in this plight all he can say for himself is my Mother hath conceived me in sin The Application We are here to deplore with our Penitent the sad consequences or penalties of original sin First it is from thence that Men become Enemies to one another without this sin we had known no Tyrants Robbers by Sea or Land no corruption in Officers no oppression nor injury from any person From hence it is that the Beasts of the Earth and Fowl of the Air as if absolved from their Fidelity are in a manner no more awed by the Majesty of Man's Face The Elements malignant Planets and other insensible Creatures as if let loose to our destruction occasion an infinity of disasters unto us It is from hence we are stupid in our own concerns that being in a condition even beyond imagination dangerous we yet sport and vainly pursue our pleasures as if all things were according to our wish It is from hence we are filled with self-love pusillanimous in struggling with vice inordinate in our pursuit of fading objects never satisfyed with our state and alwayes seeking a change Our sences distract us from the meditation of heavenly things our fancy taken up with illusions disturb our sleep and after a thousand other discommodities and infirmities which usher Death at last it comes to resolve us into corruption worms dust and as it were to nothing and all this because my Mother hath conceived me in sin Ah let us therefore submit our selves under the powerful hand of God who alone is able to conclude all our misery in Beatitude Amen CHAP. XIII Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti For behold thou hast loved Truth OUr Penitent having dissected the Anatomy of Man and left no Cranny whereinto misery might creep undisplaid Now seems to Apologize for his discovery and pleads for excuse God's love to truth And in this point he believes he hath discharged his duty nor doth it a little satisfie him to have done it since it is the only thing he can now perform to repair the failing in his duty First he hath made an ingenuous confession ripping up every thought that could any wayes intrench upon God's holy Law and having thus emptied his unhappy store without the concealment of the least corrupted grain hear what he expects in return of this his faithful Narrative or rather what a Sequel depends upon it Dixi confitebar injustitiam meam Domino tu remisisti impietatem peccati mei no sooner sayes he had I pronounced that I would lay open my iniquities but I found my shackles unloosned and the impiety of my sin wholly rased out whence we may see how the meer intention of doing well never falls to the ground unrewarded Which imports God presumes we will not trifle with him and therefore at the least overture of rendring a just account of our misdeeds he makes us no more impious that is takes away all the obstacles to Remission as impenitency obduration habitual impression of evil and the like So that if we keep touch in our promise he will be faithful in compleating his act of grace because dilexisti veritatem thou hast loved truth Hugo Cardinal prescribes unto us verity under three considerations that is a verity of life a verity of Doctrine and a verity of Justice Verity of life consists in a conformity with those Laws which God and Nature have set down for the Rule of our actions this our blessed Saviour sufficiently asserts when he gives the lye to him who pretends to love God and yet not observes his commands St. Thomas sayes there is a law eternal residing in the Divine intellect by which the World is governed and that humane lawes are more or less just as they participate of this eternal rule Hence our life if not squared out by this directive original must needs wander fall into errour nor can be called a life of verity nay I know not whether we may call it a life since Lactantius affirms that whosoever strayes out of this line flyes from himself despises humane nature and consequently will suffer the torture of an erroneous conscience which is not small though other punishments escape him The First Principle then of a life of Truth is to steer our Course in order to this universal guiding spirit imprinted in us by the light of nature next we are to look upon positive Lawes dictated by the Holy Ghost and the adorable example of our Lord Jesus whose life and actions were all directed to our instruction So that any structure erected upon this foundation cannot prove Sandy nor fail the builders expectation We find in holy Scripture frequently eternal felicity promised as a reward to good works this the penny agreed on with those who wrought in the Vineyard insinuates no less doth the Crown prepared for those who faithfully combat in this life the Triumph also of Resurrection speaks as much assured to the real not ideal supporters of Christ's Cross Nor is the name of Christian given us as bare lookers on but because actually made a spectacle to God Angels and Men. By acts therefore of Temperance Patience Humility Resignation and other Christian vertues we shake off as it were our old Natures and become a new production created in Justice and Truth and so become the object of God's Love because Veritatem dilexisti he hath ever loved Truth If we look upon the unwearied labours of Men in pursuit of what may render them happy in this life we shall find Truth to be the main scope of their aims First it is a priviledge of Man's Nature there being no Creature in the World but Man capable of truth so that whilst we toil in the inquisition we comply with an appetite or desire engrafted in us which eggs us on towards the thing that can only make us happy For Beatitude is defined a joy in the possession of truth unveiled and clearly discovered to us Secondly the delight we derive from the knowledge of Truths far surpasses any other satisfaction we can have in this World because depending meerly upon the intellect it is depurated from the dreggs of sense and so more intimately affects and transports the Soul When by study we have attained to a Demonstration how quiet is the understanding freed from all mists of doubts and uncertainty and securely rests in the acquisition of the said truth Thirdly if I covet a Friend I propose in this design an object of truth and fidelity and if I find a breast sealed with this sacred stamp how pleasing a Sanctuary is it where in all distresses I fly as to an Oracle unfolding the secrets of my heart resolving in that consistory between us two what to act and how to steer the course of my affairs If the tye of marriage leagues between Nations and Friendships are held sacred from the obligation they impose upon us of sincerity and truth how much ought verity it self to be valued which gives life and
to those who use it in excess next he hints the reliques and dreggs it leaves behind that if God's grace joyned with a great resolution happen to dislodge this petulent Guest yet still some footsteps or impressions remain apt to reenter and claim an interest Wherefore he could promise to himself no security unless an inundation of mercy fall upon him to purify and carry away all the remainder of bad inclinations grown into a habit and become as it were a second Nature in him Cleanse me from my sin and as it was not a slight stain he had contracted but all circumstances weighed the most indelible that springs from inordinate acts in carnal pleasures For Lawes Divine Natural and Humane seem to be violated in Adultery Divine in that two persons by marriage are made one flesh and both pass into the incommunicable Nature of individuality becoming the essential part of each other whence violation cannot happen to one without destroying the life of the other and breaking that bond which God hath knit together Natural Law is likewise by an adulterous act infringed because Marriage consists not in the sole possession of the Body but also nay principally in the affections of a reasonable Soul For the bonds of Marriage are not wrought by copulation but mutual consent and under a sacred Vow never to be retracted who then infringes these engagements must needs contract a note of infidelity and consequently strike at the main Hinge of humane Society to preserve which Nature chiefly tends in all her principles and essential motions Lastly a breach is made in humane Law by Adultery in that Marriage is not a private but domestick good which concerns not one but infinite Families strengthened by the Laws of the Church and publick Faith of Nations From hence Nature finds those who carefully cultivate her plants hence Commonwealths are enriched with Citizens the Church with Children By this we may see the malice of Adultery that drawes along with it the violation of so many Laws Christ enjoyns us a love of our Enemies and that the Sun should not set in our anger Yet in the treachery of Marriage-Bed permits a separation between Man and Wife how strictly soever united by indissoluble tyes as if such crimes surpassed the limits of pardon as if an evil so destructive that remedies could find no place and that this individual life once dissolved could no more be recalled than habit from privation Many Tyrants have subdued to therage of their cruelties the wealth liberty and lives of their Subjects who looking upon this power as given from Heaven over them patiently sustained all those depredations but if once they touched upon their wives and would involve them in the Mass of their impurities this rowsed up their fallen spirits cast them into rebellion nay pushed them to that extremity as never to desist untill they had deprived those of life who had ravished from them what was more dear than life untill they had reduced unto ashes the Authors of their infamy and taught them for the example of posterity this violence of all others will not be left unrevenged in this World There hath scarce been any Nation though Pagan or Infidel which hath not punished Adultery with Death or exquisite Torments Some by fire others by wild Horses some by the Halter others in pulling out their Eyes cutting off their Noses some by stones as in Moses Law Whence 't is clear that even the light of Nature taught there ought for the good of humane Society that a stop be made to this disorder Our Penitent having in his thoughts lay'd open all those Enormities of an Adulterous Act is surprised to see himself plunged in so many abominations to have heaped up to himself so much ignominy and infection as the reproach of them would last as long as time How sparingly do good Men treat of carnal subjects either in Writing or in the Pulpit lest the very articulate sound or Characters in this matter might offend chast Ears or cause worse effects in Hearts already tainted If then this poyson carry with it so much of malignity in the very name or lightest thought what corruption and noysomness must the sin it self produce Oh! how strong did this scent breathe in the Nostrils of our Penitent when once his understanding was awake and beheld with an Eye free from passion his Body dissolved into so many contaminations no wonder than if he so oft repeat in this Psalm the cleansing from his sin Every glimps of his past foul delights casts him into a blush beholding no other consequence of them than shame confusion and the threats of eternal destruction notwithstanding all this he sues for a Vesture of innocence and he does it to him who with a fiat or blast from his Mouth drew out of a dark Chaos that glorious Body of the Sun which so revives us To him who hath promised to let fall all the darts of his anger upon the true repentance of a sinner on this basis he fixes his Petition and doubts not but at last to find a happy issue to be drawn out of the mire of his sensualities and his leprous condition changed into the consistence of restored grace after this he sighs and groans nor is capable of any consolation untill that happy moment arrive which shall put a period to this longing demand Et à peccato meo munda me cleanse me from my sin The Application We must consider that God is purity it self who hath nothing more in abomination than an impure Soul That Heaven inhabited by Angels is a place of honour where nothing defiled can have access Wherefore we ought to apprehend any stain of lubricity because most obstructive to our final Beatitude First in that it is according to St. Thomas peccatum maximae inhaerentiae a Sin that clings like Bird-lime to our Souls and of all others most hard to be clawed off it resembles a Phoenix who renews her self with the fire enkindled by the motion of her own Wings so a person inured to that vice even when he would give it over and bury it withall occasion of incentives doth often find the Coals to be blown afresh by the wings of thoughts so that whilst we live we ought never to be secure since 't is a combat of all others the most hazzardous and where the victory is most rare next it is a sin of impudency and when a Soul is devoid of shame what hopes can there be to reclaim her St. Hierom advises to a private admonition of our neighbour and gives this reason lest he break the curb of shame and dwell in his sin for ever By baptism we are made members of Jesus Christ and the chiefest homage we can pay to him as our Head is to preserve it unspotted from any smut of impurity A virginal integrity is so acceptable unto God that the Angels were they permitted would translate them Body and Soul into Heaven that
when they prevaricate by injustice falshood irreverence to God impenitency and the like they act against a Law-giver which is God himself and against a Law that took birth with their Creation and is the Model and Rule of humane Lawes which without conformity to this Law are not Lawes but injustice and tyranny I will teach the wicked thy wayes The third remonstrance of our enflamed Doctour is to inform the wicked that positive Divine Lawes are necessary not only to rectify their wandring steps but also to preserve the just in their righteous paths The reason is Man is designed to a supernatural end to arrive at which his natural faculties are deficient wherefore it was requisite he should have supernatural precepts and rules proportioned to the sublime condition of his end Besides after he had exchanged a state of innocency for that of sin and corruption he stood in need of a Master who might instruct him how disastrous a thing sin is how necessary to have a redeemer all which Divine Lawes do open unto him Again to observe even the Lawes of Nature would have been a hard task if he aspired not after somthing more sublime for the efforts of his Soul are so clogged by the violence of his passions and his nature so weakned by sin that unless divine positive laws had engaged man unto heavenly pursuits scarce would he ever have been able to reach the perfect observance of the Law of nature Lastly it was necessary he should have alwayes before his Eyes his dependency and subjection unto God so to be stirred up to the performance of his duty and by giving testimony of his faithful obedience merit something at his hands wherefore his Creation was no sooner finished but God laid a command upon him that he might know even in Paradise he had a Master Next he consecrated the Seventh day to works of his service obliging the first inhabitants of the Earth to its observance Moreover those first Men of the World were obliged to the supernatural vertues of Faith Hope and Charity without which acts they could not be saved now those decrees were positive Lawes and superadded to those of nature so that in all times Men were never left purely to the Law of nature but it was intermixed with several positive ordinations that might help them on more advantagiously in the way of their Salvation Our Holy Penitent having thus exposed before the wicked the endearing providence of God over mankind who never abandoned them to the sole instinct of nature and conduct of their own Reason but like a careful Master teaching them his will by himself and giveing them particular directions to lead them in the way of vertue he would not stop there but proceed to a further elucidation of God's benefits towards them that at last overcome by his goodness they might lay down their arms and think it no dishonour to lye prostrate at the feet of so noble a Conquerour which if our penitent can effect he will repeat with much joy I will teâ—ch the wicked thy ways Our zealous convert plyes the Iron whilst it is hot hoping to render the wicked more malleable wherefore he produces the Mosaick law given by God to sanctify the Children of Abraham and dispose the World for the knowledge belief and honorable reception of Jesus Christ The Law consisted in precepts moral ceremonial and judicial The first contained the Ten Commandments and divers others relating to them and though the Law of nature led to their observance yet many errours were committed in reference to them which were cleared and better regulated by positive Lawes The Ceremonial were ordained in order to the worship of God regulating what belongs to the Sacraments Temple institution of fasts and bloody Sacrifice of Beasts wherein God manifested his justice declaring that sin deserved Death and likewise his Mercy in that he would exchange the death of a sinner for that of a poor animal The third are judicial which conspire to the establishment of a rare Government amongst the Jews that by an admirable policy being kept in peace Religion might flourish the number of their Laws amount to above six hundred an Argument of God's indulgence towards them For the Jews being stupid and of a gross apprehension uncapable of being led by general rules as not knowing how to apply them in particular emergencies he was pleased in every point to satisfy and instruct them Nay his particular providence here in appears that delivering so many Articles for their observance he seems to take upon him the whole care of providing for their temporals as well as spirituals as if he would keep a watch over every step and motion of theirs to the end all things might be exact and setled in the highest order He designed them likewise to be a pattern of Holiness and Sanctity to the Gentiles that by their example they might be drawn from the corruption of Idolatry to the real sentiments of vertue and religion wherefore he planted them in the midst of the habitable world Lastly it was just that Nation should be the most Religious and Pious from whence Jesus Christ was to issue forth that they might prefigure publish and engrave him in the hearts and minds of Men by their holy Ceremonies and legal observances which were all to represent him and the wonders of his life and death for this cause the kingdome of the Jews was prophetick and their religious actions a figure of the qualities condition and mysteries of Jesus Christ Nay all the worship and service which God required of that Nation and all the Exercise of their Religion was meerly to foretel announce expect and receive the Messias wherefore St. Paul calls it a holy Law abounding in Ceremonies and all tending to this effect I cannot doubt but our great Doctour and Prophet did with much Energy insist upon the designed End of the Mosaick Law which is Jesus Christ representing to the wicked that the sole way to Salvation was by repentance and belief in the Messias exhorting them to joyn with him in the practice of Heroick acts of vertues so to expedite his coming and repeat after him this his daily Prayer who will give us from Sion the Saviour of Israel He told them there was not a sigh or languishment any prayer or good work directed for the accelleration of this mystery which had not its effect that Abraham advanced it much by his prodigious act of obedience in offering to Sacrifice his Son and after he had run over all the Gests of Saints till his time he conclude all these motives would have been little efficacious without the charity mercy and love of God to lost Man St. John attributes the glory of this Action to love alone and if some have compared the vigour of love to equal that of death I dare give it a higher Encomium and will say it was so generous as to transport it self up to Heaven and assault the Divinity
himself to one who is the searcher of hearts and before whom the most secret motions are displayed he should nevertheless make this superfluous expression of his promptitude to perform what ever he would exact of him But we ought to justify our Penitent and believe that in this he aims at the Worlds satisfaction to the end after ages might read he declined not the use of those remedies the Law prescribed out of any defect of submission to the Law but meerly upon the score of God's dispensation who was pleased to accept of the interiour Acts of his repentance and in that acceptation would inform Mankind the heart is the thing he most considers The Application From hence we may learn this instruction that when we see our Neighbour deficient in what he owes to the eternal Law we must not immediately pass Sentence of Condemnation upon him the Judgements of God being far different from those of Men but referr all to that great day which will lay open all Truths especially in matters of omission where the causes are so inevident and where in we so often make the Innocent guilty If seriously we insist upon this principle then with confidence we may keep time with Holy David and cry If thou wouldest have had a Sacrifiice I had verily done it Amen CHAP. XXXIV Holocaustis non delectaberis Thou wilt not be delighted with Holocausts HAd our Petitioner couched this Clause in the present Tense and said Thou art not dedelighted with Holocausts it would have cleared the sense of the precedent disease and proved a satisfactory alligation for his omission of Sacrifice But being in the future it renders the expression dubious and may import that upon the establishment of a new Law all these Figurative oblations will cease and then the Incense of those appeasing Sacrifices would no more smell sweet in his Nostrils But however upon a more serious inspection it may bear this construction that an immediate and present effect would follow to wit whensoever he should offer Sacrifice it will be no wayes acceptable to him because as I said in the promises the lively Faith he had of the Law of grace put him in the same condition through a particular dispensation of Heaven as if he had not been under the Mosaick Yoak and therefore since he contributed on his part what was requisite to the perfection of an Evangelical Sacrifice God would supply the rest so that truly as to his particular he might say Thou art not delighted with Holocausts c. Upon these grounds our Petitioners argument carries weight and inferrs that if Holocausts be not countenanced by Heaven it were in vain to think of any other oblation for amongst all the legal Sacrifices that of Holocausts or Burnt-offerings was the most perfect and the most compleatly expresses the supremacy of God's power over us and the fulness of our subjection to him for in some Sacrifices part of them were burnt the rest applyed to the use of the Minister but in Holocausts all was consumed and by the total destruction of that offering was implyed a dependency of Fortune Life and Being on his orders and commands from whence they were derived I observe likewise in the sacred Text that if Sacrifices were not performed with a pure conscience and detestation of sin they were odious in the sight of God this appears in the First Chapter of Esay by whose Pen God declares that Incense was abominable to him and that he abhorred their Solemnities Again in the Prov. The Sacrifice offered up by an impious hand is abomination in his sight For the end of a Sacrifice is either in order to a reconciliation with God a return of thanks for benefits received or for the impetration of some new favour Now to pretend to any of these and not renounce all affection to Sin were rather to provoke than any wayes appease his anger But our Petitioner delivers not the thing with that horrour he touches not upon any abomination or severity on God's part but expresses it in the Negative of any satisfaction he will take in it which concludes his Sacrificing action would not be rejected upon the score of any real-guilt but as a thing unnecessary to him who was priviledged with the conditions of a more efficacious oblation and therefore justly he might cry thou art not delighted with Holocausts Again our Holy Penitent in his 30. Psalm explicates himself more clearly about this point his vvords are these Thou hast not required a burnt-offering for sin wherefore I will plant your Law in the midst of my heart since I said engraven in the Frontispiece of the Book that is my conscience I should in this manner perform your will What can be more evident to demonstrate he had orders to desist from any other Sacrifice then what were hatched and conveyed unto God from an unspotted Heart for by this Book is meant the secret of Gods proceedings with Man as appears in the Apocalips where is expressed that the Lamb alone was found worthy to open and unclasp the Book of God's secrets and this Book was unfolded to him by which he is taught That he is not delighted with Holocausts Holocausts c. Besides though the Law of Moses were abrogated as to their Ceremonial and judicial precepts Yet what depended on the Doctrine of Faith and morality was not cashierd but refined amplifyed and made more perfect Whence our Holy Petitioner by way of Amplification instructed in the more ample Elucidation of Faith to be unfolded in the Law Evangelical and enriched with a right Spirit not only to discern what is good from bad but likewise to embrace and pursue the wayes of vertue not only to know the wounds of humane nature but also the sovereign remedies for their cure presumed he might lay claim to a Law not of fear but love laid open to him in his prophetick Spirit A Law not only given by a Legislator but by him who was both a Lawgiver and Redeemer a Law not written in stone and which breathed forth anger but one that should be imprinted in the hearts of Men vvhose effects are Grace and Truth and by vvhich he should be related to them as their God and they to him as his people A Law not given to one single Nation but directed to the whole World in which repentance and remission of sins should be enacted and held forth A Law not consisting of shadowes but substance by the infusion of Faith and Charity and by the impletion of all figurative Sacrifices a Law not of slavery but freedome and love which vvith the Precepts vvould be communicated a spirit of Charity to enable them to the performance of vvhat vvas imposed and vvhere the Lords spirit is there liberty is found Hence though our Petitioner was still under the Law yet it vvas not as a bond-man performing his acts by constraint but as a Child born to his duties by affection and respect and therefore exempt from
THE CYNOSURA Or a SAVING STAR That leads to ETERNITY Discovered amidst the Celestial Orbs of DAVID'S PSALMS By way of Paraphrase upon the MISERERE Humanum est errare Divinum quid emendare To do amiss is incident to humane Nature To repair our failings something Divine Si non traheris ora ut traharis If you be not moved to repentance pray you may be moved St. Aug. LONDON Printed by I. Redmayne for Thomas Rooks at the Lamb and Ink-bottle at the Entrance into Gresham Colledge next Bishops-gate-street 1670. To the Right Honorable and Illustrious Lady ANNE Countess of SHREWSBURY MADAM IT is the great Voice of the Church taught by her Heavenly Espouse that according to the ordinary course set down by his Providence none arrived to the knowledge of good and evil can reach their Beatitude but by the wings of Pennance 'T is a Decree passed immediately after our First Parents transgression that he should not eat his Bread but at the rate of sweaty Browes And though God seems to dispense in this severe Sentence in the old Law promising to the exact observers of it long life abundance of wealth a plentiful posterity and the like Yet this was done as he will leave no vertue unrewarded in regard that Heavens Gates were then shut up But when Christ had cleared their passage unto Eternal felicity and clapt the Thorns which were the fruit of our sins upon his own Head then they recovered so high a Being and grew to that value as the heavier God layes his Hand upon us the more his love appears So that now the mark of our happiness is the Son of God not glorifyed but scourged spit upon crowned with Thorns torn with Whipps and nailed to the Cross Hence it is we find our sweet Redeemer born in Tears bred up in obscurity and concluding the upshot of his life with all the circumstances of infamy and pain at the opening of his grand commission to preach unto the World his first Exordium was an exhortation unto pennance as if it were the sole Loadstone to draw Heaven towards us And St. Paul his great Disciple declares it nay he makes no exception that all those who would be happy must crucify their flesh with their vices Thus you see Madam that every Hand whether innocent or guilty whether noble or vulgar ought to be stretched forth to sow the bitter Seed of pennance If we have sucked in vertue even with our Milk and thrived with a daily encrease in the sequel of our life yet we ought not sayes St. Austin descend into the Tomb but by the way of pennance Again if we have complyed with the Frailties of our corrupt nature and trespassed against the duty we owe to our good God pennance likewise must be our Sanctuary So that pennance is furnished with two Wings to bear us up to Heaven the one is fashioned out by love which prompts us to become by a course of severity a true Copy of our suffering Original the other is framed by strokes of Justice and exacts worthy fruits that is such as may in some proportion be answerable to our failings and though this other have not a motive altogether so Heroick yet it speaks a great vertue because it puts us upon a task the most knotty that can be imagined as to appease the face of an angry God Besides it renders that Action just and equitable in that it aims to repair the injury and contempt thrown by sin upon his greatness Wherefore we ought not to blush upon either of these accounts to wear the Liveries of pennance If on the former we mortify our senses upon Earth and vest our selves with the habit of Christ shaped out to the Image of his Death it is a perfect Metamorphosy wrought by the power of love and for which Figure the very Angels were they capable of sensible impressions would be glad to exchange with us If on the latter that is the score of satisfaction it Cancels all our Bonds of guilt it raises us from an Abyss of misery to the high dignity of Grace by which we are adopted Sons and Heirs to Heaven So that a penitential life cannot but find veneration amongst all wise Men and be highly acceptable in the sight of God since by our humiliations we labour to contribute to his honor and greatness But Madam you may perhaps upon this discourse wonder to behold in the Courts of Christian Princes so much of glory pomp and magnificence which suit so ill with the Characters of the Cross I confess at the First glance it might startle any one were it not that a multitude of persons both Illustrious in Blood and eminent in Sanctity have taught by their Example that the glittering of the World and a penitential Heart are not things incompatible It were to groap in the Sun-beams to play the Ignorant in this Truth that is not to acknowledge that in all ages since Christ's visible appearance upon Earth Princes and Ladies of no less extraction have been found who under a Cloth of Tyssue and the richest Ornaments have covered their tender Bodies with Hair-cloths Who amidst the delicacies of the Court have macerated themselves with fasting and seasoned their repasts with bitter ingredients VVho have more valued one hours entertainment between God and their happy Souls than all the Balls and Masques to which external compliance the greatness of their condition in some sort obliged them For the essential part of pennance consists in the interiour disposition of the Mind that is in the operation of the understanding and will The understanding first represents unto us a God disobeyed and scorned and his Justice by this indignity stirred up to vindicate his honor threatning nothing but ruine and desolation in this distress the understanding further suggests that we have no refuge but to the throne of mercy whereupon the will falls to work laments what is passed protests against any future complyance with bad inclinations and seised with a holy sorrow and affliction submits to any compensation shall be required These are the preparatories to justification and when once they are compleated by a ray of Faith strengthened with hope and animated with charity this vertue of pennance growes up to that efficacy as to obtain in consideration of the excellency of its acts and fervency of the Agent a full remission of all sin Whence it is evident this grand work of pennance may be wrought within the precincts of our interiour and consequently the vain appearance of precious attyre and ceremonies of greatness may possibly reach only to the film or out-side whilest within they possess humility purity temperance and other Christian vertues To give a further elucidation of this point you will please Madam to know that Christ our Lord in his copious Redemption had two main designs The one to gain the Hearts of Men to the obedience of his Lawes which were so frozen and marble like as he foresaw a
104. l. 7. nor well p. 106. l. 12. a little after p. 111. l. 3. his future p. 136. l. 23. injure p. 151. l. 12. palms p. 158. l. 6. communicates p. 160. l. 20. object p. 161. l. 1. for that p. 162. l. 16. Deity p. 163. l. 3. most love p. 165. l. 6. heeld p. 183. l. 7. preceding p. 184. l. 16. decides p. 186. l. 21. punishment p. 189. l. 15. account soever p. 202. l. 5. it is only our heart p. 203. l. 5. she seemed and â—… 25. interiour p. 221. l. 21. in his mind p. 225. l. at a more p. 231. l. 25 entertains p. 236. l. 25. possible and l. 27. abstruse p. 237. l. 17. should p. 248. l. 12. incentives p. 263. l. 8. blot out degree and in the place read will p. 278. l. 16. believe in thee p. 280. l. 2. in these p. 284. l. 29. affect p. 297. l. 26. blot out his and read all material p. 324. l. 25. beating p. 325. l. 21. obstructed p. 343. l. 25. Quires p. 355. l. 2. appartment p. 363. l. 9. premises p. 366. l. 19. after love adde to p. 369. l. 8. danger and. l. 15. this instruction p. 370 l. 1. of his heart p. 403. l. 1. word p. 365. l. 5. since as I said it is engraven CHAP. I. Miserere mei DEUS Have mercy on me O GOD. AT the first entrance our Kingly Prophet prefers his Petition and without any circumlocution expresses in direct terms what he would have Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God and he do's it with such confidence as if he had a right to be forgiven which minds me of a rare sentence of S. Gregory Nissen that Man cannot more willingly ask pardon than God is ready to give it The Divine Majesty expects if it may be so express'd with passion the conversion of a sinner and no sooner a repenting motion animates his heart but the whole Court of heaven is alarmed with joy and this joy is followed with showers of mercy No wonder then if our Petitioner make his address with so little Ceremony since he speaks to a Judge resolved to mercy upon his submission to a Father who is transported with joy at the sight of his long lost Son to a Creatour who hath framed every particle of his being and perfectly knows how frail weak and prone to innumerable failings he is if left to himself wherefore he cryes Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God He shelters this guilty me t'wixt God that made him and Mercy that must save him on these two he anchors all his hopes which being let down by a vigorous faith renders him secure amidst all the storms that hell and earth can raise so that now like a rock he stands braving all his enemies assaults who not long before was handed like a ball from one pleasure to another as if he had been made up of sensuality passion and a neglect of God Next in this exordium our Petitioner would insinuate a great truth that the first grace is a free gift of God and man a vessel of mercy not of merit hence he cryes Miserere mei Deus that is to say let him pine away in sorrow and repentance let him produce acts of ardent affection by which he prizes God above all things imaginable yet when all this is done he is a Child of perdition and clouded with the guilt of Sin unless an act of Grace be made him from his Sovereign Wherefore we must know that Grace expelling Sin by access unto the Soul finds there no merit nothing that can pretend to a justification neither Faith nor any other Vertue strikes the stroak since Grace is the basis or ground-work of all merit whence it s being is derived no less than a beauteous Flower from the Plant that gives it birth This piece of Divinity lay not hid to our penitent hence he acknowledges his imbecility in meriting any favour only he strives by holy acts of love and grief to dispose himself for mercy Nay though he should comfort himself with Nathan's words that he was already possessed of the first Grace yet to persevere in it so as not to fall again he knew must be the work of the same merciful hand for it is no less out of our reach to become just than to remain so without a constant supply of many actual Graces which must issue gratis from Heaven This kept him still in humility as never to presume of his own strength alwayes in fear without any security of happiness in this life So that having throughly scann'd the Condition of Man in this present State he concludes the best lesson suitable to our continual wants here is incessantly to repeat and entreat under this effectual form Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Whil'st he thus layes all his hopes at the feet of mercy he cannot but bless the sweet proceedings of Heaven in requiring of us to compass our happiness that which is so conformable both to our Reason and Nature For can there be any thing more rational and delightful to Man than to love a Sovereign Good to congratulate the Divine Essence Divine Subsistences Divine Attributes and unchangeable perfections essentially seated in God Can there be any thing more just than to desire this greatness and goodness should have his Divine Laws fulfilled the Universe conserved for the Encrease and Accomplishment of his Service and that all praise and Benediction be poured forth before him by all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth Can there be any action more commendable than to conceive an extream detestation of Sin because injurious to His Supream Majesty and obstructive to his glory and yet in doing this we so attemper our selves for the reception of his favours that as in the Order of Natural things upon the Organization and fitted Dispositions of a Body he hath obliged himself to infuse a Soul so he hath no less engaged to vest that Mind with supernatural Grace which by acts of love and repentance shall be prepared for it But alas Amidst these pleasing reflections when he looks into himself he finds a check seeing he cannot even dispose himself for this happiness without a supernatural aid for though 't is true humane Nature by its own strength knowes that God is worthy of all love yet our knowledge in morality is much more capable of comprehension than practice 'T is not enough to have Wings to fly if they be so hamper'd as they cannot be display'd so this natural faculty in Man of loving God above all things is so weakned by original Sin and a million of Obstacles that we find the inclination of doing it far more ineffectual than the dictamens of our reason to have it done And no wonder when St. Thomas affirms our Will by original Sin is much more damnified than our understanding whence self love growes powerful in us and if it hath not a
counterpoise of supernatural succours we are violently hurried into the pursuit of Fading and sensible objects This consideration makes our penitent deplore the miseries of humane Nature so wounded and made impotent unto good as of her self she cannot pay what she owes to the most lawful object of all hearts for his just homages are not only Sighs Groans and Enthusiastick throwes but effective services as the exact observance of his commands an aversion from what may put a separation 'twixt God and our Soul such are sensual pleasures greatness in the World and honours in excess victory over Temptations and in many encounters this love exacts a perpession of all the Calamities to which Man is incident even to the privation of life that he may not fall into transgressions opposite unto it And these difficulties do so far exceed humane imbecility that at last he makes this result he must stick close to his praeliminary address miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Again when he reflects on the distance of these Terms Deus mei God and me methinks it should startle the greatest Assurance to consider the sublimity of him that is offended and the despicability of the offendour the one is immense and fills all places the other is contracted into the dimensions of a small Body the one is immutable and still the same the other is corruptible and mouldring away every Moment towards that nothing from whence it came the one is eternal the other subject to time the one is the object of Beatitude the other of Misery 'T is true our penitent in relation to earthly greatness was qualified with the highest Title the World can give as being Sovereign Monarch and sole Ruler of a chosen Nation a vast and numerous Body of People yet if compared to God he is not so much as an Atome in respect of the Sun And for this me this nothing to rise up in rebellion against such a Sovereign it must needs work a strange Confusion and Disturbance within him how to make his submission on the one side dejected by his own unworthiness on the other dazled and confounded by the glory of the incensed Yet at last he breaks through all obstacles and implores mercy he had rather perish in hoping too much than to commit a Sacriledge in distrusting the goodness of him who invites all without distinction unto him Nay I believe had the object against which he trespassed been any thing less than God he would never have opened his Lips in Order to a Remission For he knew well that he only to whom Goodness and Mercy is essential would or could obliterate his guilt 'T is true his power and greatness strike a terrour yet they are so contempered with a merciful sweetness that the Blackest Soul may there find wherewith to rinse her stains and exchange them for a pure Dye of innocency if she can with a Davids Heart and Tongue but issue forth Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God I observe moreover that Almighty God permits a Soul though very dear unto him to be often here exposed in troubled waters where she seems to be wholly lost and abandoned that Heaven appears to have no light for her and the Earth nothing but malice to work her ruine How many terrors and anxieties of Mind have Saints endured and been left without any glimps of Comfort even for some whole year And why all these rude tryals in the conduct of the most innocent Soul but that God seems to be delighted when his creatures tune forth Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Whence you may see that God will exempt no condition from this supplicating stile he will be sued to by the innocent as well as nocent and where the Formality of malice is wanting he oft gives the apprehension to the end that flying to this powerful miserere they might draw at least from his Goodnss the benefits of Conversation encrease of Grace addition of Vertue and other innumerable Mercies which he hath in store for those who trust in him So that there is no time nor place unseasonable for any person to prefer this Petition Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God The Application By this Petition we are taught not to presume on the value of our own actions For God is the Sovereign Lord of the whole World and particularly of the just all whose good works convey unto him a pleasing odour yet can they not arrive to that pitch as to have any Empire over him or force him to let them share with him in the participation of his Heavenly Kingdom Let the just perform all the good imaginable in return he may justly say I accept these services in discharge of your past debts and what you owe me for your Creation Conservation and the Grace I have given you to act So that we may truly say with St. Paul when we have done all we can we are useless Servants For whereas we were pure Negatives it was his Sole Mercy that extracted us from nothing it was this same Mercy which added to our natural Being a Being of Grace Lastly the accomplishment of this Mercy is to bring us into the possession of eternal Glory wherefore if we attire our actions in the colours of Mercy and alwayes beat upon this string we may justly hope one day to sing the praises of this incomparable Mercy with our holy penitent throughout the vast spaces of Eternity Amen CHAP. II. Secundum magnam Misericordiam tuam According to thy great Mercy OUr Holy Penitent having set a foot his Petition we have all reason to believe since it is in a matter of so great weight and from a person so accomplished that 't is framed and ajusted to the exactest rules of an effectual address wherefore let us examine what Arguments he uses to move for a grant I observe in the first place he alledges not the innocent and harmless life he led whilst he kept his Fathers Flock Nor his zeal for the honour of God's people in his Combat with Goliah He mentions not his constant sufferings wrought by the malice of Saul Nor his transport of joy and reverence when he danced before the Ark In a word he declines the memory of any action in his life past which might make him recommendable wisely considering as did Job that admirable pattern of patience Should he expostulate with God He would not be able to answer one word for a thousand Therefore he casts himself wholly upon the Favour of his judge saying Secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam according to thy great mercy He silences all the other Divine Attributes and conjures his Creatour by that which seems most appropriated to his condition Nor is he content to challenge his mercy without the specification of great mercy as if the Enormity of his Crimes were such as required more than an Ordinary Condonation Indeed his Mercy may well be stiled
shall I return thee in requital when I would praise thee an Abyss of Majesty exhausts in a moment all Encomiums and my Adorations appear nothing before thy Divine Essence could I unmake my self in deference to thee the Fountain of all Beings it were a poor homage to thy ineffable greatness Nay could I annihilate the whole World for thy glory yet would it nothing equal what thy immensity might justly exact But whilst I thus labour with my own poverty finding nothing created worthy thy acceptance behold the perfect oblation of thy Son a prodigious effect of mercy this I offer to thee he can best speak our gratitude who can only satisfie thy Justice since by this gift the very treasury of Heaven will be exhausted and the Earth enrich'd with a pure Sacrifice whose odour draws upon mankind a continued flood of mercies It is this eternal offering meant by our Petitioner when he mentions thy great mercy whose very thought and foresight at the distance of many ages replenished his heart with joy And if the expectation of him to come so transported what dilation of spiritual joy ought to invade us who now possess what they had only in hope who now reap a plentiful harvest of Salvation when before the World was blasted with sterility and doom'd to darkness untill the bowels of this great mercy were opened to store us with his light and grace Let us joyn our Petitions with Holy David and adore the wonders of this great mercy in which we behold humane flesh hypostasiated in a Divine nature a Creatour link'd to his Creature Death unto Life Glory unto Confusion and Iniquity stamped with Innocence And whilst we contemplate these admirable contrivances of the Divine Wisdom can they do less than ascertain us if we place in the Frontispiece of our supplications this compositum made up of so many contrarieties that our desires will take effect that under this Sanctuary we shall strike off all the scores of guilt and render a satisfaction as great as God can expect or require Hence you see how confidently every sinner may repeat with David Have mercy on me O God according to thy great mercy CHAP. III. Et secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum And according to the multitude of thy mercies OUr Holy Petitioner having expressed his relyance in general on Gods mercy next fixes upon its effects in particular and makes a series or list of all his mercies Wherein methinks I behold him just like one in desolation of Shipwrack fastning on a plank and though the storm continue darkness surround him and nothing but the Face of Death appears before his Eyes yet he remembers that many have been saved in his condition how some have been cast upon the shore others upon a Rock some by a passing Boat gathered up In fine he calls to mind a thousand wayes of preservation to consolate himself in this distress and every thought of hope makes him grasp with new fervour his floating support Even so I may say of our distressed Penitent his goodly Vessel of innocence was wreck'd dashed against the powerfull charms of a Woman from thence he was thrown into an Ocean of Sins where on all sides he beheld the menaces of eternal destruction in these perplexities he runs with his thought over all the passages of God's mercy from the World's beginning by the consideration of them a little to keep up his sinking Spirits He fails not to remember the mild proceeding of God with Adam in not punishing him irrecoverably as he had done the reprobate Angels but was contented to Exile him from the delicious place of his Creation and to expose him here to the Whirl-winds of passions in which contest if he proved faithful his reward was to be the same as first designed for him From thence he passes to the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah where though God's justice fell heavy upon those miscreants yet he layes it on their impenitency and admires his goodness that would notwithstanding have kept in his shafts of vengeance for the sake of ten just persons if that small number were but found in those populous Cities he goes on to the Ninivites and pleases himself to see them under the Lee born thitherby repentance even when the storm of God's wrath was ready to plunge them in an Abyss of ruine He insists much upon the prayer of Moses which still diverted the rigorous designs of God upon his people he fancies that every Groan and Sigh of his contributes something towards the making up of a brazen Serpent by whose Soveraign aspect his cauterized Soul might be unvenomed and made whole It was no small Consolation when he reflects on God's people in the Land of Egypt whose Oppression which their own Sins had drawn upon them was yet relieved at the rate of miracles and wonders and such as Israel had not seen And why all this But to make good his promise to Abraham Isaac and Jacob that he would never abandon a Truly-repenting Heart Thus he goes on enumerating a thousand other passages of God's mercy from the Worlds Creation until his time nor is he content with this but advances further displaying in his prophetick knowledge innumerable other effects of God's compassion to Mankind and at last begins to make this Application though he could not deserve to partake of his great mercy that is not only to have his guilt remitted but also to become the object of his choicest favours yet at least he hoped he might be hudled in amidst the multitude of his mercies How sweetly did those Attributes Divine resound in his Ears where God is stiled rich in mercies where his Mercy transcends all his other works and where his Goodness and Mercy are proclaimed inexhausted Sources He leaves not a Crany in the World unransacked and after the severest scrutiny finds and confesses there is no place destitute of his mercy no Creature that is not cheered and enlivened by the effects of his mercy this made him cry Lord when thou dost open thy hand all Creatures are filled with blessings and he tells us that every Being looks upwards depending on his Creatour and expects from him a seasonable supply of all wants Nay he excludes not Hell nor Souls doom'd to eternal flames from this mercy for he considers that God is bonus universis good to all and though his Justice have plunged them in that Calamitous State of misery yet that their torments are not more intense and in many circumstances aggravated they owe it to his mercy which still hath something to do even in the punishment of the highest offendours Having then survey'd Angels Man and sensible Creatures the Heavens Earth and Hell and found no Being that could in the least repine for want of mercy upon these reflections with just reason our Petitioner entitles them a multitude of mercies for on all sides they flow as from a natural Source Nor wonder that we have more Presidents of his
Peter persist in his denial of Christ and cryed as naturally I know not the Man as if he had been nursed up in infidelity It was only the reflection upon his perfidious Crime and a clear view of it that brought him to himself and sprung in him such flouds of tears What cast St. Mary Magdalen into such rigours vvhich seem incomparable vvith humane Nature but a sense and knowledge of her transgressions What opened Heavens-Gate to the expiring Thief but this Nos quidem digna factis recipimus We truly receive a punishment which our crimes deserve In a word you shall find no remarkable change in the life of any person from Vice to Vertue which took not its first rice from a serious consideration of their former ingratitude and this is confirmed in the example of our Holy Petitioner vvho first cryes out he hath sinned and presently hears Nathan who proclaims a pardon after which assurance he sits not still nor returns to his Vomit but will for the future offer up as many holocausts as before he hath had unlawful delights he will convert the number of his sins into a greater number of vertues and whatsoever in him hath contributed to the contempt of God his Creatour shall be employed in his service by penitential acts that as now he sadly acknowledges his errours he may one day be transported in the praise of the Divine goodneâ—… divulge his satisfactions the first step to which ascent he will ever owe to this lesson Because I know my iniquity The Application St. Austin prescribing a remedy to siners gives them this short Recipe tu inde non avertas withdraw not thy sight from thy sins For if thou fix thy Eyes upon them God will turn his away but in case you throw them behind your back then he will take a full view of them and punish them severely in thee the Sun setting upon a dark Cloud makes it become bright and radiant so Almighty God laying open unto our holy penitent the foulness of his iniquity he cooperates with his merciful rayes surveys them and by a true sense of his ingratitude attracts the splendour of his pardon upon him Let us then in imitation of our Holy Penitent not become a stranger to our own misdeeds that so our great Judge may examine no other witnesses an humble confession will prove our best plea which we cannot exactly do unless we know them nor know them in all their colours of deformity without a high detestation of them so that if we make a careful inquisition after our guiltiness in this life we may hope to be warranted from a severe sentence in the next Learn therefore to alledge this powerful Topick here Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco because I know my iniquity Amen CHAP. VIII Et peccatum meum contra me est semper And my sin is alwayes before me AFter this declaration of our Petitioner how knowing he is in his own misfortunes next he layes open his condition hoping it may draw some beams of mercy and pitty upon him at least serve to warn others by his harms My sin sayes he is alwayes before me sometimes as an Accuser deposing with much vehemency every crime he hath committed and omitting no circumstance that may render it more odious sometimes as a Judge delivering exactly every statute he hath prevaricated either of Heaven Nature or Reason shewing the punishment ordained for his misdeeds And lastly pronouncing a Sentence against which he hath no plea nor evasion Whence St. Chrysostom sayes what pleasure alas can there be in sin when the necessary consequences of it are accusation reproach scandals and condemnations all other afflictions have a remedy this allowes no truce nor respit in other tribulations whilst our conscience is unstained we have a Sanctuary within us whether we may retreat and find God and in him all consolation but this once forfeited by sin what can we do If in the Country or City abroad or at home still this remorse attends us and having fled from all the World we find our Enemy and Executioner in our own selves which we alwayes dragg after us wheresoever we go What dreads and horrors besieged the Heart of Cain every shadow he beheld seemed to threaten Death and destruction to him so that his thoughts were alwayes lodged in a Sepulchre the memory of his crimes still rising up as witness against him with how just reason then did St. Austin cry Lord thou hast commanded and it is fulfilled that a vicious Soul proves to her self her own tormentour Plato sayes God hath given to the faculties of the Soul a certain Harmony which infinitely delights and recreates that spiritual substance now when by inordinate actions she dissolves this unity there must needs spring from this dissolution a great grief or anguish though the cause be not known as when any vital part is offended a smart pain is dispersed through the whole Body albeit we know not from whence it proceeds If then this great Philosopher gives affliction as a natural effect of sin what must he endure who hath the addition of a supernatural precept when he looks upon it infringed and made the Subject of his contempt when he weighs the loss he hath made of Grace the Abyss of misery wherein he is plunged certainly this must create within us a torment far beyond any impression of cruelty or malice from abroad This is the state of our Penitent let him go where he will he finds a Tribunal erected within him where his Case is scanned to the full and all his Exorbitances laid home to him whil'st he in the mean like poor Job not able to return one word for a thousand looks about at lest to fee some Councel but alas every one withdraws nay his own Conscience rises up against him Paschasius upon that place of St. Mathew where two possessed persons issuing forth from Monuments encountred our blessed Saviour wonders why the Devils should rather inhabit corrupted Vaults than pleasant Fields Gardens or stately Mansions and at last satisfies himself with this reason that it is a just return for those who would not relish Heavenly delights they should be fed with Carkasses nourished with Ordure and Putrefaction to the End their punishment may be suitable to their offence this stroke of Justice our Penitent acknowledges his senses take in nothing but the species of foul and cruel acts committed by him and every glance adds a new fuel to his consuming flames the Memory of them is so Ghastly that were it to be his sole penalty he should think the reiteration of his crimes purchased at too dear a rate My sin is alwayes before me We need seek no other Topicks to prove the terrour which remorse brings to a Conscience then our Penitent's own words in the 54. Psalm where he sayes Discedunt in Infernum viventes they descend alive into Hell He thought no allusion but to the state of the damned could
Creatures to this intent he knowes no better medium than the publication of Man's corrupted Nature brought to that imbecility as of himself unable to give life and birth to one good thought behold sayes he I am conceived in iniquities that from the first instant of his conception he is seized on by sin and though that lineal stain be cleared by circumcision in the old Law and now by Baptisme yet there still remains a propensity to sin which grows up with us gaining strength through the whole course of our Adolescence For many years of our age are spent e're we come to distinguish between good and evil in all which time 't is clear we follow without any stop or haesitation the Dictamens of sense so that at the opening of our understanding we discover a Law Anathemathematizing our former practices the which by many reiterated and continued Acts are so wrought into habit that to break them we must as it were mould our selves into another nature This considered together with the dreggs and relicks of corruption which original sin leaves behind I wonder not if our Penitent deplore his misfortune and hints in his Petition this memorandum that he was conceived in iniquities This Fomes or scattered seed of original sin hath a double effect one an inclination to evil the other a drawing back or declining from what is good This made St. Paul confess he found a Law in his Body contradicting that of his reason and St. Bernard sayes the sin 't is true may be taken away by Baptism but to work a compleat cure that we feel no spice nor itching of the infection is in a manner impossible at least it requires a long course of remedies by a constant exercise and Tryal in vertuous actions For it is an inordinate and habitual concupiscence in the sensitive part so radicated that it becomes as it were a portion of nature Whence Seneca affirms vertues are rarely acquired without a Master but we quickly become expert in vice without the help of any Teacher which shews the pernicious consequence of original sin Our Penitent had found the bitterness of it by dear experience and this pushed him on to the reflection of a main cause of his misery because he was conceived in iniquities Yet our Penitent repines not at God's Justice herein but submits to this smart doom acknowledging a just retaliation that since the Soul had been disobedient to her Creatour the Body in requital should rise up in rebellion against her and punish her by the same Engins she had made use off in her prevarication he doth not scan the motives why God should punish so severely many millions of innocent Souls for the miscarriage of one Man and though he could satisfy himself that since original Justice had been purchased to all Adam's descendents by his obedience it is not unreasonable to share by his fall in the pain due to his transgression Our Penitent I say waves all argumentation looks upon the sentence pronounced and executed and being a Decree from God it must be just His sole hope is that this disordered and depraved constitution in humane nature will draw a more powerful aid and greater compassion towards a sinner when he fails and still the burden of his Song is because he was conceived in iniquities St. Bernard seems unresolved and full of perplexity when he considers Man in this tottering condition it makes him confess he knowes not by what strange bewitching means our will impared by sin is hampered in a kind of necessity and in such a manner as neither the necessity because voluntary can plead excuse for our consent nor the will being allured can scarce break through the necessity for this necessity is in some sort voluntary it is a kind of amorous violence working by flattery and flattering by force Whence the Will having once consented to sin can hardly disengage her self nor yet finds reason enough to excuse what she hath done Upon this score I wonder not to hear the plaining note of Job Lord I suffer violence it is onely you who impose the necessity can answer for me And a little after he cryes O thou Ruler of men why hast thou set me against thee all which shews the sad State of man wrought by original sin if left to himself for he was conceived in iniquities Philo the Jew speaking of Sin gives it a Term of infinity that being once set a flame can never be extinguished he calls it an immortal evil by no death or desolation to be destroyed The truth of this Philosophy who finds not in himself that albeit Baptism hath cleared the channel so as the streams of grace may run yet there are certain exhalations which issued from that corruption always ready to fall and embody with the currant so that if there be not a continual care and sifting it will be morally impossible to preserve our Souls pure and unstained Seneca sayes there are certain vices which are obvious to every Eye and to which we may be led as it were by the hand others there are that lye lurking and are hardly discerned till fastned upon us and these are the most pernicious because against them we can have nither open warr nor a secure peace And this truly is the genuine State of our natures from the corruption wrought in us by sin that we are not said to be clearly sick or well and this fluctuancy if rightly considered must needs be a torment because though we happen not to fall yet danger still threatens so that if we tender our happiness we must stand upon our guard at all times and places because neither Heaven Paradise Religious Cloyster or remote Hermitage is a secure fence against sin and a main reason to us the Children of Adam is because in iniquitatibus conceptus sum we are conceived and born in iniquities Whilst we are invironed and beset with such adversaries as our bad inclinations who watch as I may say but an advantage to undo us surely we ought to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling St. Bernard was not ignorant of Mans inconstancy when he gave this caution Oh sayes he did we but know how small a portion of vertue we have and how soon it vanishes upon how ticklish a foundation it rests unless the giver by a continued flux of Grace secure it to us we would not so easily imbark our selves into dangerous occasions for to indulge our senses and to arm our Enemies is the same but a strange policy How many who have thought themselves like Cedars elevated to a high pitch of vertue by a presumption of their own strength through ignorance of humane frailty and a Supine negligence rashly engaging themselves in hazardous Tryals have been ignominiously blasted and reduced to the condition of a contemptible shrub Lucifer enamoured of his own perfections and aspiring to a parity with God became the most abject of Creatures St. Peter promising wonders of
his constant Fidelity sufficiently testifyed by his shameful denyal what Man is in his own nature without the support of Grace Our Penitent comes in also for a sad example and hopes it will serve at least for a monument to Posterity that they may reflect what Man is from the instant of his conception and however he may be raised and enobled by God's favours yet in his 103. Psalm he tells what he must trust to when left to himself Auferes spiritum eorum deficient in pulverem suum revertentur upon the subtraction of thy Spirit O Lord we sink and resolve into the dust from whence we came all covered and besmeared with the stains of sin St. Austin sayes because Man did not what he could and might have done now he hath a desire to that he cannot perform losing by a will of malice the power of doing good Hence St. Paul become as it were a captive cryes the evil I would not now I do truly it is an expression which might terrify were it not that a little he confesses there is a power of grace which contradicts this predominancy of nature and therefore in the Sixth Chapter to the Romans he warns us not to let sin reign in our mortal Bodies intimating hereby the seeds of tumults and seditions be sowed within us yet we have also arms and strength sufficient if we adhere to God to crush and frustrate all their insolencies So true it is that Man cannot be injured but by himself to whom alone he owns his ruine if he perish Thus the life of Man is become a warfare upon Earth the Seat of many a contest and strife the sensitive part haling him one way reason another and this by a just Decree of Heaven that since he would not have peace with God he should have warr brought to his own doors and feel it within himself Now to come off clear and safe amidst so many hurley burleys requires no small dexterity and courage It minds me of Agesilaus answer to his friend who importuned him not to remove his Camp though necessity urged it because he was sick and could not without much pain endure any motion whereat Agesilaus all perplexed what to do crys O how hard a thing is it to be wise and yet compassionate So our sensitive part made treacherous by sin still makes its moan fawns solicits with importunity and if the Will never so little condescend Man is presently lost in sensual pleasures Our Penitent had felt the smart of this Shipwrack how soon he was overthrown by a little dalliance and therefore exposes to the view of his Judge the source from whence he springs and hopes since he knowes his brittle substance it may plead some inducement unto mercy at least to a mitigation of his penalty upon this score he proclaims behold I am conceived in iniquities The Application In imitation of our holy Penitent we ought seriously to reflect upon the sad plight of humane nature wounded by original sin so depressed and made feeble as most Divines affirm we cannot in any vehement temptation prove victorious without a speciall assistance from Heaven For you must know though the Will have an absolute command over the sensitive part yet if the object be present and very delightful or afflictive it is not in the Will 's power to suppress the contentment or anguish derived from thence to the imagination Wherefore spiritual Men give these Rules that we remove what we can the Object beloved or hated from our sight senses imagination and thoughts next that we consider the little of pleasure and multiplicity of defects which usually attend the objects of a sensual love all which shews there is no reliance upon our own temper and after we have practised all evasions to decline an engagement the success if put to the Test must be expected from that all powerful hand which never fails to shield the humble in the most hazzardous and dangerous attempts It is humility then must crown us with Laurels Amen CHAP. XII Et in peccatis concepit me Mater mea And my Mother hath conceived me in Sin OUr Penitent thinks it not enough to display his own misery unless he relate also the condition of his Mother at the instant of his conception and he expresses it so as if she yet groaned under the burden of original sin when she conceived of him and my Mother sayes he conceived me in sin That is had the same stains which defiled me at the First instant of my Being As to this you must know in the old Law was instituted a remedy against original sin for Women as well as Men. For from the Creation of the World to Abraham's time when First circumcision was commanded which was above Two thousand years we find nothing set down for the expiation of this hereditary guilt yet doubtless as that lineal contagion was never interrupted no more was there ever wanting a means ordained by Heaven to disengage us from it so that it is probable after the precept of circumcision the same remedy was continued on for women and 't is thought it consisted in some particular Sacrifice though the specifical nature of the Sacrifice or ceremony be not laid open to us Hence it is beyond dispute all were cleansed from this contamination and therefore our Penitent means not by this word sin Original sin but the penalty and unhappy consequences of that sin which are hunger thirst sickness and all other afflictions annexed to a mortal life all which took not their rise but from Adam's transgression He therefore casts this glance upon his Mothers condition to quiet himself that if the plant from whence he springs be beset with thorns he must not think to be decked with roses and if it be decreed she must breed and deliver him amidst the horrid throwes of her labour he must not think to pass the rest of his life without a sweaty brow and a heart seasoned with cares Man no sooner peeps into the World than he speaks his own misery and prophecies by his weeping notes this future condition being grown up he finds himself engaged in a perpetual conflict between hope and fear For if he be so happy as to live well yet it must be in the midst of temptations which oblige him still to have his arms in hand and dangers threatning from all sides exclude security or rest so that in all events Labour and Apprehensions are his inseparable mates St. Paul exhorting us to wisdom tells us the means to purchase it by redeeming our time and gives this reason because the dayes are evil He reflects sure upon those delicious hours we might have spent in Paradise and which are not to be regained but by actions quite opposite to the cause of our Exile from thence Our First Parent valued more the satisfaction of his sensual appetite or a complacent humour towards his Wife than he did all the pure delights without any mixture
influence to this Vnion since common reason teaches the stream is not to be regarded with equal esteem to the Source from whence it flowes Lastly what is the final End of all Arts and Sciences whether they ransack the bowels of the Earth or survey the immense bodies of the Heavens whether they examine things past or present but truth it sets all Men on work and can alone render them satisfied so that it may well be defined the source of motion and rest Our Penitent having thus run o're the vast extent of truth and observed how it animates the actions of Men takes occasion from thence to adore God's holy Providence that since he hath obliged us to a precept of confessing and acknowledging our failings with all integrity and fixed it as the sole means to expiate our faults he hath advantaged us with so powerful an inclination unto truth For if we be born so impetuously towards the acquisition the exhibition of it must needs flow as it were naturally from us and it is this motive which invites him to so frequent a repetition of his offences lest he should disguise any the lest tittle for he knows as an exact particular of our Sins accompanied with a perfect sorrow is very acceptable unto God so it is beneficial unto Man the return of such an account being alwaies an evenning of all â—cores an abolition of past Errours and a compleat act of grace Upon this consideration he is not affrighted that his Sin shall be evidenced like the Sun rayes to the World and of this harsh sentence to Nature he himself will be the Executioner he he will prâ—mulgate his enormities and every exhalation of infamy that shall arise from thence upon him he will receive as a blast of Zephir because he speaks a truth animated with Repentance a truth which speaks What he hath been and what now he is to witt an imp of perdition and now is become a subject of mercy because it is a Truth God will ever own in a truly repenting heart for veritatem dilexisti it is essential to one who hath an Eternal love of Truth But it is not enough to trace the steps of of our Lord Jesus as far as he is imitable by Man unless we lay the Foundation of a life of verity which is done by imbracing with a firm belief the Doctrine and Faith he taught and delivered to us for it is certain there is but one God and one truth First we cannot deny this unchangeable quality of Faith to spring from God the Primary Truth since we owe him the Author of Civil and natural Lawes both which are united and receive efficacy from the bond of Religion fâ—r all things are created to the service of Man and he to God's service so that by an act of Religious worship the homage of all other Creatures are involved in that of Man and consequently Religion seems of created things the final End and ultimate disposition unto God Now the means to attain to this Truth cannot be by the strength of natural reason for the matter of credibility is above Nature and Man by consenting to an act of Faith is raised above himself therefore it must be God moving us by his Grace which drawes the motions of our Will to submit to his revealed Truths The Centurion proclaims he believes yet withal adds help O Lord my incredulity which shews though he had done all that lay in his power yet something was wanting It remains then we render our selves fit subjects for the reception of so noble a Guest so rich a Donative as that of Faith the way to this preparation is first to practise a life of Truth that is moral vertues next to lay aside all prejudice that your understanding may work with out biass or restraint thirdly to examine the opinions of those whom the World hath unanimously reverenced for their knowledge sanctity and wisdom fourthly to receive the Decrees of the Church as things sacred since she is styled in Holy Scripture a pillar of truth a spouse all immaculate without any stain of errour remembring also from what authority her infallible placits flow witness the Apostles in their first Synod at Jerusalem who began with this Form to publish their resolves It is judged expedient by the Holy Ghost and by us Where you see that Divine Spirit still swayes and gives life to all Articles of Faith and indeed it was the closing farewell of our blessed Master Christ Jesus who promised to dispatch unto them his Disciples a Spirit of Truth to reside with and animate his Church to the Worlds end A verity of Justice is comprehended in that of integrity of life it being the very Nerves and Sinews of humane Society without which we should be like wild Beasts in desarts no leagues twixt Nations no amities contracted amongst Men no traffick or commerce so that in this sole lovely quality is seated the very life and Soul of humane conversation For behold thou hast loved truth The Application We are further taught in this clause that God hath a true Being that is all qualities suitable to a Divine Nature as to be Spiritual Independent Immortal Omnipotent all good wise merciful Soveraignly happy and a thousand other attributes so that he alone hath the verity of a Divine Being Whatsoever is imaginable and worthy of God this is in him in a Soveraign degree of perfection Nay whatever his infinite understanding can conceive this he enjoys without any diminution or reserve So that when our Petitioner points unto us how God loves truth he means that he loves himself and if herein we play the apt Scholar placing our affections on that inexhausted source of Beauty we shall then move according to the verity of humane Nature For our Being is to be reasonable and what can more decipher the Truth of our reason than by a disdain of this World to aspire unto him who is the final end in which we are to rest and for which we had our Being May our hearts then be ever fixed on this eternal verity Amen CHAP. XIV Incerta occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi The uncertain and hidden things of thy Wisdom thou hast made known unto me WHilst our Penitent with delight descants upon God's love to truth it were he thinks impious in him to stifle this great truth that he hath called him to his Councel unbreasted to him secret and hidden things and enriched him with the high Prerogative of Prophecy Ah what a change in this Holy King not long before when Nathan laid before him his offence under the shadow of a poor Man violenced in the depredation of his only sheep he is dull unfolds not the mystery and little dreams though it were plain enough himself is pointed at by which we may see what a mist of ignorance as well as other mischiefs sin draws along with it But now he transcends the limits of natural knowledge owns an irradiation
of supernatural lights and a capacity of discerning not only vvhat is past or present but vvhat is to come and this in the secret and uncertain things of God's VVisdom It is true there is required in that person who is made a repository of Prophetick Truths that he shine with integrity of life have an absolute command over his passions and possess a Mind elevated and fitted to contemplation Yet God is not tyed up to previous dispositions by degrees but can in a moment both prepare and render perfect that party he designs for such a dignity as he hath done in the person of King David and so as to make him one of the most accomplished Prophets that ever was For there is a great disparity in prophetick irradiations some are imperfect lights and improperly called Prophetick as what may proceed from an evil spirit or from nature as that of Pharoah when he saw oxen and Ears of Corn not knowing from whence that vision might come or whether he was sleeping waking and the like Another degree more elevated is when a ray is infused by which I certainly comprehend that which I see only by a species imaginary such is Joseph's case who had an assured knowledge of what he saw that is the signification of them whence he is more justly called a Prophet than Pharoah who only saw and knew not what they signified A Third degree more perfect is when there are both an impression of species and sensible representations as also an infused light by which I can judge of the verity of the thing displayed before me as Daniel could tell the King his Dream and what it signified for the Corporeal forms vvere fixed in his Spirit and the meaning of theâ—… revealed in Daniels Mind The last and noblest degree is when a Truth is represented to us by species intelligible and a light infused Superadded which enables me infallibly to judge of what is represented by them without any external medium of word fact or imaginary Vision and this last irradiation Cassiodorus ascribes to David whence he entitles him the most eminent amongst all the Prophets But it will more recreate us to know what are those uncertain and hidden things laid open to him than the manner how it vvas done Some opinionate it vvas the Creation of the World vvhere the wisdom of God appears glorious in the admirable reduction of a confused Chaos to light and order In the contrivance of the Heavens that such vast and numerous Bodies should keep constant and uninterrupted motion vvithout any jarring or hindrance to one another in their Rapid Course In their Soveraign influences conveyed incessantly to inferiour things In the prodigious fixation of the Earth poysed and sustained by its own Center In the rare vertue of its plants in the variety of Creatures in the Air Earth and VVater And above all in Man the Epitome of the Vniverse to see him sway as Sovereign and by his reason to quell the fury strength and cunning of the most savage beasts To behold the revolutions of Cities Kingdomes and Empires the strange vicissitude of humane things to day a City swelling in pomp and magnificence not long after become a fallow Field an Emperour weeping in that there is no more Worlds to conquer hath been seen to perish howling dispatched away by a few dropps of poyson on the other side another is beheld drawn from a dunghil set on a throne and to Raign vvrth that felicity as if Heaven and Earth were held in fee to make him happy Here a person drenched in a life of Sin and impiety upon a suddain becomes a Saint there another endued with grace and vertue whom the World Eyes not but with a kind of veneration by a little presumption of his own strength and merits falls to nothing and proves an Imp of darkness To contemplate I say all these works in Nature all the strange events of humane actions and all managed by the Divine wisdom so as to make a Harmony to God's glory and out of the clashing and thwarting malice of Men to draw good who would not be ravished at such a prospect And confess with transports they are truly secret and hidden effects as to man of an all-seeing inscrutable and increated wisdom So that with unspeakable delight our holy Penitent repeated oft this Verse the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast revealed unto me Others and more happily I believe say those communications were the Incarnation Nativity Passion and all the other mysteries which relate unto the humanity of Christ and doubtless the contemplation of those mysteries clearly objected to him could not but strangely regale his mind to consider an infinite Being from all Eternity Soveraignly happy in the perfect enjoyment of his blessed self to be Hypostasiated in humane Nature and that this compositum of so many perfections should be born of a Virgin have no other pallace then a poor stable no other Courtiers then simple beasts from whose Breath he must borrow a little warmth to preserve him from the rigours of the season that a bloody design is hatched against him to avoid which he must fly by Night into Egypt through Cold and other dangers attended only by his apprehensive Mother and her faithful Coadjutour St. Joseph amidst these discomfortable reflections surely our Holy Penitent failed not to remember the homages done to him by the Angels and Kings that he might see he still intermixed the Splendour of his Divinity with the Ecclipses wrought and cast on his Humanity From thence he carryes on his thoughts to Christ's Sacred Passion where he lanches himself into an Ocean of misery not a drop trickles down of his bloody sweat but it makes him sink he distinctly ponders every blow lanced at him every scorn and every Calumny He numbers his weary steps whilst he is haled from one Tribunal to another he foresees the shameful flight of his Apostles and how he is abandoned in distresse by his nearest and dearest Friends Thus he sifts every particular passage of that Sacred Tragedy and were it not he is sustained by the consideration of its immense Fruit to wit the redemption of the perished World he would have shewed by his compassionating Death too much was revealed unto him to be at once the Subject both of his knowledge and life Now that this expression of our Penitent doth quadrate with these mysteries you must observe that the second person of the blessed Trinity is styled the Wisdom of the Father because produced by an act of his understanding and though his Incarnation were certain as decreed from all eternity and foretold by many Prophets yet it was uncertain as to the precise time and secret as to the manner of his coming and particular occurrences of his life it is true both were couched in some prophecy or other but so obscurely that the most learned could not dive into them until he came himself to unread them by his
he might alwayes dwell with him and that he may never more tast the bitter absence of his Holy Spirit Et spiritum sanctum tuum c. Spiritual Men who have employed their thoughts on the subject of the mission of the divine persons unto Creatures discover advantages by this Embassy unto humane nature which seem to surpass all the wonders of our faith at least they are conveyed unto us with more sensible delight First they say when a Soul is priviledged with a visit from that divine spirit she doth not only receive inherent and accidentall grace not only splendours which irradiate and ardourâ— which enflame but even the substantial Principium the Holy Ghost from whence they flow Witness St. Paul 2. ad Rom. The charity of God is diffused through our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us The Philosopher sayes that two Lovers if possibly would become but one because this identity would destroy all fear of separation and since they cannot arrive to this at least by conversation discourse and mutual presence they give themselves to one another Now the love of God is all-powerful no obstacle can hinder the perfect union to which it tends wherefore this love enclining the divine person to unite and surrender up himself unto a Soul she finds herself immediately fastned to him by other chains than those of his immensity it is by grace and charity she is enslaved and their efficacy is to prodigious that were not that divine spirit already at the door they would draw him thither and court him to a most intimate alliance Our Holy Penitent well knew the truth of this Divinity by the amorous operations he had once felt within him for this great gift of God was no stranger to him whence I wonder not if he court its preservation since in it is contained the whole treasure of his immense love If then he shall please to secure this present to him he will in return consecrate to his honour all the fruit of his understanding and will his thoughts shall ever dwell in him and from this meditation he hopes to enkindle such a flame within him as all the waves of adversity or allurements of the World shall never be able to quench his constant Prayer therefore shall be withdraw not from me thy holy spirit After he had thus considered the dignity of the person communicated to a devout Soul he then descends to the particulars of his negotiation The first point is that this divine spirit is the Prinâ—ipium or great wheel which gives motion to all her supernatural and meritorious actions by which the Soul exceeds her own strength and gets above all her natural faculties and without this spirit Man is feeble impotent and can act nothing generous in a spiritual life The second advantage of this Treaty is that this divine person becomes the object of our understanding and will so that he is a known object in a knowing will and a beloved object in a loving will then it is that the Soul hath God within her who alone entertains and employes her thoughts and affections it is towards him she raises acts of faith and love setting a value upon him beyond all the World as the most excellent Being to whom she can consecrate herself Another benefit of this mission is that this divine spirit communicates himself unto a Soul as her sole treasure and appropriated sovereign good and in such a manner as she will not only find God within her but likewise that he belongs to her as her proper right the serious thought of which happy possession must doubtless much asswage all the bitterness of this life In sequel of these irradiations our Holy Penitent is at a stand comparing the liberalities of his good God with his own ingratitude For God had given himself up to him to be the instrument of all his supernatural operations to be the object of his thoughts and repository of his affections in requital our unfortunate Penitent rejecting this divine legate hath taken up the arms of sensualities against him filled his memory with Earthly species and consulted with brutish passions O bad exchange When he had thus reproached himself of his disloyalty he then converts his Eye to the shipwrack he had made for by one mortal sin he hath lost God as he is God of grace and glory though not as he is God of nature for as such a one he still remains to cast thunderbolts of vengeance upon his guilty head but he is resolved if the divine goodness shall please to restore and continue to him himself in whom is found the source of so many precious treasures he will for the future manage them to his honour he will glorify him in all eternity and manifest to the world that through his grace he is made worthy not to have his holy spirit taken from him In temporal afflictions we lose it is true the gift but the giver is yet secured to us by sin we lose both So that there is no desolation can happen equal to what is thrown upon us by sin For whilest we lye under the guilt of mortal sin God is no more the Principium of our meritorious operations no more the object of our amorous powers nor to be claimed as our proper good and treasure and though his infinite beauties and perfections render him alwayes a source of all good imaginable yet to a Soul defiled with sin he is a spring that diverts his stream in another Channel he is a treasure locked up whose Key is taken away and all-right of entrance decreed against him These are the miserable circumstances which attend the loss of God's holy spirit of which our Holy Penitent being very conscious incessantly repeats Lord withdraw not from me thy holy spirit Theodoret sayes that St. Peter having heard from Christ's own Mouth Thou shalt thrice deny me would feign have fled many Leagues from that occasion but his love was so great as he held it less evil to follow and deny him than to fly away and confess him He took so much pleasure in his presence that he chose rather to hazzard his Soul than the loss of his blessed sight deeming it less unhappiness to renounce him than not to be in the Eye of him whom he loved so dearly If then his corporal presence so ravished this Apostle what a charm must it be to possess within us a divine spirit what solicitude to preserve this treasure in whose participation consists all the happiness we are any wayes capable of in the condition of this our mortality Ah blame not then our Petitioner if again and again he sues under this forme Lord take not thy holy spirit from me Many Nations have made their gods Prisoners chaining them fast in their Temples the Lacedemonians hampered their god Mars with Cords of Silk Hercules with Fetters of Gold fancying to themselves that if they could enjoy their Company though by violence they
be converted And the impious shall be converted The Application By this clause our Penitent would fortify us against despair and shew there is no sin so enormous which can resist the efficacy of a true repentance for God hath engaged his word not to be inexorable and protests it is far from his thoughts to will the death of a sinner and he excepts none no not the impious but upon submission he will receive them with open arms raze from his memory their iniquities and transport them from a state of perdition to the rich title of being his Children St. Bernard sayes he that assents to what God affirms expresses his Faith and gives belief to God he that acknowledges his Existence and Being is said to believe God Lastly he that places all his hope in God is properly said to believe in him Let us then remember when we say our creed that at the same time we cast all our hope and confidence in God relying on his goodness and power which is infinite and exceeds by consequence all the malice of sin Let us repeat with St. Austin if Paul a persecutour and great sinner is become a Vessel of election why should I despair and why should not I with our Holy Penitent entertain a firm hope when the impious shall be converted Amen CHAP. XXIX Libera me de sanguinibus Deus Deus salutis meae Free me from blood O God God of my Salvation OUr Holy Penitent makes a stop in the carreer of his zeal at the voice of blood from Heaven which beats his affrighted Ears He remembers how Cain wandered like a restless motion beholding alwayes in his imagination Spectres Monstres Fears and dreads the usual mates of a Conscience wounded with homicide And shall he then sit quiet in his Throne whilst Vriah his Veins are opened and emptyed by his command the reeking Vapour which arises from that injured Body seems so to condense the Air that it even stifles him wherefore he begs a little respiration that he may recover a new life and which he shall ever owe to the God of his Salvation Free me from blood c. St. Gregory the great rendering a reason why God will inflict an eternal punishment for a momentary transgression layes the weight of his argument upon the practice of Men who dispatch away into another World by Sentence of Death Murderers and other Criminals of several less degrees by which as much as in them lyes they inflict a punishment for eternity depriving them of life which they can never restore Our Holy Penitent fears the force of this ratiocination for since he hath decreed this doom to his innocent neighbour what remains for him to expect but a torment without end which shall last as long as the injury and this he can never repair All his plea then is to repent to disown his malice to throw himself at the Feet of him in whose Hands are grasped all the Lawes of life and death that he haveing the supream Legislative power to him alone it belongs to dispense acquit or chastise according to the measure of his will Wherefore he sues to this God of Salvation that he may be freed from that heavy doom due to his transgressions Free me from blood c. St. Matthew sayes whosoever shall take up a Sword in order to the effusion of humane blood shall perish by the Sword the same measure shall be returned to him which he hath dealt to others and by the same means he wrought anothers destruction his own shall be contrived and in Gen. 9. the reason is given because Man is created to the resemblance of God We find that upon the score of the excellency of humane nature Man is taken off from the perpetration of several sins as too low for the dignity of his Creation The consideration that he is endued with reason gives unto wise persons an aversion from carnal pleasures lest they should by them degenerate into the condition of a brute The consideration that his Soul is immortal makes him fly Avarice it being sottish for a substance which is to exist for ever to dote upon any thing that is lyable to ruine and corruption The consideration that his Soul is invisible gives a check to Pride and Vanity since her glories cannot appear sensibly and with splendour before the Eye of the World Lastly the consideration that she animates and enlivens every particle of the Body how minute or vile so ere it be warns her from offering any damage or injury to our Neighbour If I say these thoughts work many to decline several particular sins in regard they are misbeseeming the excellent qualities of the Soul doubtless the meditation that she is the fair Image of God ought to make us abominate all sin without reserve fearing by any vitious act to deface the lively Image of a Divinity Wherefore the respect we owe to his resemblance ought to strike in us a terrour of laying violent hands on our Neighbour much less by any force to dissolve that lovely union of Soul and Body in which consists the accomplishment of God's work in framing Man Wherefore St. Cyprian sayes the honour of humane nature is to treat well the pourtraiture of God and from thence discharge our awful reverence towards the Original But when any one is led on by fury and revenge or will usurp in a private person the execution of Justice this is to dash in pieces the Image of God which perhaps he would preserve or at least have it stand untill by instruments of his own he is pleased to undo it Our Holy Penitent confesses he hath committed this outrage he is guilty of this irregular proceeding and hath destroyed God's fair handy work in the Death of Vriah which he was bound to keep decently in repair it being the Office of a King to protect and not destroy his Subjects How many brave designs hath he had to erect a Temple in God's honour and now hurried on by an unruly passion he hath demolished a structure more valuable in the sight of God than all his material edifices the Hands of Man can raise If incendiaries by all Nations are punished with most rigorous Laws what animadversions of severity will be practised upon such as destroy not only habitations but inhabitants who ruine a mansion wherein God hath lodged a Soul immortal and which he hath designed to be the matter of her great merit in this life and an instrument of his praise in the next And if St. Paul sayes the blood of Souls will be required at the Hands of Pastors who starve and famish their flock for want of due instruction and good Example what account shall he have to make who hath not only by omission frustrated his Subjects of good Documents issuing from an exemplar life but more hath effectively concurred to the destruction of them and hurried them to a dreadful Tribunal at a time when perhaps they were little prepared for
and second the generous intentions of the Messias by a million of toylâ—…e Labours might he but live to see the Day-break of his coming however he is resolved by him to offer up all his stock of praise and benediction And my Mouth shall announce thy praise Cassianus admires the goodness of God that possessing within himself an inexhausted Treasure of all good in whom cannot be found the least want of any thing desirable is yet pleased to play the Merchant with poor Creatures entrusting into their hands not only the visible stock of this inferiour World but also the dispensation of heavenly graces and this whilst he can expect no return this our Petitioner himself confesses in the last Chapter of the first of the Chronicles where He and the Princes of the people had made a large Offering of many Talents of Gold Silver and other Metals For reflecting then upon the state of Accounts 'twixt God and his Creatures he said Who am I and what is my people to offer any thing unto thee for all things come from thee and of thine own we have given So that none can offer unto God but what they have received from him Nay he is so indulgent as though we can return him nothing but what is his own yet let them be stamped with the mark of gratitude he will put them upon account as satisfactory In a word we can exchange nothing in return of all his benefit but the oblation of praise and is it not strange we should râ—fuseâ— him this Nay to encourage us though we give him but a trifle not worth the regarding yet if it be done with a real intent of serving him he blenches not at it but by his acceptance makes it valuable and of a price not to be esteemed I must needs then say our great Penitent hath pitched upon a right way of traffick and which is most suitable to the state of his affairs Wherefore I wonder not if in divers other Psalms he protests he will live no longer than he shall be able to remit unto his obliging Creditour the just tribute of praise and that he will be punctual in this commerce whilst he hath a Being which resolution he again here confirms And my Mouth shall send forth thy praise St. Bonaventure forbids two things in those that would praise the name of God to wit Pride and fear For if proud though he take up the Subject of anothers praise and descants upon it with much seeming zeal yet he alwayes so manages the Encomiums as to involve himself as a Party which spoils all for God will have no Riâ—al he communicates it is true unto his Creatures the participation of his divide essence I but in matter of glory he will be singular and protests that none shall bear a share with him in this he proclaims himself to be a Joâ—loâ—… God Next if the Praiser be timorous he can never be faithful for this unmanly passion like an Apoplexy seizes upon all the vital spirits Whinders the speech nay even be rayles any interest at the Face of danger So that you never see any thing great or generous to issue from a Coward wherefore our blessed Saviour declares he will not owne him at the Latter day who hath here blished and not dared to acknowledge him Our great Doctor was far exempt from these irregular motions As to the first he was the meekest of Men the Character he gives of himself shews he was not elevated with an Any conceit of his own worth when he pronounces in his Psalm That he is a Worm and not a Man the opprobry of Men and scorn of the people So that the brain blast of Pride did not stifle or any wayes obstruct those just Attributes he promises here to give unto his Maker As to the other branch of fear his Heroick exploits are abundantly set forth in the sacred History so that to go about to clear him from apprehension of terrour when God's â—…use â—ay 〈◊〉 â—…e were the same as to use Arguments in a glorious day to perswade the Sun shines Let us then conclude he was compleatly qualifyed in border to the performance of his task and that his Mouth was admirably fitted to Sing forth the praises of his God And my Mouth shall announce thy praise Whilst our Penitent goes on in his designe to make an Elogy of his Creatours praises he is startled at an opinion that God is glorifyed in the damnation of a Soul as much it in her Salvation But he soon recovered himself upon the principles he hath laid for as a rare and accomplished piece of work speaks more the art and perfection of the workman than one that is imperfect and be set with many faults so a blessed Soul adorned with many perfections and being lively image of her Maker doth more express the power wisdome and other Attributes of God than a lost Soul all stained with a horrid guilt of sin Again it would be indifferent to the most zealous in the love of God whether a soul perished or not because they desiring nothing but the glory of God and if that were equally concerned in the loss or Salvation of a Soul certainly either would be a like to them but it is most evident they practise the contrary entertaining passionate desires for the gaining of a Soul and much resenting nay with great desolation the ruine of any which evidences that God derives to himself more glory from a Soul enlivened by his grace than from another wallowing in the filth of sin Wherefore he concludes the task of God's praise cannot be carried on but by a life of Sanctity which he looks upon as a happy necessity that the glory of our Creatour is annexed to our greatest happiness For he hath produced all things to be finally referred to himself and if in this Creatures find likewise their interest and full delight how great an obligation is it That he hath linked his glory to our happy condition and utmost perfection that is whilst we procure unto God the greatest glory in the same action we purchase to our selves our greatest felicity So that our Penitent will never cease And my Mouth shall send forth thy praise The Application Here we are instructed that our Being is conferred upon us to no other end than to love praise and glorify God and to procure as much as in us lyes that others likewise discharge this designment of their Creation If then we direct our actions to our own praise sucking in the Air of humane applause we commit an act of injustice against God and pervert the noble employment allotted to our nature We play the Thief and plunder the lawful propriety of our Creator The utmost perfection of a stream is to be reunited to its source and that of Man to praise and glorify God in loving serving and manifesting his perfections and since all other Creatures conspire according to their capacity to render him glory Let us
and repented what he had done when the Prophet Nathan published his deliverance and that his sin was taken from him so that he had all reason to assert a contrite and humble heart O God thou wilt not despise St. Ambrose sayes that pennance is as necessary to a sinner as any Balsom or Medicament can be to a dangerous wound For where parts by any hurt are disunited and by separation break off a necessary communication with the blood or vital spirits nature cannot of herself repair those breaches without the supply of remedies ordained in such extremities So likewise in any spiritual distemper which threatens the Souls ruine if the sovereign medicine of contrition whose principal ingredient is gathered in Heaven be not applyed she must needs run a hazzard of destruction Wherefore since pennance is the sole remedy of sin after Baptism this great Doctor exhorts us to make it our Refuge he bids us not to shrink at the face of sufferings but on the contrary fill our Soul with bitterness endure the storms of compunction remember the heart is to be contrite not crooked or broken but shivered into pieces by disgraces confusions tears sighs and acts of humility and when you shall be in these Agonies upon the account of vertue then may you joyn issue with our Holy Petitioner and say a contrite and humble heart O God thou wilt not despise But our Penitent adds the particle of humble to shew that a heart compleatly disposed for God's favourable aspect must have a stroak of humility because this vertue speaks obedience for Eccles Chap. 10. sayes as the beginning of Pride is the Seed of Apostacy from God so humility is a reduction to our duty St. Austin makes no distinction between pride and disobedience nor between humility and obedience but takes them in a manner for the same thing In his Fourth Book of the City of God he declares It is good to keep our hearts aloft not towards our selves for that is pride but unto God which is obedience and a vertue not to be found but in the humble Again on the Eighth Chapter of Gen. our proper will cannot but sink under a great weight of ruine if it prove rebellious to the will of a superiour power this the First Man contemning Gods command found too true and by this he learnt to distinguish between good and evil that is between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience So that we see the transgression of our first parent sprung from a secret Root of disobedience for puffed up with pride he would be his own Master and scorn to be subordinate to the Lawes of God this made him seise on the forbidden fruit and by that act of disobedience we are all made guilty So that to repair our innocency and begin a new life we must destroy the old man that is pride and self love And as by those unhappy instruments we fell from our righteousness it is by humility and a love to God above all things we must return to Justice and if our Hearts be vested with these noble qualities we shall alwayes have a stock to fashion out to our Creatour a Sacrifice that will not be despised It is feigned by the Poets that the Son of the Earth wrestling with Hercules still as he touched the ground he received a fresh vigour just so the humble minded Man who esteems himself to be but an Imp of the Earth the off-spring of Dust and Ashes in proportion as he bowes himself in acts of lowliness he will be raised and approach nearer to Heaven St. Austin speaking of the Centurions humility who judged himself unworthy to receive such a guest as our Saviour under his roof sayes that by confessing himself unworthy he rendered himself more worthy for there is no disposition so fit for the reception of God as to acknowledge and avow our own unworthiness But you must know there is a humility of the understanding another of the will this gives us a true knowledge of our nothing that brings us readily to submit Now to be humbled by the will and force honour and greatness to stoop this is Heroick and worthy a Prince but to be brought down by adverse fortune this humility carries with it little of wonder there being no great vertue for one that is humbled to become humble This vertue then to render it meritorious and accomplished in all points as to make our Heart a pleasing Sacrifice to God requires that we seriously consider our own faults and imperfections the wants and necessities incident to humane nature and which every one how charming soever in the outside they appear carry about them This will sufficiently evidence that instead of praise and veneration we ought to expect nothing but scorn and confusion from the sense of our own defects and conclude that honour and excellency belong not to us Thus you see the will is carried on by humility to decline all things which raise our hope or appetite above our deserts It is proper then to this vertue to check all excessive attempts in Man after the purchase of greatness and Earthly advantages Nor is it notwithstanding opposite to hope as a Theological vertue nor unto magnanimity as a Christian vertue For these stirr up to the pursuit of what is great in order to God and humility obstructs not this waving only that greatness which sides with the inordinate interests of the World St. Thomas sayes There is none but may believe and declare himself without a falshood to be the most vile Creature in the World according to the hidden defects he knowes in himself and the gifts of God unknown to him which are or may be in his Neighbour In fine Christ our Lord declared it to be the sole clew leading to Heaven it is the first and last step to bliss For in this life where all is storm and tempest torment war and temptation where nothing is secure and certain humility alone amidst these perills and dangers like so many rocks and shelves can bring us safe off and conduct us to the Haven of happiness Elias in that furious whirlwind terrible Earthquake and dismal Fire wrapt himself up like a bottom of Yarn and lay close to the Earth Job in that general destruction of all his goods rent his garments shaved his Head fell flat to the ground and worshipping said Naked I came into the VVorld and naked I shall return The Lord hath given the Lord hath taken away blessed be his name The tempest afterwards encreasing upon him as boiles botches leprosy worms and a wife he fled to a Dunghill with a piece of potsheard in his Hand making choice of the humblest and safest place Our Holy Penitent likewise in that his persecution by Saul cryed out I was humbled and he delivered me So that he spake not at random but had experience how acceptable unto God is a contrite and humble heart The Scripture attributes two Names unto Christ
humane nature was rendered unworthy of God's grace so that if at any time he communicated his blessings it was by way of advance and upon credit in consideration of the merits of his incarnate Son Wherefore being once come he gave precepts of higher perfection so that doubtless nothing can be better more just and more suitable to Man than the Evangelical Law Nothing more agreeable to the good Government of the Universe and all Creatures nor which contains in its decrees more equity and holiness Insomuch as its perfection alone seems ground enough to pass a judgment that it cannot issue but from the deep Councels of a Divinity Lastly as to good manners or natural precepts this great Architect hath made of them a more clear and ample explication by which the will is rectifyed and carried on to the pursuit of greater things than were proposed in the Mosaick Law What just reason then had our Petitioner to make this edifice of Jerusalem's Wall the object of his most fervent prayer and that all his subjects should subscribe to the petition and offer up their Vowes for the dispatch of this great work in which their heavy Yoak so little beneficial to them would be taken off and in exchange they were to be ranked under the discipline and law of grace and love wherefore let us joyn issue and cry Let the Walls of Jerusalem be built up The next composition of this structure is foretold by the Prophet Esay I will lay in the foundation of Sion a stone that hath endured the touch a corner and precious stone founded in the foundation This is Peter and his successours that rock on whom Christ hath built his Church and which hath been tryed by all the assaults of Earth and Hell Nor hath this stone proved only of right temper in which no engin of malice could work a flaw but it is shaped into a corner stone by which the two walls of Jews and Gentiles are united together and make one Christian Church It is also precious in copiously distributing her Spiritual Treasures throughout the World as the clear explication of her Doctrine by universal consent the rights of Sacraments which delivered with a Harmony and unity in faith is the bond of peace the Life and Soul of Religion Lastly it is grounded in the foundation which shews it to be a secondary foundation The first St. Paul declares no Man can lay any other foundation that is primary and Basis of all than what is already laid to wit Jesus Christ But after him the next groundwork is St. Peter by whom alone and his successours we are to arrive at Christ and what can be to God more glorious than to make use of the feeble to confound the strong and by faith and humility to lead Men unto wisdom and glory This piece of Workmanship in the Fabrick of Jerusalem is like a Citadel which commands all and holds its awful title not by Law of Nations but divine right It governs men in order to their Souls and rather under the notion of being Christians than Men it looks not upon their temporal ease and security but hath an Eye to a life and felicity immortal It is fortifyed with divine Lawes and maintains a perpetual skirmish not only with a few visible adversaries but with an infinity of invisible Enemies After this Rock solidly disposed and fited the Bishops like Watch-towers and strong Bastions are erected whose office is to superintend over the Guards and Sentinels and to protect the weaker part of the Walls from the Enemies assaults this contrivance is set down by St. Athanasius where he sayes O Peter upon thy Foundation the Bishops as pillars of the Church are setled and confirmed Then Priests Deacons and other officers are assigned to render this structure in all points compleat some of these materials are for the beauty and ornament of the Church in her great solemnities others as Priests for the necessary discharge of our duty to God for religion teaching us to pay that honor and esteem we owe to God is the perfection and accomplishment of the World nor can we upon any score be dispensed with in the acknowledgment of these fealties Whence no Nation hath ever been found so ignorant or barbarous as not to own and in some manner or other to pay this Tribute either by way of adoration praise prayer sacrifice festival solemnity or by some external Ceremony Now that these actions might be duly acquitted there appears an absolute necessity that some selected person should be set apart and sanctifyed to this end But above all it was most requisite in the Evangelical Law where a Priest hath power to offer up a victime and Sacrifice by which in a moment he renders to God more glory and service than all the Angels and Men can do in the vast durance of Eternity Where he is daily to represent to the eternal Father Christ's holy passion and by that moving object render him propitious unto Souls where he is to disengage Men from the slavery of sin and jawes of Hell by the administration of holy Sacraments So that all the splendour and beauty of the Church consists in the Ministery of Priests that as the Sun diffuses his beams on all sides no less doth this sacred Character enrich those Souls with a perfume of Sanctity who make themselves worthy by a due cooperation with its vertue so that we ought to esteem it one of the greatest blessings of God to the World in that he hath given us Ecclesiastical persons to dispense his Heavenly treasures and spiritual graces to enlighten the World purify Souls from sin and lead them as it were by the Hand unto a sovereign good Ah! what ingratitude then to throw a contempt upon those without whom Mankind would be but a Fire-brand for Hell in all Eternity The last materials for this Fabrick are lay and secular persons of all sorts so that of these and Ecclesiasticks are composed two different and great Nations under the Jurisdiction of Christ the Office of the one is to give the other to receive the one communicates by oblation of Sacrifice and administration of Sacraments spiritual goods without which Men would be like a Body destitute of a Soul having little tendency or elevation unto God the others passively make up the Hierarchy as being framed instructed purifyed and by Ecclesiasticks united unto God Thus you see our holy Prophet was solicitous in a matter of no small concern for within the limits of this sanctuary are bounded all the hopes of Man's Salvation Christ was made sayes St. Paul cause of eternal Salvation unto all those who obey him Now his Commandements relate to Faith good manners and the Sacraments which are not rightly performed but within the bosom of his Church Let us then joyn our hands and hearts to this noble structure and cry that the walls of Jerusalem be built up The Application If our Holy Penitent was so zealous for
the erecting this magnificent structure of the Church as by his ardent prayer to dispose the divine Architect unto this admirable work what a reproach will it be to us who find the Fabrick done to our Hands and who are our selves so happy as to be part of the materials if we do not so much as keep it in repair nor preserve it against any rebellious or violent effort To this performance is required a due obedience to the supream Pastour who as it were the form and Soul of this edifice Next a reverence and submission unto Bishops who are the pillars and great supports of it Lastly a respect to Priests who are a main ornament and useful to this glorious Fabrick Whereas then our Holy Penitent poured forth his prayers with so much fervour for the raising of these Evangelical walls it is our part now to make addresses unto Heaven that according to his promise it may continue pure unstained and invincible against all the malice of Earth and Hell Amen CHAP. XXXIX Tunc acceptabis Sacrificium Justitiae oblationes Holocausta Then thou wilt receive Sacrifice oblations of Justice and whole Burnt-offerings OUr Holy Penitent had entertained in his thoughts not only the Materials and Architecture of this Building but he went further and reached in his prophetick view the Sacrifices which were there to be offered up The first object display'd in this Temple is the Messias God-man who was a true Sacrifice oblation of Justice and Holocaust A Sacrifice in that he appeased God's anger frankly offered and with the purest intention that could be imagined this is expressed in John 14. That the World may know I love my Father and perform his commands arise sayes Christ to his Apostles and let us to the Cross For God having committed to him the affair of Man's Salvation lost by sin he was enflamed with a zeal of rendering all possible satisfaction and considering that if he should make himself a victime and present that Sacrifice to God it would be of an infinite value in regard of the infinity of his person and such a Sacrifice infinite would counter-ballance the infinite malice of sin and prove a satisfaction answerable to Man's offence Wherefore that God might have reparation of honor he designed an actual bloody Sacrifice of himself unto God for the sin of Adam and all Mankind And to this end likewise that God being appeased and satisfyed by the dignity of this Sacrifice might depose all animosity against Man and restore him to those expedients by which he may work his Salvation Amongst all the contrivances that can enter our thoughts none appear more excellent and noble both to ajust God's honor and Man's Salvation together than this immolation of himself upon the Altar of the Cross First it is very powerful to appease God's wrath for nothing more than death can be endured for God's honor nor can any Creature more absolutely avow himself unto him than in dying for his sake Wherefore St. Paul sayes of Christ ad Ephes 5. He gave himself up an oblation and host unto God in the perfume of sweetness Next it is very proper to cure Man's infirmity who by his disobedience and pride had forfeited his right to Paradise wherefore Christ submitting himself to the Cross and so accomplishing the will of his Father repaired those breaches we had made by our Rebellion Lastly it is very efficacious to purchase our love without infringing the liberty of our free-will For what can more charm us to love than to behold a person for my sole interest sustain the torments of a Cross which was the most infamous of all kind of punishments yet so great was the affection our Saviour Christ bare us that he deposited in the infamy and reproach of the Cross all that honor which his miracles his Doctrine and innocent life had purchased to him leaving them all hanging on it as a Trophey of his love The Cross then is the North Star of our comfort and hope for what can he deny us nay what will he not grant us who on the Cross hath made such large expressions of his kindness God is said to be the searcher of hearts that is he only knowes the sincerity of them whence some have taken occasion to murmur at the Maker in that he placed not a window before the Breast of every one But though we may be jealous of all the rest yet sure we cannot be of Christ upon the Cross nor of his love since he there even layes open his Bowels unto us upon this consideration Christ might justly promise to himself That when he shall be lifted up from the Earth that is upon the Cross he would draw the affections of all Mankind unto him How different is the proceeding of this our eternal Priest from the usual wayes of Men who upon a mean and trivial interest fall upon the destruction of their Neighbour whilst his design is to Sacrifice himself upon our score and by that means gain our love as a just Tribute to his eternal Father he might well assure himself this Sacrifice would be accepted he knew that God could not behold the Face of his Christ under this bloody posture for the redemption of guilty Souls and not be touched with the worth of this Sacrifice wherefore our Penitent may confidently repeat tunc acceptabis then that is at this plenitude of time a Sacrifice will appear which shall convey to Heaven an odor grateful unto God and serve as a balm to cure all the wounds of humane nature This Sacrifice was likewise an oblation of Justice for supposing that God would have sin punished because it is a decree of his eternal Law which cannot erre nor want its effect Again since Man was impotent to any compleat satisfaction for sin wherewith he was defiled and contaminated it was necessary some person exempt from all sin should interpose and take upon him out of love and goodness the discharge of our transgressions Now Christ was this happy Redeemer who replenished with mercy spared not his sacred humanity for our deliverance First he dragged us out of the misery wherein we lay after Adam's sin that by no action of ours we could recover grace or any wayes reach our justification this impotency Christ took away and purchased to all Mankind means of Salvation in case they make right use of it Next he freed us from the misery of sin and by his passion obtained a perfect enlargement for all those who faithfully cooperate with his grace Lastly he merited for the Soul and Body an exemption from the Calamities they sustain and endure in this life and afterwards the glory of Heaven if so be they persevere in sanctifying grace and all this upon the design of rendering a full satisfaction for all the sins of the World in rigour of Justice And since God was irritated by Man's contempt which sin involves Christ knowing that God could not receive more honour than