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
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
make use of it in Sacrifice and laying the punishment we our selves deserve upon the Creature we do our utmost to avoid his indignation by an invention his own mercy hath taught us Et viles animas pro meliore damus Ovi Fast Thence it is that those people who have lost the true Religion have not left off to continue Sacrifice and instructed either by Tradition or Nature they have laboured to appease the gods they worship by the slaughter of Victims Apud Aegyptios victimae inurchantur sigillo quodam in quo effigies erat servi seipsū gladio confodientis Plut. in Isid Osy By that Ceremony they acknowledged themselves worthy of death and at the same time they went about to satisfie Justice they confessed that his Mercy suffered them to transfer the punishment due to their offences upon the Beast and to immolate innocent Animals in stead of guilty Men. The Egyptians who had more dealing with the Jews give testimony they were of the same minde when they stampt upon the Victim the picture of a Slave stabbing himself to inform all the world that the Justice of God sparing the Man gave them leave to sacrifice the Beast in his place and in a manner to charge him with his sin and his punishment 'T is true that as Oblations were not considerable among the Jews but because they were the Figures and Types of Jesus Christ Huic summo veroque sacrificio cuncta falsa sacrificia cesserunt Aug. it was thought requisite that in the fulness of time he should accomplish the Truth and that he might perfectly honour all the perfections of his Father should himself be sacrificed upon the Altar of the Cross The Eighth DISCOURSE That the Christian stood in need that the Son of God should offer for him the Sacrifice of the Cross and of the Altar IT is a strange Paradox but very true that Sin which obligeth Man to sacrifice himself deprives him of the power to do it Animantia minus ingrata Deo quia minus infecta peccato Philo Jud. and reduceth him to a condition where not being able to finde a Victim in himself he is driven to seek for one among the Creatures This shameful necessity discovered not to him onely the Goodness of God who was content that Beasts should be offered up in stead of Men but it upbraided him with his unworthiness and made him wofully resent that being able to offend his Creator he could by no means make him satisfaction Having imprinted this truth in his minde and for many Generations reading him this lesson that he that pretended to equal the Almighty was in a worse condition then the Beasts in process of time it was demonstrated to him that his crime was too great to be expiated by the blood of Goats or Lambs and that his excess required a Sacrifice whose merit was Infinite Indeed that a Sacrifice might be acceptable to God it must have those qualities which are found neither in Angels nor Men nor Beasts For it must be Innocent and no way obnoxious to that evil whereof it is to be the remedy It must be Reasonable to treat with God and to speak in behalf of them whose place he appears in It must be mortal that it may undergo the punishment sin hath deserved and thereby satisfie the Divine Justice But above all its merit must of necessity be Infinite that being equal to the malice of sin the honour of God may have full reparation and the debt of man an entire compleat acquittance De Adaestirpe nullus propagari poterat naturaliter qui illius delicto non teneretur adstrictus Aug. The Angel had two of these conditions he was Reasonable and Innocent but being Immortal and Finite by nature he could neither die nor satisfie Man was Reasonable and Mortal the one he owed to his Sin the other to his Constitution but having lost his Innocence he could neither Satisfie nor Merit The Beast more happie in some sort then Man was Mortal and Innocent but having not the use of Reason his death was unprofitable nor could his sacrifice reconcile us to God Therefore did the Eternal Word contrive to be Incarnate that uniting the Divine Nature with the Humane in his Person there might come forth a Divine Compositum which being God and Man both together might possess all the qualities requisite to accomplish the work of our Salvation He was Mortal because he was Man and had assumed our Nature with its imperfections the appurtenances of sin He was Innocent because he subsisted in the person of the Word which managed his Will without constraining it and by a happie necessity made him absolutely impeccable He was Reasonable inasmuch as having taken our imperfections he withal took our advantages and by a priviledge due to his Greatness the use of Reason was indulged him with life that from the first moment of his conception he might honour his Father and satisfie for sinners His Merit was as his Person Infinite and the actions that were performed by this God-Man were Meritorious because Humane and on the other fide Infinite because Divine Thus the Word Incarnate became the Sacrifice of God and Men and entering into our duties paid what we stood bound for to the Justice of his Father he suffered what our sins deserved and delivered us from those punishments our sentence condemned us to But being the Substance of all the Shadows of the Old Testament and by his acquitting us being obliged to fulfil all the Figures thereof he offered up himself to the Eternal Father by a double Sacrifice that one seconding the other the Christians might render as much honour to God as the Jews For the Synagogue had four kindes of Sacrifices The First was the Holocaust which respected the glory of God wherein the Victim was wholly consumed by the fire The Second was an Atonement for sin where the Oblation being parted between God and his Ministers one part was burnt in the fire and the other remained to the Priest for his nourishment The Third and Fourth were called Peace-offerings with this distinction that the one was made to obtain some favour of God or to give him thanks for what was already received the other to acquit the offerer of his promises and to accomplish those vows he stood engaged to God for In these two last Sacrifices the Victim was divided into Three parts The First was consecrated to God the Second designed to the Priest and the Third left to the Faithful Therefore hath the Son of God joyned the Sacrifice of the Cross with that of the Altar to accomplish all those of the Old Law Upon the Cross he offered up himself an Holocaust to his Father where being destroyed by death he rose from the Grave to be consummated in Glory and to be received into the bosom of his Father from whence he came forth by the Mystery of the Incarnation But because in the Oblation
cito caperetur incarnatio non opus erat ut crederetur credendo ergo capitur quod nisi credatur nunquam intelligitur Aug. de vera Innoc. c. 45. as the difficulty of the Remedy neither does any thing make a man so sensible of the Corruption of his Nature by Sin as the difficulty of his Restitution by Grace The External Cause of his salvation is so strange that it appears incredible to all those that are not illuminated by Faith Humane Prudence cannot comprehend that the Death of a God was necessary for the Recovery of a Sinner It laughs at that Mercy that oblig'd Divinity to be cloath'd with our miseries it beleeves such excess of love unworthy an infinite wisdom and that to be perswaded of the mystery of the Incarnation is to render the Divine Nature ridiculous and humane Nature insolent Nevertheless Faith convinceth us that nothing hath so much exalted God as this Condescention nothing hath so much abased Man as this Exaltation For albeit the greatness of God be at the height that neither Desires nor Imaginations can add any thing to it yet if we believe Saint * Deus cum non haberet quo cresceret per ascensum quia ultra Deum nihil est per descensum quomodo cresceret invenit veniens Incarnari Bern. serm 2. de Asc Bernard he acquir'd new qualities by the Incarnation Men never more reverenced him then since he thus humbled himself and he hath done things in pursuance of this Mystery that might seem unprofitably attempted before he vouchsafed to accomplish so transcendent a wonder His Empire is increased now that he is become a servant to his Father Men have erected Altars to his Majesty since the Jews lifted him up upon the Cross and the Crown of Thorns that encircled his head hath merited the Crown of all the Kingdoms of the Universe If his Humiliation hath exalted him we must acknowledg that our exaltation hath humbled us †Haec medicina hominum tanta est quanta non potest cogitari nam quae superbia sanari potest si humilitate filii Dei non sanatur Aug. de Ago Chr. c. ii For there is no pride that wil not stoop when it considers that our sin could not finde a perfect remedy but in the death of God-Man that we must be wash'd in his blood to be purified and with his honour despoil him of Life to restore us our Innocence This Truth findes new proofs in the Birth of a Christian and if he consider the names it bears and the effects it produceth he will be constrain'd to acknowledg that he was strangely corrupted by sin since to re-establish him in Grace he was fain to bestow upon him a * Redditur nobis novitas per BaptismuÌ„ vetustate discedente deoneratur anima sarcinis peccatorum ut libertate novae vitae induta adversus Diabolum cum adjutorio Divino valeat fortiter dimicare Aug. l. 4. de Sym. c. 9 New-Birth Indeed the Holy Scriptures teach us that the Baptism wherein the Christian is Regenerated is somtimes called his Renovation somtimes his second Birth somtimes his first Resurrection that from the very name of his Remedy he may learn the greatness of his Malady Let us admire these two together and shew in this Discourse the Transgression of Man and the Reformation of the Christian Sin is a Secret poyson that hath spread its malice over the soul and body of Man Malorum omniuÌ„ nostrorum causa peccatum est non enim fine causa mala ista homines patiuntur Justus est Deus omnipotens non ista pateremur nisi mereremur Aug. ser 139. de Tempore The miseries it hath produc'd in the body are so publick that there is none but knows them because there is none but feels them The Confusion of our Humours the Disorder of our Temperament the unfaithfulness of our Senses and the revolt of our Passions are miseries under which Philosophers groan as well as Believers But as the soul is more guilty then the Body so is she much more miserable For Errour hath stoln into the Understanding Malice hath depraved the Will Oblivion hath dropt into the Memory and in so general a disorder there remains no faculty that is not either weakned or corrupted The Pride of the Stoïcks hath complain'd of this misfortune which though they have endeavoured to sweeten by Reason they have been forc'd to confess that so impotent a remedy could not cure so obstinate a malady After the Divine Justice had suffered man for many ages to languish in his * Productior est poena quam culpa ne parva putaretur culpa si cum illa finiretur poena Aug. Trac 124. in Joan. miseries at last Mercy furnished him with Baptism to rid him of his Evils But lest the Easiness of the remedy consisting of the Commonest of the Elements might render it contemptible God was willing that the very name it bears should inform us that we were so corrupt that to be cured we must be wholly new-made For in this Sacrament Man seems to change his Nature to receive a new life to assume other inclinations Ecce libertatis serenitate perfruuntur qui tenebantur paulo ante captivi Cives Ecclesiae sunt qui fuerunt in peregrinationis errore in sorte justitiae versantur qui fuerunt in confusâ—one peccati Non enim tantum sunt liberi sed sancti non tantum sancti sed justi non solum justi sed filii non solum filii sed cohaeredes c. vides quot sunt Baptismatis largitates Chrysost homil de Baptisatis citatur ab Aug. lib. 1. contra Julia. cap. 2. where being illuminated by faith he discovers other lights being warm'd by Charity he conceives other heats being united to another head he receives other influences and being quickned by a new Spirit he forms new designes Is it not indeed a prodigious change that he that was the slave of the Devil becomes the subject of Jesus Christ that a Criminal is pronounced Innocent that he that had in him the seeds of all Vices receives the seeds of all Vertues and that by a happy Metamorphosis which is wrought in a moment and with a word he is despoyl'd of Adam and cloathed with Jesus Christ This Renovation is so great and so consequentially admirable in the effects thereof that the Scripture to express the wonders that accompany it hath somtimes called it a New-birth somtimes a Regeneration The Son of God who is the Author of it testifies that no man can enter into the kingdom of heaven except he be born again of Water and of the Holy Ghost The Fathers of the Church have given it the same name and Theoyhylact teacheth us that we were so deeply swallowed up in the puddle of sin that being not able to be drawn out by an ordinary endevour nor cleansed by a simple washing we were fain to be Regenerated And
affection higher in loving God they become Divine But there needs no other proof of this verity but the Mystery of the Incarnation where Love triumphing over God himself made him assume the form of a Man invested him with our nature and our miseries loaded him with our sins and obliged him to appear before his Father as a Penitent or rather as an Anathema This prodigious change makes us look for another For God was not made Man but that Men might be made Gods he was humbled that they might be exalted he took their nature that he might bestow his upon them nor did he suffer his love to render him like Man but to perswade them that the same love may liken them to God The Seventh DISCOURSE Of the Prudence Justice Fortitude and Temperance of a Christian THough sin hath committed so many outrages against Nature divided her Forces obscured her Lights and weakned her Liberty yet hath he not been able to destroy the workmanship of God There remains to man since his Fall some strength to combat his enemies some light to discover errours and some liberty to defend him against evil After his Transgression his misery opened his eyes when seeking out remedies for his disease he made himself a Morality which taught him vertues to rectifie those disorders his disobedience had occasioned in his person Some call them the Reliques of Innocence Virtus ars est nou natura Senec. but without any reason Because the Vertues that accompanied that happle condition having no enemies were not obliged to stand upon their guard Others call them the Succours of sinful Man and that very justly Because they help him in his necessities and comfort him in his misfortunes They believe that Adam receiving them from God after his repentance for his fault taught them his children and left them these arms to combat their Passions But inasmuch as they went not to him who had bestowed them upon their father and had reserved himself the power of dispensing them to their children there remained nothing but the appearance and the name Concupiscence took the place of Charity and animating her false Vertues made them true Sins This made S. Augustine so often profess that the Prudence of the Heathen is blind and interessed that their Fortitude is upheld meerely by Vanity that their Temperance overcomes one passion with another and that their Justice being arrogant seeks only fair pretences to authorise its usurpations So that these Vertues have not recovered their Primitive purity but by the grace of Christianity They owe all their worth to Charity they are acceptable to God because they proceed from Jesus Christ nor can they hope for an eternal recompence but because they have a Supernatural and Divine Principle Therefore the same Doctor mingles Charity always in the definition of these Vertues Definitio brevis est vera virtutis ardor amoris propter quod dicit sponsa ordinate in me charitatē Aug. lib. 15. de Civ cap. 12. Prudentia est in eligendis Temperantia in utendis Fortitudo in tolerandis Justitia in distribuendis Aug. and makes them passe for so many severall motions or functions of Love In this conceit he cals Prudence an illuminated Love Justice a regulated Love Fortitude a couragious Love and Temperance a faithful Love But because this definition seems to limit these Vertues and many think they are not so much the Impulses as the Ministers of Love Let us say that Prudence is a Practicall Science teaching the soul what it ought to doe inspiring her with a love of good things and a detestation of bad and carrying light into the understanding teacheth it to discern what is profitable from what is hurtful Fortitude is a couragious Vertue making us suffer with an evennesse of mind affronts and griefs 'T is a victorious habit that triumphs in suffering and owes the best part of her advantages to the bitternesse of the afflictions that persecute her 'T is a stability of spirit against all the miseries of the world a resolution to fight and overcome all the labours that accompany life 'T is a Vertue whose generous humour makes us desire great things contemn low things and endure hard things or it is a Vertue that raiseth the soul above Fear apprehending nothing but dishonour and which instructs us to carry our selves equally in favours and in disgraces If we will shut her up within the bounds of Christianity we may say it is a Vertue inform'd with Grace preparing us to undergo all things rather then fail of our duty Temperance is a just dominion of reason over the passions but especially over those that flatter us by the pleasure they promise and employ voluptuousnesse to seduce us 'T is a Vertue that teacheth us to wish nothing that may cause shame in us or regret not to doe any thing that exceeds the bounds of reason to suffer nothing that may diminish her authority and foment the rebellion of her lawful subjects Or to use Saint Augustines expressions 't is an affection that subdueth the Concupiscible appetite and gives it not leave to hunt after those pleasures which are accompanied with shame or followed wich repentance Justice is a Vertue that prefers the publick interests before private and many times punisheth a Delinquent with more severity then his fault requires to stop the course of evil and to astonish other offenders According to the opinion of Saint Ambrose it is a Vertue which hath more respect to the service of others then of it self and considers more the advantages of her neighbour then her own According to Aristotle it renders every one their due punisheth Vice rewards Vertue maintains the peace of the State by the severity of punishments and the liberality of recompences Let us adde with Seneca though very blind in the knowledge of Christian Vertues that Justice is a secret Convention Nature hath contracted with men for the succour of the innocent or distressed that it is a Divine Law that entertains humane society preserves every man his right and not respecting the quality of the persons considers only their merits Finally 't is a Christian Vertue which enlightned by Faith animated with Charity obligeth man to satisfie at once God himself and his neighbour Having examined the nature of these Vertues it remains that we take notice of their use and the profit that ariseth from them S. Augustine whom in Morality I look upon as my Guide and in Divinity my Master saith that these Vertues are given to the soul to imbellish her and to arm her against Vices Prudence teacheth her what she is to doe is in stead of a Torch to light her in the darknesse of the world Temperance learns her not to bee charmed with pleasure Fortitude not to be vanquished with griefs and Justice not to be transported with her own interests or to expresse another way no lesse solidly and more pleasingly the obligations of these Vertues it concerns Prudence
Christ we have Jesus Christ in us This vertue makes him present in our souls and the belief we conceive of him is his other self in our hearts Thus the Believer is happie because he possesseth the Son of God and is possessed by him as long as he preserves a vertue which so closely unites them together Hope which is bred with Faith increaseth this happiness and makes our condition more resemble that of the Blessed For that which seems most to separate them from us is that they enjoy that happiness we expect that they languish not as we do and that they have received seisen of the Supreme Good we still hope for They feel the truth of that speech the Scripture hath recorded for our consolation Intra in gaudium Domini tui Their Desires disturb them not and Fear which always accompanies Hope troubles not their content They are above all their wishes and being in full possession of the Supreme Good have neither Miseries to fear nor Blessings to desire It is true the Believers enjoy not all these priviledges neither does their condition suffer them to live without apprehensions and longings They work out their salvation with trembling Ille bene novit in miseriis exterioribus subsistere qui scit de spe interna semper gaudere Greg. Mora. and as they possess not all that they love they give themselves leave gently to consume away in the flames and desires of their Love But withal we must confess they have a part of this felicity for all Philosophers know that Hope is the flower of Pleasure that it gives a taste of the pleasure it promiseth that to stir up the appetite of our Soul it indulgeth a kinde of sense of the felicity prepared for us and that the strength she inspires us with proceeds from the sweetness she charms our expectation with I know prophane Authors affirm that the overtures of Hope are but pleasing Lyes Spes vigilantiū somnium Plut. that she engageth us in dangers with vain promises and finding us over-easie abuseth our credulity But the sounder sort of Philosophers acknowledge that Hopes animates us sowes pleasures amidst our pains nor ever carries men on to generous and difficult actions but in making them taste a part of the recompence she promiseth But admit this Passion had not all the power attributed to her we must by no means question it as belonging to that Hope which is grounded upon the words of God This confers things in promising them makes us feel the happiness we expect and as the Air and the Windes carry the Odours of Arabia into the neighbouring Provinces we may say that this vertue carries the felicity of the Beatified into the very heart of the Faithful Thence it comes to pass that Saint Paul many times in his Epistles mingles Joy with Hope as if he would teach us that we cannot hope but we must possess in part what we hope for Spe gaudentes and in another place Gloriamur in spe gloriae filiorum Dei Finally if it exclude not all Evils as Beatitude does at least it sweetens them and turns them into remedies S. Gregory goes further for he will have it happie because certain and wiping away the tears of Christians crowns them with a joy which comes neer that of the Angels Inasmuch as Charity is nobler then Hope she contributes more liberally to the Happiness of the Faithful For besides that it makes the holy Trinity present in their souls renders their Exile a Paradise she unites them to God and by a happy Metamorphosis findes out an expedient to transform them into him All the world knows that love is the tye of hearts and that his principal effect is to unite together all the Subjects that live under his Empire To accomplish this design he equals their conditions debaseth great persons and exalteth mean ones enricheth the poor and impoverisheth the rich sets slaves at liberty and makes Masters slaves But Charity effects all these things more happily then profane love she humbles the Almighty without interessing his Greatness obligeth him to comply with our weakness Quis me amavit non ad me pervenit quisquis me quaerit cum ipso sum ipse amor tibi praesentem me facit Aug. and reduceth him to a condition wherin he enters into commerce with us not dazling us with his light nor astonishing us with his Majesty He infuseth himself into our souls by grace is linkt to us by his love and in this union communicates to us all his Divine Qualities For he lifts us above our selves to transform us into him draws us out of our misery to make us capable of his happiness and takes from us our own affections to give us admittance into his inclinations when we are arrived to this height of perfection we behold all earthly things under our feet we breath nothing but Heaven we discourse onely of the subject of our love and we are so perfectly filled with him that we may say without offence our desires are alike our conditions equal and our interests common Though all Christians cannot pretend to this high degree of Happiness it seems yet that having the Grace of Jesus Christ they have one part of that felicity which the Saints possess by Charity For in the judgement of all Divines Grace is Glory begun Glory Grace consummated the former gives that a being here below which the second finisheth above and maugre all the miseries that afflict the children of Adam makes us finde Happiness in the midst of our sorrows 'T is perhaps upon this ground that Saint Paul calls Grace Eternal Life Gratia Dei vita aeterna and insinuates to all Christians that being Saints here below they are already Blessed Beatitudo in quodam illapsu Divinae Essen tiae intra animam consistit Henri à Gau. Indeed Essential Felicity consists in a certain emanation of Divinity into the substance of the soul when she as the iron by the fire is penetrated therewith she happily loseth her own qualities to assume those of God she is swallowed up in this Ocean of Glory and having no longer any thing of mortal nor humane is entirely Immutable and Divine What Glory operates in the Blessed Grace works proportionably in the Faithful she sheds abroad the Divine Essence in their souls communicates to them a new being and changing their nature and condition makes Gods of them which may die indeed because they may sin and being not inseparable from the Supream Good are not yet fully impeccable Nevertheless Divines confess that as Grace is a participation of the Divine Nature it communicates Immortality as well as Sanctity and the life it produceth in our souls carries along with it no principle of death The life of the body is not a true life because the same elements that preserve it destroy it and the corruption that accompanies it leads it insensibly to a dissolution But the life of Grace is exempt
a very noble Allyance yet we may say it relates not to God in his Persons but in his Essence For all the perfections Man received in his Creation are but the droppings of the perfections of God His Power expresseth that of his Creator his Liberty is an emanation of that Being which is as free as it is necessary his Reason is a product of the first primitive Reason and all the other qualities that raise him above the rest of Creatures are rather images of the Unity of God then of the Plurality of his Persons Nay the very Angels which are of nobler extraction then Man seem not allyed to the divine Persons Every one of their * Cernere est in Seraphin quomodo amet qui unde amet non habet cernere est in Cherubin Deum scientiarum qui solam nesciat ignorantiam cernere est in Thronis judicantis aequitatem nec vacat sessio tranquillitatis insigne est Bern. lib. 5. de Consid cap. 4. Orders respect some one of the perfections of their Creator The Seraphims express his Love the Cherubins his Light the Thrones his Rest The Hierarchies lead us not to the Trinity or if they give us some umbrages thereof they deliver no exact knowledge We see nothing in these blessed Spirits that discovers to us the Generation of the Word or the Procession of the Holy Ghost and having well considered them there is nothing we admire in them but the Goodness or the Power the Greatness or the Majesty of him that created them All their Allyances as wel as those of Men are terminated in the divine Essence and pass not to the Trinity of the Persons They are rather Servants then Sons or if they are Sons their Adoption is not * Nusquam enim Angelos apprchendis sed semen Abrahae apprehendit Heb. 2. founded upon the Mystery of the Incarnation This glory was reserved for Christians who at the moment of their Nativity have the honour to be allyed to all the Persons of the Trinity The Son loves them as his Brethren the Father adopts them as his children and the Holy Ghost quickens them as his Temples therefore are they baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Their Birth consecrates them to this ineffable mystery and from the time they receive the Being of Grace they bear the Character of the Trinity The Son began this Allyance by the Mystery of the Incarnation he was made Man to make us his Members he hath united us in his Person by such a neer combination that his advantages become ours and our transgressions become his Every thing is common to us with him and giving his Person to our Nature there is no Greatness he hath not communicated to us our Grace is an effusion flowing from his our Birth is an image of his eternall Generation Gratia nihil est aliud quà m participatio divinae filiationis secundùm Divum Thomam and if we beleeve the Master of the School our Adoption is a copy of his divine filiation Finally to express so high a Verity in a more noble Elogie Every Christian seems to be a second Jesus Christ every beleever is a son of God and as they are happily blended with the Word Incarnate they may boast themselves as he is Men-Gods 'T is on this occasion Love makes his power appear that of many persons mutually affecting one another he makes but one that he makes greatness bow and sets humility on high that he transforms God into Man to transform Man into God and surmounting all obstacles that oppose this Union constitutes Jesus Christ the Head of Christians and Christians the Members of Jesus Christ Now 't is in Baptism that they obtain this honour for albeit the Son of God is united to our Nature in the Mystery of the Incarnation and that there this eternal affinity was contracted which death cannot dissolve we are not engraffed upon his Person but by Baptism till we are bathed in this Laver we have nothing but the miseries of Adam nor any part in the merits of Jesus Christ 'T is by the vertue of this †Nemo fit membrum Christi nisi aut Baptismate in Christo aut morte pro Christo Aug. lib. 1. de anima Sacrament that we enter into society with him 't is there that putting off the old man we put on the new and beginning to be united to the Son of God we participate of his divine qualities From this time the Christian is a new creature he receives the Spirit of Jesus Christ without changing his nature he changeth his condition though he hath yet but the seeds of glory he hath notwithstanding the rights of a Son and looks upon the Kingdom of heaven as his inheritance The grace of Jesus Christ blots out all his sins of a slave he becoms a child of an object of wrath he becoms an object of love and big with the merits of his Head he hopes one day to reign with him in glory By a necessary consequence he enters into an Allyance with the Father Everlasting not considering the meanness of his Extraction nor the misery of his Original he treats with God as with his own Father he makes use of those amorous terms the Church puts in his mouth and without losing the respect of a servant he enters into the liberty of a child Grace fastens so strict a union betwixt them that nothing but sin can divide them as it is an emanation of the divine Sonship it is not a bare Adoption and if it bear this name 't is because we have no other to expresse its excellence by But to comprehend rightly this Allyance is as true as that which flesh and blood entitles us to with our Fathers and Mothers if this be founded in Nature that is founded in Grace if this be sensible that is spiritual if this be close that is more intimate neither is the quality of children in Christians a meer denomination as 't is in those that humanely are adopted We are the images of our Father in the donation of Grace we participate of his nature and as it is true according to the saying of St Peter that by grace we are God's so is it certain that by the same grace we are the children of God All the trouble in this Alliance is that it depends upon our Liberty for its preservation we have the power to dissolve it there needs but one act of our will to break the Association and though the chains that entertain it are stronger and more precious then those of Diamond one mortall sin is able to dash them all in pieces there is nothing but Glory that unites us inseparably with God as long as we live upon the earth we are divided between hope and fear and if the greatness of Allyance makes us joyful it 's frailty causeth us to be apprehensive and fearful As long as it lasts it
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
off but because they stop'd their ears against his Oracles 'T is the crime St Stephen accused them of when they stoned him Ye always resist the Holy Ghost and 't is the punishment the Son of God threatens all those with that persevere in their sins The Third Quality of the holy Spirit is that of a Comforter for if our Body revolt against reason he supplyes us with strength to subdue this Rebell if Passions trouble our rest he layes the storms if we are in doubt of our Salvation he gives us assurances and whatever affliction exerciseth our Patience he is our Consolation and our Joy But as concerning the acknowledgment of this Grace we daily afflict him by our insolence and we compell the Successours of the Apostles to reprove us as Saint Paul did Grieve not the holy Spirit This advice which the Doctor of the Gentiles gives us is expressed in terms not easie to be understood For the holy Spirit being God with the Father and the Son is not capable of sadness he enjoyes a happinesse that cannot be disturbed the rebellion of his Subjects can neither shake his Empire nor diminish his felicity what-ever designe is undertaken against him he still remains absolute and his Power which equals his Wisdome makes the malice of his enemies serviceable to the execution of his Will Therefore is it Ira Dei non est ut hominis id est perturbatio concitati animi sed tranquilla justi supplicii constitutio Aug. Trac 124. in Joan. that Divines cannot comprehend the language of St Paul nor conceive how the holy Spirit that is the source of joy can be grieved by sinners Some explain it following the common Rule which placeth the effects of the Passions in God and excludes the imperfections for his Anger takes not away his Tranquillity he punisheth the Rebels of his State without the least commotion nor is he less calm when he punisheth the Divels then when he rewards the Angels But though he act with so much stayedness he makes his thunder roar over the heads of the guilty he makes the earth open under their feet and if these two Elements are not enough to destroy them he obliges the Sea to drown them by his Inundations Others conceive that Saint Paul attributes Grief to the holy Spirit after the same manner he attributes Groans that he more respects his Figure then his Person and considering him in that Dove Gemitus Columbae gemitus Spiritus sancti quia in figura columbae descendit Spiritus in Dominum in the shape whereof he descended upon Jesus Christ he applyes to him the properties of that innocent Bird For every one knowes that the Dove mourns that she hath no other note but sighs and when she is once separated from her mate her lamentation lasts as long as her life But St Augustine resolves this difficulty by the strict union between the Faithfull and the holy Spirit he attributes to him the grief he inspires into them and because the pity they expresse for the lost estate of sinners is an effect of his Grace he ascends to the cause and attributes that to the holy Spirit that he produceth in Christians But how-ever it is we afflict him that comforts us and not acknowledging the good he hath done us we grieve the holy Spirit because we sad the Church whom he inanimates Finally to conclude this Discourse One of the most eminent Qualities of the holy Spirit is that of the Remission of sins his Spouse making his Panegyrick honours him with this Elogie and Divinity teacheth us that he it is that prepares the Will of the ungodly that manageth their Consent by the endearments of his Grace and reconciles them to the Father by the merits of the Son which he applyes to them Thence is it that he presides in the work of Repentance that the Priests who absolve the guilty are his Ministers and the sorrow that blots out sin is an effect of his Mercy Ad ipsum pertinet societas qua efficimur unum corpus unici Filii Dei Aug. in Ser. de Blasph Spir. In the mean time we offend him that pardons us his indulgence makes us insolent and the easiness wherewith he receiveth Penitents encreaseth the number of Delinquents All the sins we commit check these Divine perfections and by the least of our offences we violate all his personall Proprieties He is the Unity of the Father and of the Son because he is that sacred bond that joyns them eternally together and Sin is an unhappy division that divorceth Man from God the body from the soul Peccatum origo mali nec sine peccato aliquid in natura malum est Aug. the Husband from the Wife The holy Spirit is Goodness because he proceeds by the way of Love and all the effects that bear the mark of that divine perfection are particularly attributed to him Sin is nothing but malice in the essence of it the Creature may be weak and ignorant by nature Sanctitas est ab omni inquinatione libera incontaminatissema et perfectissima puritas quae fine Spiritu saucto intelligi non potest in creatura S. Dyonis but he cannot be bad but by sin what-ever bears that shameful character takes its origination thence and men and Angels would be exempt from Malice were they exempt from Sin The holy Spirit is stiled Holy not onely because he sanctifies all Creatures but because being the Spirit of the Father and of the Son who are both holy it concern'd him to bear a name common to both and which may delineate forth the admirable secrets of his eternall Procession Sin is so opposite to Holiness that we cannot better define it then by its contrariety to this divine Perfection For sanctity separates us from the Creatures and unites us so mightily to the Creator that nothing can disjoyn us on the contrary Sin is nothing else but a being wedded to the Creatures and an unhappy separation from the Creator so that it thwarts all the personal Proprieties of the holy Spirit and renders men unworthy of all the Favours they have received from him Let us therefore combate this Enemy of Grace Quicquid fecit Christus ut destrueret peccatum fecit ita debet facere Christianus cui nullus hostis est praeter peccatum Chrys make warr against him that makes it against God let us shake off the yoak of this Tyrant that flatters onely to destroy us and acknowledging the obligations we have to the holy Spirit submit our selves to his divine qualities Seeing he gives us Life by Grace let not us make him die together with it seeing he is our Director let us yeeld obedience to his Ordinances since he is our Consolation in our discontents let us not grieve him in his just Ones and seeing he is the Remission of sins let us bewail those we have committed to give him satisfaction and commit no new ones further to
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
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
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
to act when this ceaseth to operate For the right understanding of this Truth we must remember that though the Christian and the Man be one and the same person yet have they their oppositions and their differences Man believes himself perfect when he is free and reasonable these two faculties are his principal advantages and the vanity of Philosophy perswades him that as long as he acts according to Reason he cannot fail of attaining felicity To keep himself in this state he is careful that the Senses pervert not his Understanding that the Passions trouble not his Rest and an inordinate Love deprive him of his Liberty But this blinde Opiniator sees not that he carries his enemy in his own bosom that Concupiscence orders all the motions of his soul that Reason is but her slave and that he is never more wedded to himself then when he thinks to hang loose from all things else As the Christian is a new man he acts by other principles for he renounceth Reason to give himself over to Grace he quits the light of his Understanding to submit to the obscurity of Faith and his endeavour is to quench the flames of Self-love that he may burn onely with the fire of Charity He learns in the School of Christianity that Reason is a bad guide because she lets Concupiscence lead her he knows that the Understanding is prevented with a thousand errours and having lost the better part of his light he many times confounds Vertue with Vice He is not ignorant that the Will is the most depraved as it is the most guilty of all his faculties and being engaged in the love of the creatures finds nothing that charms the affection but what is corruptible and perishable Therefore is his greatest care to get assistance against these domestick enemies and wholly to surrender himself to grace that it may be to him for a guide and a defence Thus Faith becomes his Light Hope his Supporter Charity his Love and if we may speak so Grace is made his second Nature To the vain errours of Science he opposeth the solid lights of Faith to the false promises of the world the true promises of Jesus Christ to self-love divine love and to the corruption of Nature the purity of Grace Then is it that soaring above himself he learns by a happy experience that he was never more free then since he became a slave and that Grace is so far from robbing him of his liberty that it hath delivered him from a bondage as cruell as it was ignominious For as Saint Augustine saith Free-will finds its perfection in Charity he that was in darkness becomes enlightned from weakness he passeth to strength from disorder to good government and he that was sullied with the love of the creatures recovers his purity in the love of the Creator But nothing more obliges the Christian to renounce his reason that so he may become the subject of Grace then to know that his last end is supernaturall and that he cannot attain it by forces solely naturall For though man have some knowledge of God though he observe his perfections in the creatures though he judge of his greatness by the beauty of his works and recoiling into himself sees there some shadows of him whose image he is yet he knows very well that God is so great that he cannot be perceived but by his own light Indeed he must shed abroad some rays into our soul that the soul may have some glympse of him he must clarifie and strengthen her that she may look up unto him and mounting above her selfe may render her partaker of that light whereby he is made visible to the blessed in glory Thus though the will have some affection for the Supream Good though she cannot fixe upon any objects that have not some appearance of Goodness in them and that in the midst of her greatest disorders there still remains some inclination towards her Creator yet the Christian knows that God cannot be worthily embrac'd but by that love he works in us that charity must be poured into our hearts and that without the assistance of this Divine gift we can neither love him nor hate our selves as we should The inclination Nature stamped upon us in her purity was too weak to effect this and that which Nature hath left us since her corruption is too inordinate to lead us to it Thus Grace is necessary in both conditions and the actions that proceed not from this Principle are to be suspected because according to the Maximes of Saint Augustine those that flow not from Charity flow most commonly from Concupiscence These two Soveraigns possess the will successively as the first works nothing but good the second is only active in evil and to be disingaged from the tyranny of the one there is no other way but to submit to the lawful dominion of the other Thence it comes to pass that the same Doctor declaring his full judgement in that Epistle he writ to Vitalius informs us that Grace depends upon Gods pure Liberality that 't is due neither to Men nor Infants though it be necessary to all the actions of the former that God who is the Author of it respects neither their works nor their dispositions that men may know when he bestows it 't is an emanation of his mercy and when he denies it 't is an act of his justice He that shall well weigh the sense of these words as profound as the depths he treats of will not have much adoe to acknowledge the indigence of the creature the need he hath of Grace and the Liberty God reserves to himself of dispensing it to whom he will The Third DISCOURSE That the Grace of a Christian ought to be more powerfull then that of Adam IT is strange but withall very true that nothing so much hinders a man from valuing the remedies that cure him as the opinion he hath that he was not very sick This is it that to this day abuseth the greatest part of Christians and lessens the obligation they have to the Grace of Jesus Christ For they are perswaded that the fault of our first Father hath scarce made any devastations in our Nature that the greatest part of our evils spring not so much from our will as from our imagination and that there is little difference between the state of sin and the state of originall righteousness Pride insensibly confirms us in this belief we make our weakness pass for cowardise nor can we be brought to acknowledge that our passions are the punishment of our disobedience From this first Errour is derived a second more troublesome then the former For believing our disease light we think the remedy extream easie and judging Concupiscence not so strong we judge the Grace of Jesus Christ nothing so powerful Indeed those that imagine that mans liberty is yet vigorous enough to resist sin acknowledge only a sufficient grace adding little to that of
Jesus Christ had a minde to humble him by lifting him up and that he might profit by his loss to make him finde his greatness in his abasement For 't is indeed to take man down to subject him to grace to deprive him of the disposal of his Will and to use him as a slave who is no longer master of his own person But 't is also to lift him up to endow him with a victorious grace which confirms his liberty makes him constant in good and in despight of all his weaknesses gives him so much vigour and strength that he meets no enemies he does not vanquish nor any temptations he does not overcome But admit all these reasons did not clearly conclude for the necessity of Grace I conceive Predestination would always be a most evident proof For seeing it is true that God is immutable in his Decrees that the designs he hath laid from all Eternity are not changed in Time Praedéstinare Deum nihil aliud quicquam est quam in illasua quae falli mutarique non potest praescientia sua opera futuradisponere Aug. de Perse nor can all the powers of earth hinder the execution of his will we must confess that Predestination being the first of his Decrees must of necessity be irrevocable He himself says it that he knows all his sheep that no man can take them out of his hands that they cannot be blotted out of the book of Life and that all the malice of the devils cannot destroy those he hath a minde to save If this Maxime be true we must infallibly conclude that the salvation of the Elect is not grounded upon their Liberty but upon Grace and that their perseverance in the ways of goodness depends not absolutely upon their Free-will but upon the assistance of Jesus Christ For if it be true that there is nothing more changeable then the Will of Man and that the state of Innocency set him upon a rock Must we not confess that Predestination would be very uncertain had it no surer foundation and that the salvation of the Elect would run a great hazard did it rely onely upon a sufficient grace depending meerly upon their Liberty Let us confess therefore with S. Augustine that since the Fall of man there is a grace whose effect is infallible that it changeth our Will to convert it gives us strength to combat inspires us with constancy to persevere and securing us from the malice of Satan happily conducts us out of this miserable Banishment to our desired Country The Fourth DISCOURSE Different Opinions of the Power of the Christians Grace THough Man have very many proofs of his Weakness yet hath he more of his Ignorance he knows not that which he sees and that which he touches his Senses are better sighted then his Understanding and they judge more surely of their objects then the Intellect does of his The Qualities of things cloud their Essences every Accident is a veil cast over the eyes of the Soul and he undergoes all the troubles in the world to finde the Sun of Truth amidst the Shadows that cover it But his Ignorance is never more evident then when he seeks for the last differences of things he changes upon all occasions the more he goes on the more he wanders and finding no tracks that may steer him in an unknown path he many times takes Falshood for Truth Thence it comes to pass that we are acquainted with nothing but the Accidents or Proprieties of things and that we fall into Errour as often as we intend to judge of their Essences There is nothing more known to Christians then Grace a man must be a Pelagian to doubt of its vertue all our prayers are testimonies of its necessity and when we intreat of God to enable us to perform what he commands us to do we ask Grace â—â—thout naming it In the mean time Inctinantur ecram corda ut boc velint eo scilicet inclinante qui in nobis mirabili modo ineffabili operatur ut velit Aug. de praed cap. 20. there is nothing more hid then its Essence These twelve Ages men have disputed its power nor is it yet resolved wherein corsists that vertue that makes it efficacious Every one confesseth there are two kindes of Graces in Christianity One Habitual that gives the Christian his supernatural being that lifts him up to the participation of the Divine Nature and making him an Image of Jesus Christ makes him Man and God together The other Actual which elevates him in his operations makes him act heavenwards and renders his works holy and acceptable before God But few know wherein consists the power of this Grace what that is which without forcing our Liberty makes it irresistible in its designes The disciples of S. Thomas believe Grace effectual because it is an impulse of God raising and determining the Will as often as he moves and applies it Primum agens in agendo omnia agentia alia praevenit perficit conservat co quod ipsum omnibus dat esse unde dabit perfectiones concomitantes sequentes ad ipsum esso D. Thom. They ground themselves upon the power of the First cause which ought to regulate his state and guide his subjects according to their inclinations and according to their desires Thence it comes to passe that he inlightens with the Sun burns with the Fire reasons with Man acts necessarily with necessary Causes and freely with free Causes Thence it comes to passe also that he is free in the world that nothing is done contrary to his directions and that applying the creatures in their operations sees all his designs infallibly succeed For these Divines believe not that any thing is to be permitted to Fortune in the Kingdome of Providence nor that the knowledge of God is to be submitted to the capricious fancies of his creatures Therefore doe they put into his hands the reins of his whole Empire they will have him give motion to all his subjects to apply them in their operations and without offering them any violence execute his will by their inclinations If he abandons necessary Causes they produce Monsters if free Causes they commit sins and when he guides both of them in order of Nature or of Grace they are regular in their motions and happy in their productions But being the Principle the Glory belongs to him and the effects they produce ought rather to be ascrib'd to his Influence then to their Vertue This Predetermination of the creature in a supernaturall order is called Effectuall Grace among the Disciples of Saint Thomas and they are so wedded to this opinion that they believe a man cannot dissent from it without renouncing the meaning of Saint Paul overturning the order of Nature robbing God of his Soveraignty and taking from him the infallible knowledge of all events that happen in his State They never think to weaken the liberty of man by establishing the
reduced him Intellectus humanus se habet ad Divina sicut visus noctuae se habet ad solem Arist and that he cannot know God if he be not irradiated with his Grace For he is in respect of the things of God according to the judgement of Philosophers themselves as those Birds of night which cannot endure the beams of the Sun but are constrained to hide themselves when that glorious Star appears lest they should be dazled with his rays so that man is bound to renounce his reason and to give his judgement the lie if he will comprehend the Truths and Mysteries of Religion Thence it is that the Fathers of the Church have said Nemo novit filium nisi pater neque Patrem quis novit nisi filius cui filius voluerit revelare Mat. 11. that he could not know the designs of God if he were not inform'd of them by Revelation nor believe them if he were not perswaded by Faith nor ought at all to rest in them if he that contriv'd them had not commented upon them by himself or by his Ministers Because as the great Saint Hila y saith we must not believe Divine things but when God pleaseth to reveal them because he alone knows them and is able to discover them to others Thus must we confess that if Faith came not in to our succour there would be a strange confusion in the belief of our Mysteries For as mens opinions are as different as their minds their reason doubtful and uncertain approving in one Countrey what it condemns in another changes judgements according to Climates and in one and the same man grows weaker or stronger with age we had for ever sloated in uncertainty and our belief had been as subject to change as our opinion Wherefore God dealing with all Christians alike hath given them the same light and not respecting their naturall advantages is pleased that the simple and the learned have one and the same principle to know his Mysteries by But had not this consideration obliged him to bestow upon us one and the same Faith to entertain us in the same mind the extent and variety of the things we believe had always required the same Oeconomy For some ascend into Heaven others goe down into Hel some are buried in the obscurity of what is past others are hid in the abysses of what 's to come some happened at the birth of the world others shall not happen till its decay so that there being no natural light vast enough to comprehend all these marvels separated by the distance of place or time we must of necessity be illuminated with a Divine light which may collect them all and without giving us a clear understanding give us at least a sure belief Having so great an obligation to Faith 't is all the reason in the world we should be acquainted with the nature of that which makes us know all things and be inform'd of the definition of a vertue that serves for the basis and foundation of all others Saint Augustine cals it in one place an obscure light which having the certitude of Science wants evidence and perspicuity For 't is a Truth that Faith clears us that 't is an effusion of the Light of Glory and an emanation of that admirable clarity that discovers all things to the blessed A Light shining saith the Apostle but in an obscure and dark place in Caliginoso loco 'T is a Star wrapt in a Cloud an Aurora that knits the shadows of the night with the brightness of the day its obscurity constitutes one part of its Essence when it becomes evident it changeth its nature and ceasing to be Faith begins to be Science or Revelation Thus the Christians are like those people who for the space of six Moneths see no Sun yet because that glorious Luminary wheels continually round their Horizon they may boast their nights not to be without some brightness and though deprived of the presence of the Sun want not altogether his Light S. John Chrysostome saith that Faith is the basis of Religion that 't is in this spiritual building what foundations are in houses and that as these cannot subsist when removed from their groundsils so doth a man cease being a Christian assoon as he leaves off to be a Believer Indeed all the Vertues lean upon this and by a particular priviledge she is preserved without others but others are not preserved without her Their absence weakens her and Faith not quickned with Charity nor supported with Hope hath no vigour because in the judgement of an Apostle it is then dead Nevertheless this spark lives under the ashes and though never so weak and languishing may with the benign influence of heaven produce some effects But S. Bernard whose wit is no less solid then agreeable Fides est quaedā voluntaria certa praelibatio nondū propalatae veritatis Bernar. gives us an excellent definition of Faith when he saith 'T is like a voluntary and assured prejudice of a Truth not yet evident For 't is certain that Faith is not onely an Earnest of the Truths we believe but as it were an Antepast and Prelibation of them we see them not evidently but we believe them certainly we finde that its Obscurity produceth Light and that Evidence is oftentimes the recompence of its Firmness If ye believe not ye shall not understand So that we may say As in Christianity Weakness produceth strength Obscurity many times produceth Evidence Thus S. Augustine defining Faith calls it sometimes a Light guiding the minde to the Prime verity and by obscure and cloudy passages leads it securely into the region of Light For all this we must acknowledge that the fullest definition of Faith is that which S. Paul gives us Est autem Fides sperandarum substanmia rerū argumentum non apparentium Hebr. 11. where he calls this Vertue the substance of things hoped for and the argument of those not seen For as Substance is the support of Accidents Faith is the pillar of Vertues and the immovable basis of the Spiritual building because 't is founded upon the Prime verity It looks upon the things we hope for because they are more noble then those that we possess and this generous vertue leaving the consideration of Mediums soareth as high as the contemplation of the last End It is also an argument of those things we see not because it gives us a certitude and without exhibiting them to our view settles in us so strong a perswasion of them that all the reasons in the world cannot alter our belief But its principal advantage and which is happily expressed in this definition is that as it is called the substance of things hoped for because it is the earnest of them giving us in some sort what it hath promised so is it the demonstration of things not seen because it makes them in a manner visible and its obscurity begets in our
his Sin S. Bernard whom we may call the Panegyrist of Humility knowing that this vertue hath two Principles the Minde and the Will defines it sometimes a knowledge of our miseries sometimes a contempt of our advantages Both these definitions are true but the second is much more perfect then the former For the very devils in the midst of their darkness acknowledge their miseries they are not ignorant that he that punisheth them is able to destroy them and that notwithstanding their rebellion they depend upon this just Soveraign whom they have dishonoured But there are none but the Righteous that joyn Submission to their Knowledge and by an act of the Will Humilitas est contemptus propriae excellentiae Bernard pass from the sight of their infirmities to the contempt of their perfections They would not change their nature nor their condition they rejoyce that their Being makes them the servants of God of a happie Necessity they make an excellent Vertue and profiting by their Misery they grow great by diminution For Glory is the portion of Humility she cannot shun that honour she flies from this enemy she apprehends leaves her not but for a time and that which seems to threaten her ruine becomes at last her recompence Inasmuch as Pride and Humillty are opposite in their nature they are also contrary in their effects Pride intending to exalt it self is thrown down the more it approacheth to God the more it removeth from him and by a misfortune inevitably accompanying this capital sin it tumbles into hell when it thinks to scale heaven But Humility which walks another path is exalted in being abased draws neer to God by standing at a distance from him and reacheth heaven by descending to the gates of hell Therefore doth her enemy dress himself sometimes in her mantle to carry on his designes he affects modesty and to gain reputation seems to slight it but his dissimulation is of no continuance his vanity presently betrays him and upon the first battery made against his honour he is transported with invectives which discover the stately humour he fain would have concealed In this opposition of Pride and Humility they have notwithstanding some correspondence For as Humility preserves all the Vertues Pride animates all the Vices He excites Envie which is nothing but a sadness at the prosperity of another He whets Vengeance which is armed onely to destory whatever resists it He awakens Calumny which sets upon vertue but because she darkens his glory and this Monster which produceth all sins by his activity protects them by his malice Humility on the contrary is the Guardian of all Vertues if she gives them not their life she preserves it if she be not their Mother she is their Nurse and if she be not pompous enough to serve them for an ornament she is courageous enough to serve them for a defence It is S. Ambrose that bestows this Elogie upon her and calls her the Protectress of the Vertues because they are exposed to Vanity assoon as ever they are left destitute of Humility and that 't is a kinde of miracle when having lost this support they can for any time defend themselves from their enemies S. Bernard sets a higher price upon it then S. Ambrose and will have the Vertues no longer acceptable to God then they are humble nay he goes further that the Purity of the Virgin Mary had never procured her the quality of being the mother of God had she not been accompanied with Humility Seeing this Vertue is so necessary the rest of this Discourse shall be spent in the search of some Reasons which may as motives beget it in our souls and convince our Judgements that so our Wills may incline towards it I finde that this Vertue hath three Principles absolutely incompatible with Pride The first is Nothing the second is Sin the third is Death Nothing is the Glory of God and the Shame of Man 't is the Theatre upon which the Divine Majestie acts most nobly the Womb whereout he extracts all his works of Creation the most obedient of all his subjects and which acknowledgeth none but his Orders Nature cannot create any thing and though she be so powerful her operations are rather changes then productions She converts the dew into flowers and fruits turns the vapours into clouds dissolves them into showers inflames them into lightnings or makes them rattle in thunder She is absolute when she acts upon the Elements and having altered their qualities converts them into their contraries But notwithstanding all her power she cannot act upon Nothing and as if she knew him for her father she bears him respect and by no means dares venture to command him Art which is the Ape of Nature never makes her industry admired but in alterations Nature must sustain her and there must be some matter whereon to exercise her power Painters can draw no Pictures without Colours Architects raise no buildings without materials and if you take away Marble or Porphyry from Engravers they can carve neither Images nor Statues It is onely God that actuates Nothing who forms a Being out of a Non-entity and makes his Omnipotence manifest in commanding this Rebel As it is the Theatre of his Glory so is it the subject of our Confusion 'T is enough to abase the stoutest but to think that Nothing is his original that an eternity of ages passed before he was in Nature and that he could not come forth of that abysse of darkness and misery In this dreadful habitation the Angel hath no priviledge above the Beast all things are more confused then in the fabulous Chaos and in this undigested medley the noblest creature hath no mark of separation from the most vile But that which addes much to mans humiliation is that he hath a natural bent towards annihilation the power that redeemed him from it must still preserve him from relapsing He is divided by two contrary Inclinations he removes from Nothingness as from the place of his loss he approacheth insensibly towards it as the place of his Original and the experience he daily meets with of his infirmity confirms him in the truth of this belief All creatures would cease to be saith Saint Augustine did God withdraw his arm that sustains them Si potentiam suam fabricatoriam rebus subtrahat ita non erunt sicut antequam fierent non fuerunt Aug. and did he leave off to uphold them they would leave off to subsist did he not keep them by his looks they would vanish into air and did he not contemplate himself in his creatures they would have the same destiny with the shadows in a glasse which depend so absolutely upon our presence that they would perish did we but turn away our face from beholding them This is it perhaps that the Prophet intended in those words which he addresseth to God in behalf of the creature Avertente autem te faciem turbabuntur The second
away his desires and his hopes to give Jesus Christ some testimonies of his love Therefore doth the Scripture inform us that there is no Vertue receives a greater recompence then Self-denial The Man that is knockt off from himself is united to the Son of God the creatures respect him the Sun obeys his word and 't is in this sense that the Scripture to make his Panegyrick is not content to say that he pronounceth Oracles but addes that he gains Battles and bears away victories by speaking All things stoop to his commands and more glorious then the first man who could not use the creatures but according to their inclinations he disorders them to make himself feared and testifies the power he hath in the state of his Master by the command he exerciseth over all the parts of the Universe Thus Self-denial which seems to abase men raiseth them up the Vertue that entertains them in the distrust of their weakness gives them admittance into the power of God and that which obligeth them to renounce their own will makes them find the accomplishment of all their desires The Sixth TREATISE Of the Nourishment and Sacrifice of the Christian The first DISCOURSE Of Three Nourishments answering the Three Lives of a Christian. SOme will wonder perhaps that in the same Treatise I joyn two such different things together and that speaking of Nourishment which preserves the life of a Christian I treat of a Sacrifice that engageth him in Death But the wonder will cease if we consider that these two things are united together in Religion and that the same Sacrament that feeds us obligeth us also to die For the Son of God upon our Altars is as well our Nourishment as our Victim inviting us to a Feast he bids us to a Sacrifice and his Love associating two Subjects which have so small a relation he makes use of one and the same body to destroy our sins and to preserve our souls He offers himself up to his Father as an innocent Sacrifice and gives himself to the Faithful as a delicious Viand His Power which equals his Love takes from this Sacrifice whatever might render it horrid and removes from this Banquet whatever might make it sensual In both of them he satisfies his Father and his Children and exalting us in the light of Faith makes us believe what we cannot conceive Following therefore his intentions I have joyned in the same Treatise what he hath joyned in the same Mystery and resolve to manifest the wonders of this Food and the Prodigies of this Sacrifice Reason that teacheth us that Nourishment is the staff of Life teacheth us also that every living thing hath need of Nourishment and that the Divine Providence whose care is extended over all the Creatures hath left none without aliment This feedeth the Fowls of the air and the Psalmist confesseth it provided for the necessities of their young when forsaken by the dams It maketh Grass to grow in the desarts for the Cattel and Rain which seems unprofitably to fall into the Sea serves for refreshing and meat for the Fishes Inasmuch as Men are Gods master-pieces he takes a particular care to nourish them whole Nature labours to furnish their Table her fruitfulness is onely to satisfie their hunger or content their appetite and every Creature she teems with seems a Victim to be immolated to preserve their life But as they have Three Lives that answer to the Three Orders of Nature of Grace and of Glory God hath given them Three sorts of Food which in the difference of their qualities cease not to have wonderful Correspondencies The Earth is the Nurse that furnisheth us our chiefest nourishment that Divine word Crescite multiplicamini which enricht her with fruitfulness in the very birth hath preserved this prolifical vertue in the succession of so many yeers and if the Justice of God make her not barren for our punishment she returns with usury the laborious pains of the Husbandman Corn which is our principal support is multiplied by its corruption 't is born by death and making us see an image of the Resurrection perswades us our bodies may rise out of the Grave after they have been resolved to dust because the Grain springs not up till it be putrified in the earth This production would pass for a Miracle were it not so common and to observe the wonders thereof would be sufficient to oblige all men to reverence the power and wisdom of the Creator For when the Corn is corrupted it puts forth a bud which cleaves the earth and covers it with a tuft of Grass which preserves its verdure in the midst of the sharpest Winters At the Spring it thrusts forth a stalk which riseth insensibly and from time to time is strengthned with joynts to resist the violence of the windes Upon the top is formed an Ear wherein Nature seems to employ all her industry Seritur solummodo granum sine folliculi teste sine fundamento spicae fine munimento aristae fine superbia culmi Exurgit autem copia faenâ—ratum compagine aedisicatam ordine structum cultu munitum usquequaque vestituÌ„ Tertul. every grain is inclosed in a husk that if one be corrupted the rest may not be infected and the evil prove not a contagion each husk is fenced with a prizly sharp to guard the inclosed fruit from the injury of the air and the rapine of birds The heat of the Summer compleats the whole work gives it Colour in giving it Maturity and gently opening the several cells which lock up the treasure of the Husbandman admonisheth him to prepare for the Harvest If this Wonder ravish us and if we are bound to reverence the Divine Providence which makes the earth fruitful to nourish us we are not less concerned to admire the prodigious alterations it causeth in Nature to increase provision For it makes use onely of Rain to enrich us and from this inexhausted source draws so many different Fruits that if their number please us their qualities astonish us Rain is nothing but a Vapour in the conception the Sun sports with it in the air thickens it into a cloud to take it out of our sight then destroying his own work dissolves it into showers to water the thirsty earth In the mean time this Rain is turned into all things it toucheth takes the nature and quality of those things it bathes and by a miraculous Metamorphosis is changed into Wine falling upon grapes into Oil upon olives It contracts the taste of all Fruits and the colour of all Flowers It grows yellow upon the Marigolds red upon Pinks white upon Lilies and though when it falls it have neither taste nor colour yet may it boast it gives both to all Fruits and all Flowers This prodigious change which is daily wrought upon the earth is but an overture of that which is made upon the Body of Man to maintain it For all the Nourishment he
receives is digested by the Stomack and is turned to Blood in the Liver thence it is conveyed by the Veins into all the parts of the body which assimilating it into their substance gives it as many forms as they themselves have There by a strange prodigie the same aliment is softned into Flesh hardned into Bones stiffned into Sinews extended into Cartilages its superfluities are not useless and if we be-believe Physitians they serve to nourish our Hair and our Nails whereof the first is the ornament of the Head the second the defence of the Hand Who will not acknowledge that Man is very dear to God since he works so many Miracles to feed him and produceth so many several Meats to entertain a life common to him with beasts But inasmuch as that of the Soul is much more noble the nourishment whereby it is preserved is exceedingly more excellent and if in the order of Nature God hath made so many prodigies to nourish Man he works many more in the order of Grace to entertain the Christian For the body of his oncly Son is the food of the Faithful they live upon that Blood which begat them on the Cross that the same Principle which gave them their life may preserve it This Body is formed upon our Altars by the Word of Jesus Christ himself the Priests are onely the Ministers or Interpreters they repeat what he delivered in the Supper they do that in the Church that he did at Jerusalem and offering up this Sacrifice to the Eternal Father make provision to nourish the Faithful Thus in Nature and in Grace 't is the Word of God that makes us live and we may truely say Non in solo pane vivit homo sed in omni verbo quod procedit ex ore Dei But this Bread that nourisheth our souls is not of the same quality with that that nourisheth our Bodies For the Corn whereof this is made owes its Life to its Death nor can increase till it be corrupted but that which is exhibited to us upon our Altars felt corruption onely on the Cross where dying to procure us life he himself boasted that he was the Grain of Corn whose fruitfulness proceeds from its corruption Si mortuum fuerit multum fructum affert But now it is incorruptible in our Tabernacles death can no more injure it the Glory that invests it secures it from our fury as well as our wrongs We must acknowledge nevertheless that its presence depends upon the species that cover it it ceaseth to be with us when the heat hath digested them or time consumed them and though he remain by his Grace his body is absent which is tied to accidents as to chains his love hath forged for it He never dispenseth with this bondage the treachery of Judas could not make him violate the laws he had prescribed the blinde fury of Hereticks cannot compel him out of this prison and the impiety of Sinners hath not been able to force him to quit their hearts till the species that preserved him there be consumed by the natural heat He is as faithful to observe his promises as to obey the will of his Father and as the blasphemies of the Jews could not make him descend from the Cross to give them proofs of his Innocence and of his Divinity the sacriledges of prophane Christians cannot make him desert the Hoast where his love and fidelity hold him prisoner Though he be subject to all these humiliations to become our nourishment he is not liable for all that to all the conditions of Nutriment For he passeth not into our substance he is not changed into those that receive him and in his debasement he reserves himself the power to convert them into him His being our Food hinders him not from being our God he acts upon those that feed upon him he makes an impression of his Divine qualities in their souls and if he changeth not their Nature at least he makes them change their Condition and their Life Neither ought this to seem strange to those that consider that Natural meats communicate their qualities to us and by a mutual Metamorphosis we are changed into them when they are assimilated into us 'T is believed that Nero was therefore cruel because he suckt the milk of a cruel Nurse and that Achilles was therefore valiant because his Master nourished him with the marrow of Lions Experience it self teacheth us that people draw their humours from the earth that bears them and the heaven that covers them Those that are bred among Rocks are savage those that live in the fertile Plains are more tractable Therefore we need not wonder if the Christians feeding upon a Divine meat do so easily change their inclinations Auâ—ite officaciam communionem corporis sanguinu Domini nos Jesu Christo Jesus Christus nobis in unitate foederatur inenarrabili sicut ipse dicit Qui manducat carnem meum in me manet ego in eo Bern. because more powerful and successful then ordinary food it hath the vertue of conveying its own qualities and of changing the guests into it self And from this Principle do the Fathers draw the obligation the Christians have to be gods upon earth because they receive a God in the Eucharist who acting according to the extent of his power would transform them into himself were not his Divine operations hindered by the weakness or malice of the recipient But that which is begun upon Earth is happily perfected in Heaven where Divinity being the food of the Blessed raiseth them to a condition where leaving off to be Mortals they commence Gods Indeed the holy Scripture teacheth us that the Beatifical state is a Feast where God communicating his Essence to Angels and Men makes them in one dish taste all imaginable delights For though there be diversity of conditions among the Blessed though the degrees of Glory answer the degrees of Love and those who have been most affectionate are those that God most honours yet all Theology confesseth that the Divine Essence is the only object of their felicity that every one enjoys all without division that though common to all 't is notwithstanding proper to each particular that being wholly communicated to one it takes nothing from the rest and more excellent then the light which enlightens one man as perfectly as the whole world it is as fully communicated to the lowest Angel as to the highest Seraphim God is divided upon the Earth without interessing his simplicity he communicates himself to the faithful but in part and handling every one according to their Merit and his Grate is not always the same to one that he is to another He hath manifested his Wisdome in Solomon his Clemency in David his Patience in Job his Love in Saint Peter his Zeal in Saint Paul his Purity in Saint John and his other perfections in the rest of the Faithful But at the end of the world God
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
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
was given up to the fury of Satan To his Sacriledge he added a Parricide and expiating these two offences by a violent death taught us there was never any crime more severely punished upon Earth then what was committed against Jesus Christ in the Eucharist so that a man cannot dispose himself too carefully when he is to approach this holy communion and seeing the Son of God recollects all his Graces in this Sacrament thereby to oblige us we ought to come accompanied with all kind of Vertues worthily to receive him The Seventh DISCOURSE That the Christian owes God the Honour of a Sacrifice SAcrifice is the most ancient duty of the creature towards his Creator It is the soul of Religion precedes affection and before man can be obliged to love God he is bound to offer him a Sacrifice For love presupposeth some society between God and man which is not so much an effect of Nature as of Grace but Sacrifice supposeth nothing but dependance which is inseparable from the creature and engageth him assoon as ever he proceeded out of Nothing to acknowledge his Original by a solemn homage From hence may be inferred that Sacrifice is an honour can be rendred only to God and that 't is changed into Sacriledge when offered to a meer creature Neither is this hard to be conceived if we consider the divers motives we have to offer Sacrifices to God since sin hath corrupted nature The first is to reconcile us to him and to mitigate his anger by the merit of the victime The second is to be united to him knowing very well that as his Indignation is the soucre of all our evils his Grace is the fountain-Head of all our good whence it came to pass that in the Old Testament there were peace-offerings offered to him for the salvation of sinners which testified by their dying mouths that to be removed from God was to be miserable The third is to obtain eternal glory which makes us find our happiness in the union it procures us with God and destroying whatever we had of mortal or perishable happily transforms us into him Holocaustum dicitur sacrificium cum totū accenditur quandò totum ardet totum absumitur igne divino Aug. Therefore were Holocausts immolated wherein the oblation wholly consumed by the flame figured out this Truth and by a silent language taught us that man should never be happy till he was despoiled of all his corruption that he might be perfectly consummated in God Now all men confesse that God only can bestow Grace remit sins which brave his Majesty sanctifie souls in uniting them to himself and glorifie them by communicating to them his Essence Therefore by a necessary consequence they acknowledge that as from him only these favours are to be obtained we have no other way to intercede for them but by sacrifice The Law punished those with death that erected Altars to strange gods and offered those honours to vain idols which could not be safely given to true men Nature her self though never so blind sacrificeth to none but those she conceives at least to be Gods and sin being not able to quench all her lights she retains this belief in her errour that Divinity only deserves the honours of sacrifice Faith confirms this Truth and strongly perswades us that if the creature adores not his Creator he is miserable and if he encroach upon the honour due to him he becomes guilty Creatura rationalis si non colit Deum misera est quia privatur Deo si colit Deum non vult se coli pro Deo Aug. Sacrifice then is a divine worship whereby a reasonable creature honours his Creator and publiquely professeth that as he hath received being from him 't is from him likewise that he expects felicity But though there is nothing in God which being God himself deserves not this homage and all his perfections may justly require it we must confess nevertheless there are three that oblige us to this duty and which in the state of innocence as wel as sin demand this sacrifice The first is the Soveraignty he hath over his creature For he depends of him in Creation and Preservation He had no right to exist before he issued from Nothing in these profound abysses he could not so much as desire or ask any thing and being not yet in nature could have no pretensions of aspiring either to Grace or Glory Being now reduced from Non-Entity he depends still upon his Soveraign he could not be able to subsist one moment without assistance from him he cannot act but by his impulses and though he be free in his operations he that gave him being must give him motion his preservation is a consequence of his Creation the same power that produced him preserves him and unless he be strangely impudent he must confess he depends not less upon God in his Entity then in his Non-Entity There is no need that the Earth should open under his feet to swallow him up that thunder should fall upon his head to crush him to ashes nor that the waters should flow from their couch to drown him God needs only withdraw his hand and he perisheth let him but cease to preserve and he moulders into annihilation Dependency therefore and servitude constitute one part of his Essence he is a slave assoon as a creature and though God be Almighty we may say without offence he can produce neither man nor Angel able to support themselves without him and who in the progress as well as beginning of his life depends not absolutely upon his All-sufficiency This is it that obligeth both of them in their Creation to offer sacrifices to him 't was their first reflexion towards their Principle their first duty towards their Soveraign and their primitive inclination towards their last end If they do not acquit themselves 't is their fault if dazled with their own light and charmed with their own beauty they fail of this their lawfull homage they need seek no other cause of their crime nor of their fall I pretend not to expresse the nature of this sacrifice because it is unkown to us but I will say thus much thatthe Angels being pure spirits seek not oblations out of their own person they stoop before the Almighty at the presence of his greatness they offer him what they are bound to by Creation and refuse not to submit to him by the motion of their proper will as they did from all Eternity in their nature For men there is great likelihood being compounded of a body and a soul they would joyn external sacrifice to internal and to the end they might offer all they had received presenting him an Holocaust of their person they would employ their mouths to praise him and their hands to serve him having made use of their understandings to know him and their wils to love him we might believe also that acknowledging all the goods of the
Vanity but such as imprint Characters or produce effects in their souls they are as solid as glorious they raise men up to heaven make them heirs of the Eternal Father and brethren of his onely Son Their greatness depends not upon the opinion of people though they are unknown they are notwithstanding honourable sometimes Contempt augments their reputation and the less splendor they bear amongst men the more respect they finde with God Therefore I should betray the honour of the Christian if having spoken of his Vertues I should not speak of his Qualities and having described his Labours and his Sacrifices I should say nothing of his Rewards and Recompences True it is that as the parts of this work are mutually interwoven and the remotest have secret links that unite them all together in speaking of the Christians Birth I have handled his Noblest Qualities and have made it appear that he was the Brother and the Member of Jesus Christ that he was the adopted Son of the Eternal Father and the living Temple of the holy Ghost In making the Elogie of his Vertues I shewed that Faith made him a Believer Charity a Lover Austerity of life a Penitent so that having already spoken of these advantages there remains onely to supply what is behinde to compleat his Portraicture which I cannot better begin then in demonstrating in this Discourse that the Christian is the Image of Jesus Christ For the happier explaining of this Verity we must know that the Word is the Image of his Father the Character of his Substance Qui videt me videt Patrē Joan. 14. the Express of his Greatness He gives himself this Title in the Gospel and teacheth his Disciples that in seeing Him they see his Father in his person Our Divines abound with Reasons of this Assertion to prove that this Elogie is not unworthy of the Eternal Word and that his being the lively Image of his Father no way hinders his being equal with him But not to trouble my self in the proof of a Truth Faith obligeth us to believe it is enough with the great S. Athanasius to let you see that this Divine Image hath none of those defects which are inseparably incident to those of our Carvers and Painters for Existimavit Philo Judaeus prohibitas esse à Deo picturas quia sunt mendacia the most exact Pieces that come from their hands are false because they are not that which they represent nor can all the industry of Art make them other then agreeable Illusions Though they are Lyers yet are they mute painting cannot make them speak and the highest commendation can be given them is to say that nothing but Speech is wanting to them Lastly they are dead Art less powerful then Nature cannot inanimate them what ever dexterity it useth it cannot enliven them they are children that expire in their very birth and could they speak would complain of the rigour of their Parents who in stead of making them Men have made them onely Idols Now this Image that so lively represents the Eternal Father hath none of these imperfections It is very far from a Lye because it is so conformable to its Original that 't is as well his Truth as his Copie It is not dumb because it is the Interpreter of the Father his Eternal Panegyrick his subsisting Word all whose works are so many expressions chanting forth the praises of their Authour It is not dead because it is the Fountain of Life wherein the Creatures before their birth and after their death live and by a perpetual Miracle enlivens all those works it hath produced Imago ista non falsa est quia Veritas non muta quia Verbum non mortua quia Vita Lib. de Incar Verb. This is it which S. Athanasius saith with as much pomp of Eloquence as Learning and Piety This Image is not mute because it is the Word not false because it is the Truth not dead because it is Life This same Son who is the Image of his Father is by a necessary consequence the Idea of all the Creatures they are all formed after this Divine Examplar and according as they more or less participate of his likeness they are more or less noble in their nature Men and Angels have no advantage above the rest but because they are the Transcripts of this Idea and others at most but the Footsteps thereof The Scripture teacheth us that Man was formed after this primitive Image that he was made after the similitude thereof and that in the very Creation he belonged not to the Father but by the mediation of the Son This Greatness was the occasion of his Fall for sollicited by the devil he was not content to be the Image of the Word but would also be that of the Father and pronounce these words which are onely true in the mouth of the Son Ego sum similis Altissimo This Crime was the cause of his disaster the Father to revenge his Son drove this Insolent that had encroached upon his rights out of Paradise and reduced Him to the condition of Beasts who had impudently aspired to the equality of his Word So great a misfortune had utterly ruined us without any hope of recovery had not the Son of God who was the Innocent occasion been also the Charitable remedy For seeing that men were become guilty in striving to imitate him that to revenge Him his Father had destroyed Them he resolved saith S. Bernard Per me Pater recipiat quos propter me amisisse videtur ecce venio talem me eis exhibebo ut quisquis gesticrit imitari fiat ei aemulatio in bonum Bern. to put himself in a condition wherein he may be securely imitated and where the desire of being like him being no longer a Crime is become a means to arrive to happiness He was made Man to serve for an Example to Man he submitted himself to his Father to teach them obedience he was abased to the shame of the Cross to teach them Humility and he forgave his Executioners their putting him to death to oblige them to pardon their enemies Therefore is it that S. Paul discovering the secrets of Predestination saith that his designe is to render the Elect conformable to his Image and to bestow Graces upon them which satisfying their desires may make them without committing a fault like his onely Son For this reason Tertullian says that the same Eternal Father forming the body of the First man at the Creation of the world Quodcunque limus exprimebatur Christus cogitabatur homo futurus Tert. de resurrect carn was taken up with Jesus Christ that the Slime represented him the Incarnation of his Word and that foreseeing the sin of Adam he already provided him a remedy It is true then that the Christian is the Image of the Son of God that Nature and Grace obligeth him to imitate this Pattern and that his perfection consists in
first Communion and having received the Body of the Son of God became so resplendant with light that the Jews had taken them for Jesus Christ in the Garden of Olives had not the traitor Judas prevented their mistake by the perfidious kiss he gave his Master If this sacred Nutriment always produce not this Miracle at least we must acknowledge it gives us an Earnest of the Resurrection and a right to Immortality In which respect I finde it as powerful and as happie as the fruit of the Tree of Life One of the wonders of this Tree was in the judgement of all the Fathers to secure Man from dissolution and so firmly to unite the soul with the body that the number of yeers could not separate them Death respected not onely Original righteousness but the fruit of the Tree of Life and though it might grow from the mixture of the Elements which composed the body of Man it durst not set upon him as long as original righteousness maintained their good correspondence or this convenient remedy hindered their division Thus Man was not Immortal so much by his own constitution as by a borrowed assistance that the obligation he had to make use of it might instruct him that he owed all these advantages to the liberality of his Creator Now it is certain that the Eucharist works all these Miracles daily in the Church for it imprints an occult vertue in our bodies which is as a Pledge of the Resurrection it sheds abroad in our members the seeds of an eternal life and by a holy contagion which corruption it self cannot deprive us of communicates a certain right to Immortality For we have the word of the Son of God for a caution of this immutable verity and after the solemn promises he hath made in the Gospel we may without wronging his Greatness affirm that his Justice obligeth him to give the Christians a Resurrection and that he cannot deny a habitation in heaven to those bodies that have served him for temples upon the earth If he prevent not Death but suffer this faithful minister of his Vengeance to exercise so many cruelties upon our body 't is to deliver us from him with greater pomp and power if he give him leave to reduce us to dust 't is to make us rise out of the Grave as the Phoenix from her funeral-pile 't is finally that having had a part in his Shame we may share in his Glory and that it may be said of all the Elect what S. Augustine said heretofore of Lazarus that the Son of God forbore to cure him that he might raise him and was unwilling to lift him from his Bed that he might call him out of his Grave and seal his love by the greatness of his Miracle The Third DISCOURSE That the Body of Jesus Christ is the same to the Christian that Manna was to the Jews THe Types and Figures of the Old Testament are in respect of our Mysteries what Enigma's are in respect of Truth They conceal and discover them to our eyes their shadows have some glimmerings of light and these transparent clouds occasion the bright breaking forth of those Stars they rob us of They instruct the Learned and the least measure of understanding they have of the Gospel makes them easily conceive what the jews were not able to comprehend When this people saw the Manna descend in the wilderness they never minded the secrets to come and without diving into the designes of God believed that his Divine Providence was pleased to give them that miraculous bread in a place where Humane Prudence could not possibly procure any But there is not the meanest Christian instructed in the School of Jesus Christ but understands that it was a Figure of the Eucharist and that God intending to prepare our mindes for his Master-piece by this essay wrought this Miracle for no other end but to perswade us of those he would one day exhibit upon our Altars Indeed there is so much resemblance between the Manna and the holy Sacrament that if it be an Enigma 't is also a Glass wherein may be observed all the wonders that render it commendable That miraculous meat took its original from heaven it was formed according to the opinion of S. Augustine In illa superiori parte terrae ubi grando nix gignitur nascebatur manna in cibum inferioris terrae partis hominibus per angelos administrabatur Aug. where storms and rain are hatched The credulous multitude did not imagine it onely the work of Angels but dull gross as they were were perswaded that those blessed spirits fed upon it and that God to deal with them as he did with those Intelligences had given them the food of Angels Angelorum esca nutrivisti populum tuum That which the Jews conceited of Manna we have reason to believe of the Eucharist because the meat we eat being the work of the Priests may well be called the work of Angels For all Scripture teacheth us that the Ministers that wait at the Altars of the living God are Angels that more happie then those pure spirits they produce the body of their Master by their words and give a new life to him who is the Eternal Word of his Father This Bread came down from heaven by better right then Manna because Jesus Christ took his beginning from his Father who dwells in heaven and though conceived in Nazareth and born in Bethlehem was notwithstanding as truely denominated the dew of heaven as the fruit of the earth Manna took its name from the astonishment of the Jews Dixerunt ad invicem Manhu quod significat quid est hoc Ignorabant â— enim quid esset Exod. 16. the people enquiring into the cause of this prodigie named it in wondering at it and taught us that so great a Miracle could not be sufficiently expressed but by wonder and silent admiration The holy Scripture hath left it this glorious name that entering in the minde of this people we may admire the wonders God wrought to nourish them in the desarts But certainly we may truely say without offending the Israelites that their wonder arose from their ignorance that they had not been so ravished with this prodigie had they but known that the same Vapours which compound the Clouds might form Manna and that it was as easie for the Providence of God to nourish them with this meat as to nourish all the people of the earth with Rain and Dew They had certainly reserved their wonderment for the Eucharist had they had the knowledge of our mysteries For indeed it is the strangest and most glorious it seems the Son of God hath drained his power in producing it and recollecting all the miracles of his life would sum them up in this stupendious Sacrament He makes use of the mouth of a man to exhibit a God he will have a transient and perishable word produce the Eternal and Divine Word he will