannot move without changing of place but that needs onely change her affection and presently she ascends she is where she would be her love makes all her objects present and assoon as over she sixeth her affection upon any thing 't is no longer at a distance This is it which he delivers admirably in another passage We can never be better then when we are with him whom nothing can equal in goodness we go thither not walking but loving and he is so much the neerer and at hand by how much our Love is more pure and vigorous Then letting us see the advantage Charity hath above Concupiscence he brings in God speaking these words which evidence an Oracle I command you to love me and I assure you that in doing so you shall enjoy me Sinners possess not all that they love there are covetous worldlings that sigh for gold and yet are poor Ambitious persons that are passionate for glory and yet are infamous but every one that loves me findes me I am with him that seeks for me his love makes me present in his soul assoon as he longs for me I am in his embraces and I leave off to be absent assoon as he begins to be in love with me Though there is not any lover that hath spoken more nobly of this residence of God in our souls by Charity then S. Augustine the Fathers his followers have used the same language and once instructed in the School of Divine Love have acknowledged that 't was impossible to love God and not to possess him Qui mente integra Deum desiderat profecto jam habet quem amat neque enim quisquam posset Deum diligere si hunc quem diligit non haberet Greg. mag in Moral See what S. Gregory saith in his Morals which differs little from what S. Augustine hath delivered in his Confessions The Believer that seeks after God without dividing his affections possesseth him already whom his soul loveth For he could never be amorous for him were he not filled with his love and inanimated with his presence S. Bernard who serves for an Interpreter to the Spouse in the Canticles and expresseth her minde with as much innocent nakedness as winning sweetness brings her in holding the same discourse She comforts her self in the absence of her Beloved by the belief she hath that she bears him in her heart and that she is the living throne of him who never forsakes her but to exercise her patience Let us conclude this Discourse with the highest operation of Love and say that this last effect is to transform Lovers into the things that they love and to stamp them with their qualities This property is so natural to Love that it remains with it even when it exerciseth its power over inanimate things If the Elements jar if they trouble the peace of the Universe by their contestations if these four bodies that compose all others seem to engage whole Nature in their quarrels 't is Love that obligeth them to the combat and when Fire and Water dispute in the bosome of the clouds or in the bowels of the earth they have no other designe but to transform each other Love hath a greater share in their difference then Ambition neither do they strive so much to destroy one another as to be united that they may be but one and the same thing Concupiscence succeeds wonderfully in this enterprise she imprints in men all the qualities of those objects she obligeth them to be in love with and by a strange Metamorphosis deprives them of their proper inclinations to indue them with strange external ones They become abominable as the things that they doat upon they change their Nature in changing their Love and we see by experience that Lascivious persons become effeminate as the women they caress that the Ambitious assume the vanity of that glory they court and the Covetous become as sensless as the metal they adore Similes eis fiant qui saciuns ea omnes qui confidunt in eis Psal 115. Therefore David justly wished that Idolators following the laws of Love might become like their Idols and might lose speech and motion for their love towards dumb and sensless gods that the Israelites might more easily defeat them in the combat But inasmuch as Concupiscence plays the deceiver she makes good but half her promises to her servants For she transforms them onely to their loss she changeth them meerly to make them miserable and of all the qualities the things they love are indued with she communicates none to them for the most part but bad ones The Lustful who contract the lightness of women gain not their beauty The Covetous who grow stupid as their metal extract not its value and the Ambitious who vapour like the glory they feed upon become not always Soveraigns But Charity which is more sincere and more powerful then Concupiscence happily transforms Christians into what they love she imprints upon them the qualities of heaven and makes them heavenly upon earth by different degrees it exalts them as high as Divinity it self she gives them what the devil promised their first father she changeth them into Gods by a holy Metamorphosis and makes them innocently obtain what Pride made them heretofore insolently covet For Mans most ancient passion is to be like God this was his crime and his desire in Paradise 't was upon this consideration that he listned to the devil and under this hope he violated the command of God His Pride was punished with an ignominious brand and he that pretended to an equality with his Soveraign saw himself reduced to the condition of his meanest Subjects This correction made him not forget his desire he preserved his arrogance in the midst of his misery and being but the relique of innocent man he could not forbear to wish to be a God Piety hath taught him an honest means to content his ambition Grace takes pains to assimilate him according to his desire the Vertues are so many draughts compleating this Image but Charity their Queen gives it perfection She it is that satisfies his longings and raising him above himself happily transforms him into God This is the end of all the designes of this august Vertue the Master-piece of her power the triumph of her glory and when she hath brought Man to this height of felicity she is content because he is happie Let us not advance so important a Vertue without caution let us make it appear that he who was so well acquainted with the nature of Love was not ignorant of his effects Let us make use of the words of S. Augustine Men saith he take their name from what they love they owe their condition to their affection as wives take the quality of their husbands and Lovers those of their Mistresses so in loving the earth they become earthly in loving heaven they become heavenly and carrying their
Pyramids to preserve their memory and being not able to busie the Pen of the Historian employ the Tool of the Engraver and stamp their name upon Marble being unable to write it in the Annals Conquerors are not exempt from this madness they fight onely to get themselves a Name seek for Life in the very bosome of Death depopulate States to make succeeding ages talk of them destroy Towns to raise Trophies and Longum est retexere Curios Regulos Graecos viros quorū iunumera elogia sunt contemptae morti◠propter posthumam famam Tert. not able to gain Reputation by their Justice or Clemency strive to purchase it by their Courage and Valour From this Passion doth Tertullian draw arguments to prove the immortality of the soul and to perswade the Infidels that whole man dies not because he extends his desires beyond this life and knowing very well that his spirit must survive his body is much troubled how he may preserve his reputation after his death The Devil who is not ignorant that this desire is engraved in our hearts by the finger of Nature and that it is easier to divert it then smother it try'd to make use of it in Paradise to seduce the first man he went not about to take from him the belief of the immortality of his soul he knew a minde so enlightned could not be clouded with such darkness but he perswaded him that his happiness depended upon his disobedience and that to defend him from death wherewith God had threatned him his onely way was to eat of the forbidden fruit This subtil spirit would not set upon man till he had stirred up the most violent of his Passions and he conceived it an easie matter to ruine him if he could but perswade him that Immortality would be the recompence of his crime Indeed Man charmed with so fair a promise violated the respect he owed his God he reached his hand to that fatal Tree and plucking the fruit which served for a proof his obedience made himself guilty of sin and obnoxious to death But inasmuch as the Son of God takes pleasure to draw our Salvation out of our Fall and makes us in a blinde submission finde that advantage we sought for in a foolish credulity he hath instituted a Sacrament in his Church which contains an admirable fruit giving those that eat of it a happie Immortality For the chief effect of this celestial food is to preserve us from death and assure us of life He that eateth my flesh saith Jesus Christ shall live for ever He opposeth this nourishment against that of the fathers in the wilderness and protesting that those that eat his flesh shall never die he engageth himself by a solemn promise to raise them from the dead So that though his Justice did not oblige him to raise the Innocent and the Guilty out of the grave to give them their reward his Truth would oblige him to restore life to the Faithful who in obedience to his will have eaten this ever-to-be-adored Fruit. Therefore is it that the Fathers of the Church making the Elogie of this Sacrament call it sometimes the Earnest of glory sometimes the Antidote of death sometimes the Seed of immortality But because the devil joyned the desire of Glory with that of Life and promised man to make him a god if he would eat of the Forbidden fruit Jesus Christ takes the same course and having made us hope for immortality in this Sacrament he raiseth our expectation and promiseth us Divinity I do not wonder that Innocent man desired to be God Nec quicquam homine aut superbius aut miserius Plin. maj seeing Guilty man covets it to this day and that the misery which punisheth his disobedience hath not flatted this his desire nor do I conceive it strange that the greatness of his condition seconded with the promises of the Serpent had perswaded him that in eating the forbidden fruit he might purchase Divinity For in that happie state all was submitted to his will he was equally absolute in his Person and in his Kingdom he discoursed familiarly with the Angels and he knew that his soul though included in a body was little inferiour to those blessed spirits His Soveraignty gave him hopes of an Independencie being Lord of the Universe he was easily perswaded he might be the Conservator his lights which should have cleared up his judgement dazled him his present greatness made him forget his former original The promises of the devil charmed him and not imagining that Humility was the way which should lead him to Glory he suffered himself to be transported with Pride which threw him into confusion and misery His loss had been irrecoverable had not the Son of God found out a remedy and obliging him to taste a Divine Fruit in the Eucharist had not repaired his fault and satisfied his desire For it was not enough to cure Man of his sin by a Sacrament if the Divine Mercy had not furnished him at the same time with a means innocently to content his longings The inclination to Divinity was riveted in the very bottom of his Essence and I dare say the perswasion of the Serpent very far from defacing it had rooted it faster Man had a minde to command though he had lost the power he still retained the desire and as there is no miserable man that would not with all his heart be happie neither is there any sinner that would not raign with God This wish was a Sacriledge and an attempt against the Godhead but by the goodness of Jesus Christ it is become an act of Religion and Obedience For this Son who is equal to his Father and who being his primitive Image and the Character of his Substance hath the right of exalting men to this dignity was made Man in the Incarnation that they might be made Gods in the Eucharist and was laden with their Miseries in the One that they might be cloathed with his Glory in the Other Indeed 't is in this ineffable Mystery wherein Man mingles himself with God where by a holy confusion he loseth his bad qualities and assumes divine ones where leaving off to be a sinner he begins to be innocent where soaring above himself he enters into the rights of God Eucharistia videtur esse velut Incarnationis mira quaedam extensio D◠Tho. There it is that the Eucharist supplies the mystery of the Incarnation For this made onely a Man-God included its effects in one Individual of Nature the holy Humanity enjoyed this favour all alone and if men received any advantage it was rather honourable then useful This Alliance was like those Marriages where all the profit is the Brides and the glory onely the Kinreds 'T was indeed a happiness for men that their nature was preferred before that of the Angels and that God intending to be allied to his Creatures vouchsafed to make himself a Man and not a Seraphim But
the Captives that pine away for the loss of Liberty in prisons and those Miscreants that are broken upon the Wheel endure the extremity of Torments but because their sin is the cause of their punishment they may be sufferers but they cannot be Martyrs To deserve this Quality Nemo se extollat glorietur de passione nam si attendamus solâ—s passiones coronantur latrones si de passione gloriandum est potest ipse diabolus gloriari Aug. the interest of God must be mixt with Grief and the suffering takes its estimate from the justice of the Cause The Macchabees are Martyrs because they suffered for the Law of God and rather then violate it courageously lost their lives S. John Baptist augments the number of these glorious Champions because he died for the defence of Chastity and is the first victim this excellent vertue receiv'd The Saints who have spilt their blood in the Churches quarrels and have fought against Infidels or Hereticks for the interest of Faith justly deserve the quality of Martyrs and the Christian happily shares it with them because he suffers in obedience to Jesus Christ For when he pardons those that persecute him stifles those just resentments which are occasioned by injuries when he gives Calumny leave to blast his reputation and loseth Goods or Honour because he will not break the Commandments or violate the Counsels of the Son of God Non Martyrium sola effusio sanguinis consummat necsola dat palmam exustio flammarum pervenitur non solum occasu sed etiam contemptu Carnis ad Coronam Aug. Ser. 46 de Sanctis he is not less worthy of the name of Martyr then those that have shed their blood for the defence of his honour 'T is of such a one that we may say Occasion was wanting to his Will and that he had been in the Catalogue of Martyrs had he lived in the time of persecution But not to betray the Cause that I defend I am obliged to say that to be vertuous is title enough to be a Martyr For since Nature is corrupted by sin there is no Vertue that is not accompanied with Grief We learn Vices without a Master we carry the seeds of them in our souls and preventing bad examples we act wickedness before we have seen it But Christian vertues are so difficult that their conquest costs us much labour and travel we learn them with much ado forget them easily preserve them with care neither is it Nature nor Art but Grace and Sorrow that forms the Habit in us They cross our Inclinations we must fight to gain them and seeing wickedness is passed into our Nature Vertues are become our Torments The Darkness we come into the world with clouds the light of our Prudence the infirmities we have inherited from our first Father make the victory over Strength extremely difficult Interest which is inseparable from Self-love is an opposition naturally set against Justice and this heat without which we cannot live and by a deplorable unhappiness entertains the flames of Impurity is an obstacle to Continence It produceth thoughts which stain the lustre of this Vertue motions which trouble its rest so that S. Augustine had great reason to say that of all the Trials of a Christian the most furious was that of Chastity where the Conflict is so long the Victory so rare and the Danger so great I would adde to the words of this holy man without varrying much from his conceit that 't is the sharpest Martyrdom a Believer can endure because he confesseth in another place that to mortifie the Flesh to tame Pride makes up the best part of the Martyr 'T is perhaps upon this ground that the rigid Tertullian who hath defended the advantages of Chastity with the prejudice of Truth it self hath acknowledged this vertue so austere that 't is easier to die for her Majus est in castitate vivere quà m pro castitate mori Terâ— then to live with her As if he would tacitely insinuate that 't is a harder matter to be chaste then to be a Martyr and that a Christian who hath overcome impurity may easily subdue grief If having considered the severity of the Vertues we consider the rigour of the Gospel we shal finde it cannot be obeyed without the badg of Martyrdom Every People hath its Laws and there are none so barbarous whom Nature or Custom have not furnished with some Policy The Greeks lived according to the Laws of their Sages The Romanes followed the Twelve Tables and those that had neither Kings nor Law-givers have had for their guide the light of Nature which is a relique of Innocence The Jews were governed by the Law of Moses which if it gave them not strength enough to combat sin it gave them light enough to know and avoid it But the Christian hath so severe a Law that if Love did not sweeten the severity thereof it would drive men to despair and more tragical then Judaism would occasion not onely prevaricators but obstinate and hardned disciples For it hath not one Article which is not a Paradox and which thwarts not the Reason as well as the Inclinations of sinners The First is that to love God aright we must hate our selves and bestowing all our affection upon him reserve nothing but hatred for our selves The second is to renounce our Will that is to say to quit all the advantages Nature hath endued us with not to reason in our Mysteries not to listen to our Inclinations in the practise of Vertues The Third which is not less rigid and seems to violate the sweetest Laws of Nature obligeth us to forsake father and mother and to trample upon the belly of her that bare us to follow the voice of him that calls us to his service But the Fourth which hath to deal with the dearest and most violent of our Passions commands us to pardon our enemies to forget the injuries they have done us and to stifle all those just resentments the love of honour or of life can possess us with Who will not pronounce these Laws so many tortures these Commandments so many Pursuivants making inquisition after our Inclinations into the very inmost recesses of our Wils and one while lopping of love another while Hatred subjects us to as many sufferings as Martyrs undergo whose arms or legs were chopt off by the cruelty of Tyrants This made S. Augustine confess that the life of a Christian was a painful Martyrdom Vita Christiani si secundum Evangelium vivat crux est Martyrium Aug. nor that any man could observe the Laws of the Gospel but must condemn himself to a punishment as grievous as that of the Cross For this reason also will I make it appear in this following Discourse that Christians suffer more then the Martyrs These glorious Heroes of the Church suffered for the most part but in the body their souls were quiet in the midst of
gives purity to the Immodest and innocence to the Criminals This Love hath no bounds neither in relation to its extent nor excess 't is immense and infinite both together and when God loves us he loves us in all places and in all his perfections men are so miserable that they change manners when they change Countries and Climats the Elements make some impression upon their wills and being no longer what they were they cease to love what they doated on before should they be more constant they would be alwayes lyable to this misfortune that being unable to be but in one place they could not stretch their love every where they borrow tongues to express their passion Like earthly Kings who being not in a capacity to fill their whole State are obliged to have Leiutenants which represent them these also are forc'd to seeke out interpreters to declare their love and supply their impotency But Gods Love is immense place confines it not he loves whereever he is his charity is as extensive as his essence in Heaven he cherisheth the blessed and preserving his love in all the corners of his State is affectionate to Christians in the very heart of their enemies If it be immense 't is Infinite and when God loves a person 't is with the full extent of his perfections As men are made up of soul and body the faculties of that and the members of this have their several uses and employments The Understanding conceives thoughts the Memory preserves the species and onely the will formes acts of Love The holiest Lover hath this dissatisfaction that he knows he loves God but with one faculty of the soul he is afflicted and not without reason that self-love shares with charity and notwithstanding all his endeavour he never loves God as much as he can or ought to love him He is not more happy in his body then in his minde for every member hath its different functions his hands act according as there is occasion his eyes discern colours his ears judge of sounds his tongue formes words and his heart onely is capable of affection he reproacheth Nature and complaines that this Step dame having given to him two hands to act two eyes to see two ears to hear she hath given him but one heart to love in the extasies of his soul he wisheth with David that his whole body were heart and tongue to love and magnifie him with all his power who is so infinitely lovely Nevertheless after all his vain desires he is obliged to confess that there is nothing but the will in the soul and the heart in his body which is sensible of the endeerments of affection But inasmuch as God is a simple being suffering neither composition nor division he loves men where ever he is he hath not any perfection but contributes to the love he bears them His Justice which takes vengeance of his enemies his Majesty which makes him respected of his subjects his holiness which separates him from his works are happily confounded with charity and as he acts with all his power when he produceth some effects he loves with his whole being when he expresseth his affection to his friends Therefore the Christians who know very well that love is paid onely with love never limit this passion they endeavour to love God with all their power nor do they wish for death but because they are of opinion that delivering them from self-love they shall be perfect lovers in glory The Eight DISCOURSE That the Christian is an Exile and a Pilgrim THe advantages we have received from Jesus Christ deliver us not from the misfortunes we drew from Adam our being the children of God frees us not from being his slaves though associated to his Empire we are still obnoxious to the persecution of the creature and though the objects of his love feel notwithstanding the severity of his Justice Thence it comes to pass that being Pilgrims we are Exiles and these two qualities which clash in other men agree exceeding well in Christians For Pilgrims are honorable Piety invites them out of their Country they seek Heaven in the Temple they visit and honouring the relicks of Saints oblige the Angels to assist them in their journeys Peregrinum facit Pietas Exulem paena peregrini sumus qui cives peccatorum Exulcs vero quia peceatores Chryso But the banished are criminals Justice drives them from their home she it is that cuts them off from the body of the State like corrupt members least they should infect the the rest In the mean time Christians are Pilgrims and Exiles if they draw the former qualities from Grace they derive the latter fom sin To clear this conceit we must remember that of all the punishments in the world banishment is the most shameful and most cruell It hath served as a punishment for the greatest crimes and the most notorious offendors have groand under this pressure Our first father was driven out of Paradise after he was condemned to death That Parricide who steep'd his hands in his Brothers blood heard this sentence pronounced against him by the mouth of the Living God Eris vagus et profugus super terram he desired that his punishment might be commuted and judging death more gentle them banishment he begged for an end of his life that he might finde a period of his torment Therefore is it that Philo approving the opinion of Cain said that death was the end of our evils banishment the beginning and that if a man going out of the world were worthy of envy he that departed out of his Country deserv'd pitty Thence certainly it comes to pass that Christians are dealt with as exiles that the severity of their chastisement may make them accknowledge the hainousness of their sin Indeed those wretches are civilly dead they have no more commerce with the world the use of the Elements is interdicted them and if the judges give them leave to live 't is to make them die more cruelly Thus it is with man since his transgression he hath no more intercourse with the Angels he was driven out from Paradise and the Earth being cursed he must water it either with his sweat or with his tears if he intend to have it fruitful Banished persons possess nothing they lose their substance in losing their Country they can neither make will nor inherite and they learn to their cost that want is the inseparable companion of banishment there must be some edict of the Prince to mitigate the rigour of the sentence and without his express permission their very kindred dare not relive them in their misery If Christians be not so cruelly dealt with 't is from their obligation to the merits of of Jesus Christ For being banished they are fallen from all their rights losing the supreme good they have forfeited all together with him and what they possess'd heretofore escheating to their soveraign by their felony they can dispose
himself with the pleasures of the body renounceth the priviledges of the minde betrays his duty and his dignity despoils himself of the inclinations of Angels and puts on those of Beasts and without changing his shape changeth condition and nature But inasmuch as most men are led more by interest then reason and those that are the slaves of pleasure are more sensible of grief then shame and dishonour it will not be amisse in this Discourse to let them see that the pleasures after which they so eagerly run are very tragical and contrary to their intention are turn'd into punishments The Divine Justice which leaves no crime unpunished hath been pleased that diseases should be natural penances and that the Stone and the Gout should be the recompence of our debauches Seeing sensuall pleasures are commonly criminal they are for the most part irregular having shaken off the yoak of reason they cast men into excesse and perswade them that 't is a kind of injustice and base servility to prescribe Laws to their desires abused by these false sophisms they pursue their inclinations without keeping any measure in their diversions they are drown'd in delights are lost in voluptuousnesse and draining their strength and their substance fall many times into diseases and poverty Thus by a just judgement of Heaven their disorders become their torments Ipsos voluptas habet non ipsi voluptatem cujus aut inopiâ torquentur aut copiâ strangulantur miseri si deseruntur ab illa miseriores si obruantur Sence and they finde sorrow where they expected felicity If to defend themselves from this misfortune they observe some rules in their pleasures they feel another punishment For these pleasures being short their soul is always languishing they have scarce done with one but they long for another and living always in expectation or inquiry can neither be secure from restlesnesse nor discontent Those who to remedy this evil endeavour to associate pleasures undertake an impossibility For whether nature intend to punish us because we are culpable or whether Grace be not willing to expose us to danger because we are weak Pleasures hold not so good intelligence as Paines These set upon us in a full body and joyn companies to render us wretched the Stone the Gout the Colick and the Palsie conspire together to exercise our patience whatever opposition these diseases may have they agree to ruine us and we many times behold distressed spectacles who have no part of their body free from torment But Pleasures are divided Self-love with all its subtilties cannot reconcile them the Birth of one is the Death of another and experience teacheth us that we have more strength to endure Griefs then to support pleasures when these slow in upon us with full tide they stifle us when they succeed they make us droop and languish and when they recompense their shortness by their excess they reduce us to complaints and groanings From all this Discourse we may conclude that bodily pleasure is an enemy to our happiness that it removes us from God engageth us in the Creature obligeth us to partake of their imperfections and is followed with misery and indigence Therefore following the rule of Contraries we shall not have much ado to perswade our selves that Felicity may be found in Grief and that the Christian is never more happie then when he is afflicted for Christs sake For the understanding of this Paradox we must remember that all earthly goods are onely mediums whereby to gain those of heaven that which leads us the safest way thither is the best neither is the Christian ever neerer his happiness then when he is in the way that soonest leads him thither Now there is no man so little skilled in our mysteries but knows that Grief is the surest and the speediest way to arrive at heaven Cohaeredes autē Christi si tamen compatimur ut simul conglorificemur Rom. 8. Si sustinemus conregnabimus 2 Tim. 2. 't is the path Christ hath marked out with his Blood that whereby he entered into his Greatness that which all the Martyrs have gone and the Scripture teacheth us in a hundred places that Glory is dispensed according to the measure of Sorrow that they that have suffered most upon earth shall be the happiest in heaven One of the most remarkable differences between Christian Grace and Original Righteousness is that this guided man to his happiness thorow a way strewed with roses and lilies the means were proportioned to the end and seemed as an Antepast or Earnest thereof He arrived to Glory by Honour to Pleasure by Delights to Plenty by Riches He had reigned over Beasts before he raigned with Angels he had passed from one Paradise to another and had been happie upon Earth before he had been so in Heaven But now Providence hath changed its conduct over men and whether it have a minde to chastis their Rebellion or to wean them from the World or to make them conformable to their Head it leads them by difficult ways thorow paths rugged with thorns and environed with precipices The means it indulgeth to bring them to their end are contrary to it and to make its proceeding admired they are guided to Life thorow the valley of Death to Liberty thorow Servitude to Light thorow Darkness to Pleasure thorow Pain All the Morality of a Christian propoundeth nothing but Crosses its Vertues are austere its Counsels difficult its Commands harsh and had it not found the means to sweeten all these anxities by Charity it would reduce the Faithful to despair For it obligeth them to hate Themselves and to love their Enemies orders them to forsake their Riches and their Parents Fides non habet meritum ubi humana ratio praebet experimentum Greg. to believe without knowledge obey without discerning love without interest pardon without resentment live without pleasure and die without regret All the Maximes of their Master confirm this Truth for he prefers the Poor before the Rich declares the Afflicted happie canonizeth them that suffer and promiseth his Kingdom to them that weep he practised what he taught his whole life was spent in labours or affronts he was born in a Stable died upon a Cross lost his Honour with his Life nor did his Father glorifie him till his Enemies had loaded him with reproaches and sorrows All his Apostles followed his steps they preached his doctrine with the hazard of their lives signed it with their blood sealed it with their death rendered up their souls among torments nor is there any torture the cruelty of men hath not invented to weary their Patience and trample upon their Courage All his faithful disciples seek for Grief in the Rest of the Church they finde Persecution in Penance are their own executioners and their whole life is an imitation of Martyrdom they provide for the Prison by Solitude dispose themselves for Banishment by removing from their Country prevent
Continence to our relief to defend us from pleasures that tickle us sometimes we demand help of Fortitude to combat griefs that assault us sometimes we throw our selves into the arms of Justice to deliver us from enemies that oppress us But in Heaven all these Vertues are idle onely Charity is active and yet rests in acting her action is to love what she sees her rest to possess what she loves and her felicity to know that she shall never lose what she enjoys If you cannot suffer saith S. Augustine that the Vertues to which we owe Heaven be banished thence imagine them there more for your ornament then defence never conceive that they fight but perswade your selves that they triumph and having vanquished all their enemies enjoy a Peace which shall endure for all Eternity The Ninth DISCOURSE That the Christians Soul and Body shall finde their Perfection in Beatitude MAn is such a hidden Creature that he cannot well be known without Faith He is mistaken as often as he intends to pass judgement upon himself and the errours that have appeared in his own definition have given us occasion to conclude that he was ignorant of his own essence when he consulted his Sense he believed he was nothing but a Body and if there were a spirit that informed him it was perishable and mortal when he consulted his Pride he conceited himself a pure Spirit which either for his penalty or for his trial was included in a Body as in a prison from which he should be delivered by death These two errours produced two grand disorders in the world The first engaged Man in the love of his Body and the oblivion of his Soul he made no account but of sensual Pleasures and knowing no life but the present never troubled himself about the future He was of opinion that Death was the end of his Being and that nothing remaining of him after his dissolution he need fear neither any Punishment nor expect any Recompence The second errour made him so mightily undervalue his Body that he repined at it as a Slave and handled it as a Rebel he had recourse many times to Death that being delivered from this enemy he might mix with pure Intelligences and raign with Gods or Devils Faith which corrects our errours obligeth us to believe that Man is neither an Angel nor a Beast that he is compounded of a Body and a Soul and if he have the First common with Beasts he hath the Second common with Angels The same Faith perswades him that Death deprives him of his body but for a time onely that at the General Resurrection it shall be re-united to the soul to partake of its good or bad fortune Therefore treating here of the felicity of Christians I am necessarily to speak of the two parts that compose them and of the different happiness the Divine Justice prepares for them respectively Inasmuch as the soul is the noblest she is also most happily provided for and her Beatitude infinitely surpasseth that of the body Tunc nec falli nec peccare homines possunt veritate illuminati in bono confirmati Aug. When she quits her prison and is purified of all her imperfections by the grace of Jesus Christ she enters into Glory and receives all the advantages which are due to her dignity and condition Ignorance which is a brand of sin is quite defaced by the brightness that enlightens her her weakness is fortified by a supply which being much more powerful then that of Grace raiseth her to a condition wherein she cannot desert the good nor embrace the evil and where as Saint Augustine saith she is in a happy impotency to wander from her duty and estrange her self from the Supream good Assurance succeeds in the place of fear rest in stead of conflicts triumphs after victories she is no longer constrained to resist the motions of the flesh because this rebell is become obedient and losing in the Resurrection whatever he drew from Adam at his Birth hath now none but just and holy inclinations The Spirit is no longer busied to maintain a war against sin because this Monster cannot enter Heaven he groans not now under the revolt of the passions and as all the vertues are peaceable they finde neither enemies to subdue nor rebels to tame Her knowledge is no longer accompanied with doubts and darkness she learnes without labour is not afraid to forget and drawing light and wisdom from the very Fountain knows all things in their Principles In this happy condition there remains nothing for the Christian to wish for his soul is penetrated by the Divine Essence his understanding clarified with the light of glory his will inflamed with the love of God and all his powers and faculties finding their particular perfection in one object he confesseth that the promises of God exceed his hopes Though his body have been polluted by his birth and corrupted by death it findes life in the Resurrection and Purity in Glory For assoon as the Trumpet of the Angel shall have declared the will of God every soul shal reassume her own body reuniting her self with it shall give it a part in her happiness The greatness of this wonder hath found no belief in the mindes of Philosophers though they were perswaded of the Immortality of the soul they would not consent to the Resurrection of the body and having seen it made a prey to wilde Beasts or fuel for the flames they judged there was no power in the world could restore it again The spirit of man hath favoured this errour and believing his eyes rather then his light could not finde in his heart to place that part of man in heaven which he saw committed to the grave he was afraid to weary the power of the Almighty if he should oblige him to so many miracles and not comprehending how a body reduc'd to powder or smoak could take its primitive form chose rather to leave it in the Earth then draw it thence with so much violence But had he thought of the Creation he had never doubted of the Resurrection and Reason her self had perswaded him that seeing God was able to finde the body in Non-Entity where it was not he might very well finde it in the waters or in the slames where there was yet some remainder thereof If Nothing were not rebellious to him Nature cerrainly will not be disobedient and if he could make that which was not he may as easily repair what now is not Nothing perisheth in respect of the Creator the dead are not less his subjects then those that never were born and if he could make Non-Entity hear him he may well make death obey him The miracle of Resurrection is perhaps attended with more pomp then that of the Creation but there is less difficulty in it and he that could vanquish the distance between Entity and Non-Entity will have no great matter to do to master the opposition
hath vouchsafed to bear our miseries hath been pleased to speak our language The Church saith that great Doctor is made up of all the Faithful Quia ergo totus Christus caput est corpus Ecclesiae prepter a in omnibus Psalmis sic audiamus voces capitis ut audiamus voces corporis Aug. in Psal 56. because all the Faithful are the Members of Jesus Christ Though her Head be in heaven he fails not to guide her upon earth and though separated by the distance of places ceaseth not to be united to her by charity Wherefore Christ making the Head and the Body we ought not in the Psalms to separate the voice of the Head from that of the Body nor think it strange that he that never deserted the Church never held other language then his Spouse did This it it that he treats of elsewhere in clearer and fuller terms If Jesus be our Head and we his Body the Head and the Body compose whole Jesus Christ nor is Jesus Christ entire if he comprehend not both This Maxime must serve us as a light to explain the Scripture by with which if we are not always enlightned we are in danger to mistake For sometimes we meet with words that cannot be applied to the Head and which would involve us in an errour or in doubt did we apply them to the body there are others that cannot be appropriated to the Body and yet are uttered by Jesus Christ To unravel these difficulties we need but attribute to the Head what cannot agree to the Body remembring that Jesus Christ speaks sometimes in his own person and sometimes in the person of the Church He spake certainly in her name when he complained that his Father had forsaken him because we know very well the Son was never abandoned by the Father were it not when he sustained the person of Adam who was forsaken of God as soon as he became guilty But because this Truth is but too evident let us pass to the Third condition of the Marriage of Jesus Christ with his Church and see how they are two in one and the same passion One of the chiefest effects of Love is Anima est magis ubi amat quà m ubi animat to make us Live where we Love and to make us Suffer where we Live Experience better perswades us of this Maxime then Reason and 't is needless to prove a Truth which every man may evidence in himself A father knows he is more affected with the sorrows of his children then with his own a husband is not ignorant that he sufters less in his own person then in that of his wife and all Lovers proclaim that the injuries or discontents of their Mistresses wound them deeper then those that fall upon themselves Siqua sides vulnus quod feci non dolet inquit Sed quod in facies hoc mihi Paetc dolet Mart. That generous gallant wife was well acquainted with this Axiome who protested she felt not the blowe the Poniard gave her self but onely that which her husband was resolved to receive As Charity which unites Jesus Christ to the Church is stronger then Conjugal love so doth it more advantageously produce this effect in them Their sufferings are common the Son of God suffers no sorrows which the Church resents not and the Church endures no torments which the Son of God complains not of Therefore hath S. Augustine said that the Church suffered in Jesus Christ when jesus Christ suffered for the salvation of the Church and that Jesus Christ suffered in the Church when the Church was persecuted for the glory of Jesus Christ their complaints were proofs of their sufferings and as the Church complained in Jesus Christ when he cried out upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Jesus complained in behalf of his Church when from the midst of his glory he said Saul Saul why persecutest thou me But as Saint Paul had learnt this truth from the mouth of the Son of God himself by whom he was informed that a man could not persecute the Church but he must persecute Jesus Christ there was not any of the Apostles who so highly exalted his labours as he did For knowing very well that he was a Member of the Church in which condition he could not suffer but Jesus Christ must suffer with him he speaks of his own sufferings as of those of his Master and out of a confidence which could arise from nothing but his love he boasts that in suffering he finished the Passion of Jesus Christ Adimpleo ea quae desunt passionum Christi He knew very well that nothing was wanting to the sorrows of the Son of God that the rage of the executioners was glutted upon his person that the Truth of Figures was accomplished in his death and that himself before he bowed his head and gave up the ghost had said aloud Consummatum est But he knew also that Jesus Christ had two Bodies that he suffered in one what he could not suffer in the other and that honouring his Father in both he sacrificed himself in his Members after he had sacrificed himself in his Person S. Augustine happily expresseth the meaning of S. Paul in these words Jesus Christ suffers no more in that flesh he carried into heaven but he suffers in mine that is still persecuted upon the earth nor are we to wonder at it because it is no more I that live but he that liveth in me And if this Maxime were not true Jesus Christ had never complained of the persecution of Saul nor ever Saul have been so bold as to say he had filled up what was wanting in the sufferings of Christ But a little to clear this passage we must say that the Son of God being the Pledge and Surety of sinners was willing to satisfie the justice of his Father and bear all the pains their sins deserved Passio Domini usque ad finem munâ—i producitur sicut in Sanctis suis ipse honoratur ipse diligitur in pauperibus ipse pascitur ipse vestitur ita in omnibus qui pro justitia adversae tolerant ipse compatitur Leo. de pass Dom. Ser. 19. Death being one of the severest and the sentence that designes us to it expresses no one kinde that we might fear all the Son will have them undergo all and by that stratagem of Love change all our Chastisements into Oblations of piety But because the Body his mother gave him could not suffer all these deaths their different kinds being incompatible and that one and the same man could not be nailed to the Cross devoured by wilde beasts choaked in the waters consumed by the flames he was pleased to associate a mystical Body which being compounded of different Members might undergo divers punishments and to satisfie the excess of his Charity might honour his Father by as many sacrifices as there were kindes of death in
Nature Thus was he torn in pieces by lions in the person of S. Ignatius devoured by flames in that of S. Laurence stoned in that of S. Stephen beheaded in that of S. Paul and this great Apostle that knew the desires of Jesus Christ rejoyced to accomplish them by his sufferings and to be one of those Victims whereby he adored the Justice and the Soveraignty of his Father But not to urge this conceit any further 't is enough that we learn from it that Jesus and the Church are united in their sufferings upon earth and by a necessary consequence assures us they shall be so one day in their rest in heaven For though the Church sigh here belowe she knows her Beloved will keep his word that having had a part in his sorrows she shall have a share in his triumphs and having been two in one Flesh they shall be two in one and the same Felicity She hath the promises of Jesus Christ for caution of her hope and when she remembers the prayer her Beloved made to his Father in her behalf she expects the performance with constancy of assurance Father I will that where I am there also my servants be Whenever Jesus Christ speaks to his Father 't is with so much respect that he seems rather a Servant then a Son when he asks that his Church may reign with him in his glory 't is with so much freedom of speech that he seems equal to his Father and that his demand is rather a determination then a prayer Volo Pater so that the Church who hath passed thorow all the degrees of unity with her Beloved expects this last with confidence and makes no more doubt of the Eternity of her rest then of the Verity of the words of her Beloved She believes that the union he hath contracted with her puts her in possession of her hopes that she enjoys in him what she hopes for in her self that she is glorious in her Body because she is so in her Head and that during the evils she suffers Ubi portio mea regnat ibi me regnare puto ubi caput meum dominatur ibi me dominari sentio D. Max. Serm. 3. she may boast her self happie because nothing is wanting to the felicity of her Beloved She hath now in Christ what she hopes for in her self and according to the judgement of S. Maxime she believes to raign there already where the most illustrious part of her Body reigns and conceives her self exalted above the Angels in the person of him that considers her as his Spouse and looks upon them as his Subjects The Seventh DISCOURSE That the quality of the Members of Jesus Christ is no more advantageous to Christians then that of the Brethren of Jesus Christ IT is not without great reason Unigenitus Dei factus est hominis filius ut qui Creator mundi erat fieret Redemptor Aug. that the same God that created us by his Power hath redeemed us by his Mercy For these two favours being extreme we should have had much ado equally to have acknowledged them Having but one heart to love with we must of necessity have divided our affections and the benefit of Redemption surpassing that of Creation we had been constrained to prefer our Redeemer before our Creator But the Divine Providence saith S. Bernard hath delivered us from this perplexity for he that drew us out of Nothing hath drawn us out of Sin and he that Created us is the same that Redeemed us so that without any fear of Jealousie we may compare these two benefits and give one the pre-eminence without injuring him of whom we have received them Me thinks I may say the same concerning the subject I am in hand with and free from any apprehension confront the quality of Brethren with that of Members because we hold them both of Jesus Christ and that the same who was pleased to be our Brother disdained not to be our Head Nature hath found out no alliance neerer then that of Brothers and Members and though she be so ingenious she hath not been able to link men in a stronger bond of relation then in giving them one and the same Father or one and the same Head Brothers are Slips of the same Stock if they ascend one degree they will finde that before their conception they made one portion of their Father and that before their birth they were a part of the bowels of their mother Friendship which is so much esteemed of in the world is but a Copie of this Alliance Friends are Brethren that our Will bestows upon us and Brethren are Friends that Nature stores us with but as that which is voluntary never equals that which is natural 't is very hard for Friends to love so tenderly as Brothers do Nevertheless if the affinity of these begin by Unity it insensibly tends to Division Brothers children are but Cousins their Grandchildren are yet at a farther distance and it falls out in time that those that issued from one father become by continuance of Generations strangers and enemies I know very well that Christians have priviledges that raise them above the condition of Men and that Grace more powerful then Nature hath given them a Father and Mother from whom they are never divided For the Son of God unites us to his Person in begetting us of children he makes us members and as if the Alliance of Father were not strict enough he becomes our Head that subsisting in him our life may be inseparable from his The Church imitates the charity of her Beloved she is so tenderly affected towards her children that she brings them up in the same bosome where she conceived them There are none but Hereticks that go out from her and they as Vipers must tear her bowels and offer violence to her Love in making a breach in her Unity Though other Mothers bear their children Nine months with an affection that solaceth their travel yet do they long to be eased of that painful load and the Infant desires to quit that troublesome prison Both of them do their utmost for a separation and if the children seek their liberty the mothers are as earnest after their delivery But the Church is so good a Mother she is never rid of her burden they always make a part of her inwards as they always are a part of the body of their Father they are born in the same place they are formed and as their Regeneration divides them not from Jesus Christ their Generation divorces them not from the Church But who sees not that to entertain this Union the quality of Members comes in to the assistance of that of Children and that the Faithful are much more knit together for being Members of the same Head then for being Children of the same Father We make up one Body with him Time that divides Brothers cannot divide Christians and as nothing but death can disjoyn the members