scarce discerne at first which by degrees came to a fulnesse equal to the necessities is was desired for In like manner we must not look our prayer should in an instant produce an effusion of patience and comfort upon us at first it begins to show us some little visible token of Gods conversion towards us so by a sequence of more apparence of his grace we come by these paces into that full measure of patience which the Psalmist acknowedgeth in secundùm multitudinem dolorum meorum in corde meo Psalm 93.19 According to the multitude of my sorrowes in my heart thy consolations have made my soule joyfull consolationes tuae laetificaverunt animam meam And the holy Psalmist who is the King of patience and of prayer hath left the Church his treasures in both of them out of which she extracts most of her publike prayer And certainly whosoever shal follow this method in prayer of patience perseverance and expecting our Lord shall finde the same fruits springing out of tribulation and God hath preserved for us Davids confections to minister to all our distresses the which wee may take at all howers out of the divine custodiary of the Psalmes which are prognostiks of all our diseases and a ready confection of remedies wee may repaire to in all occasions and emergencies With good reason I would therefore humbly advise all in their severall necessities to resort thither both for a patterne of prayer and a precedent of the rare effects of it There every suffering condition may finde this advise Exultent Psalm 39. Let all that seeke thee rejoyce and be glad upon thee laetentur omnes qui quaerunt te The very seeking of God in sincerity is the first breaking of the light of gladnesse through any cloud that hangs over us And this day openeth farther upon all those who advance in the fervour of prayer untill at last they come to this meridionall point of Laetati sumus pro diebus quibus nos humiliasti Psal 89. Wee have rejoyced for the dayes wherein thou hast humbled us the yeares wherein wee have seene evills annis quibus vidimus mala Not only dayes shall passe away lightly with all the weight of their evills upon them but even yeares of persecutions set upon this carriage of consolation shall rowle away as fast as daies When prayer hath atracted the spirit of patience we know then from whence wee receive it and so looke alwaies upon him for this provision in tentations that we may support them and are not anxiously studious how to fence with the world and put by the injuries and injustices of the times which unquiet and distracting solicitude in our defence proveth often the sharpest vexation as it is more internall then other violences whereas if we were resting with the Psalmist under the covering of the wings of Prayer Truth should compasse us as a shield and we should not be afraid of the feare in the night Psal 90. or the arrowe flying in the day of businesse walking in darknesse or of the mid-day devill Here are exemptions from the prejudices of all sorts of persecutions Psal 61. But yet my soule be thou subject to God because my patience is from him which these times will adapt easily enough without any cleerer application but all is comprised in this disposition of replying to our natures in all her refractory motions Veruntamen Deo subjecta esto anima mea quoniam ab ipso patientia mea CHAP. V. Of the dignity and use of Patience YOu having been presented in the precedent Chapter with this expedient of Prayer as the spirituall arme which must reach down Patience to you I beleeve it may be now conducent to the calming and sedations of your spirits to expose unto you a little the beauty and dignity of Patience which is the only pleasing figure these times can set before you The paternall care and tendernesse of God hath provided for the preservation of our feeble and fainting nature an admirable medicament which is Patience in order whereunto he disigned by intervals severall egregious documents and patterns of men which like knots upon a weake reede that confirme and strengthen it might support and fortifiye the fraile substance of humane nature by example untill even the image of the invisible God Coloss 1. and the first-born of all creatures nay the Creator himselfe of all things was to come in the fullnesse of time to take this reede of our humanitie into his hand and to make of it a scepter of Patience with which he would exercise his dominion over passion and death it selfe In the meane time lest the world should want some marks to guide it selfe by in misery he sent before him divers precursors of his Patience and his first Commissary was set out in the very morning of the world this was Abel who hath left to innocence the right and inheritance of suffering and of patience Adam was the Founder of Passion and Abel of Patience the remedy is exhibited so neere to the mischiefe sufferings were the inventions of sinne and the salve of them the prescript of innocence for which cause as their owne peculiar right and propriety Patience is not only dearer to them but more abundant in the innocent then in any other And the holy Ghost hath staid longer upon the finished copy of another picture of Patience then upon any one subject in all the draughts of his pencil for Job hath more time allowed upon him then any one image of this holy hand before the Originall of all patience exhibits himselfe whose becomming passible is so much above our comprehension as it leaveth no wonder in his patience and his vouchsafing to suffer maketh in some respect impatience now rather a prodigious thing then a naturall in his members For if we consider our selves participants of the divine nature it may seeme strange the humane should be predominant in us For which reason Christ seemeth to suppose he had imparted this power and dominion to the divine portion in us for when he had left his dearest members upon earth with a sentence of all manner of sufferings upon them he telleth them neverthelesse that He leaves them his peace Indeed it is far different as he saith from that the world giveth for his peace is to overcome come the world by patience and so the holy Ghost in whom Christ promised as much as himselfe when he removed from his distressed friends shewed the vertue of his Commission of Comforter in nothing so eminently as in Patience which he conferred upon Sufferers Surely even the power of working Miracles seemed not so great a gift as this faculty of Patience for the Apostles and Martyrs found lesse controversie in the vertue of their divine manner of suffering then they did in the prodigious part of their actions these were often imputed to the power of the devill but the astonishing part of their meeknesse
The Philosophers extoll Patience so much as they set it even above Fate to which they subjected their gods One of them saith very elegantly O admirable power of patience Other vertues doe in some measure seeme to contend against Fate Patience onely seemes to expugnat it for those things which Fate hath decreed immutable and necessary Patience in some manner changeth turning what was necessary into the being voluntary and as he that doth ill perverteth his owne goods into evills so he who suffereth evils well converteth them into goods because by a vertuous tolerating of evils he himselfe becomes good What shall Christians then say in honour of Patience when the true author of Fate to whom nothing could be a necessity was pleased to subject himselfe to a necessity of patience For his humane state may be said to oblige him to it as it is inseparable from sufferings and he chose even the most passive incidents to that nature as poverty paine and ignominy and by all these onerations designed the exalting of this vertue of Patience Wherefore as the Heathens said it was a spectacle worthy of God a patient man wrestling with Fortune we may say much more that it is a declaration of our partaking of the divine nature our patient submission to the injuries of Fortune since in nothing we exhibit a cleerer testimony of Christs communication of this dignity to us then in this of suffering in a temper of patience above our nature And it is not onely the excellency of this vertue which recommendeth it to Christians but the necessity of it for the subsistence of all other virtues for Patience doth that office to all the other as moysture doth to the earth which compacteth and consolidateth the parts thereof which otherwise would moulder away and be inconsistent and so all good dispositions of the mind must needs scatter and dissipate quickly if they were not united and combined together by patience the wind of temptations that bloweth so continually upon them must needs disperse them if they had not this compression of patience to hold them fastned together For which cause S. Paul telleth the Christians in this case of their probation Patience is necessary for you Heb. 10.36 that doing the will of God you may receive the promise for patience is the next disposition towards perseverance to which all the promises are annexed for finall perseverance is but a line of Christian patience drawne to the end of our life Faith Hope and Charity cannot persevere without this basis of patience to sustaine them in this valley of teares wherein we are now sojourners Insomuch that Tertullian accommodateth to patience that sequence of vertues which S. Paul assigneth to charity 1 Cor. 13. and saith Love is not elated nor froward and suffereth all by this quality of being patient Chap. 8.9 I purposed therefore to bring her to me to live together knowing that she will communicate with me of good things and will be a comfort of my cogitation and tediousnes Much may be said of patience but sure nothing more sublime then this of Tertullian who investeth her with all the rights of Charity in this life Which considered I cannot be said improperly to commend patience to your conditions in these considerations of the Wiseman Proposui ergo hanc adducere mihi ad convivendum quoniam mecum communicabit de bonis erit allocutio cogitationis taedii mihi She may be so good company to you as you may neither want your friends nor your fortunes CHAP. VI. Perfect Patience defined imperfect consolated and directed NOw I have set up to you Patience as a kind of brazen serpent to cure all the stingings you are exposed unto I must desire you to understand cleerly the integrall constitution of this virtue for I ascribe so much efficacie to it supposing the Patience I handle to be an habit or disposition in herent in our wills which receiveth humbly and beareth uncomplainingly all sorts of temporall grievances and passions in order to a conformity to the will of God and our similitude to Jesus Christ or as S. Augustine saith True Patience ordaineth us to indure all kinds of evills of paine to avoid all manner of ills of guilt These definitions doe not admit either a lame or a pyde Patience to enter into this high forme of efficacie that is if it be peccant either in progresse and continuation or imperfect in the integrity that is required in it of submitting to all sorts and degrees of sufferances as comming all from one providence If we have any exception against any of this Jury of Gods choosing to try us by it is a sign our patience is but spotted and party-coloured or if it be intermitting and by fits onely this betrayeth the unsoundnesse of it Wherefore we must endeavour to reertifie our nature in these two deficiencies to which it is very lyable The first is of having refractory intervals in which we let in impatience and murmur to detract at least from the intirenesse of this vertue and suffer our senses to speak too freely against that which offendeth them The other is of our aptnesse to make motions to God for some speciall exceptions in our tribulations resigning our selves but partially to his designe upon us and likely this deprecation is of the present crosse that is upon us beleeving we could place any other to sit lighter upon us if that were removed with which we are actually charged and thus we are commonly tempted instead of suing for patience to God to desire his patience in our repugnancies and that he would change his minde rather then ours This is a familiar irregularity in our natures in the point of our sins as well as of our sufferings there are but few but would relinquish all other upon condition to have some one bosome sin dispenced with and so in our afflictions there are very few that have not some bosome sorrow that they would compound for the being exempted from and offer a resignation to all the rest But this is that he sitation or stammering as I may say in out patience which is a great impediment in our conversation with God I doe not censure the first motions or the propensions of our nature to such eases and discharges for such a fault as should distract or scandalize any body with their owne imperfection in this kinde for as S. James saith In mult is offendimus omnes Jam. 3.3 In many things we offend all if any offend not in word this is a perfect man si quis in verbo non offendit hic perfectus est These inclinations to ease are as we may say lapsus linguae non mentis but such trips and faltrings as are hardly fully to be redressed therefore this animadversion is intended onely for advise to every one that finds these knots and stonds in their patience to endeavour to work them out faithfully by Prayer and not to
consecrated by his life of relinquishing all temporalities and offering up your daily distresses as sacrifices to the glory of God and his Church And we who in all humility may say 2 Cor. 5.20 We are Legats for Christ Pro Christo Legationâ— fungimur being suspended by the violences of these times from the execution of our commission ought by all the meanes feisable seek to transport our discharges to you and since we cannot import our duties in specie I have desired by Gods motion to make thus over to you some little parcell of our debt Saint Paul when he was poorer then we gloryed that being needy he enriched many having nothing he possessed all things and the wealth he transmitted by his letter to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 6. was this coyn of the stamp of the holy Spirit much patience in tribulations in necessities in distresses in stripes in prisons these were the revenues of the Primitive Christians who let out all their estates to their persecutors for this Rent Saint Paul was so well paid in of superabundo gaudio in omni tribulatione I doe abound exceedingly in joy in all our tribulation We then who are Saint Pauls heires in his office though not of his personall estate of grace may likewise lawfully aspire to that benediction of enriching others while we our selves are needy and indigent To make then a convenient present for you in these your necessities I may open the tombes of the Martyrs and Primitive Christians where so much of this spirituall treasure is inclosed and draw out from their rich lives and examples a plentifull support for your vertues in all the oppressions of your fortunes for Gods providence is such towards the reliefe of his necessitous children as all the wealth which the vessells of election had in them when they were temporally cast away is not lost but rather reserved expresly for the succeeding exigences of other times descending upon the streame of the Churches traditions And thus out of the wrecks of Martyrs the chaines of Confessors and the Testaments of the Fathers the Church maketh a vast treasure of perswasion and exemplarity which duly considered I may our of this blessed store present you with sufficient exhortations to patience and longanimity in your present practices of true Christianity I is the nature of man in any private affliction presently to look over the single table-book of his own conscience to try if by the collation of his actions with his sufferings he can make a congruous connexion of the sense of Gods justice out of his faults and his penalty put together And in common calamities we straightwayes resort to all the Church and State-Books that lye open to our memory and revolve them studiously to make this coherence between the occasion and the imposition which lieth upon the publike And when we find nothing satisfactory upon this inquest then by busie retrospection into the Annals records of times we set our thoughts to find out a coherence in the present sentence of God with the precedent irritation and though a long Parenthesis might seem to break off the references between the one and the other we study to make a connexion of the sense of the antecedent causes with the emergent consequences and we are so fond to satisfie our reason in this which seemeth a propriety belonging to it as we are apt to admit great incongruities in the collations of times to make good our sorting of causes to their effects thereby to joyn any probable coherence between our provocations and our punishments because it is some recreation to the pride of man even in the time of his penance to be able as he presumeth to read the hand-writing on the wall though it be his owne sentence after the weighing of Gods provocation But there are some Psal 38. O Lord illuminate my darknesse that I may know what is wanting to me who it may be do sincerely make this enquiry with the Psalmist of Domine illumina tenebras meas ut sciam quid desit mihi and such a search sometimes findeth case in the disquisition of the reasons of Gods judgements when it enquireth not into the equity of them but pleadeth for some light to facilitate a correspondency to Gods designe upon us but when it is curiosity that rangeth to retrive the order and connexion of causes to events then commonly this agitation proveth the most laborious part of their perplexity when they are so earnest in the Pharisees Quousque animam nostram tollu dic nobis palam this desiring God to speak plainer to us is a familiar unmannerlynesse in our nature And thus we intricate our minds the more by this turning and winding our thoughts about in this maze of co-ordination of causes and consequences in the changes of times and dazle our selves very commonly in that inaccessible light where Gods providence resides inseparable from his essence And I may well presume there are of both these sorts of solicitudes amongst you and that some with a reverend zeale to Gods justice mixed with a naturall desire of some refrigeration in the ardours of these times do call with the holyest of Kings Psal 88.47 How long O Lord Job 10.2 Tell me who thou judgest me so Usque quo Domine and others in some more humane impatience and estuation of spirit doe cry out with Job Indica mihi cur me ita judicas The message sent to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna in this same exigence may be well divided into an answer to both these interrogations To the first which may be an humble solicitation of reliefe this part seemeth to belong Dicit primus novissimus scio tribulationem tuam Apoc. 2.9 I know thy tribulation and thy poverty but thou art rich Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer be faithfull untill death and I will give thee the crown of life pau pertatem tuam sed dives es because patience and conformity to Gods order in all his imposures on us is a more reall treasure then any wee can be despoiled of by the worlds pillaging And to the last which may be a more anxious petition this other part seemes to be a pertinent reference Nihil horum time as quae passurus es esto fidelis usque ad mortem dabo tibi coronam vitae This may silence curiosity in the demand of the cause or the limits of our affliction since it setteth the terme of our fidelity in suffering no neerer then the end of our life so as being enjoyned not to seek an exemption untill our death we should enquire no more why we suffer then why we live In conformity to this principle God hath been pleased to suggest to me the presenting you this animadversion which may solve the difficulties of many controverted points in our weak nature concerning affliction namely that you are to state your case as entred into 3. Covenants of
then to cloâ— our spirits which are the motions and resorts of the whole frame and in probation of this experiment David saith Psal 4.1 In tribulation thou hast inlarged me In tribulatione dilatasti me And it is most observable that God ministred this receipt drawn out of thorns to all those sonnes of Adam whose minds he meant to purge and clarify For all the holy Patriarks tooke this detersive potion of bitternesse and affliction in this life and it deserveth our attention to note how the neerer the time drew to the manifestation of the Son of God who was designed the man of sorrow the passions of Gods children grew the bitterer and the sharper For the Patriarks were exercised by divers mortifications which were not capitall they staid upon the distresses of their life some of the Prophets as they approched to this fullnesse of the time of passion tasted by anticipation of the cup of death in which they were all but sigures of Christs cup-beares as Esay Jeremy Zachary and others and so those sufferings which in time were the least distant from Christ as those we find recorded in the Maccabees came also the neerest to the horror 2 Mach. 7. and acerbity of the passions of Christ and Christians for they went not straight to death but turned about to take a compasse of tortures to make death bitter to those they could not make it terrible as you may read in the execution of the mother and her seven children The very dawning of the day of passion which was comming on gave them this light of fortitude It seemeth this weight of sufferance and sorrow was all waies in so naturall a motion upon the children of God that it moved the faster the neerer it came to the centre The man of sorrow who being the Sonne of God by nature was the centre of all the sonnes by grace and adoption and therefore all the bloody sacrifices of the law of nature and ceremoniall tended and pointed to him as their last term and direction in order whereunto S. Paulinus sticketh not to say that Christ from the begining of all ages suffereth and triumpheth in all the Churches persecutions in Abel he is killed by a brother in Noah he is derided by a sonne in Abraham he is a pilgrim in Isaac a victime and in Jacob a servant in Joseph he is sold in Moses left a derelict in the Prophets he is stoned starved and vilified so as all the lines of holy passions drawn from the circumference of all ages tend and resort to this centre of the man of sorrow the Lamb of God slaine from the begining of the World These evidences may prove unto us cleerly enough the first bond or Covenant of sufferances we are entred into as men and even in that notion we seeme to be implicit Christians since he who suffered sufficiently for all maketh all virtuous affliction referrable to him It had been very easie for me to have exhibited a more precise manifest of this our first designation to sufferings under the notion of men there are so many excellent draughts of it stamped by the moralists or naturalists of all ages but I chose to deflect a little from the letter of the text that I might make the inferences rather strongly usefull then critically uniforme and therefore as I have already stepped beyond the out-court of the Gentiles into part of the Temple I will not call back to Philosophy to borrow any demonstrations of this Principle wherein the proofs are so accumulate as all sects of Philosophers which differ so much concerning the point of the good of mans life concur in the confession of the multiplicity of the ills thereof But I shall not as I said walke aside into the gardens and flowry beds of the Gentiles because I conceive it more proper for your state to have some wholsome confection to take then a nosegay of the flowers of Philosophy to smell to only in these unhealthful times for the the large contemplation of miseries of human nature is not a receipt direct and expreffe enough for your present exigencies for that is but as it were a good ayre of meditation that may be sufficient for such as are but in light ordinary indispositions of fortune but your distempers require some more forceable application of comfort by taking into your minds the strongest obligations to patience and longanimity I will therefore passe on Jab 14.22 His flesh while hee lives shall have sorrow his soule shall mourn upon himself to the other two assignments of suffering which are upon you as Christians and as Catholiks and leave this our single humanitie sealed with Jobs signature Caro ejus dum vivet dolebit anima ejus super semetipso lugebit CHAP. II. of the Covenant of suffering as Christians the sonnes of Christ VVHat we have said of our first obligation may well extenuate all we are bound to suffer by the second For when we behold the infelicity of our condition as we are men we may well wonder more that we were preferred to be Christians then that we are continued to be sufferers For sure if God had consulted with Adam after he saw his owne nakednesse Mat. 8.8 Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roofe but only say the word and I shall be healed and the annexure of all the miseries thereunto whether he should have bowed the heavens and have come downe to repaire this his ruinous condition by investing his miserable humane nature he would have answered with the humble Centurion Domine non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum sed tantum dic verbo sanabor seeing he who made all by one word could have redintegrated Adam with a word remaining in the simplicity of his divine nature without the Word being made flesh and being as it were unmade himselfe as the Apostle warrants us to say by taking that flesh upon him which was become as it were mans prison so farre was it from being worthy to be the receptacle of God When we consider then how God chose this way of commiferating our nature not to purge it by his power but even by the very infirmity thereof by taking the passiblenesse of it upon him we cannot deny the suffering part to be the most beneficiall property of it since God made use of that only for the restauration of it wherefore the feeling that portion of humane nature upon us which is the most ennobled by Gods election and preference cannot rightly be accounted a prejudiced condition whereupon we may conclude that the blessing of being Christians may easily reconcile us to the obligation of being sufferers for what can be the reason why Christ when by his paines he tooke away the sting of sinne would not also take off the points of sufferings in this life which are but thorns of that plant but because his passions had infused such a quality into our
to accept the injuries of his maligners without converting all the dutifull offices of his adherents into seed of affliction This was the uneven and painfull way wherein Christ chose to passe through this life who is the way the truth and the life of Christians and since one drop of his blood had been a price sufficient for our redemption shall not the effusion of it all and the immensity of his griefs and labours be sufficient for our example It being especially notified unto us by the Apostle 1 Pet. 2.23 That he suffered for us to leave us an example that we might follow his steps wherein this print of sorrow seemeth unto me one of the most admirable markes of it that he suffered not so much by his passion as by his compassion He felt the torments of the Martyrs the miseries of the Confessors and the distresses and desolations of his Church which he foresaw in all ages more then the persons themselves who are under them can doe Vere labores dolores nostros ipse tulit He truly bore all our labors and our griefs All the anxieties and contristations that now oppresse you were in a sharper degree pressing upon his heart and since he was content to aggravate all his sufferings by taking on him the sense of your grievances may not you very easily alleviate all your heavinesses by taking into your mind the resentment of sufferings which were designed for your succor in your tentations by the reflection upon his precedent so that his example is not a simple injunction on you to suffer but a conferment of an ability to sustaine it and a meanes to improve and ameliorate your state in your coinheritance with him For the Apostle enforceth this Doctrine with this energy of 2 Tim. 2.12 A faithfull saying for if wee bee dead with him wee shall live also together if we sustain we shall also reign together Fidelis sermo si commortui sumus convivemus si sustinebimus conregnabimus This deserves well our contemplation that the fulnesse of the Divinity did inhabit in Christ and the cleere vision of God did alwayes illuminate him notwithstanding this it was so miraculously disposed by God that the affluence of joy springing from the Deity should not overflow his body and possesse the inferiour portions of his soule that there might be left room for paine and anguish the which was manifest in his Passion insomuch as stupendious miracles were requisite for an admittance of so much sorrow into his most sacred minde if God were pleased thus to multiply miracles that affliction might have accesse to his beloved Sonne in whom he was so well pleased shall we with whom he hath so much cause to be displeased wonder at any calamity or tribulation whereby he is pleased to correct us especially when it is a marke of our filiation and fraternity with Christ We who cannot be exempt from sufferings without a miracle as we are sons of Adam shall we be astonished at any imposition under this notion of Brothers nay even members of Christ In which respect S. Bernard saith excellently That delicate and tender members are not decent and becomming a head stuck full of thorns Therefore the pressures and pungencies of this life make the symmetry and proportion of the body of Christianity to the Head Christ Jesus who since he did not so much as speak one idle word all his praises and beatifications of the poore and the afflicted must needs verifie the good of adversity Mat. 5. And surely Christ did much lesse doe any idle deed and if the exemplary life of his labours and onerations had not been directed to our conformity therein there might seeme some supervacuousnesse and redundancy in his continuall hardnesse and asperity of life Would God have afflicted his onely Sonne so Rom. 8. if it were indifferent to doe or not to doe as he did or that it did not concerne those whom he had fore-known and predestinated to be conformable to the image of his Sonne in this point that he might be the first-born of many Brethren Our fraternity therefore is derived to us by this similitude Our sinnes might have been effaced not onely by a drop of Christs blood but even by a drop of his sweat wherefore this seemeth one of the chief reasons that did induce the atrocity of his passion and the austerity of his life the necessity of such a pattern for our imitation since our nature was grown so degenerous and effeminate as no lesse then Gods participation of all the sorts of grievances and injuries thereof would serve to forme in us a cheerfull disposition to the sufferings and infelicities of this life God therefore did not intend to vex us when he placed our salvation in difficulties and in our natures aversions for to sweeten the bitternesse of this strong necessity which was to work upon our nature to purge us from the love of this world he was so gracious as to infuse the company of Christ into this receipt that the tast of his society might make more pleasant to us the ill savour and acerbity of the remedy Well therefore may we say A greater then Elisha is here who hath mended these waters by but tasting of them and hath left neither death nor barrennesse in them for they are become rather waters springing up to life everlasting And we may observe that in conformity to Gods method with his Sonne Christ continued the same style to his Mother for she whom all generations were to call Blessed was not allowed any of what this world calls Blessings for She who had borne the Redeemer of the whole world was not able to go to the highest rate of the Temple for his Redemption her poor estate did not reach to pay so much as a Lambe for the Sonne of God and the Lambe who was to take away the sinnes of the world had not so much as a Lambe for his ransome The lowest price that was set for any of the Children of Israel was the rate her low condition was taxed at None was set at lesse then a paire of pigeons or a paire of turtles and the Mother of God was in this inferiour forme of the daughters of men This may serve to sweeten the bitterest waters of poverty When we ponder this that Christ would not allow his Mother to taste of any other spring and though he would not let her taste of the sowrenes of the forbidden fruit yet he fed her more then any other with these bitter leaves which grew out of the same root that is though he was pleased to exempt her from sinne yet he would not dispense with her in sufferings which we know are but the productions of sinne and so she whom we may suppose to have been excepted out of the rule of sinners was exalted above any in the state of sufferers And this seems to be very consonant that as she was Mother to the
Man of sorrow and of no sinne so she should be a bearer of all griefs without any guiltinesse But howsoever this point is accorded by all parties Luke 2.29 35. that being the purest of all creatures she was neverthelesse the greatest of all patients When she came to redeeme her owne Redeemer by the legall ransome and was to enter into possession of her Son we may note that the joyes that were presaged her by Simeon in him were very dark and mysticall but her own sorrows very cleer and manifest For this mysterie of her having a light to the revelation of the Gentiles in her armes and the glory of thy people Israel was hard to be understood of one that was in the lowest rank of the people but this part was easie to be conceived of his being a mark of contradiction and that a sword should pierce through her own soule Nature it selfe evidenceth the miseries which mothers are lyable to from children and thus she had here her sorrowes and her sufferings writ to her in the common Alphabet of nature and her joyes and consolations cyphered out onely to her in the figures and characters of grace which are so hard to be decyphered though it may be she had the key of them But howsoever her faith was to be exercised by a tedious and very sudden tryall in affliction She quickly found the sword in her soule for we may easily conceive what a wound her sudden flight into Egypt was how many feares distresses and anxieties pierced her tender heart in that laborious flight And sure the sword of Herod that parted so many mothers and children pierced her soule even while she possessed her child she may well be judged to have out-suffered any of them in their own losses for she had the griefe of being the occasion of them all upon her heart so as the sword that was drawn directly against her soule though the stroke did not light upon it as it was aymed yet it may be thought to have wounded her in a sharper manner then it did any it fell bloodily upon for her exquisite charity must needs feel all their anguishes and passions who were thus afflicted as personating her Thus we see how she began her possession of her Son with the sorrows of a multitude of mothers inflicted on her And if we look upon her being dispossessed of her Son there we shall see the sword piercing her soule in so horrid a manner as the paines which all the daughters of Jerusalem ever had in the birth or death of their children were but shadows of her torture Whereupon S. Bernard saith Neither tongue can expresse nor heart conceive the dolours wherewith the holy bowels of this Mother were excruciated Now Blessed Virgin you pay with rigorous interest that pain which Nature was not allowed to exact of you in your delivery the pangs which you felt not in the birth of your Son are infinitely replicated upon you at his death When we consider the Mother of Christ standing by the Crosse and seeing her Son under those nails thorns and scourges and all the other tortures the picture whereof is enough to wound any Christian heart with what hand can we hope to touch this dolefull figure of the Blessed Virgin to give it a lively resemblance I will therefore leave it veyled with this reason upon it Par nulla figura dolori the not being pourtraictable being the neerest similitude can be made of this figure of disconsolation That which reporteth most to our purpose is that by the not being able to comprehend the immensity of the sufferings of the Mother of God we may be the lesse apt to apprehend any extremity in our owne when she who had at least no actuall sin to expiate had so much sorrow to exercise her vertue how shall we who have so much sin to satisfie for wonder at any sufferings whereof we have so much need to sanctifie us There is then no reason why we should feare to be mistaken in taking crosses for commodities indignities for honours poverty for treasure since the eternall Wisdome and divine understanding hath councelled this acceptation of them not onely by his advise but by his Mothers president and his owne personall investure of them He who is both the supreme goodnesse and the supreme power chose by those low humbled means to redeem us and by the same we must perfect our salvation the work must be finished by the same instruments by which it was begun Christ told his Disciples there were many mansions in his Fathers house but never gave them notice of any other way to any of them but this of the crosses and miseries of this world And surely as he said of the mansions so may we say of the marches to them if there had been another passage he would have told it them This narrow way and strait gate is all the direction we find either by his life his doctrine or his death Mat. 11.12 The kingdome of heaven suffereth violence the violent bear it away Regnum coelorum vim patitur violenti capiunt illud is the word or Matte belonging to the Armes of the Gospel and as Christ said No body ascendeth into heaven but he that descended out of heaven therefore he vouchsafed to come downe to live out this way which he imprinted upon his sacred humanity So that now this way lyeth so fairly marked out by the prints of his steps in his return to his eternall mansion as no body that looketh up to heaven can misse the seeing of it though it be not the via lactea of the Poets The milkie way The bloody way but the via sanguinea of the Prophets and the Apostles It is traced out more fairly in the firmament of a Christian which is the Gospel then the other is in the materiall skie The life of Christ is such a sequence and connexion of bright and shining sufferings as shew our souls as intelligibly the way to heaven as those stars doe our eyes that sensible track in the firmament We may cast our eye upon this Galaxie or constellation of humility and depression in Christs life we shall see it illustrious and shining in an humiliation under all sorts of creatures He humbled himselfe to the Angels he vouchsafed to receive comfort of an Angel as if his necessity not humility had required it When he was hungry he was pleased to take foode as almes from the Angells when he could have turned stones into bread He humbled himselfe to man and woman remayning obedient to his Mother and to Joseph He subjected himselfe to Impious Princes to Herod Cesar Caiphas and Pilate by undergoing their burthens and their judgements He submitted himselfe to vile and infamous servants as to Malchus and to his torturers deriders and others He yeelded himselfe even to inanimate creatures suffering heat and cold to strike upon him and by iron wood thorns and reeds he indured to
to the sincere and orthodox Christians which sir-name we take from our Mother the Catholique Church notified so for the single and onely Church of Christ by the Apostles Creed and in the sequence of ages as the tares grew up in the large field of Christianity the pure and sound part of the Church assigned this as a speciall and specificall difference between the Heretiques and the legitimate Christians and so it hath been accepted ever since as a notional discernment between them The word Catholike signifieth literally Universall and was meant to signifie that faith to be onely sincerely Christian which was universally and unanimously promulgated by the Apostles and conserved by the general conseat and fidelities of their disciples and so transmitted by all the concurrent testimonies of that age to the next succeeding it So as the Church is not called Catholike for the actuall extention of it into all nations but as the major part in respect of all Christian societies or in reference to the promise of this expansion over the whole world So that it hath alwaies been one of the visible markes of the Church the being the greatest society of Christians of any one communion And as all sects came out of the true Church she retaineth still the name of the whole as the body of the tree doth after many branches are torn off from it So as the Catholike Church neither is nor ever was a comprehender of all the sects of Christians but a compriser of a greater portion of them then any other profession which was separate from her and this majority the Catholike Church hath had in all Christian ages When we say then the Roman Catholicke Church we doe not meane to exclude all Churches from being Catholike besides the locall Church of Rome but as that is the head and spring of Catholike communion by way of dignity and preference above all other particular Churches we give Rome that single appellation as the head of all other Churches or by reason of the derivation of the Catholick faith from her to the rest of the Churches of the world as being the Chaire of S. Peter the Prince of the Apostles who was constituted head of the Universall Church and as the same authority and prerogative is descended upon his successors the Bishops of Rome in these respects in regard no Church is accounted nor is Catholicke that doth not adhere to her communion we stile the particular Roman the Catholike Church For if we speake formally and expresly the Catholike Church signifies the body of all particular Churches united in communion with the Vniversall and by way of participation any particular Church may be called Catholicke as it partakes with the intire body In this respect the Church of England before the separation was a Catholike Church and so are all Churches which remaine united to the Catholike Communion So as when you heare it objected that Roman and Catholike seem as incompatible as particular and Universall you may satisfy your selves that Rome doth not claime the title in that contradictory sense to say that the single and locall Church of Rome is the Universall Church but that Rome is the head of the Universall Church in which all particular ones are to be accounted Catholike in this sense of orthodox and true Churches as they are united to that head If the Protestants acknowledged any one particular Church to be the head of their communion that Church might be said to be the Universall Protestant Church by way of eminency and in this sense the Roman Church is stiled the Universall or Catholike Church I have said this as falling within the verge of the word Catholike without intending to passe further then the frontispice of the Church to read to you this inscription only of Catholike which is often misunderstood by those who will allow Universall Religion but no Catholike And I hope the signification of this your surname may minister great assurance to you when you consider that you suffer under that title and notion which hath alwaies been the discernment of true Christian Religion For S. Irenaeus one of the Primitive Fathers of the Church marketh that none of the sects of those ages did ever arogat this title of Catholikes Psal 90. With a shield his truth shall encompasse thee a thousand shall fall on thy side ten thousand on thy righthand but to thee it shall not approach It seems it hath been preserved miraculously among the insolences of all various errors which never durst lay violent hands upon this lovely intemerat virgin name of Catholicke the protection of the Psalmist hath been verifide upon this name Scuto circumdabit te veritas cadent à latere tuo mille decem mille à dextris tuis ad te autem non appropinquabit for of all the swarms of waspes and hornets which have flown out of the Church in all ages never any did so much as taint this name by their hiving themselves in it There hath alwaies descended upon the projectours of Babel this designe of Let us make to our selves a name Faciamus nobis nomen they have alwaies affected the celebration of their own name that have set up for themselves any new sect and their master hath payed them that vanity for labouring in his high way to allow the stamp of their owne names to be set upon the coine whereof he is the Prince and the Father This priviledge the divell hath allowed to all Arch-hereticks and hath communicated so much of his prerogative as to leave their names impressed as a signature upon their errors but none have been permitted to vitiate the name of Catholike by an imposition thereof upon any sophisticated Religion It is not my worke now to exhibit to you the proofes of the legitimate genealogy of your Religion from the true ancient Catholike stock I beleeve these very times may read to you the evidences of your antiquity by the aversion which all novelty declares against it I purpose only to convince the controversies of humane nature in the point of sufferings not to handle any contention in matter of faith beleeving you have more neede of helpe against the fingers of Pursivants then against the armes of Pulpits and this reflexion may serve you to confute the arguments of your flesh and blood against patience in all your persecutions in that you suffer under that notion which only can sanctifie the sufferings of any persecuted Christians Conclude then your selves happy in these times since you are in a capacity of making treasure of all your tribulations when others who it may be are under as heavy a temporall yoake as you drawing not in the same cariage of the Catholike faith will find the weight even in this world more intolerable They are much more to be lamented to whom we cannot apply S. Iohns comfort to the distressed Catholikes of his daies when he saith Apoc. 1.9 I your brother and partaker in
since hee breatheth downe such a suavity and savour upon all their most asperous regularities which are of so ill an odour to nature as the holy Spirit must needs incense and perfume them to make them tolerable And surely the purity of these living hoasts doth mediate powerfully for Gods patience and longanimity which he affordeth to many multitudes of such members of Christs body as doe rather crucifie againe to themselves the Sonne of God as the Apostle saith Heb. 6.6 then exhibit themselves images of Christ crucified And thus Christ is so infinitely mercifull as he suspendeth the justice of his Father against those in whom he still seems to suffer by presenting to him that part of his Church which suffereth in him whereby God hath stil various remonstrances set before his eyes of the passions of Christ to ingratiate his Church to him in these later ages wherein God hath been pleased to take the sweet savour of his Church more from the Altar of odours and incense within the veyle of the Sanctuary then from that of bloody sacrifices that is from the consecration of the religious orders of his Church which doe as it were evaporate their lives in a continuall fume of self-consumption by the fire of mortification In this estate the Church may say Psal 39. Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not but eares thou hast perfected to me Sacrificium oblationem noluisti aures autem perficisti mihi For God hath been pleased to perfect the eares of his Church in the attention to his Evangelicall counsels of chastity and relinquishment of all to take up the Crosse And this is remarkable for evincement of the single legitimation of the Catholike Church that no other communion of Christians have their eares so much as opened to the counsels of Christ It is strange that they who have their eares open to nothing but the letter of the Word should be so deal to those so literal words as recommend these Evangelicall counsels 1 Cor. 1.18 The word of the Crosse but as it is Verbum Crucis we may feare it seemeth stultitia to them but to the Catholique Church The power of God it is Virtus Dei. For sure it must be a singular operation of the Spirit of God to dispose the corruption of our flesh and blood to vow it selfe to such a lasting martyrdome in which as out of an ingot or wedge of gold the Wyer is hammered and drawne out by continuall macerations and percussions upon the flesh and as the matter may be said to endure more by being wrought and drawne out into small Wyers then when a piece of gold is stamped and coyned at one blow upon it so those bodies which are extenuated and filed away by lingring mortifications and macerating austerities may be truly said to have a more painfull kind of Martyrdome while they are thus wrought as it were into the image of Christ then those who have it marked impres'd upon their bodies all at one incision which is the case of Martyrs that at one blow have Christ stamped upon them the others are long under the Presse whilst as the Apostle saith Christ is formed in them Gal. 4.19 And these are such as according to the advice of Saint Paul doe exhibit their bodies a living hoast holy and pleasing to God which he calls A reasonable service to wit a spirituall and rationall offering of soule and body by internall purity accompanyed with extinction as it were of the life of the flesh by vigilancie abstinence and attention to divine offices And surely there are many of these unbloody sacrifices which are no lesse acceptable to God then the victims of the Martyrs For certainly it is a harder work to keepe our blood continually from running the course of nature in our veines then it is at once to poure it out of them The first is a continuall combat and an uncertain victory for the enemy who is overcome every day is still equally to be feared The last though it be a sharper conflict yet it is a present dispatch and a perpetuall extinction of all enmitie Wherefore S. Chrysostom saith He admireth more Joseph remaining unscorched in the flames of such a sollicitation then the three children coming with no scent of fire out of the furnace and S. Bernard saith he accounts a chaste soule not only to be celestiall by origin but even heaven it selfe by similitude And thus Christ who hath carried our nature into heaven above that of Angels hath left it a capacity even on earth to become Angelicall So we may say now that Christ in his Catholike Church presenteth his Father with Crucified Angels to represent to him his passion for the Virgins who crucifie their flesh with all the vices and concupiscences of it may well be sayd to be Angelicall Crucifixes And thus the wisedome of the Holy Ghost hath as it were varied the manner of Martyrs in the Church and subrogated crucified lives to officiate in the place of the sanguinary victims of the Primitive ages to make the same representation Whereupon as Christ did leave the unbloody sacrifice of himselfe to commemorat and apply the virtue of his passion so it seemeth the unbloody obligations of the religious bodies of his Church were instituted by the Holy Ghost to continue that part which was acted in the victims of the Martyrs which was a representation of the passions of Christ to God the Father wherby a continual influence of fresh graces is impetrated for the support of the Catholike Church in all her pressures Eph 5.32 This is a great Sacrament in Christ and in his Church so as we may say with the Apostle Sacramentum hoc magnum est in Christo in Ecclesiâ All this tendeth to illustrate to you how the Church is designed by her head Christ Jesus to remain a suffering body in this world to the end you who by Christs great mercies are members of it may not be tempted by the infirmity of nature to reply with Gedeon to the Angels of the Church Judg. 6.13 If our Lord be with us why have those evills apprehended us but rather in an holy assurance that God cannot be removed from us but by our owne diffidences let us answer with Eli to the message of ruine to our houses 1 Reg. 3.18 It is our Lord let him doe what is good in his eyes It is observable how to that Church of God to which no temporall sufferings were medicinally appointed there was no reward but temporall felicity manifestly proposed for as all the sacrifices of the temple were but figures of the blood of the Church of Christ so all their promises were but darke shadowes of heaven the which is as much cleerer and better exposed to us as the sufferings of men are worthyer then those of beasts and it was but just that they who had but water appointed for most of their purgations instead of the fire of
patient in tribulation knowing all our hope must rise out of sufferances as they are the ligaments and connections of the body to a crucified head Wherefore I will desire you for your comfort as well as your conviction in this point to cast your thoughts upon the Crosse and consider only the last miracle which Christ was pleased his body should exhibit to us after his soule was departed from it You may note how out of that wound which Longinus the Souldier gave him after he was dead there issued the two greatest mysteries of the Church to oblige us to beleeve that much more the head himselfe never woundeth or permitteth to be offended any of the members of his living body upon earth but upon some speciall reason which alwaies resulteth to the good of that part he striketh unlesse the part it selfe prove the impediment by some miscarriage in the state of cure Wherefore that portion of his body amongst you which is now bleeding under his hand need feare nothing but their own ill diet irregularity in their hurts for they may prove so healthfull to you as they may convert even the diseases of your naturall bodies into a good constitution of your souls and the regiment of your selves in this case is prescribed by S. Paul 1. Cor. 16.13 Watch ye stand in the faith doe manfully and be strengthened upon occasion of the same infirmity in his time Vigilate state in fide viriliter agite confortamini This prescript containeth a direction to your three constitutions of Sufferers Doe manfully relateth to you as you are men Be strengthened belongeth to you as Christians Watch and stand in the faith respecteth you as Catholikes and if you apply these remedies respectively to your infirmities even every one of these your three Vae Vae Vae's upon earth shall afford you a Sanctus in heaven and so as Men Christians and Catholikes weeping here you may attain to the singing eternally of Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus in heaven CHAP. IV. Of the manner of discharging these duties of Sufferings WE may observe that Christ spake neither so frequently nor so cleerly of any one thing to his Disciples as of the sufferings and passions he was to undergoe and yet they never understood him in them They were alwayes either in such feare or such wonder concerning them as they never durst aske the question for the explication of their perplexities They quickly sought the explication of all his Parables Mar. 9.31 that seemed referred either to his power or his promises but in this point of his disparagements and his passions they seemed so little desirous of an illumination as when he was ready to be seized according to his prediction and upon the point of separation from them he is faine to reproach them that they were dejected only not desirous to be informed whither he was going John 15.5.6 whereupon depended all their reperations The apprehension of sufferance and passion seâ—meth to have such a quality as is reported of the Torpedo for it often stupifies and benummeth our nature so as it leaves not so much as even curiosity stirring in it towards an inquisition of reliefe In like manner there may be many who have heard much of our exposure to sufferings and afflictions in this life and yet remain little inlightned in the right conception of them and which is worse little inquisitive of that method whereby we must extract benefit and utility out of them Wherefore it is requisite to exhibit as faire a copy of that method as I can let forth to their comprehensions that they may not be dismaied by this Onus Domini Jer. 23. The burthen of the Lord. nor be deluded by this supposition that they are all the spirituall children of Abraham who have this marke of the Covenant of sufferances upon their bodies or their fortunes for it is not this moral circumcision or uncircumcision that intitles us to the promises but the spirituall signature of Christ upon the heart it is not the exterior infliction of misery that qualifies us for the reward proposed nor a present immunity and quiet that ejects us out of the society of Christs passions it is the interior disposition in both cases that constituteth the rightfull title to remuneration In those who are actually exercised under their crosses it is the patient and pious resignation which intitleth them to the conditions of the Covenant and in those who are in a present suspension or truce enjoying a serene conveniency it is the preparation and disposure of their hearts to accept humbly all orders of God in how sharp a stile soever they shall be issued against their persons or estates This frame of the mind is their evidence before the eyes of God of their right to the contract of suffering members of Christ Job's disposition in his quotidian sacrifices was no worse an odour to God then the suavity of his patience fuming up from that meane altar whereon he lay offering up his ashes The materiall part of affliction doth not sanctifie no more then the same part in alms or charity doth expiate they are both but Egena elementa Gal. 4.9 Barren elements of themselves the heart and the spirit wherewith they are designed animateth and enliveneth them Wherefore we may say of sufferings that which Christ said of a case not much unlike to this Mar. 7.15 That no affliction which goeth into a man doth actually sanctifie him but it is the spirit of sufferance which resideth in him that must render him holy for out of the heart only good intentions and humble conformities doe issue so as the externall crosses that fall upon the man doe not formally purifie him it is what comes out of the heart as the emissions of humility patience and charity which his heart sendeth forth to meete and imbrace all Gods pleasures which can onely hallow and sanctifie the man Therefore I may very fitly say if any man hath eares to heare let him heare that you may not prove so unhappy as to beare the weight and heat of the day and to forfeit at last your hire for though God saith He chastiseth every child he receiveth he doth not say He receiveth every one that he chastiseth S. James therefore when he proposeth to his distressed country-men The esteeming it all joy their falling into various trialls and temptations coupleth this reason with his proposition James 1.2 Knowing that the probation of your faith worketh patience So that the benefit must be derived from the effect of tribulation which is the producing of patience the which doth not naturally spring out of misery for this is but the matter or the subject whereon this virtue is exercised not the spirit or forme of this holy disposition For which reason the Apostle compleateth his advise by proceeding to direct them how to compasse this necessary adjunction to the matter of their afflictions to render them subjects of joy saying
equanimity and patience the devill himselfe knew not how to calumniate his pride would not allow him to own such expressions of power and so that temper of passivenesse was accepted as divine often when the thunder and lightning of the other side of their Commission passed for diabolicall Patience then seemeth a property which God doth not allow the devill so much as to counterfeit the possession of He is permitted to transfigure himself into an Angel of light rather then into the forme of a resigned contented sufferer as being an unalienable prerogative of Christ and the most dangerous delusion whereby he could worke upon the spirits of men and therefore this is the speciall difference between the suggestions of good and evill spirits to us when they come both clothed in pious supervestures that the hand of the proud spirit leaves alwaies some elation disquiet or impatience in us to vent and divulge the virtues and graces he seemeth to dispense but the sincere inspiration of the holy spirit alwaies calmeth and stilleth any emotion or impatience in the possession of his graces and leaves no heat or glowing in our hearts that solliciteth us to evaporate that spirit of joy and peace by which they are solaced but humbly and patiently to enclose them within the humility of our own breasts And thus true Christians by the virtue of their Comforter cording to Christs advice possesse their soules in patience which giveth them so inviolable a possession of their mindes as the devill can neither distraine them by the power of his ministers injuries nor distract them by the paintings of his owne artifices Wherefore God doth punish the devill by allowing him the exercising of the patience of his Saints as S. Gregory saith Holy Job was more Sathans torturer then Sathan was the others tempter for Jobs felicity was not repealed by God but only translated out of prosperity into adversity which is the mother-tongue of the Saints Patience is so unintelligible even to the devils subtilty as if he could conceive it he might quench his flames with it but God in punishment of his first strange impatience in not resting quieted with his condition hath made eternall impatience the fuell of his tortures and on the contrary Patience which induceth an equality in the Saints in all their various vexations of this life is a kinde of image of the state of their beatitude while in all their externall commotions they retaine a smooth and even composure of mind which is a kind of image of eternity that is alwaies the same and in relation to this S. Paul states the highest virtue of the glory of Christ in this Coloss 1.2 of remaining in all patience and longanimity with joy so as that work which all the voluptuary arts are long about and after much labour make but a little joy and quickly looseth it again patience finisheth in a moment and converteth all into delight and satisfaction and treasureth it up as an eternal provision nay patience is so powerfull as it can turne into pleasure all those occurrences which sensuality must run away from to save her petty joyes All sorts of injuries of fortune or of time are presently translated by this vertue into nourishment and delectation for patience as Tertullian saith hath God answerable for all she layes up in his hand if she deposite an injury in his hand he is her revenger if a losse he is her reimburser if a sickness he is her mediciner if death he is her reviver What a freedome doth God allow Patience to make him her debtor of all she commits to his trust And thus we see unless we can finde somewhat that God cannot convert into joy there is nothing that doth not return that profit to Patience The Philosophers commended Patience highly because they accounted suffering an evill which that did asswage and mitigate but a Christian may in regard that it is good for him to suffer esteem Patience as the best of his virtues because it keeps him the longest in that which is so good for him Fortitude or active courage runs through difficulties with all the haste it can Patience goes on leisurely and enjoyes the good of suffering and on it begets mortification and humility which are the legitimate issue of a regenerate man and by this constant assuefaction inurement to sufferings some become by degrees as it were impassible and lovers of trialls for as fire doth no longer burn ashes the which receiving no hurt from it doe seeme to love the fire and to cherish and conserve it so one that is consummated in Patience comes often to a state of being no more diminished by afflictions then ashes are by fire and to desire rather to keepe alive the fire of his tribulations then to exstinguish it for perfect Patience doth not decline suffering but suppresses immoderate sorrow which is the best office for it is so provident as not to deduct at all from the matter of our meriting but only to mitigate the molesting part of our affliction and thus contriveth our advantages so well as we may enjoy the deserving portion of our troubles and not be desolated or oppressed by the sorrowfull property of them We see also Christs method in carrying them who were to convert the world through all sorts of tortures that their Patience might be a meritorious miracle which was a better quality then their powers of speaking all tongues casting out of devills or curing all diseases Their patience in their own wounds was a more advantageous grace then their gifts of cures upon all maladies for by that they improved their own soules and by this they did but repaire the bodies of others they were but organs to passe these miracles into the world but they were owners of the other divine quality And the residence of the Holy Ghost in them may be said to be express'd by their Patience and by their other miracles only a transition of him through them Whereupon S. Chrysostom saith that to suffer patiently is a greater gift then to raise the dead for indeed we are but debtors to God for this and we have Christ our debtor for the other and it may be there will be as many pearles even in number hanging upon the crownes of the Apostles and Martyrs depending on their Patience as on their powers S. Justin Martyr one of the greatest lights of the primitive times confesseth that the stupendious equality and constancy of the Christians in all their pressures convinced him of a divine inspiration thereof and Antiquity testifies infinite numbers of conversions upon the same perswasion Before Christ dignified Patience and rendred it so meritorious the Heathens were so disposed to honour it by the light of nature as this transcendency of it in Christians easily prevayled with them to seeke an author of it even above all that they had before accepted for their gods of whom they had no records but of their delights and volupties
of our voluntary proclamation of them and a sorrowful invocation of mercy then every breathing and smallest inspiration of our souls in prayer is a tone loud enough to reach heaven Then as David avoucheth we shall find him our God at all houres we seek him and discern the reasons why we are then heard and why we were not before regarded which are these two David giveth us of the first he saith If I have beheld iniquity in my heart our Lord will not heare and of this other in case of having purged this impurity by our penitence Our Lord is neere to all that invocate him in truth Psal 65. he will doe the will of all them that feare him and he will heare their prayer and save them Whereupon we may observe that the Prophets in all publique calamities did exhort the people in the first place to purifie their hearts and their hands by a discharge of their sinnes before they presumed to lift them up to heaven for receits of temporall degravations For when the people wonder that their Fasts and Humiliations are not regarded Esay 58.3 the Evangel call Prophet Esay disabuseth them in that point and informeth them why their offerings were so unsavoury because God smelt their owne wils in them that is the deliverance from those secular pressures that lay upon them not the demission of those spiritual burthens which were inherent in them Wherefore the Prophet ordereth them to begin by dissolving the bands of impiety and loosening the bundles that over-load When they have exonerated themselves of those weights which are offensive to God then their owne spirituall lightning and refreshment follows in a due order and procession God telleth the distressed people by the Prophet Jeremy Jer. 15.9 If thou wilt separate the precious thing from the vile thou shalt be as my mouth and when we come to be as Gods mouth there is no feare of our being not heard by him but while our mouths are liker the feet then the head of the Statua in Daniels Vision Dan. 2.33 consisting of iron and clay and not of gold that is while either revenge against our enemies or reparation in our earthly dammages take up the first places in our prayers and not the purer ore of charity towards God and our neighbour this sordid composure of our petitions doth not answer that separation which God conditioneth for an admittance to such a neerenesse as secureth our audiency S. Chrysostome remarketh that the holy Magdalene was the first that came to Christ to seek pardon and grace others sought health and sensible solaces in their first addresses but she even in her first choice elected the best part and upon her kissing of our Saviours feet B. Petâ—us Damâ—anus one of the Fathers raiseth an excellent instruction That the two feet of Christ doe mystically signifie Mercy and Judgment both which must be kissed in order for the fixing upon the one alone may produce a temerarious securâ—ty and on the other single may suggest a timerous despaire And in conformity to this method I may propose to you such another in your prayers to lay them alwayes first at the feet of Christ before you raise them up to his hands that is to direct your requests first to the pursuit of mercy and remission of your sinnes before you commit to them the soliciâ—ing of any other solace or benefit and when your prayers have ascended by these regular gradations to the hands of Christ 1 Ep. S. Joh. 3.22 If our heart doe not reprehend us we have confidence toward God having first opened your hearts in a sincere confession of your sinnes you may with far more confidence expect the opening of his hands in answer to your necessities by this warrant of the beloved Apostle Si cor no strum non reprehenderit nos fiduciam habemus ad Deum This is then the first attention whereunto we must addict our minds in all emergencies of publike or peculiar calamities to purge our soules by a faithfull perquisition of our lives past and by a profound sorrow for all our faulty actions or fraile omissions we must first sue for the washing and cleansing of our hearts before we propose to God the wiping away the tears from our eyes and in this order we may hope to attaine to that safe posture wherein the Spouse proclaimes her security Cant. 8.3 having Christs left hand under our head and his right hand embracing us that is by S. Gregories exposition to have his left hand holding and sustaining our head so as to preserve that from growing dizzie or confused in all the agitations and circumvolutions of this world and his right hand embracing and cherishing our hearts with the delicious promises of eternall rest and stability This is then the soundest advise I can present you respecting your readyest consolation to intend primarily the casting out of every small mote out of that eye which our Saviour meaneth when he saith Luk 11.34 If it be simple the whole body shall be lightsome before you sue for the casting off those beams which may chance to lye heavier upon your carnall eyes then the other for sensible afflictions doe commonly weigh more in our degenerated nature then spirituall onerations and yet there is truly so much difference between these two burthens as they who are discharged of the malignity of the last feele little the gravity of the former and they who remaine charged with their sins and have their sufferings sequestred upon their Petition are to be feared as sunk into that depth of Gods displeasure where they are neerer stupefaction then degravation for it may be God taketh off his hand in the sense he said to the Prophet Esay Why should I strike you any more Esay 5. This release is the unhappiest of all impositions Let none then account themselves gratified by the relaxation of their sensible taxes while they are conscious of any grosse immunditie which the waters oâ— affliction have but run over and not removed for in that case what is left is the misery and what is taken off was the mercy misunderstood But though we ought not to recurre to Christs promise of ease and refection assigning it first to the redresse of our temporall grievances yet subordinately we may hope for their alleviation And certainly we shall finde though not an immediate yet a consequent deliverance from their incommodities for all weights are easie or grievous by the proportions of strength and ability are found in the bearer so that to adde such a degree of force and capacity as may make a great masse an easie carriage may be truely said to be a lightning and discharging of the bearer And in this manner we are alwaies relaxed in our sufferings when we are disburthend of our sins for Christ gives alwayes upon our casting off our crimes a proportion of strength commensurate to that weight we are to beare in all sorts
received into the eternall Tabernacles as when you had more of the Mammon of iniquity to make a greater number of friends And thus while you are freed from all the temptations of riches you are possessed of their greatest advantages Old Tobyas saw this light in all his darknesse and poverty Toby 4.8 when hee counselled his sonne As thou shalt be able so be mercifull if thou have much give abundantly if thou have little study to impart also a little willingly for thou dost treasure up to thy selfe a good reward in the day of necessity And they who thinke seriously on that great day of necessity will thinke little of their momentany incommodities but in contemplation of providing their part in that day will easily offer with Saint Peter John 13. not only their feet but even their hands and their heads to the will of their master they will not onely disperse faithfully what they can spare conveniently but also deny their owne wants somewhat of their demands to supply greater necessities which call to them in the person of one much worthyer then themselves one from whom they have received themselves and from whom they expect himselfe for retribution O how blessed a thing is charity that hath no lesse then God for the subject it worketh upon in time and no lesse then the becoming like God for the salary in eternity CHAP. XI Of the dilection of enemies THis last tincture whereinto we have now infused the minde is very neere the colour of the more perfect dye of Charity ingrained in the love of enemies For this disposition exerciseth it selfe upon our friends in a respect wherein they have sometincture of enemies as thâ—irs when the acting of our charity requireth such a crossing and offending our selves as to strain our owne sufferings upon our selves Then our fellow sufferers who demand this selfe-distressing are in this regard adversaries to our nature that repugneth against incommodity whereby our friends in this case may be said to be proposed to our love with some colour of enemies upon them So that they who overcome their nature in this aversnesse to offend or incommodate themselves in preference of the ease of their fellowes are well advanced towards the loving of such direct enemies as doe violently impose sufferings and prejudices upon them For they are already half way being arrived at the loving them who are the occasion of some sufferings and inconveniences unto them and so the other moiety is the easilyer reached which is but the loving all that contribute to their injuries and offences And such who are thus rectified in the sense of the matter of sufferings are well prepared to advantage themselves by all the manners of them for having their senses exercised as the Apostle saith in the discernment of good and evill they will facilely accommodate themselves to the measure of evills whereby they are to be exercised being perswaded that the proportions of spirituall goods are raised to them by the same degrees that the difficulties of their performances are heightned against them so when they are to straine their charity up to the love of all enemies and maligners they doe not deliberate so much upon the pleadings and redargutions of their nature in this case but resolve upon the expresse precept of the author and Judge of nature who maketh this love of enemies a necessary concomitancy with all our good offices to friends to form that complete summe of Charity which we are to account to him wee owe our redemption paid in this species of Charity to enemies and if even when we were his enemies Christ reconciled us to God by his dying for us Rom. 5.10 we may well be reconciled to this kinde of love to which we owe our eternall life Considering then our obligation to this sort of love we may say our uncomplyance with the love of enemies falls under the same vice as our unworthinesse to friends for it must needs be an high ingratitude not to correspond with that quality whereunto we owe our redemption which is the love of enemies and it was not severity but even excessive charity to us that imposed this love upon us for it was ordained by Christ rather to assimilate us to himselfe then to sentence us to a penalty And to cleare this point to us he hath set this love under such a relation as may justly make it agreeable even to our nature our enemies being proposed to us as fellow-members of his body for it is under that notion he enjoyneth us the loving them not in the respect of their being enemies So that when our reason examineth this injunction we may finde that this excellent virtue hath not so much as an ill aspect to avert us from it For when we look upon Man as the image of God on the one side or as the copie of Christ on the other either of these sides of the medall are lovely objects in Christians who have this double signature of God upon them and so cannot be prospects of aversion on either of their sides for this colour of enemies is but as it were an over-lay of colly upon a statue which doth not alter the forme and this ill colouring is cast upon the figure of man by the hand of the enemy of his nature the which foule cover we are not required to love for as men offend and injure one another they are the devils engins in that respect not Gods images and therefore simply as enemies they are not presented to our love for so they are ills which God cannot recommend to us but the vitiating of our nature doth not efface the character of God in it and that is the object of our love in all men So what we are obliged to love hath the impression of good and amiable upon it if our passion doe not stay upon the superficiall deformity appearing in our enemies which exteriour supervesture is the devils artifice not the work of God therefore our minds looking upward to God pierce this veyle of private injuries and look through it either on the image of God or upon the figure of Jesus Christ in which they see the injuries they themselves have done him born with love and moreover they find this charity of suffering patiently the same provocations reflecting to them a new love from Christ And thus there remaines nothing unlovely in his view of enemies After all these considerations how deplorable is it that there are so many Christians of whom we may say in the point of this precept of loving enemies as the Apostle saith of the Jewes in respect of the Gospel unto this present day when this commandement is read 2 Cor. 3.14 a veile is put upon their hearts for a great part of Christians are as studious to find evasions out of the unpleasing sense of this precept as the Scribes and Doctors of the Law were unfaithfull in the explication of the commandement of loving our
stock you have now in your hands of not onely forgiving but loving enemies For the ruines of your houses and the destroying of your woods afford you matter to make these coaies of charity which I hope you heap upon the heads of your enemies in continuall prayers for their resipiscency and in a preparative disposure of your minds to render good for evill to the extent of your abilities unto all their occasions These are the coales of fire the Apostle saith we should cast upon the heads of our enemies Rom. 13.1 not in order to the aggravation of their faults as some understand it but referred sincerely to the kindling of their charity to God and us And this vertue blazing among you is the most probable way to extinguish the flame of your persecution for this ardent Charity may by the mercy of God fire your neighbours houses and if the love of enemies take hold of them you will partake of the operation of this vertue And thus you may convince them of your undeserving the name of enemies by doing them the offices of friends in this cummunicating to them so excellent a vertue as charity to enemies and while you thus benefit your selves by your oppressions if you infect your adversaries with Charity you may introduce into the nation the good husbanding also of prosperity which oeconomy hath been little practised hitherto in all her secular advantages For alas how truly may it be applyed to our nation what God reproacheth by the Prophet Esay Isa 57 12 Because I am holding my peace and as it were not seeing and thou haft forgotten me Quia ego tacens quasi non videns mei oblita es Wherefore it will be an enterprise worthy your religion to endeavour by the fervour of your Charities to satisfie in some degree for the oblivions of your brethren and thus in honour of the Catholike doctrin of Satisfaction you may render it beneficiall even to the enemies thereof while your abundance of Charity in this present time supplieth their want your virtues defigning to appease God 2 Cor. 8. as much as you feare their violences may incense him against the nation So that if one part be liable to the exprobration of the Prophet in forgetting God by the abuse of prosperity the other may have this claime of the Psalmist to intercede for both At the voice of the upbraider Psal 43.17 18. and the reproacher at the face of the enemie and persecutor all these things have come upon us neither have we forgotten thee and our heart hath not revolted backward When we find our loves then starting or flying backward in the incounters of our enemies let us remember this military discipline and rule That there is lesse danger in fighting then in flying for very often wee overcome evill by contending with good against it and when we fly to evill to bring that into the field against our enemies though we master a Forreigne we raise a Domestique enemy which is the more desperate mischiefe for even the successe of revenge kindleth those passions in our hearts which demand 〈◊〉 lesse their slavery for their pay malice anger and intemperancy remaining instead of auxiliaries to our enmity owners of our hearts So that though it were in your power to overcome vice by vice it were both the nobler and the safer way to vanquish it by vertue and to imploy rather love which is sure to be faithful and to preserve an intrinsike peace then to trust hatred which is very uncertaine of any successe in offending others and alwayes sure of injuring our selves Christ Jesus who had revenge more in his power then his enemies had their provocations would not countenance it by taking the least grain of it in all his life He seemed neerer being angry with his friends that but proposed any resentment then with the strangers for their irritations The sonnes of thunder were reproached of being strangers to his spirit more then the Samaritans for being exercisers of his patience So as in this case Christ seemeth to have provided a cautionary instruction for us against any eager promptitude in revenge under the colour of his quarrell because the edge of our owne nature is so apt to be set upon the weapons we pretend to whet in his cause when we are in a sharp prosecution of our enemies The sword is commonly that of our own spirit and the sheath only the Word of God for we cover familiarly our private animosities with Gods assignations when indeed we rather take God for our second in our owne differences then combat sincerely for his designes This is a pravity so cleaving to our nature as we may note that Christs Disciples who had heard so many inculcations of this designe of Christ to suffer and submit himselfe to all sorts of offences and violations did never comprehend his meaning in this matter and never answered him any thing upon this discourse but as soone as he did but touch upon what sounded like a purpose of vindication and revenge Luke 22. as when he had signified to them the approach of his danger and given them but a little hint of arming themselves they presently answered as if they had been cleere sighted in this proposition Behold here are two swords The Crosse and scourges whereof he had so often acquainted them did not so much as awake their curiosities and having never spoken before of any offensive weapons or instruments he would imploy our nature was as quick in the acceptance at the first notice of this resolution of revenge as it had been heavy in conceiving the frequent intimations of yeelding unto the offences of enemies and persecutors but we see they understood Christs meaning as little in this point as in the other for Christ came not to follow the vitiated nature of man that dictateth with the Scribes Mat. 5. Thou shalt love thy friend and hate thine enemy but to make man partaker of the divine nature the which fâ—rnishes the just and unjust with the same sunne for light and the same clouds for refreshment nay he gave his owne Sonne universally for the whole world even for those he knew would be so unworthy of him as not to accept him Whereupon this Sonne of God this self-sacrificer for his enemies hath good right to impose exact duties upon us in reference to our enemies the which are more his enemies in the very act of being ours So as in this order to us he sheweth the way to this benignity since his command of these succours for them manifesteth his indulgence to them enjoyning his friends those that are conformable to the perfection of his Father these three good offices for his enemies and theirs which are all in order to the reclaiming them and reducing them to a redamancy of him Benedicite benefacite orate These three invitations he appointeth towards the resipiscence of enemies he will have them invited by our
your way that might endanger you in your following and carrying your Crosses safely and graciously in this traine I have cleered all those scruples and dissipated those temptations I conceived the most obnoxious and the most subtile the enemy could object to amuse you or excite to seduce you Against both which impediments in the way of the Crosse to wit of doubts which might keep you unresolved and of offers that might divert you I have given their precautions and defences respectively to the natures of the dangers Having thus furnished you the armes of righteousnesse on the right hand and the left with all sincerity and as much ability as God hath pleased to impart unto me I may use the termes of the beloved Apostle upon the same occasion 1 John 14. These things we write to you that you may rejoyce and your joy may be full For surely if out of these principles of Catholike Religion you doe but extract some drops of joy Psa 109.7 Of the torrent in the way shall be drink therefore shall he exalt his head now while you are drinking or the torrent in the way with him of whom the Psalmist saith De torrente in viâ bibet propterea exaltabit caput with what a torrent of joy shall you be refreshed when you come to be united to that exalted head and drink as it were with his mouth tasting the same volupty which he feedeth and liveth upon In this contemplation me thinks it should be no harder a matter for you to be pleased now in your pressures and vexations then it is for a Generall to rejoyce while his wounds are dressing though with much sensible paine which are the memorials of a glorious victory All the paines and asperities of temporall affliction unto a heart fastned to the Crosse of Christ Act. 5.41 in which posture there is an actuall triumph are but such smarts and pungencies as the body of a Conqueror may feele in his hurts while his minde is elevated with a superiour Joy and Delectation There may be such a present dolorousnesse in the senses of those victorious sufferers while their spirits are going rejoycing with the Apostles in these stripes which their persons resent for Saint Paul the great Doctor in consorting this suavity and asperity telleth us Heb. 12.11 All discipline for the present truly seemeth not to be of joy but sorrow but afterward it will render to them who are exercised by it most peaceable fruit of justice Therefore a Christian who liveth by faith more nobly then by sense rests not upon what he feeleth but passeth on to what he beleeveth and hopeth 2 Cor. 4.18 The things that are seen are temporall but these that are not seen are eternall considering that Temporalia sunt quae videntur quae autem non videntur aterna Me thinks Job upon his triumphall arch raised upon the consumption and ashes of all his temporalities prefigureth to us the estate and directeth the course of a Christian He hath set me as it were a proverb for the common people and the just shall hold his way and with clean hands shall adde strength These contrarietyes must be expected yet this rectitude in the way and this proficiency in the advance must be endeavoured and by those gaining upon our selves we attain to that joy which our Saviour hath promised none shal take from us for our King hath associated two things more incoÌ„patible in the state of our nature then the Emp. Merva was so much celebrated for in the state of civill regiment which was that he had conjoyned two things before his time insociable Empire and Liberty But our Prince of peace hath consociated even the sword and peace for he professeth he came to separate the neerest alliances of nature and yet to confederate joy and sorrow in these separations And this capacity imparted to our nature of rejoycing and suffering all together seemeth a resemblance in us of the ineffable union in him of his Divine and Human natures For these two operations Angelicall and Humane seeme now conjoyned in the faculties of man when he rejoyceth as if he were an Angel while he suffereth as a Man This concordancy hath Christ made between these two antipathies of joy and sorrow by that power which joyned himselfe to us in such a sort as no mortal shal ever conceive the manner of it And the same power giveth us this capacity of issuing as it were out of our selves in such a kind as we cannot comprehend that virtue by which we are thus enabled to joy and sorrow in the same conjuncture But though we doe not conceive fully the virtue by which we act we are cleerly informed of what we are to endeavour in all distresses never so averse to our nature for where he whom we beleeve equall to God returned him thanks and prayses for all his crosses and passions we who are but wormes and dust cannot doubt how we are to comport our selves in our chastisements and corrections under the hand of our Creator The Apostle in these instructions given to the Roman Catholikes for their behaviour in persecution compriseth and summeth up in a few words all my ratiocinations Be fervent in spirit Rom. 12. rejoycing in hope patience in tribulation instâ—nt in prayer These are the Wedges out of which I have by way of expansion drawn all the leaf-gold which I have laid upon these sheets out of which every one of you may take stuffe enough to gild over his Crosse and now I present you with the barres themselves out of which each of you may draw that fire-tryed gold which the Angel counselleth them to buy that would be made rich For as the prince of the Apostles saith of these same dispositions and in little differing terms 2 Pet. 1.8 If these things be present with you and abound they shall make you not vacant not without fruit in the knowledge of our Lord JESUS CHRIST And you will please to remember that I have marked you out the way of having this presence and abundance of these graces and endowments by fervent and indeficient prayer which openeth the eares of even the unjust judge and much more his who hath given us this expedient for all our releefs Luk. 18.2 It behoveth alwayes to pray and not to be weary 1 Thes 5.16 Oportet semper orare non deficere so that this precept of our righteous judge and mercifull master cannot be too much iterated and urged upon you in this time of your tentation And certainly Saint Pauls Rejoyce alwayes and his Pray alwayes are fitly set together for they are Correlatives prayer being the father and joy the sonne In this life our necessities require continuall supplies and in the other life where we shal know no want these two shall change their relations joy shall be the parent and prayer the issue for there the fulnesse of joy shall beget perpetuall prayer whereas here the abundance