sanctity that any Christian can hope to arrive unto so sweetly doth holy Church adapt her Prayer unto the doctrine of her preachers that so the layity may in little carry away what the preachers deliver to them at large The Epistle 1 Pet. 3.8 8 Be ye all unanimous in Prayer having compassion lovers of the fraternity merciful modest humble 9 Not rendring evil for evil nor curse for curse but contrariwise blessing for unto this are you called that you may by inheritance possesse a Benediction 10 For he that will love life and see good dayes let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak not guile 11 Let him decline from evil and do good let him enquire peace and follow it 12 Because the eyes of the Lord are upon the just and his eares are open unto their prayers but the countenance of the Lord upon them that do evill things 13 And who is he that can hurt you if you be emulatours of good 14 But and if you suffer for justice Blessed are ye And the fear of them fear ye not and be not troubled 15 But sanctifie our Lord Christ in your hearts The Explication 8. St. Peter here recapitulates some of the chief vertues which make a perfect Christian No marvel he begins with unanimity be it in prayer or otherwise in all common Actions because this vertue is radicated in the B. Trinity the ground of all Christianity for there the three distinct Persons are not onely all of one mind but of one essence too in imitation whereof Christians are taught to be all of one mind all ayming still in every action at the honour and glory of one onely God as the Angels do The Apostle puts compassion next to shew that each Christian should be as sensible of his neighbours sufferings as his own soul is sensible of the pain in any member of his own body This vertue flowes indeed from the former unanimity for where there is but one mind or soul as it were there must be one and the same sense or compassion And this vertue of compassion extends as well towards our being sensible of each good in our neighbour and zealous to imitate it as of any evil we see in him out of a zeal to remedy or cure the same So excellent is the unity of Christianity Hence also flowes the next vertue lovers of the fraternity to shew that the grace of our Religion teacheth us to imitate the perfection of nature so to love one another being Brothers in grace as we do that are Brothers in nature When we are bid Be merciful it is as if we were told our compassion must be even from the Bowels of our hearts Modesty and humility are well joyntly recommended together because they are indeed inseparable companions as it were and so in this exteriour vertue modesty rendring the whole person exteriourly gratefull and in her inseparable companion humility S. Peter closeth up his enumeration of vertues ending with humility because that is indeed both the basis and summity of all others for as it must be the first as captivating mans proud reason unto Faith so if it go not hand in hand up to the top of perfection with other vertues even with charity the Queen of them all that great Queen cannot stand fast in her throne but upon the feet of humility 9. S. Peter here forbids not the flowing of Justice or execution of just revenge when it is legal but onely private retaliation of evil for evil and exhorts that each private person blesse and not curse those which do him mischief because as the end of all our temporal evils is eternal Blisse so we must in hope of that for our selves Blesse those that do us evil O rare perfection of Christianity 10. By these three next verses taken out of Davids mouth S. Peter proveth that to repay evil for evil is our natures propension but bids us forbear as we will hope to have our own evil deeds towards God forgiven and the little good we do rewarded with eternal life called here seeing good dayes for those are chiefly good which shine with glory over our heads though the dayes of grace here are not deprived of that Epitheton too We are therefore bid refrain our tongues because when they be loose and unbridled that alone begets bad dayes unto us every one judging him to have a bad heart that hath a bad or an unbridled tongue and how can the lips of an ill tongue speak other then guilt when they betray the guiltinesse of their own heart 11. The declining evil and doing good is an abstract of all Christian duty and a perfect rule of Christian perfection 'T is reason to bid us seek peace and follow it as being the special gift of our Saviour which he brought with him from heaven at his birth and then the Angels bestowed it amongst us the holy Ghost did the like at his coming too and Christ at his going left it as his Farewel as hath been said before yet is not here unseasonably repeated 12. By the eye of our Lord understand the piercing knowledge of Almighty God whereby he sees into the secrets of all hearts and seeing them lovers of Justice heares all the prayers they make unto him and grants them all they ask By his Countenance understand here that displeasure he shews at the latter day unto the wicked when he pronounceth the sentence of damnation against them for how ever he doth not damne every man in his actual sin but differrs his justice till the latter day yet he looks on their iniquity that do sin with the same displeasing countenance as at the day of Judgement when it will be a greater torment to behold the displeasure of that countenance then to suffer hell fire O that we could in all Temptations to sin reflect on this Truth so should we avoid the fact that will merit this effect 13. A happy shield against evil to emulate vertue and goodnesse Emulation here imports a vehement zeal and fervour of soul towards vertue not a faint velleity or wish of it but a strong will and action too and so makes a strong shield not onely against all vice but even against all mischief for S. Austin sayes well no body is hurt but by himself by his own sin therefore if all men be emulatours of vertue they are sheltred from all evil or hurt from others And this one of the Churches prayers in Lent assures us of that no adversity shall hurt us if no iniquity dominear over us 14. Doubtlesse those are Blessed that suffer for justice since Jesus Christ who is verity it self hath numbered those among the Blessed nay among those who actually are possessed of heaven as if a patient suffering an unjust persecution here were a heaven to the sufferer even whilest he is in durance and as if God were not content to reward that kind of suffering with future Blisse but with
still the same constant man he is not blown like a Reed out of his former beleife by the blast of Herods breath committing him to prison 8. Our Saviour prosecutes his design in the former verse of rectifying the people in their judgements about S. Iohn by asking them whether they thought Iohn a man flexible in his minde as those are who daily varie their apparrel and pamper up themselves in the most changeable of vices a Mollities or softnesse of nature yeelding and altering it self at every least impression made upon it Or went you out to see a man in Kings houses that is of Kings Houses a Courtier variable as the winde turning and winding his opinion as they doe their habits who follow the fashions of the Court No Iohn if in the desart clad in hair feeding little praying much and thence constant in his opinion what ere you thinke to the contrary by his Disciples coming from him to me with the question as abovâ— 9. And least they should thinke they stood sufficiently informed of Iohn the Baptist his merits by believing him a Prophet our Saviour asks even that question as if it were below St. Iohns titles to be a Prophet and so Christ said he is more than a Prophet Why be cause Prophets onely foretell future things but John both told the people the Messias was suddenly to come and had besides the honour to shew him to them as well as to tell them of him So he was truly a Prophet and more than a Prophet 10. And that they may see how much more he tells them John is an Angel among men and affirmes the Prophesie of Malachy cited in this verse to be verified of the Baptist to shew thereby that as God formerly spake to the People but by the mouthes of Men who did foretell them he was to come and save the world yet now that he was actually come himself he sends more than man an Angel of men at least John the Baptist both to prepare his way and to point him out to the people with his finger saying Loe here he is that hath been long expected the great Messias the Man-God Christ Jesus whose shoo-strings I am not worthy to untie though you esteem me his equall nay some of you value me above him too The Application 1. WHat our Saviour in the Baptist did commend holy Church to us now recommends His Fortitude his Austerity and his Angelicall Purity We shall professe the first by not onely standing the shock of open persecution but that also of the inward warre our senses make perpetually against our Reason if we shall rather choose to die than to commit the least sinne against Almighty God for thus we shew the fortitude of Grace while we repell the assaults of Nature 2. The second we shall then be perfect in when we perswade our selves eternall felicity cannot be bought too dear by any our temporall austerity and when we cease to flatter one another that mortification is not necessary unlesse to expiate enormious sinnes Alas fond souls why then did Jesus why his Blessed Mother why the holy Baptist use Austerity of life they had no sins to purge away by penance no they for our example were austere and to declare that temporall pleasures are commonly the causes of eternall punishments 3. The third is as the way unto our Journies end for since by Angels we are onely once removed from God either we must approach him by the purity Angelicall or be for ever separated from him with the spirits Diabolicall For prevention whereof and for obtaining the Baptistick vertues we fitly pray to day as above On the third Sunday of Advent The Antiphon LUKE 1. ver 41. BLessed art thou Mary who didst believe our Lord These things shall be perfected in Thee which were spoken to thee by our Lord. Vers Drop c. as before pag. 1. Resp Be the Earth c. The Prayer LEnd we beseech thee O Lord thine ear unto our Prayers and enlighten the darkness of our minde with the grace of thy Visitation The Illustration SEe how like himself the holy Ghost makes us pray to day when Spiritually altogether this Prayer alludes unto the other Service of the day for literally there is no connexion at all between the Epistle Gospel and this dayes Prayer but Spiritually they suite exceeding well together And first as relating to the time of Advent alluding to that immediately before the reall Birth of Christ wherein the holy Patriarchs and Prophets prayed as we have heard in the two foregoing Sundayes but with this addition that still the nearer we come to the Feast of Christmas the nearer the Prayers represent Christ unto us and now indeed so near as if upon the summons of two Prayers onely gone before Christ were come already so farre on his way from Heaven to Earth that we may now even whisper in his ear as this Prayer seemes to doe begging the Loan of his Eares unto us in his transient carreer as if each of us were forced to stop him on his way for some Emolumentall occasion particular to our selves while we say Lend we beseech thee O Lord thine ear to our Prayers or as if our guilty Consciences perswaded us he might be still as deaf to us though at hand according to the Epistle as he had been to all the world beside for four thousand years together and therefore we are now taught humbly to round him in the Ear and as it were with a fervorous zeal to run like Lacquies after him begging the favour of a private whisper as he goes and that meerly to tell him our case is worse than others that his generall Grace of Visitation to the whole world will hardly be enough for us unless he please particularly to enlighten the darknesse of our minde with the particular grace of his speciall Visitation to us though it be by an application onely of his Ear to our particular suite as he runs posting through the desart of common sinne where we more sadly each than other may piously believe we lie insnared and want a little glimmering of Grace more than ordinary to inlighten us that we may first seeing lament and then lamenting expiate our selves of all our sinnes whatsoever against the blessed time of his Nativity and indeed the best way to avail our selves of the annuall Feasts especially those which are mysteries of our redemption is to presentiate the same as now actually flowing and first being arrived to our knowledges for so shall our souls be raised unto a piety suitable to the thing as well as to the time that puts it into our minds And what Christian is there so obdurate so stony-hearted as if he could every year perswade himself which holy Church exhorts us to both by our Pastours and our Prayers that things were then in doing which he knowes are done and that himself were an actor in each Scean in each Feast or Mystery represented would not relent
the Old than to the New Law Thirdly because in that state they were in they did want the fruit of Adoption because when they dyed Just yet they could not partake of Heaven the now immediate reward of such blessed Soules as they were in regard Christ had not opened the gates thereof to mortalls by his first entring into Heaven as was fit he should since all others were to follow upon his Title not upon their own Lastly because Christ by exempting us from the servitude of the Old Law gave us the right of claime to the Spirit of Adoption which was that of the New Law taught by Christ and affirmed by the holy Ghost 6. This Verse clearly shewes the truth of the Doctrine above delivered since to declare we were partakers of the Divine Filiation God sent us the Spirit of his Son Divine the holy Ghost as who should say it is a true signe we are partakers of the Divine Nature because we have the Divine Spirit in us though this Spirit doth rather shew we are the Sons of God than make us such as the Signe shews the thing to be there where the Signe of the thing is for indeed we are the Children of God by the merits of Christ his passion since the true Adoptive cause the root of our filiation is the Son of God his Incarnation for thence we become God because God became Man so the grace of the holy Ghost or his Spirit abounding in us is rather the signe than the cause of our Adoption or filiation since our adoption is by Christ and the proof thereof is by his holy Spirit abiding in us not that this spirit of the holy Ghost is an empty signe but that besides the signe it is of our filiation to God it is also the same God with the Father and the Son really and truly sanctifying of us and uniting himself unto us by his holy Grace as well as he unites us to the actuall participation of our Saviours Passion at the same instant when he gives us his Grace and thereby teacheth us to cry Abba Father that is to say O Heavenly Father look upon us as thy Children being made so by the passion of thy Son and declared to be so by the coming of the holy Ghost amongst us into our hearts inabling them with a loud pious affection though sometimes their lips move not to cry unto thee in that filiall voice which ever opens the ears of thy mercy towards us and makes thee often ask us as thou didst silent Moses thus internally and silently crying to thee What doe you cry unto me for Exod. 14. ver 15. my dearest Children what doe you want it is but ask and have 7. Here is a Graecisme or Greek transition from the Second person to the Third as who should say what I speak of you O Galatians adopted as above the like I say of all third Persons even any Gentile so adopted that be he of what Nation he will if he can truly cry Abba Father he is not a Servant but a Sonne of God and if a Sonne he is an Heir also by God that is by Christ who is the Son of God O happy Children of this Heavenly Father who makes all his issue equall Heires and leaves not younger children to the mercy of their Elder brothers for their Patrimony but gives all his whole estate in Heavenly Glory and by that himself for their Patrimony whence Saint Austine sayes well Thou hast created us O Lord to and for thy self and our heart is at no rest untill it have the happinesse to rest in thee nothing lesse than thy self can satiate us and this satiety we enjoy when thy glory appears in us and placeth us in thee The Application 1. LEarn all ye Monarchs of the Times to know this Text forbids you Lord it here as if you were not under Age. The Kingdomes you command you then usurp when you deny obedience to the Church Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords he is the Father of all Christians who hath made no servant Tutour to command us but his Sacred Spouse the holy Church so long as here we live 2. Learn all ye proudest men to stoop to the degree of little ones again now you behold your ancient God become a Child of Man to make you Men children of Almighty God 3. Learn ye that glory to write man to Nature to be but Babes yet to Grace let not Christ remain alone an Infant be every Christian at the least an Innocent to keep him company while holy Church recounts his Cradle-dayes And Prayes that as children unable to doe manly acts our selves we may be directed in the pleasure of our Heavenly Father by doing nothing but in the Name of his onely Sonne who knowes best what will please him and make us deserve well at his Holy Hands by abounding in good Works The Gospel LUKE 2. ver 33. c. 33. ANd his Father and Mother were marvelling upon those things which were spoken concerning him 34. And Simeon blessed him and said to Mary his Mother Behold this is set unto the ruine and unto the resurrection of many in Israel and for a signe which shall be contradicted 35. And thine own soul shall a sword pierce that out of many hearts cogitations may be revealed 36. And there was Anne a prophetesse the daughter of Phanuel of the Tribe of Aser she was far stricken in dayes and had lived with a Husband seven years from her Virginity 37. And she was a widdow untill eighty and four years who departed not from the Temple by fasting and prayers serving night and day 38. And she at the same hour suddenly coming in Confessed to our Lord and spake of him to all that expected the redemption of Israel 39. And after they had wholly done all things according to the Law of our Lord they returned into Galilee into their City Nazareth 40. And the Child grew and waxed strong full of wisdom and the grace of God was in him The Explication 33. NOte here Saint Ioseph is not called Christ his Father as Nurses husbands are called Foster-fathers to the children whom their wives give suck unto though they never did beget those children but further and yet more really because Jesus was the true and naturall Child of the Blessed Virgin Mary being joyned in reall Wedlock with Saint Ioseph though she never did accompany her husband in the Marriage bed so his paternity was more than nutritious and yet less than naturall because Jesus was onely the Son of Ioseph marryed to the Virgin Mary but never having knowledge of her Body and therefore he is called the putative or esteemed Father of Christ for all he never did beget him meerly because his wife did truly bear him and was his naturall Mother though by a meanes supernaturall to wit the over-shadowing of the holy Ghost These his Parents are here said to be marvelling not that they were perhaps
Transformation that is Transition or passing out of the old figure of Sinners into the new form of Saints and besides St. Paul recommends the forme of newnesse unto us to shew he desires not so much our innovation as our reformation that is not to have us become new creatures in nature but reformed ones in grace such as by newnesse of the Spirit cast off the Antiquity of flesh and bloud or such as by new grace reform old nature for Antiquity in the holy Story of man reports to old Adam to originall sin sicknesse and death the effects thereof but newnesse relates to Christ renewing the decay of old Adam in us by the spritely or youthfull grace of God and this newnesse of mind the Apostle requires as a meanes to know and prove what the good acceptable and perfect will of God is for by proof is here meant experimentall knowledge of the aforesaid wills and without this newnesse we can have no notion thereof for the old man in us makes us sensible of nothing at all that reports in the least to God all the means we have to come unto this knowledge of his will is by reforming our selves in the newnesse of our Spirit that so we may know the will of a Spirit and not remain in the ignorance of an unknowing body or corporall man who knows nothing at all of God The best acception of this place is when by will we understand the things willed or desired as who should say the good will of God is that which makes us desire to doe in all things what is good at least his acceptable will is that which causeth us to doe what is yet better his perfect will is that which moves us to doe to our powers what we judge ever to be best But we are to note the Apostle here speaks of the will of sign precept or counsell which God hath given us to doe good by or rather to be our rule of knowing when we doe well but not of the will of his absolute divine pleasure for that is so necessary as nothing can be done against it that is to say nothing can be done otherwise than as God is pleased it shall be but the Apostle here thus explicates himself about these three Wills describing the good will from the 3d to the 6th verse of this Chapter to consist in being soberly wise and to proceed according to the measure of grace given us by God each in our calling The acceptable he describes from the 9th verse to the 16th verse making that to consist in a sincere cordiall affection in a servent strong and liberall love to our neighbours The perfect from the 16th verse to the end of the Chapter he sayes consisteth in a perfect love mixt with so much humility as makes us condescend to love even our enemies and doe good to them though they requite us again with ill offices done to us 3. St Paul here professeth his knowledge of spirituall things not to be otherwise in him then by the speciall grace of God given him to know thus much as he doth yet it is most probable be alluded to the particular grace of his Apostolate which gave him the science to distinguish spirits and that he professeth to doe in these three gradations of the will divine which here hee makes and if in this place we understand grace for power given unto him to instruct them by office as he was an Apostle it might so taken bee no wrested sense By bidding us not to bee more wise than becomes he adviseth mediocrity in all proceedings and disswades from excess or extreams in any kinde since even at the extremity of vertue vice attends or hee may forbid curiosities in points of Faith such as brinke upon heresie when they are too far strained Or lastly he may forbid in these words pride and vain glory or self-conceit in men of their own ablities when they value themselves at a higher rate than others doe or then indeed they can deserve For this is to be wiser than they ought this is not to be soberly but impudently wise Hee sayes further That every one should proceed according as God hath divided the measure of Faith that is to say according as God hath given his severall gifts for imbellishment unto the true Faith of Christ or as graces thereunto belonging but so as they must be gratis given and as certain Testimonies of the true Faith Such were the gifts of tongues of prophecie of discretion of Spirits of Interpretation of Scripture of teaching of ministery and the like 1 Cor. 12. v. 10. and while any one had received these gratuit gifts as measures of his Faith or as Testimonies that he was a true Christian the Apostle adviseth him to rest there and not to undertake teaching if he were but gifted to the ministery nor discernment of spirits if he had onely the gift of tongues and so of the rest 4 5. These two next Verses illustrate this to bee the genuine sense of the former measure of Faith by the analogie between the members of a naturall and a mysticall bodie for as in the naturall body it were absurd if the hand should undertake to speak or the tongue to reach what meat the body expected the hand to bring unto the mouth so were it for one member of the mysticall body to execute the office and function of another as for the Clark to teach and the Doctor to play the Clarks part since these are spiritually tyed together for severall spirituall uses and operations as the members of the naturall body are corporally tyed to make one entire thing consisting of severall members and the spirituall tye or union of the Mysticall members are interiourly invisible as Faith and Grace exteriourly visible as the Sacraments of holy Church for by these the whole body mysticall is compacted and set together unto Christ their now invisible and to the Pope S. Peters successour their now visible Head and as no corporall member onely serves it self but is a fellow-servant both with and to the other members of the naturall body for example the hand serves the mouth with meats the mouth the stomack the stomack digests all into nutriment for the whole body So every Christian must be a servant not onely to Christ the Head but even to every soul that beleiving in Christ is a member of his Mysticall bodie the Church as well as we and this were to bee perfect members unto Christ when we were ready to serve one another in order to his service to Gods honour and glory this were to follow the Apostles counsel close of being members to one another that is serving one anothers particular necessities as well as those of our common body the Church united to Christ her Head The Application 1. NO marvell if last sundayes Infants bee to day required to offer up their Reasonable services to Almighty God for as Faith elevateth Reason so Hope and Charity subject
had each of them some quantity within them wherefore Christ to take away all colour of deceit first bids all those vessels to be filled full of water up to the top that so each person in the room might see the certainty of the miracle and the liberality of God when he pleaseth to open his bounteous hand unto us 8. This done Jesus bids them draw of the vessels full of water a cup full and carry it to the cheif Steward of the feast because he could best tell whether or not he had provided that plenty and such rare Wine as those pots full of water did afford For it was the Jewish custome ever to have some modimperatour or prefect of good order at such feasts so Christ gave him the respect of first tasting this cup of grace and the presence of such a prefect makes the company of Iesus and his Mother more avowable at the feast since where a prefect of good order was there could be no suspition at all of the least excess or disorder 9. This verse shewes us the modimperatour having found Wine come in more than he had appointed and knowing none durst provide any besides himself unless by chance the Bridegroom took the priviledge so to doe which yet was not usuall presently calls to him saying to this effect 10. This is beyond the ordinary course two wayes first that you have more Wine than I was privy too next that you have reserved to the last your best Wine for this is singular good much better than what we had before And yet the bâ—st is alwayes first served in that in case of want worse may suffice at the latter end when the tast being glutted before is not so able to distinguish the difference yet this was so superlatively rare as even to those Palates formerly glutted in a manner it did tast extraordinarily well indeed to admiration nor was it strange since the works of God are ever perfect 11. Many doubt wheither or no this were the first miracle that Christ wrought willing to believe divers former which he did in his youth though in regard Gelasius the Pope hath condemned a fictitious book published by Hereticks intituled The miraculous infancy of Jesus and full of inventions of their own it is not improbable this was the first he did after his Baptisme with any purpose to be noted for the Messias By the manifestation of his Glory here is understood the shewing of his power wherein he was glorified and for which cause the Disciples are here said to believe him to be the true Messias and the true â—amb of God who as John the Baptist had told them was come to take away the sins of the world and this miracle he chose to work at a marriage as alluding thereby to the solemnity he made this day of his own wedding between his Divine and humane nature since now he was resolv'd to discover himself to be as well God as man whence this was done mystically on the Third day after he was published by the Baptist to shew now the Third state of the world was begun The first being hat under the Law of Nature The second that under the Law of Moses and this that under the Law of Grace besides the miracle was done in the Gentiles Cana to shew Christ came to call all Nations it was also done in Cana of Galilee as importing the transmigration of possession that is amongst Christian people who are the possession of Christ as bought by his bloud and therefore are to passe yet from earth to heaven their better and finall possession The Wine he so abundantly gave imports the doctrine of Christ and his holy grace inebriating the soules of the Faithfull The Application 1. LEarn Husbands hence to love your Wives as Christ doth love his Church learn Wives to obey your Husbands as the Church obeys her Head our Saviour Jesus Christ since marriage is a Sacrament representing the union between Christ and his holy Spouse 2. Learn married people hence to moderate excesses both at bed and board for neither Jesus nor his Blessed Mother can behold excesse and they to faintifie your marriage must be there 3. Learn Parents hence to breed your Children rather to supply the Angels rooms in Heaven than for to be your own Successours here on Earth thus will the waters of humane infirmitie be turned into Wine of Christian perfection by grace moderating natures exorbitances and making peace between two fatall enemies the spirit and the flesh As the Prayer to day petitions On the Third Sunday after the EPIPHANIE The Antiphon MATH 8. ver 2. O Lord if thou wilt thou canst cleanse me and Jesus said I will Be thou cleansed Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer OMnipotent eternall God look we beseech thee propitiously on our infirmity and extend to our protection the right hand of thy Majesty The Illustration IT is remarkable to see how negatively Saint Paul in this dayes Epistle minds us of being sinners when positively he exhorts us to be Saints with the Romans for what greater signe that the Apostle found a world of infirmities in the Romans than that he stirs them up so much to Vertues contrary to the vices they abound in and thus the Epistle insisting all upon vertues is well adapted to the Gospell running all upon infirmities mystically representing vices for what else doth the corporall leprosie of the Leper or the paraliticall disease of the Centurions boy purport than the like scurvy latent diseases of sin in our Souls to those which were apparent in these two bodies Whence it was but fitting this dayes Prayer should beg to have the same right hand of God extended over us which was the cure of these temporall diseases types of our spirituall infirmities nor can we hope this will be done unless God of his infinite goodness be propitious to us and therefore we beseech him in the Prayer first to look propitiously on our infirmities and then to extend to our protection the right hand of his majesty that is to say all his power as if our vice required no less than an infinite vertue to cure it our weakness no less than all Heavens forces to protect us And since both the Leper and Paralitick saying this Prayer in effect obtained corporall cure thereby why should we doubt of Spirituall cure if we say with like Faith like Hope like Love the same Prayer to day and truly to say it with less were a confusion to Christianity that Jewes and Gentiles should exceed us in fervour of Piety besides we have yet an easier task than they in hand for their demands were no less than to have a Miracle wrought upon them by a Physicall cure without a Physicall cause unless we shall say the touch of Christs hand was a Physicall cure for all diseases whereas we onely demand a favour not a miracle a little Grace to blot out a great
I of a slight command can doe much by vertue of this power what mayst thou O Christ by thy command who hast perfect and absolute power over Heaven and Earth and art under no command as I am who can deny but this stile was used purposely for our morall instruction that hearing this we should remember if at any time we have command ovâ—r others yet we are commanded our selves by many more above us and again to advertise us that the Soul shall then best command the Body when she her selfe moves not but as commanded by God and moved by his holy grace And if she rebell against God no marvell the body requoiles against her as in Adam and his race was and still is apparent 10. Since Admiration or Wonder is an effect of ignorance and Christ as being God was omniscient and had in perfection all the three Sciences that could render him perfectly knowing as man namely Beatificall Infused and Experimentall certain it is his Admiration here could not be a proper wondring at what he seemes to make exceeding strange of as by professing he had not found so great faith in Israel rather indeed to excite and stir up others to admiration and imitation of the like than that he was or could be seised on by the surprisall of any new notion accruing unto him which he had not before So Saint Austine sayes well These operations in Christ were rather signes of his actions upon others than of his passions from them of his teaching us not of his being taught himself by any thing that could happen unto him new or strange and what followes is to be taken strictly as spoken to those common people who were then present for else it could not be meant of all others or spoken to them that were absent For example when he said to those that followed him I have not found so great Faith in Israel meaning among such as you are that now behold the Faith of this Centurion for certainly he knew the Faith of his blessed Mother of Abraham of Moses and of John the Baptist was greater yet than this of the said Centurion so highly commended so much admired by our Saviour 11. This following Verse illustrates the latter end of the former in the sense as above for here Christ gives Abraham Isaack and Iacob as presidents for singular Faith rewarded with eternall glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and sayes Many shall come from East and West meaning from all corners of the world and share with Abraham c. in the like reward for their like Faith so here our Saviour alludes to the calling of the Gentiles unto the Faith of Christ and gives for their encouragement this encomiastick or superlative praise of the Centurion for the first fruits of the Gentiles vocation or beleeving in Christ Iesus the adoration of three Kings arguing not so much Faith as the Profession did so what he said to his followers in the Verse above may by adjoynder of this unto it be conceived as if Christ had said he never found so great Faith in any Gentile whom he had met with amongst the Israelites as he found in this Centurion for the three Kings were not Israelites admit their adoration could argue like Faith in them 12. He pursues the incitement to like Faith of this Centurion saying Those Gentiles who believe as he did shall succeed in the Kingdome of Glory to be dis-inherited Heirs thereof namely the Israelites or Jewes whom he calls the Children of the Kingdome in two regards first because as descended from the loynes of Abraham they were heires to his promised earthly kingdome of Iudea next as for the same reason they were heires to the Heavenly Kingdome of glory likewise promised to his issue in like Faith to his as who should say the forraign Gentiles shall inherit the two Crowns whereunto the Jewes were born heirs by Promise and this by reason the said Gâ—ntiles shall receive the faith of Abraham which the Jewes had deserted and apostatized from So as the Gentiles shall be saved in reward of their Faith and the Jewes damned in punishment of their incredulity which damnation or hell is here called outward darknes as often elsâ—where in holy Writ it is because hell as it is the most remote part from Heaven so is it the darkest and outmost in respect of the inhabitants in Glory whose Beatitude consisting in their beholding the inward light of the Deity by means of the outward light of Glory argues the damnation of the wicked consisteth in their being deprived of all light either of Glory or of God and consequently are out-casts from Heaven wallowing in the deep hell of outward darkness And as by this darkness is understood their pain of damnation or pain of loss consisting in an absolute privation of the sight or light of God and consequenly of all light so by weeping or gnashing of teeth is understood their pain of sense best expressed by those termes which alwayes betoken sorrow and horrour 13. Christ concludes giving the Centurion all he askes in reward of his Faith so curing his Boy at a distance in vertue of his sole Word as was observed that just when Christ spake those words Be it to thee as thou believest then the child was wel recovered hence we are to learn that according to the firmnesse of our Faith we may measure the greatness of our hope in God and mystically we may apply this passage of the Centurion to our selves who are commanders of our senses and powers which make up a spirituall Militia in this life Iob 7. if therefore any of these languish or grow otherwise diseased let us make our addresses by our Friends the Saints in Heaven and Good men on Earth to God beseeching him to cure that sick sense or faculty which is in danger to let in upon us the death of Sin and look with what Faith with what Hope with what Love we make our applications to Almighty God either by our selves or others we may rest assured our help shall be answerable thereunto The Application 1. CHrist cures the Leper to Day by a touch of his sacred Hand to shew he had cured the leprosie of sin in all humane nature by touching it with his nature Divine in the mystery of his Incarnation 2. Being intreated he cures the Centurions son by saying I will come and cure him however by the humility and faith of the Centurion he was not suffered to goe but desired by his Word to doe it at a distance This argues the power of Christ to be as operative as his Person and that by his Power given to Priests he cures all humble and believing Souls in the Sacrament of Pennance as he did the Centurion whose corporall infirmity was here but a figure of Sin-sick-souls 3. O happy Christians who have against all humane diseases a Cure Divine The touch of all the three Persons of the sacred Trinity in the Blessed Sacrament
to supplant their neighbour and to reâ—r their own monuments upon anothers ruine As for pardoning it was esteemed folly by them who thought revenge the sweetest thing in nature and as for our Lord God they so little knew him that his pardoning nature was no motive to their vindicative dispositions which yet Christians that know God and beleeve that in his sacred Son he hath pardoned the offences of the whole world cannot pretend but must as taught by him or pardon others or not hope for pardon of their own sins 14. But above all that is to say it sufficeth not for a Christian to forgive an enemy but he must also love him too for Charity is the band of perfection not onely the life of every Vertue but the link that chaineth them together and binds them all up in one bundle to make a present of them to Almighty God as of so many particulars necessary to make one accomplisht Soul nay not only binding up all vertues together in one man but also uniting all men together as making so many members to integrate one Mysticall Body of Christ his holy Church so that no one Vertue can subsist alone without the help of another to support it For instance modesty is lost unless patience help to bear it self modestly against those who are injurious againe Patience cannot subsist without Humility inabling us to bear patiently the proud comportment of others and their provocations to impatience and the like is of all Vertues whatsoever for we shall find no one can stand alone without it lean upon another but this is singular in Charity that she is not necessary as a particular support to any single Vertue but is further the common Soul or life unto them all insomuch that without Charity there can be no Vertue at all in any Soul For as Saint Paul sayes 1 Cor. 13. If I have Faith to remove Mountaines if I speak with the tongues of Angels and have no Charity I am become as sounding Brass and a tinkling Cymbâ—ll making a noise but no Harmony nor Musick in the hearing of Almighty God and here the same Apostle calls Charity the band of all Vertues thereby to shew us we are but loose Christians unless tyed up together in the Band of Charity whereby we are made to love God above all things and our neighbour as our selves and in so doing are by this Band of perfection rendred perfect Christians Chosen holy and Beloved children of Christ Iesus 15. Out of this mutuall love followes an effect of peace which is here recommendeâ— to us in no less degree than it was in our Saviours own heart even that similitudinarily not identically which Christ had with the Jewes when on the Cross he besought his Father to be at peace with his enemies that peace and no less the Apost e desires should exult he would say abound in our hearts too his meaning is we should rather recede from our own rights than seek to recover them by losing the peace and quiet of our minde or then be at variance with any body whatsoever to which purpose Cardinall Bellarmine had an excellent axiome which he was known by saying often upon occasions of disputes or oddes between party and party One ounce of Peace is worth a whole pound of Victory and this Cardinall was not alone of this opinion for Saint Austine sure taught it him in his twelfth Sermon upon this verse of the Apostle where he speaks thus I will not have with whom to strive it is much more desireable to have no enemy than to overcome him But the Apostles sense in this place is yet deeper for he so recommends peace unto us as he leaves it for the commandant in our Hearts the ruler of them and of all our actions indeed the crown of them besides as who should say what ere you doe see it be peaceably done see you may after it is past say you have thereby made no breach of peace either in your own or your neighbours minde but that you goe towards God hand in hand with all the world rather following them who siâ— not than by breaking from them though upon your own perhaps better designe cause a disturbance amongst others And indeed if we be at any time necessitated to a war the Christian and reall end thereof being peace argues how much this Vertue is requisite to abound in every pious Soul And eace is here called Christ his Vertue because it was the speciall gift he brought from Heaven when the Angel told us his nativity brought Glory to God above and peace to men of good mindes upon earth Luke 2 ver 1â— and at his parting he left it himself as a legacy amongst us saying immediately before his ascension up to Heaven John 14. ver 27. My peace I leave with you my peace I give to you and for this reason the Apostle sayes We are all called by Christ in one Body that is made up peaceable members one with another of his own sacred and Mysticall Body the holy Church Bee therefore thankfull is the close of this Verse to shew it is a benefit infinitely obliging Christians to receive by Grace so admirable a gift as peace amongst us that are made up by nature of many contradictions not onely externall but internall also though there want not thâ—t instead of thankfull expound this place as to import being gracious or pleasing to each other for so are all peaceable men acceptable to everybody wheresoever they come and truly however the Rhemists translate it Thankfull yet the expositours especially Saint Heirome incline to think gracious to be the more genuine sense of the Apostle in this place 16. True it is by the Word of Christ is here meant as well the written as the preached Word of God but in regard ignorant persons are more apt to misconstrue than rightly to understand the written Word therefore holy Church is sparing to give leave to read the Bible and liberall to advise us to hear it Preached or explicated by the Priests But if it please God we have it once expounded unto us that we may understand it in a safe and sound sense then not to read it will be a fault whereas till then to read it may prove a danger to us and in very truth one reason why I have undertaken to set forth this book was to give the Lay-people a little liberty in reading at least all the Epistles and Gospels throughout the Sundayes of the year when they were laid open to them in a safe sense such as might nay must needs edisie and can no wayes offend or cause dangers to the reader so to read and possesse themselves of thus much Scripture as is here delivered in the flux of a year unto then must needs be highly commendable and hugely profitable unto every one that reads and makes it their study indeed their Prayer from one end of the year to the other for so shall they have
this Rapture yet Saint Thomas disputing this question purposely to declare the naturall truth determines him to remaine alive because God doth not kill men to honour them by his conversing with them so Saint Thomas concludes his soul was in his Body and consequently resolves that which the Apostle will not determine saying this Rapture was when Saint Pauls Soul was in his Body whence he was alive though he did not know so much But many doubt what this Third Heaven meanes unto which the Apostle was elevated but the common consent runs to affirm he was carryed up even to the Empyreall Heaven the highest of all that where God shews himself in his greatest glory and concludes this is called the third not as to averr there are but three heavens in all but as to include all be there never so many by the briefest way which is by saying three for all Yet the common division of the heavens into Aereall Aethereall and Empyreall will serve literally to this Text making the ayre the first heaven so birds are called the Inhabitants of Heaven The second the Aethereall which includes all the voluble Orbs above us and the Empyreall to be that of the Blessed to which last understand the rapture of S. Paul to have been The greatest doubt is whether he were rapt both bodie and soul up so high some think no and that this rapture may bee understood to be imaginary onely or Intellectuall wherein he had a revelation or vision of stranger things than were lawfull for him to speak or then were in his power to utter if it had been lawfull and this they ground out of the 1. verse of this Chapter and out of the 17. both which mention visions yet it is much more probable that he was really rapt both soul and bodie First because it was as easie for God to doe both as one Secondly because the Apostle doubts whether it were so or not as we see in this second and third Verse where he professeth not to know which in his sense is to doubt whereas those who have visions or revelations doe not doubt but know they are upon earth for all those Visions which onely make a rapture of the soul but none of the bodie so it is probable as Moses went corporally up to the mount Sinai where he was rapt out of the sight of the people by interposition of a cloud snatching him from their eyes and had delivered into his corporall ears the words of the Law in like manner Saint Paul who was to be the heavenly Doctor of all nations had corporally delivered to him such secret words as he mentions even in Paradise to have received and thence to bring back to earth such a Magazine of spirituall commands as he hath filled the whole world withall though he neither have told nor could tell all hee heard and therefore S. Paul after he had spoken of the third heaven adds the mention of Paradise to shew he was rapt not onely in his understanding but also in his will above the pitch of nature and even into that place of heaven which is therefore called Paradise because it ravisheth the wills of the Blessed with an infinite delight of loving as well as of seeing and understanding God So Divines allow in the vast Empyreall heaven a kinde of place apart called Paradise for the variety of pleasure it affords And hither they allow S. Paul to be rapt yet doe they not therefore say he did see God face to face as the blessed souls there inhabiting doe because he was not to remain there with them yet S. Thomas and other Divines thinke it probable he might have a transient sight thereof 2 secundae q. 175. a 5. but more probably it was not so since to Moses was onely granted to see the back of the Angell representing God and since 1 Tim. 6. v. 16. we read No man ever did see God that is to say with corporall eyes as here the Apostle was corporally rapt For if of the Angel it were said in Gods name to Moses No man shall see me and live how much more probable is it that Paul living after this rapture did not see God himself though no man doubts but he might see the glory of Christ and not unlikely heard from his own glorious mouth those secrets which he could not utter however to render his calling or Apostolate undoubted he had it conferred upon him personally by our Saviour in heaven as he upon earth did personally call the rest of his Apostles to his Service Of this Gal. 1. v. 12. the Apostle makes mention saying Christ revealed unto him the doctrine that he preached and then most probably was this Revelation made when he therewith revealed his glory too and those secrets he speaks of here may be partly certain Attributes of the Deitie assuredly the Ranks and Orders of Angels and their natures which S. Dennis seems to have drawn more particulars of from the Apâ—stle than himself utters in his own enumeration of their nine Orders and therefore in his celestiall Hierarchy S. Dennis this Apostles Disciple tells us of higher matters belonging to the holy Angels than ever any man else durst venture on Lastly we may piously believe S. Paul had told unto him by Christ in this rapture much of the course of divine providence in governing the world especially the holy Church much of the conversions of nations by himself and the rest of the Apostles which his modesty would not permit him to boast of 5. â—ee how he distinguisheth himself rapt from himself in the ordinary condition of man even as if he were not the same man for of him that was rapt hee proâ—esseth to glory still in the sense as above not vainly but of him that was not rapt he boasteth not at least not in this place to shew how great a difference there was between his rapt and not rapt condition and therefore as of his usuall self he boasts onely that he is infirm namely that he is lyable to affliction and miseries which are â—nconsistent with the state of rapt creatures for their rapture exempts them from the pain of sense and so from grief or pain which is meant here by infirmity as it is when our Saviour is called the man of griefes by Isaiah cap. 53 v. 3. which he explicates by adding these words Knowing infirmity that is to say lyable to all torture misery or pain 6. We read in the Acts cap 14. v. 10. that the Lycaonians held Paul and Barnabas for Gods To avoid vain-glory in this hee tells them he will not be understood above what he is above a man lyable to all misery and persecution which gods are exempted from nay lest they should thinke him an Angell though not god he speaks sparingly of those prerogatives of his rapture An excellent example for them to follow who are indeed nothing extraordinary and not boast themselves as more than ordinary men which yet
common practise of the devill when he cannot tempt to open sin to flatter by pretence of sanctity and so to draw us into the trap of selfe-conceit and dangerous vaine glory thus he in vaine attempted Jesus Christ thus he deludes the soules that he tempts to sin by telling them they are Predestinated to be sav'd and cannot finally be damn'd do what they will the least humility is remedy to this vaine glorious disease Thou shalt not tempt thy Lord thy God our Saviours way to kill that devill of vaine glory Saint Paul hath such another Hee that thinks he stands let him beware he fall not Religious feare and trembling is the firmest footing to hold us fast upon the highest Pinnacles of Grace 3. The latter end of all Temptation shewes the Temptors aime the ruine of the tempted soule This is designed under faire pretexts such as doe tickle natures appetite Riches pleasure honour and command but see the choaking Hooke arm'd with alluring baites behold Idolatry coucht under Gratitude It seemes a reasonable homage to adore the giver of so great a gift as all the wealth and pleasure of the world but 't is a huge injustice to receive them from the hands of an usurper who hath as little power to give as we to take the stolen gift And mark how this usurper then pretends to give when the right Owner takes away by a command of Abstinence Christ came not here to raigne but to bestow on us a Crown of glory to rob us then of heaven the devill proffers us the scum thereof the rubbige swept away from thence and cast into the common shoare the sinke of nature Earth O how sordid earth appeares when I behold the beauty of the heavens thus holy David thus we ought to say and more with Jesus bid the fiend avant so shall we by religious adoration of Almighty God accompany'd with holy Poverty this time of Lent forbear to covet riches and by them to Idolize unto the devill adde then these good workes to the Fast they will accomplish So shall we render our selves the Purified soules we pray to be by fasting On the second Sunday in Lent The Antiphon 2 Cor. 17. v. 9 c. THe vision which thou hast seene thou shalt tell to none untill the Sonne of man doe rise from death Vers To Angels God hath c. Resp That in all thy wayes c. The Prayer O God who doest behold us voyd of all strength guard us we beseech thee exteriorly and interiorly that we may be defended from all corporall adversities and purified from evill cogitations of our soules The Illustration THe last Sundayes Prayer laid our Lenten Fast for the chiefe ground of all the Prayers in Lent This fixed on that ground lookes to the end of the aforesaid Fast our purification of the whole creature which we are and so confessing here first that we are void of all strength to guard our selves we begge of Almighty God a guard both for the exterior and interior man that thus our bodies being outwardly defended from all corporall adversities particularly sicknesse to tempt us from our Fast our soules may be purified from all inward evills of filthy cogitations and this with regard to what Saint Leo told us last Sunday was required for the integrity of a Fast namely to withdraw our minds from sinne lest in vaine we did else take meat from our mouths and hence we shall finde little excuse by what casuists tell us the end of the precept is no precept to us though the meanes to that end be of absolute command for example in this present case they say t is no breach of our Lenten Fast to commit a sinne in Lent though we are commanded to use the meanes of fasting to the end we may avoid sinne and so render our selves the purified creatures which holy Church intends by this forty dayes Fast to make us for truly casuists in this may seeme to favour us but yet upon reflection it is no favour because sinne being at all times prohibited under strict command we never sinne mortally but we breake some precept of Almighty God greater then this of the Church by any other kind of mortall sinning which at all times is forbid us and then much more strictly when we are actually under a wholesome cure for sinne the holy Fast of Lent so it will not be to render soules scrupulous but religious to tell them that sinnes are aggravated at least when committed at that time we are commanded to take Physick for preventing sinne as now when holy Church injoynes a Fast expressely for that purpose But to our maine designe let us see how this dayes Prayer suits to the Epistle and Gospell of the day as well as to the season of Lent why truly very well to the former because this Lenten Fasting is one of the Apostolicall precepts mentioned here by Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and in regard Fasting is one of the best of remedies against that carnall sinne which this dayes Epistle dehorteth from as also it is the best step to that walk recommended to us from vertue to vertue that we may by abounding more and more therein please God by the fulfilling of his holy will which is as Saint Paul to day calls it our Sanctification and that particularly by the gift of chastity of purity both in body and soule which altogether comes home even to the letter and full sense of this dayes Prayer nor is the Gospell of the Transfiguration read to day for any other end then to mind us of being spiritually transfigured from Polluted to Chaste bodies from Sinful to Sainted Soules for so shall we appeare to our Saviours eye with faces shining like the Sunne and bodies pure as the whitest Snow as himselfe appeared on Mount-Tabor to his Apostles and as the expositors conceive Moses and Elias did appear so too thus to shew we cannot by our vertuous lives approach neer to God without being Transfigured to the world and made mirrours of admiration to men and Angels and such indeed ought to be our Lenten Fasters How exactly then is this dayes Prayer set to the other service of the day when by saying it in order to performe our Lenten Fasts it brings forth in us the effect of Sanctification which the Epistle aimes at and that of our Transfiguration from Sinners to Saints which the Gospell points unto The Epistle 1 ad Thes c. 4. v. 1 c. 1. For the rest therefore Brethren we desire and beseech you in our Lord Iesus that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God as also you do walk that you abound more 2. For you know what precepts I have given to you by our Lord Iesus 3. For this is the will of God your Sanctification that you abstaine from Fornication 4. That every one may know to possesse his vessell in Sanctification and honour 5. Not in the Passion of lust
as above the covetous men were said to doe and in verity is opposite to hypocrisie and lying that so by these contrary vertues to the vices of Infidels you may as by their fruits trees are knowne be distinguished from children of darknesse while you bring forth the fruits of light The Application 1. BY the Illustration of this dayes Prayer we see how the aime of our Purification is prosecuted therein nor can there be a greater Purifier then the Fire of perfect Love and Charity the vertue recommended in the two first verses of this Epistle as necessary to the accomplishment of our Lenten Fast 2. And because Christian perfection consists as well in declining evill as in doing good therefore we are here exhorted to avoid two sorts of evills for the rendering our Holy Fast compleat The first is the evill of our own Tongues the next is the evill of lewd Company both necessary to be avoided for perfecting the worke of Chastity recommended unto us on Sunday last 3. Now in regard the Fire of Charity must be fetcht as far as Heaven and handed to us by Almighty God himself the chief Purifier of our Hearts and in regard these evils above mentioned are so weighty and lie so heavy on us continually that no humane arm is strong enough to lift them off and ease us of their burthen Therefore we pray as above to have these things done for us by extending the Right hand of God first to give us this Charity and next to defend us from these Evils by taking them away from us that so we may be bright shining purified Souls as the close of the Epistle exhorts us to be The Gospel Luk. 11. v. 14 c. 14 And he was casting out a devil and that wâ—â— dumb And when he had cast out the devil the dumb spake and the multitudes marvelled 15 And certain of them said In Beelzebub the prince of devils be casteth out devils 16 And other tempting asked of him a sign from heaven 17 But he seeing their cogitations said to them Every kingdom divided against it self shall be made desolate and house upon house shall fall 18 And if Satan also be divided against himself how shall his kingdom stand because you say that in Beelzebub I do cast out devils 19 And if I in Beelzebub cast out devils your children in whom do they cast out therefore they shall be your judges 20 But if I in the finger of God do cast out devils surely the Kingdom of God is come upon you 21 When the strong man armed keepeth his Court those things are in peace that he possesseth 22 But if a stronger then he come upon him and overcome him he will take away his whole armour wherein he trusted and will distribute his spoils 23 He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth 24 When the unclean Spirit departeth out of a man he wandereth through places without water seeking rest and not finding he saith I will return into my house whence I departed 25 And when he is come he findeth it swept with a besome and trimmed 26 Then he goeth and taketh seven other Spirits worse then himself and entring in they dwell there 27 And the last of that man be made worse then the first 28 And it came to pass when he said these things a certain woman lifting up her voyce out of the multitude said 29 Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that thou didst suck 30 But he said Yea rather Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it The Explieation 14. NOte this possessed party was one and the same of whom S. Matthew speaks cap. 12. v. 22. that was both blinde and dumb though S. Luke makes onely mention of his dumbness which is not to contradict the other Evangelist unless he had said he was onely blinde and not dumb whereas to speak of one effect of his being possessed and let alone the other is no contradiction at all as some would have it to be Note also this dumbness is not understood to be natural or rather a defect of Nature from the birth of the party but onely accidental and a meer effect of the Devils possessing him with a dumbness but not any other defect in Nature for such a dumbness is not cured by casting our a Devil but by cutting out some string that ties the Tongue up and gives it not leave to play according to the exigence of speech or else by curing the deafness if it be from the birth for all such deafness consequently causeth dumbness because speech is learnt by hearing the sound others make with speaking or otherwise and thus imitating the same motion which doth beget speech So this cure was wrought by Christ taking away the impediment which the Devil had by his power put in the parties speech and consequently that impediment being gone by casting out the Devil who was cause thereof the party spake immediately without addition of any other Miracle at all though what S. Hierome sayes Rhetorically of this passage is not false neither but a pious ampliation of the Truth by declaring the consequences of one thing when he said Three Miracles together are wrought in one person for the blinde man saw the dumb man spake and the possessed had his devil cast out The close of this verse argues the possessed was not born dumb for to that cure no devils being cast out was necessary as we said before and therefote as soon as he was cast out the party spake to the admiration of all the people who could not then force him to speak though happily they had heard him do it often before he was possessed 15. See the malice of the wicked to attribute Gods power to the devil rather then glorifie God by giving him the due praise of his own wonderful works And while they tell him he works in the name and power of Beelzebub they vilifie him all they can to shew the little they attribute to his own power how little they think him God or of God since Beelzebub in the Hebrew Translation signifies the god of Flies and they being the most abject and inconsiderable things in nature therefore to attribute no more Power to Christ then to a Fly is to undervalue him all they can nor doth it magnifie him that Beelzebub is here called the Prince of Devils more then it were to magnifie a man to call him the Prince of Flyes unless it be any kinde of honor to have a man called the best of Flyes as Beelzebub is therefore Prince of those Devils who rule over that contemptible Creature the Fly not that the Devil hath any proper dominion over any Creatures but that the Accaronites when they were troubled with a Plague of Flyes erected an Idol which they called Beelzebub that is God of Flyes and to feed them in this Idolatry upon such Adorations the Devil did many
merit in them and that merit is to make us to have deserved such a master then let us confidently say this Prayer to day and all this holy week for as it is the last of the Lenten Sundayes Prayers so we may see it Steers the ships of our Bodies and Soules downe the very gulfe of our Saviours Passion where to suffer shipwracke is to be saved since the greatest mercy in this Sea is to be cast away upon the waves thereof as our Pilot Jesus was himselfe heare his own words out of the royall Prophets mouth Psal 68. v. 3. I came into the depth of the Sea and was drowned in the Tempest of it This Sea was that of his Passion which we are now all sayling on nor can we hope for greater mercy then to be used as heavenly Ionas was our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be swallowed up by the whale of death to dye to this wicked world that so we may with Ionas-Jesus be cast upon the shore of Resurrection according as the Prayer above purports But lest we forget the Edde of our Lenten Fast running by the shoares of this Red Sea see how admirably the holy Ghost hath contrived this Prayer with due regard to all circumstances of persons time and place for what more eminent effects of a religious Fast then patience and humility and to what more apparent end are these vertues recommended unto us in this dayes service then that thereby we may obtaine a propitious looke from heaven and to deserve a fellowship in the resurrection with Christ after we have learn't without book these lessons of humility and patience which God sent his Sacred Son to teach us The Epistle Philip. 2. v. 5. c. 5 For this thinke in your selves which also in Christ Iesus 6 Who when he was in the forme of God thought it no robbery himselfe to be equall to God 7 But he exinanited himselfe taking the forme of a Servant made into the similitude of men and in shape found as man 8 He humbled himselfe made obedient unto death even the death of the Crosse 9 For the which thing God also hath exalted him and hath given him a name which is above all names 10 That in the name of Jesus every knee bow of the celestials terrestrials and infernals 11 And every tongue confesse that our Lord Iesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father The Explication 5. THe Apostle had in the foregoing verses of this Chapter exhorted to humility in superiority and now in this verse he takes for a rule of our humility that of Christ who though God disdained not to fall below the repute of man and called himselfe even a worme and not a man so low he had stooped for our instruction and example And Saint Paul by this expression doth not onely wish us to thinke humbly of our selves but even to feele by a practicall humiliation the same subjection within us which Christ felt when he became the scorne of men and the out-cast or offals of the people This is the genuine sense of the Apostle though even to thinke to reflect on Christs humility and by reflecting thereon to humble our selves is not an ill exposition of this place neither and thereby to comfort our selves that as Christ his humility was the cause of his exaltation so will our humility prove to us if we embrace it for our Saviours sake 6. But to imprint this Doctrine deeper in us the Apostle amplifies how farre Christ did debase himselfe for our example saying that though he were in the forme of God c. Where we are to note this word forme is here taken perversely by the Arrians when they thence infer Christ was not really and truly God but had onely a shape or forme divine better then other men ever had yet this is a grosse corruption of the Text for Saint Paul meanes here Physicall not Artificiall naturall and not fictitious forme such forme as gives being to the thing in which it is as the forme of wood gives an essentiall distinct being to wood differing from all other substances that are not wood and so in this place the Apostle sayes Christ being in the forme of God being really God himselfe who neither is nor can be multiplyed into many Gods by the forme of God being communicated to many persons as the forme of man is multiplyed into many men though all those men have but one forme specificall one humane forme This shewes the nature or forme of God is infinitely more perfect and more simple then any other nature can be which may be numerically multiplyed though specifically it still remaine one as humane nature is when many men contract it but the divine nature is not so multiplyed though contracted by three distinct persons for we cannot say there are many Gods though it is most true there are many men so the Apostle here speaks literally and rigorously of the form of the nature divine and sayes Christ being coequall God with his Father in regard of his divine nature held it not robberie to say he was equal to God held it no prejudice to his Father to say he was truly one and the same God with him 7. And yet this notwithstanding though he were in the forme of God who is Lord and Master of all the world he would exinanite himselfe debase and lessen himselfe into the forme of a servant made into the similitude of man and in shape found as man who is by all the Titles of the world a vassall Servant and creature of Almighty God though indeed exinanire is not to be truly rendered into English for it is in effect to say Annihiâ—aâ—e not that he was in truth annihilated onely this word imports thus much that Christ who as God was all things had in a manner annihilated himselfe to become man who in the sight of God was and is as much as nothing because pure man hath no being but from God and if God could take away that gift or rather loane of Being which he affords to man instantly man would returne into his first principle which was nothing before Being was lent unto him I say if God could because as to give Being argues perfection so to take it away some Divines thinke would argue imperfection in God as if he would or could destroy himself by Annihilation of any thing since to take Being from a thing is to take his own perfection away which God cannot doe though he may punish those who use their Being to the dishonor of God by making them Be eternally miserable whom he created with power to have Bin eternally happy By the forme of Servant is here understood the humane nature which Christ assumed for that was truly a Servant even to his own Divine nature which did assume it and this for as much as that nature was a creature and so a Servant to the creator thereof but not that Christ was a Servant by
that where there wants a will a wish sufficeth Say then beloved can you wish at least ability to rise from Death of Sin into the Life of Grace O wish it then for shame and wishing Pray as above with Holy Church that having had from God the grace of such a wish he will vouchsafe to prosecute it in you till you come thereby to such a Glory as you cannot wish to have a Greater The Gospel Mark 16. v. 1 c. 1 And when the Sabbath was past Mary Magdalene and Mary of James and Salome bought Spices that coming they might anoynt Jesus 2 And very early the first of the Sabbaths they come to the Monument the Sun being now risen 3 And they said one to another who shall role us back the stone from the door of the Monument 4 And looking they saw the stone rolled back For it was very great 5 And entring into the Monument they saw a yong man sitting on the right hand covered with a White Robe and they were astonied 6 Who saith to them Be not dismayed you seek Iesus of Nazareth that was crucified he is risen he is not here behold the place where they laid him 7 But go tell his Disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee There you shall see him as he told you The Explication 1. THat is when Saturday night was past for Saturday was the Sabbath of the Jews then and not till then lest they should be said to violate the Sabbath they bought Spices to anoint Jesus Here is to be noted the Sedulity and Diligence to be used by Christian Souls to take hold of the first minute of time allowed for devotion and not to loyter any instant thereof away since these pious women watched purposely all night to lay hold of the first stroake of the clock which strook twelve that then they might freely call up the Shop keepers to sell them oyntments when the last minute of the Sabbath was past Note these three women were Mary Magdalene the sister to Martha and Lazarus Mary of James that is the Mother of James the lesser so called for distinction from the other Iames the greater who was also an Apostle and Salome wife to Zebedeus Mother to James the greater and to John the Evangelist the favourite of Jesus and whether or no Salome be her Christian name here or her surname is not cleer by the Text For she may have been Mary Salome wife to Zebedeus above which is not unsuitable to the common Tradition of the three Maries that visited the Sepulcher of Christ and to whom in recompence he after appeared by this action we see the ancient custom of Pilgrimage to Holy Places and reverencing of Reliques however those who deny that to be lawful distinguish between the Reliques of Christ and others because Christ was God and it was besides an ancient custom of the Jews to embalm dead bodies to make them odoriferous and sweet so this was not done by them to Christ as God for indeed they did not then firmly believe in his Deity but were passionate Lovers of his Holy Person and as they esteemed him a man of Blessed Life so to shew their devotion to him they went as it were to embalm his Body and his Tombe which they revered as Reliques of man not of God and as this gives a literal avowment to Pilgrimages and worship of Reliques so it is a Tropical Example for all Christians to carry the oyntments of their Vertues and good Works about them as shewing they desire therewith to embalm the Memory of Christs Death and Passion and those who shall be diligent in this Art of Piety may hope with the first to see Christ in Heaven for the reward of their attending so Religiously on the Grave of his Death and Passion in this life 2. It seems they had been stayed in their journey to the Sepulchre either in the buying their oyntments or upon other accommodations for their holy purpose that it was Sun-rising ere they came to the Monument how ever they were going thither from midnight to that time of the day and had assuredly the merit of a more speedy arrival though by Divine providence it was appointed Christ should be out of his Grave sooner then any the most faithful Soul could get thither to see whether he was risen or not according to his promise if yet they were not retarded by the same Providence for a punishment of their want of Faith that came with intent to finde him there and as man to embalm him whom as God they ought to have believed was risen and needed not those pious expressions towards his humanity which this Resolution and Action in these holy Women did represent 3. Here again they betraied the weakness of their Faith as if God could not remove all obstacles in the way to his own Service as it seems really he did by the hands of his holy Angels who St. Matth. cap. 28. v. 3. sayes had rolâ—ed this stone away before they came which yet the Angel did not by any his Corporal Touch but by making an Earth-quake purposely to do it and joyntly to shew the terrour all the Earth was in for having covered the glorious Body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and by this we see the Power that Angels have over all Corporal Things when they can even by the Touch of their Vertues or Powers make the whole Earth to quake not that there was need for the Angel to remove this stone that Christ might rise for he did rise before the Stone was gone by the same Power wherewith he came out of his Mothers Wombe without the least violation of her Virginity but meerly that by the stones removal the coming Maries and others to follow might see Christ was risen and why may not Christs Body be as well all under the Little Wafer of the Consecrated Hoste as it was able to pass through the Virgins Wombe a Childe and through the Stone a Man without any Division in either Quantities or Bodies through which it passed Note though these Maries were solicitous who should help them to role away the stone yet they went on with their Holy Resolutions to shew us we are not to desist from doing good though we finde huge Difficulties in our way but to proceed and put our trust in God that to those who Love him even every thing in Nature will co-operate towards the expression of their Loves 4. This Verse gives an excellent Proof of what was said last for see they no sooner look to have the stone removed but they finde it done to their hands by the Angel as above though they knew not who did it and therefore here is mention this Stone was very Great because we should not despair of overcoming any the greatest Difficulties in the way of a willing Soul to serve Almighty God 5. See they lose no time to ask or wonder how the stone was gone their
yet by thy mercy soon enough believe that thou art risen and that thou art indeed my Lord my God who didst upon the Cross receive these wounds for mine and all mankindes redemption and though the Apostle knew Christ dyed for all yet he calls him here Emphatically his Lord his God as who should say this grace and favour was to him alone to have so convincing a Proof made unto him of that Truth he onely among all the Apostles then doubted of 29. And lest the Apostle should Glory that by this he might seem more in favour then the rest Christ tells him plainly no That others who without the help of Sense believed were more happy then those who for Sense-sake onely gave consent unto Faith Besides formally Saint Thomas did Believe more then he did see or feel that is he believed Christ to be God by feeling him to be man and not a Phantasm So if we shall allow him to have had onely humane Faith of the resurrection by this sight yet he had thence Divine Faith of all the rest of his Doctrines and especially of his Deity whereunto he Attributed the Power of his resurrection 30. The reason why Saint John writ no more on purpose to confirm this Doctrine of the Resurrection was because he thought the other Evangelists had been large enough in that point and because this was so pregnant a Proof as it alone was sufficient so what he adds in his last Chapter is rather to shew the effect thereof by the multitude that were converted by it then for any other reason 31. Here the Evangelist tells his Reason why he writ this viz. to render Christ received and believed to be the Messias that was promised and so God as well as man and when he says we shall have life by believing in his name he means in his Person in his merits in his Passion so that first we are to believe him to be our Saviour Secondly the Messias Thirdly God and the onely Son of his eternal Father And lastly that he will give to all that thus believe and do as he hath commanded life everlasting eternal happiness The Application 1. THe whole designe of this Gospel being onely to prove the Resurrection and by the reality thereof the Truth of Jesus Christ his being God as well as Man we have hence to gather that the exercise of our Faith is here chiefly required and that so often as we reade this Gospel each one cry out with the convinc't Apostle my Lord my God confirm in me that happiest Act of Faith which believes without the help of touch or eyes that thou art my Leige Lord as thou art Man and hast all Power given thee both in Heaven and Earth That thou art my God who hast created me out of nothing and redeemed me from worse then nothing my grievous sinful state to make me more then all things under Heaven a saved soul 2. Yet lest we should pay the duty of such a Faith without our reason leading thereunto see here apparent Proofs of the same real Body risen which was dead and buried while the wounds are just the same that were received on the Cross see that this humane Person is withall Divine whilest he gives power to pardon sins and to retain them if occasion be see how he proves what the Epistle taught that by our Faith we overcame the world when himself brings to his believers the Fruit and End of Victory a happy Peace and gives it his Apostles as a Testimony that it is the same Gods gift now rising from the dead who brought it with him hither at his Birth onely the Angels then delivered it and now we have it from his mouth Divine who well may give it us now he hath vanquish't all our Enemies the World the Flesh the Devil Sin and Death and gives this Peace both as Recompence and Fruit of Faith 3. O happy Faith that brings forth such a Peace as sets us right to God our neighbors and our selves for if with any of the Three we be at odds we can have peace with neither of the other O happy Faith again that works in us by Charity and brings forth all the twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost with all the other Vertues that accomplish Christianity and integrate the Paschal Feast in us which now we Celebrate And consequently pray as above with holy Church that we may keep these Vertues in our Lives and Manners On the second Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 10. v. 11. I Am a good Shepherd who do feed my sheep and for my sheep yield my life Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who by the humble abasement of thine own Son hast raised up the prostrate world grant we beseech thee unto thy Faithful people everlasting Joy that they whom thou hast taken out of the danger of Eternal Death may enjoy perpetual Felicity The Illustration AS we finde in this Prayer the streame of the resurrection run strongly down the Channell of the Church her service thus humbly praying so we are minded that the Paschall Feast which we must retaine in our manners and lives is here commemorated in one of the chiefe accomplishments thereof the death of Christ since it was by his abasement unto death that we are raised up to life and are imboldened to begge our joy may be perpetuall who by his temporall resurrection are taken out of the danger of eternall death to the end we may not onely joy therein for ever but even injoy perpetuall felicity thereby But stay beloved why doe we now eclipse the glory of this Festivall by mixing with it the memory of our Blessed Lords inglorious death because the Holy Ghost will have it so first to shew us that it was an abasement for the Son of God to remaine one minute out of the Kingdome of his eternall Father though he were never so much triumphant over death upon death as also to indeer us the more unto Almighty God who was content to give us glory by the infamy of his Sacred Sonne but was not satisfied to give us being out of the nothing we were before he shewed his omnipotency by creating us unless he had made his own Son by death as it were not to be that so he might give us a second being in grace better then our first in nature and unless our Saviours temporall death might give us life eternall free from all danger and injoying perpetuall felicity yes yes the little Prayer above imports all this and infinitely more then all we can imagine who are not able to reach the depth of sence that lies under the dictates of the holy Ghost and such we know are holy Churches Prayers nor is there want of admirable sweet connexion between this Prayer and the Epistle and Gospel of the day for what doth all the former say but that our Saviours abasement was our
to day mixeth the Lay mans duty with that of the Priest to shew us that what in an eminent degree Christ taught his Apostles and consequently their successors the Pastors of Gods Church who by office have care of soules in some sort at least the layty was to imitate namely that heroicall or rather that divine Act of Faith which is required to Martyrdom For albeit the Priest be bound to many duties which do not oblige Lay people yet there is no man or woman whatsoever that is not rigorously bound to lay down life it selfe the deerest thing they have rather then deny their faith in Jesus Christ 2. Againe however the Lay-man is not bound to that perfection of charity and Justice which the Priest ought to have nor to excell in many other vertues essentially proper to the Priest as zeale of soules especially yet this dayes Epistle tels us that every Christian whatsoever stands obliged thus far to imitate the perfection of Jesus Christ himselfe as to preserve the proper vertues of the Paschall Feast sincerity and verity which is as much as to say some degree of saintity as was declared in the exposition of the Epistle upon Easter day and consequently if all be bound to saintity none are priviledg'd to sinne but every one is to avoid it as is told us in the second verse of this Epistle none is priviledg'd to beguile or defraud his neighbour for that is contrary to the Paschall sincerity and verity which all the Lambs of Christ are obliged unto 3. To conclude as all Christians are rigorously bound to a profession of the Faith of Christ with hazard of their lives so this Epistle instructs them all in that particular duty of suffering for Justice in testimony of their Faith and for that purpose layes before their eyes in what manner they are to suffer just as Jesus did following his steps therein Not reviling those that revile them not straying away for fear but like believing Lambs to follow their Pastor the Bishop of their soules their Jesus and their God to whom they are converted by their faith in him for whom they are to dye if need be as he hath dy'd for them and by his humble death hath raised them to the hopes of an eternall life and of everlasting joyes therein Which ever living comfort they Petition for to day emboldened thereunto by a pious memory of our Saviours death and Passion since from his Sepulchre as was said before flow all the hopefull streames of our eternall happinesse for the head and spring of Faith is our Saviours Resurrection from his grave The Gospel John 10. v. 11 c. 11 I am the good Pastor The good Pastor giveth his life for his sheep 12 But the hireling and he that is not the Pastor whose own the sheep are not seeth the wolfe comming and leaveth the sheep and flyeth and the wolfe raveneth and disperseth the sheep 13 And the hireling flyeth because he is an hireling And he hath no care of the sheep 14 I am the good Pastor and I know mine and mine know me 15 As the Father knoweth me and I know the Father and I yeeld my life for the sheep 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall heare my voyce and there shall be made one fold and one Pastor The Explication 11. GOod Pastor is here taken for most excellent prime or indeed onely Pastor as from whom all others derive that name because his death is reall life to his sheep whereas the death of other Pastors is 〈◊〉 a due sacrifice for the dyer and an example for the liver to follow rather then to flye from faith so that Christs life was not onely given us as an example but as a satisfaction for our sinnes 12. By Hireling here mystically understand those Priests who serve their Flock more for love of their Fleece then of the Sheep more for base gain then for souls salvation as who should say this very Act renders a man no true Pastour though by his place he be so yet literally by hireling is understood those that are not really true Pastours but usurpe the places of them Namely Hereticks who neither have Orders nor Mission and yet live upon Tythes as if they were truly intituled thereto for to such the souls of men do not truly belong however they take an usurped charge over them and those men commonly in time of persecution flinch steal themselves away and leave their sheep the souls they pretended right over unto the tyranny of the devouring wolfe the persecutor of Gods holy Church Note the true Pastour is said also to flye when he is silent and doth not rebuke his erring Flock by the Wolfe is understood Heresie or the Devil the father thereof ravening and snatching this man to luxury t'other to gluttony a third to murther and so disperseth them from the Flock and Fold of orderly Sheep making them wander till they fall into the pit that cryes Vae soli wo to the lonely 13. St. Gregory says the Name shews the Nature and so gives the cause by giving the Name for to be a hireling is cause enough to flye from danger since it argues he loves his hire better then his cure his profit better then his Office nor is he truly said to have care of his Sheep but of himself and therefore by his flying from his sheep he shews he had indeed no care of them 14. See the mark of a good Shepherd is to know his sheep and to have his sheep know him he knows their vertues to incourage them to more he knows their Vices to dehort them from the same and they know his Love and Doctrine to follow both since as his Love leads them freely so his Doctrine leads them safely again as a Pastour leads his sheep to new Pastures so must the Priest feed them with new Exhortations as the Pastour keeps the Wolfe from his Sheep so must the Priest his Souls from the temptation of sin and the Devil as the Pastour cherisheth his Lambs more then ordinarily so must the Priest cherish his children with frequent Catechisms and his new converts even as children as the Pastour cures the Diseases of his Sheep so must the Priest the Infirmities of his Souls Lastly as the true Shepherd will fight to Death rather then be beaten from his Flock so must the Priest in persecution dye rather then flye from his Parish and in case of Plague the Pastour is rather to run the hazard of it then to leave the people unprovided of Priests and in this case particularly the Pastours are bound ex officio by office to stay when Regulars that onely help ex charitate out of charity as it were may flye in point of danger if they please and that without sin 15. See how he follows this mutual knowledge comparing it to that wherewith God the Father knows his Son and that
did not agree to this so important a truth and article of our Christian beliefe But now to our maine designe see how this Prayer like an Invisible Soule gives life to all the body of the Churches Service on this day whilest it tels us in generall termes the duty of good Christians which more particularly is summed up in the Epistle and Gospel following For what is that which Saint Peter in the former sayes more then this Prayer containes while he bids us walk here like Strangers and Pilgrimes and refraine carnal desires then that when we remember Christ his resurrection we should follow the light of that verity to prevent our going astray after carnall desires what meanes the so much inculcated good conversation among Gentiles in rhe Epistle but that we who are Catholikes and therefore by profession esteemed the best of Christians should give example of good life to all other sorts of Christians to all Gentiles Turkes Jewes and Infidels and should by the example of Christ his obedience to his Parents and to the powers of his time learn to be subject to every humane creature 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 13. though thereby we suffer even unjust oppressions as our Saviour did this is to be the good Christians that by profession we are esteemed This is to eschue things contrary to that most honourable name and to pursue what is most agreeable thereunto according as the Epistle exhorteth us To conclude this is also to beare patiently the vicissitudes of joyes and sorrowes mentioned in the Gospel if a while we See comfort and if a while after we See it not This is to be content Christ shall depart from us so the Holy Ghost come amongst us in his roome This is to be like teeming women groaning here and in Travell with the children of persecution paine torments and death it selfe for Jesus Christ and rejoycing when we are delivered of the manly and heroick acts of vertue the babes of grace which will bring us a comfort that no man can take from us a peace of conscience here and a crowne of glory in the world to come So we see how home this Prayer comes to all the whole Service of the day besides The Epistle 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 11 c. 11 My deerest I beseech you as strangers and pilgrimes to refraine your slves from carnal desires which war against the soule 12 Having your conversation good among the Gentiles that in that wherein they misreport of you as of Malefactors by the good works considering you they may glorifie God in the day of visitation 13 Be subject therefore to every humane creature for God whether it be to King as excelling 14 Or to Rulers as sent by him to the revenge of malefactors but to the praise of the good 15 For so is the will of God that doing well you may make the ignorance of unwise men to be dumb 16 As free and not as having the freedome for a cloak of malice but as the servants of God 17 Honour all men Love the Fraternity Feare God Honour the King 18 Servants be subject in all Feare to your Masters not onely to the good and modest but also to the wayward 19 For this is thank if for conscience of God a man sustaine sorrowes suffering unjustly The Explication 11. IT seemes there were in those dayes faigned devotes of women who under a pretence of piety intruded themselves very officiously into the company of Church-men but oftentimes it appeared their pretended piety was but carnality covered under a vizard of devotion and it is with speciall regard to such singularities and dangerous conversation with women that the Apostle here speakes both to Church-men to those women and to all good Christians in generall beseeching out of his humility though he might have commanded them that they never let fall the memory of their being but strangersâ— pilgrimes meere passengers upon this earth since they are members of Christ who as a stranger came into the world when at his first birth he was stranger-like cast out of doores and not allowed a place in any house to lay his head in so he was content to be borne in a manger that by this meanes he might shew us he came to looke us out who were stragled from Paradise banished thence indeed and made like strangers wander over all the world And seriously it is a deep word if well reflected on for Christians here to call themselves strangers since they have here no dwelling place but are Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem and all their life time being as a pilgrimage through the desert of this wicked world The Apostle strongly perswades when he bids them take heed of setting their affections upon creatures here for how absurd were it if a pilgrim or passenger whose life lay at stake to be at such a place by such a time where he was promised a preferment should yet doat upon some miserable bondslave in the road and thereby not onely lose his way home but his preferment too and binde himselfe Prentice to an eternal bondage or slavery And the Apostle speakes all this very pathetically very briefely under the notion of carnall desires which are indeed the greatest enemies the soule hath and doe clap the Irons of captivity soonest and fastest upon her no vice so surely so speedily inthralling souls as carnality doth See therefore how strongly the Apostles charms under this notion of Pilgrim since the very name shews the nature of the man one that hath no right at all to any thing he sees one that even to ease his own labour makes it his study to keep his right road that longs for nothing more but to get home that for this purpose is content to toyl and moyl continually and never to take long rest that dares offend none he meets lest as a stranger all the natives rise against him to revenge the injury he did to any one of them That looks on all he meets as strangers to him since he knows himself so to them that gets ready tacklings for his tedious journey and casts off all things else as cumbersom that finding himself laught at by most he meets with especially all youth for the Exotick habit which he wears regards not their flouts nor scorn but bears them patiently Thus thus the Apostle exhorts all Christians to walk through the wilderness of this World Note by carnal desires which above all he bids them refrain he means all the works of the flesh all vice indeed gluttony as overloading venery as over-wasting anger as retarding while others in revenge stop his journey and so of all the other fleshly works as St. Paul enumerates them Gal. 5.19 which shall be explicated on the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 12. Since by Gentiles here are understood all the Nations of the World the Apostle tyes up Christians to a very good and a close guard when he allows him not to use the least miscomportment before
The whole house was filled with this noise to shew all their hearts who were within should be filled with the Holy Ghost for thus the Text affirms immediately saying vers 4. and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost Note it is said they were Sitting both to shew the rest and quiet Gods holy Spirit bringeth with it and to shew that prayer of expectation and such this was is perhaps best when it is performed sitting thus S. Bernard a great Saint was noted to proceed in his deepest meditations 3. By parted tongues is here understood tongues divided amongst many not in themselues as commonly Painters make them thinking thereby to expresse the activity of fire rising up in many-pointed flames but the reasons why the Holy Ghost would have the forme of a tongue to declare his coming are many First because the Apostles were by this coming confirmed to be the Preachers of the Gospel and the proper instrument of a Preacher is his tongue So the gift of tongues was first expressed by the species of a tongue where we are to note this gift includes three properties the first the knowledge of languages the next the true signification of the words of different languages the third a volubility of tongue adapted to the several articulations requisite to several Languages and consequently a prudence to use all these in a right way The second reason is because a tongue hath a great affinity with a word as therefore the Holy Ghost was the Spirit of the VVord so he came in the species of a Tongue and as by the word of the mind is produced the voyce of the tongue so from the Divine word did proceed the Holy Ghost whence the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. vers 3. sayes no man can say Jesus but in the Holy Ghost The third as the tongue distinguisheth tastes so doth the Holy Ghost truths from falshoods heavenly from earthly things insomuch that St Paul tells us The Animal man doth not perceive the things of the Spirit 1 Cor. 4. Lastly because the tongue is both the best and worst instrument of man Proverb 12. Death and life are in the hand of the Tongue Prov. 16. It is in man to prepare his heart but the government of the tongue is from our Lord wherefore there was great reason to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to tame rule and sanctifie the tongues of men As for the tongues themselves whether they were true fire or true tongues is questioned yet resolved best that they were not truly fire but only fiery forms like unto tongues as some ayr condensed and made into that form and illuminated so as to seem fire but not to burn because it was to set upon the heads of those it fell upon Of their pyramidal form we give many reasons First to shew the Spirit of God only penetrates all deep and hard mysteries Secondly to shew it penetrated the very hearts of those it fell upon and made them cordially love Almighty God Thirdly it made them aspire from earth as high as heaven Fourthly that the very tongues of those who had this gift should penetrate the hearts of men to their conversion Lastly to shew it should give them the discretion of spirits that had this gift to distinguish betwixt good and bad inspirations in themselves or in those they were to direct spiritually And these tongues were rather fiery then of any other kind to shew God is all a flame of Love as Deut. 4.24 Thy God O Israel is a consuming fire And therefore as the Law of Moyses shewing Gods Will was given with the Circumstances of Thunder and Lightening so the Law of Christ now was to be confirmed by the holy Ghost with like signes to shew it was the Will of the same God abrogating the former and constituting this new Law Secondly as all the old Prophets were authorized by circumstance of fire Isaias his lips being touched with a coal of fire became as we read Chap. 6 ver 6. like fire and his words seemed all fiery too and Elias being carried up in a fiery Chariot into heaven 4 Reg. 2.11 and of Hieremias it is said from above he sent fire into mens bones and thereby instructed them Thren 2. v. 13. and Ezechiel foretelling of Christ his Chariot supported by four Cherubims of whom he sayes Chap. 1. v. 13. Their looks were like fire coales all which were but types of the more univocal fire that did accompany the election confirmation and conversation of the Apostles true Prophets of the new law foretellers of heavenly things Thirdly to shew Christ his law was a law of love of charity of coelestiall fire Fourthly to shew the effect of this love was to produce the fire of love divine in all Christian souls Fifthly to shew the spirit of God was searching as fire the most subtle worker and penetratour that is in nature The reason why these fiery tongues were said to sit in the singular number not plurall upon the Apostles was to shew that though the tongues were and must be many for each to have one yet the Spirit giving them was one and not many namely one onely God And this Spirit was rather expressed setting then otherwise to shew the constancy of Gods holy grace and gifts in those he pleaseth to bestow his speciall favours on and their ease and rest in the possession of that Spirit as also that the holy Ghost was to rest in the hearts of the Faithfull to the worlds end 4. They were all replenished whereas before they had received the grace of God now they had the plenitude thereof not all alike but some more some lesse according as was requisite to their callings No marvell then if the Apostles being full of grace and the gift of tongues they could not contain themselves but say The Things which we have seen and heard we cannot but speak nay so much they spake that some believed they were drunk with new wine and so it was indeed with the wine of the heavenly grape the holy Ghost not otherwise and as they were inforced to speak the praises of God by the irrefragable impulse of this holy Spirit so they spake to all purposes that is to the capacity and understandings of all hearers of what nation soever for they spake all kind of languages or tongues which some will understand as if each Apostle speaking a severall language among them all they had all languages others conceive that they speaking onely in their own Syro-Hebraean tongue all the several nations understood them as if their languages had been various as in this manner S. Vincentius Ferrerius preaching in Spanish was understood by severall nations as Italians French Flemish English c. each conceiving they heard him in their native tongue grounded in these words following v. 11. We hear them speaking in our tongues But the true sense is they did really and truly speak upon occasion all languages by the gift
shield before her against all Adversity whatsoever to be firm in her belief of the most Blessed and undivided Trinity Say then the Prayer above and see how well it suits unto this doctrine thereupon The Gospel Matth. 28. v. 18. c. 18 And Jesus coming neer spake to them saying All power is given to me in heaven and earth 19 Going therefore teach ye all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and behold I am with you all dayes even to the consummation of the world The Explication 18. THe Evangelist in this Chapter recounts the apparition of Jesus in Galilee to a great number of Disciples and friends as well as unto the Apostles amongst them who were now so far fled from Jerusalem where formerly they had seen him after he arose from his grave and so confirmed them in the truth of this mystery that though in the precedent verse St. Matthew sayes some of them doubted of this truth that Christ was risen yet the meaning is not that any of the Apostles doubted thereof but some others to whom Christ had never appeared before as now he did to confirm the truth of his resurrection And Jesus coming neer not to those doubting persons but to his Apostles saying as this dayes Gospel begins All power c. But we are to observe though S. Matthew seems in this chapter to conjoyn the power of Mission given by Christ to his Apostles unto this story of his Apparition to them and above three thousand more in Galilee since he resolved to end his Gospel in this eight and twentieth chapter and write no more yet the very truth is those words were not spoken by Christ consequently to this apparition but afterwards upon the Mount Olivet when at his Ascension he gave the Apostles Mission over all the world for his valediction or last farewell unto them and in testimony that this was an Act of high Jurisdiction he tells them at the same time All power is given unto him both in heaven and earth so they need not doubt but he that gave them this Mission to all Nations this commission to preach unto them and to Baptize them had ample authority for his so doing and would by his grace from heaven second their labours over all the earth and make them fruitful to the final salvation of all Nations which was a convincing testimony of his being plenipotentiary between God and man or having plenitude of power both in heaven and earth But we are further here to note that this plenitude of power was not now so given to Christ as if he had not had it before for the Word was no sooner Incarnate then this power was begun in him though he was not pleased to mention the accomplishment or perfection thereof untill by his death and passion he had merited the same and therefore suiting to him not onely as he was God but as he was man the Messias or Saviour of the world and to him alone for to no man else was the amplitude of this power competent nay the very participation thereof is above all merit of any pure humane creature however to Christ the fulnesse of it was but due by reason of his being one person with God who as Creatour of heaven and earth had consequently full power over them both so as he could by the Ministery of his Apostles preaching subject unto himself all the Nations of the earth as stooping to the power of his Faith and Doctrine and afterwards in heaven reward this their Faith this their subjection to Christian discipline with crowns of eternal glory to shew he was chief commandant in heaven also having purchased the same by his bitter death and passion and so being able to make eternally happy in this his glorious Kingdom whosoever he pleased 19. We are here to observe when Christ bids go it is not nay it cannot be in the power of any mortal man to forbid the Ministers of Christ from going to convert nations So this Mission is Divine not humane and gives Commission to execute Gods Lawes maugre all mens prohibitions Go saith he to shew us labour pains travel diligence are the marks of those who preach the word of God nor is this labour limited to any one time or place but extends it self to all times to all nations Go sayes our Saviour teach all nations nay he adds therefore go that is to say Go because I send you that have all power both in heaven and earth go teach ye all nations as I have taught you Whence it followes the command of learning was imposed upon the people while the precept of teaching was laid upon the Apostles and their successours for in these latter it is indeed that Christ after said he would be with them unto the end of the world that is in assisting their Successours he would be with them And very great reason it is that an obligation of hearing should fall upon the people when a command of preaching was imposed on the Priest for a Schollar is acorrelative to a Master as a Son is to a Father since no man can be an actual master unless he have an actual Schollar nor can any man be a father that hath not a child And that it was a command given with an obligation to be put in present execution see how Christ tyes himself to an actual assistance thereof even to the worlds end And as he bids them go and teach all nations the principles of Christian doctrine namely those of the Catholick Church so he bids them Baptize all those whom they instruct and teach in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost to shew them the true mark of a Christian is his belief in the Blessed Trinity which is one onely God and three Divine Persons distinct each from other called Father Son and holy Ghost Nor can there be indeed a more succinct method of this deep mystery then is here expressed when the command of Baptizing in the name and not in the names shewes the unity of God and denyes the plurality of Divine nature or essence and yet the specifying of the Father Son and Holy Ghost shewes the Blessed Trinity which is in that sacred unity Whence we see the word Trinity doth import a Triunity or an Unity of nature in a Trinity of persons whence our Saviour saying by the mouth of his Apostle 1 Epist Joh. c. 5. There are three that bear testimony in heaven the Father the Son and Holy Ghost adds immediately and these Three are all one that is to say these distinct persons are one indistinct and undivided nature essence deity so as though there be three divine persons yet is there but one onely God And no marvel if upon Trinity Sunday both the Epistle and Gospel report unto this sacred mystery for it
to do as it commands as holy Church by reading it commends The Gospel Luk. 6. v. 36. c. 36 Be ye therefore merciful as also your Father is merciful 37 Judge not and you shall not be judged Condemn not and you shall not be condemned Forgive and you shall be forgiven 38 Give and there shall be given to you good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosome For with the same measure that you do mete it shall be measured to you again 39 And he said to them a similitude also Can the blind lead the blind doth not both fall into the ditch 40 The disciple is not above his master but every one shall be perfect if he be as his master 41 And why seest thou the mote in thy brothers eye but the beam that is in thine own eye thou considerest not 42 Or how canst thou say to thy Brother Brother let me cast out the moat out of thine eye thy self not seeing the beam in thine own eye Hypocrite cast first the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to take forth the moat out of thy brothers eye The Explication 36. WE have seen how perfect charity was inculcated by St. John in this dayes Epistle now St. Luke begins his Gospel in a stile suitable thereunto when he recommends the love of our enemies under the notion of mercy And indeed when he bids us be merciful to one another as our heavenly Father is merciful what else can he point out unto us then the dilection of our enemies since God the Father his first mercy was shewn to none else but those that were his utter enemies mankind for whose redemption yet he sent his sacred Son a sacrifice and a propitiation for the whole masse of humane nature to shew the height of his perfection in this his act of mercy which was indeed so great that hence it is his mercy is said to have surpassed all his other works Psal 44.9 And that we do not mistake in expounding mercy here for love of our enemies we may avouch St. Matthew Chap. 5.43 who speaking to the same sense as St. Luke doth here though not in the same words brings in our Saviour saying You have heard that it is said thou shalt love thy neighbour and shalt hate thine enemie v. 44. But I say unto you Love your enemies do good to them that hate you and pray for your persecutours and those that calumniate you and v. 48. he concludes this subject thus Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect as who should say St. Lukes mercy here recommended is the dilection of our enemies and who so loves them is not onely merciful as God is mercifull but by that means is perfect also as God is perfect in such sense as the Expositours interpret St. Matthewes perfection and S. Lukes mercy which are here all one because love or mercy to our enemies is indeed the very height of perfection in us and so it is the greatest that ever did to us appear to be in God if yet any of his attributes can be one greater then another When therefore we are bid be mercifull or perfect as God is we are to understand it thus that Christians are to proceed further in perfection then all other people who though they received the precept of loving their enemies in the very law of Nature as we read Exod. 23.4 5. if thou meet thine enemies Oxe or Asse astray bring it home yet were so blind as not to practise indeed not to see it as appeared when the Scribes and Doctours of the Law delivered a Tradition quite opposite to this teaching as our Saviour sayes above Hate your enemies and for this reason to undeceive them and to shew the world their errour that had antiquated the law of nature in this particular God himself makes it a signal mark of his perfection and recommends it to us as the height of perfection in us above which he requires no more at our hands and for which he likens if not equalls us unto himself in perfection I say likens us because that is the true sense of this Text bidding us love our enemies perfectly and not slightly but with all our hearts as God loveth us who dyed for our sakes that were all his enemies and this perfection therefore is divine not humane in us because we may bear a kind of civill respect of love to our enemies and yet not love them perfectly as God loveth us whereby we onely attain to this divine perfection of mercy and love which likens us to God himself And though by the first 't is true we become Gods children in nature by the last we become his children in grace and so of regulated nature make our nature sayntified too which gives it the finishing and life-colour of perfection or similitude to God though when we are greatest Saints here our perfection is but initiated or begun since here we can at most but curb but tame concupiscence whereas in heaven it shall be extirpated quite and clean and then we shall be perfectly perfect as God is while our here beginnings shall be there finished by the burnish of Glory polishing the works of Grace wrought in our unpolisht natures 37. How excellently well doth this follow since we are alwayes apt to fall upon judging and condemning our enemies Yet it is not Judiciary but rash Judgment that is here forbidden since the former is the main vertue that supporteth government over all the world but the latter is a vice as much destroying order as it were to see the delinquent leap from the bar to the bench and in stead of standing to receive his own sentence from the mouth of Justice pronounce a peremptory sentence on his Judge for so shall all those be to us at the latter day whom we by our rash Judgements here condemn of any fault wherein they are not guilty Now the reason is because Judgment is an act of Jurisdiction not onely declaring but punishing of crimes and therefore restrained to some Magistrates onely not allowed to any that are meer subjects such as we all are to Almighty God and consequently none of us can lawfully sit as Judge over the actions of our neigbours no not the Priest himself out of his Confessionary or Tribunal Seat where the Penitent must be his own accuser too or else cannot be judged by the Priest The like is of condemning as of Judgement which seem to differ onely as the Judges declaration of the crime doth from the condemnation of the Criminal by the prolation of the sentence against him and assignation of him over to the punishment of the Law answerable to the Fact for which he is condemned But why it is said Judge not and you shall not be judged Condemn not and you shall not be condemned will not easily be understood for by this meanes no delinquent
there are of Justifying grace inhabiting within us The first if we perfectly hate sin The second if we mortifie the flesh The third if we have zeal to our neighbours good such as St. Paul had saying Who is sick and I am not distempered with him also 2 Cor. 11. insomuch that here St. John presumes to say he that loves not remaines in death that is if when he is bound to shew his love either to God or his neighbour he doth it not he remaines in death in the guilt at least of that past sin which he committed by omitting to do his duty when he was bound to do it out of which guilt since there is no going but by the help of grace therefore he is said to remain in death untill by an Act of love he revives from the death of that guilt which he remained in by not loving when he was bound to do it Nay the death of our body is but a shadow of death to that of our soules so the Apostle needs not scruple to say men living in sin remain in death because they are truly dead to grace and glory as long as they continue in their sin be they never so vigorouslâ— alive in body 15. He is a murderer of his own soul because as was said above he that loves not remains in death Where note not to love is esteemed to be as bad as to hate and consequently who hates his neighbour actually kills himself and in effect his neighbour too though not in Act not unlike him that coveting his neighours wife is an Adulterer in will though not in fact Yet others will have this hatred to be onely murder in disposition not reduced into act but who so loves danger shall perish in it and therefore to dally in such dispositions is to indanger at least perishing in them Let no man wonder the Apostle should say he that murdereth hath not life everlasting in him when he that is in this world freest from all sinne hath not here everlasting life abiding in him whence it follows by life everlasting is here understood that life of grace whereunto everlasting life and glory is due whereof none can have so much as a hope so long as he remains in hatred or murder as above 16. Not content to instance in lesse then the highest perfection the Apostle here tells us what is perfect charity perfect dilection to lay down our lives for our neighbours souls as Christ did his for ours But not so as we can loose our spirituall life to gain the like life to our neighbour no this is against the rule of charity which ever regards it self but reserving our spirituall we may loose our temporall lives to gain our neighbours souls And not onely may but are here exhorted thereunto if we say commanded the text will bear it in case we see our neighbours soul in danger unlesse we venture our lives And in some cases men may and are bound to hazzard at least their own to save anothers life as first a souldier may rather choose to die in the place then yield to his enemy the advantage of that ground his commander trusted him to defend the like is of a citizen in defense of the whole city for the part is not of equall regard with the whole so Samson did as we reade Judg. 16. who oppressed himself with the ruine of a house thereby to oppresse the Philistines also and to save the people of God from their captivity and though they are not many examples of obligation yet we have many of election shewing divers have died to save the life of their friend divers have rendered themselves captive to redeem others from bondage divers have lost their lives to preserve the chastity of others as esteeming the life of grace in their neighbour more pretious then that of nature in themselves 17. Having shewed in the precedent verse that we are bound in some cases to poure out our blouds for our neighbours no marvell if here it be concluded he cannot have charity who seeing his neighbour in necessity shuts up the bowels of his mercy from him and will not allow him any relief And yet because this is so usuall a thing therefore to confound those who have such stony hearts the Text compells them to the necessity of doing the lesser upon all occasions by shewing before they were obliged to a much greater act of charity upon some particular emergencies as who should say though it be hard to lay down your life for another yet it must be easie to lay down your purse or some equivalent relief if you will merit the name of a Christian and give proof by your acts of mercy that the authour of mercy is within you and that your self do live spiritually by relieving your neighbour corporally Whence most Divines hold a man is bound in conscience to give alms more or lesse and that not onely in extream but even in common reall necessities as of meat drink clothing housing or the like grounded in that of Eccles chap. 4. v. 1. Child defraud not the poor man of that Alms which is due unto him from thee for indeed the portion of the poor is in the rich mans hands and God gives riches to the end rich men may have the merit of poverty by giving their goods away and poor men the benefit of riches by what they receive out of the surplus of others And because it is too long for my present purpose to inlarge upon this point I referre the reader to the fourth book of Salvianus dedicated to the Catholick Church wherein he shews how great a sinne it is for Church-men to inrich their kindred with the Churches treasure and for rich persons of the world to starve Christ in the persons of the poor while they feast the devil in the excesses of the rich by leaving their estates to such as will not make at least pious uses thereof I do heartily therefore recommend this Authour to all those rich persons who find flesh and bloud prevail more in them then pietie to the poor for if I be not much mistaken they will thank me to have done this charity to them who thought perhaps they did not stand in need thereof but their minds may be other after reading the solid pietie of this learned Authour Salvianus upon this particular subject 18. Lo here the word is opposed to the work the tongue to truth as if we did want charity that onely gave good words to the poor without alms or as if they wanted truth who fed the poor with words of comfort onely when they were able truely to satisfie their hunger and would not Not but that he is truely charitable who instructing feeds the soul at least when he cannot feed his body but that to do both is the duty of a Christian when both may be done and where both are wanting So the meaning of this text is that our charity ought to
the answer thereunto those who before knew not the number of them should by knowing how slender it was admire the miracle the more that followed when out of the mystical number of seven loaves four thousand persons were fed For mystical they were as having relation to the seven Sacraments which are so many several conduit-pipes of Gods grace into our soules whereby they are spiritually fed as those four thousand men were temporally with seven loaves they Were figures also of the seven-fold grace of the Holy Ghost giving to us seven special vertues three Theological four Cardinal in holy Baptisme as also of the seven gifts beside of the same holy Spirit 6. That the ground was the Table whereon our Saviour made his feast is no marvell for so in the law of nature men sate at meals to shew the superfluity of costly tables was as little agreeable to God as the excesse of their dishes also were and therefore here is onely bread and fish to feast upon since nature being content with little grace will not make her any meanes of excesse That he brake and blessed the bread before it multiplyed argues the vertue of his Benediction to have caused the multiplication so in the beginning of the world he blessed the creatures which he bid encrease and multiply to shew their multiplication was the fruit or effect of his Benediction That he gave not the bread himself to the people but to his disciples to distribute argues his breaking to the world the bread of his holy word not immediately by himself but by his Apostles and their Successours 7. The addition of fishes to the bread of this banquet argues that Priests must alwayes adde unto the word of God the pulpe or pap of good life that so our food may be in all kinds nourishing to soules 8. That hungry people did eat their fill no marvel when God allowed plenty That they took up the scraps was to instruct us never to permit the least of Gods Blessings to be wasted or lost much lesse the least of Gods words here signified by the crums falling from the Preachers mouth That there were seven basquets full of fragments no marvel neither since there were seven loaves at first and so it was fitting the Blessing of multiplication should appear in each by the reliques of every one of them as also to shew that all Almes to the poor are rewarded with abundance remaining to the giver 9. This verse onely recounts the number of those who were present at the feast and shared in the miracle who were not dismissed till each of them were satisfied and had their fill to shew that God leaves none of his servants unrewarded for their paines of loving and following him wheresoever he goes The Application 1. IT is admirable to see the fecundity of Gods holy Spirit how aptly the Prayer above corresponds to these two Texts that seem far differing from one another yet are both driving at all the same ends of increasing Religion in us and of nourishing the good things it bestowes upon us by the practise of Piety Which Piety we see was a special gift of the Holy Ghost infused into us in holy Baptisme and for the which we can no wayes be answerable to Almighty God but by the continual study or practise of it and doubtlesse this Piety is then very well practised in one particular thereof when men frequent the Blessed Sacrament which is the truest nourishment of goodnesse in us that can be imagined 2. Nor is this other then a genuine sense of the present Texts both of the Gospel and of the Prayer to day For all Expositours agree that this miracle alludes to the Blessed Sacrament whereby not onely many thousands but infinite millions of soules are fed and thereby nourished in the perfection of that Religion which by holy Baptisme as above they made profession of So that here by the practise of Piety we are to understand the frequent Communion 3. True it is we were told upon Sunday within the Octaves of Corpus Christi that this Communion was then given us as the figure thereof was given under the Juniper Tree to Elias for a food sufficient to carry us through the long way we had then to go before we came to Advent but that notwithstanding we may receive it as frequently as holy Piety moves us thereunto For this advantage the substance hath above the shadow the thing figured above the figure of it that what was once done to suffice for the nature of a figure may be often exercised in the thing figured because the love of grace is perfected by the frequent exercises of those acts that do confer grace whence it is that holy Church obligeth us once a year at least and that about Easter to receive this Sacrament as a viaticum unto us for the journey we are to make in the long way of vertue all the year after Neverthelesse by way of practising Piety our pious Mother allowes the frequent Communion besides permits us to eat of this heavenly food this bread of Angels as often as our devotion moves us thereunto by permission of our Ghostly Fathers not otherwise which to those that have many worldly businesses may be every moneth or three weeks it being now thereabouts since the Octaves ended of the Blessed Sacrament that now we have a memory of that holy mystery again and may be a good ground for Priests to regulate this devotion by yet this may be more or lesse frequent as the discretion of the ghostly Fathers shall order according to the progresse their penitents make in vertue by this and other Practises of Piety For to permit more frequent communion to those that do not daily advance in vertue were rather to give way to a dangerous singularity then to the practise of a profitable Piety since more regard must be had to a worthy receiving then to the frequency thereof Say now the Prayer above and see if both it and the Gospel be not exactly exhausted by this special Practise of Piety called frequent Communion On the seventh Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 7.18 A Good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit nor an evill tree good fruit Every tree which yieldeth not good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God whose providence is so disposed as it never can be frustrated remove we humbly beseech thee all things that are hurtfull and grant whatsoever may be beneficiall unto us The Illustration This prayer doubtlesse is very well suited to the present calamitous times we live in when we have no other helm to steer us out of the sea of troubles we are in but that Providence we now call upon which is so disposed as however we seem tossed in the waves of destruction it will infallibly bring us to the safe port of salvation if we sail or hold
to cry out to God as children do to their Parents Abba that is to say Father O high dignity able to raise any loyal soul high towards so good a God 16. By the Spirit himself is here understood both Christ in whom alone we are said to live and also the holy Ghost whence the Greek text saith The Spirit giveth joynt testimony not onely testifies as the Latine Text hath to shew that however the Word and the Spirit make two persons of the B. Trinity yet they both are but one God with the eternal Father O how excellently are we assured of this happy filiation when both the heavenly Father looks on us as such and his eternal Son together with the holy Ghost testifie and avouch us so to be 17. This last verse tells us we are not onely sons of God but his heires also and not onely his heires but his coheires with Christ and indeed it is fitting Gods children should have a better birth right then the children of the world whereof commonly one onely is heire but here all are coheires of Christ at least The Application 1. THe Expositours upon the first word of this Epistle tell us it is by the tye of our Faith plighted of our promise and covenant made to God in holy Baptisme that Therefore we are debtours onely to the Spirit And with great reason since every man remaines a debtour onely for such bonds as he hath tyed and bound himself by to his creditours Now because God Almighty did foresee how apt a man would be to flatter himself that he was bound by the Law of Nature to pamper that flesh which he had received from his Natural Parents and consequently might loose his soul by so pampering of his body therefore he was mercifully pleased by making man enter into better bonds those of holy baptisme to cancell all his former debts to any creature whatsoever and to make him become new debtour only to that holy Spirit which was both his Creatour and so had more right in him then his fleshly Parents had and also his Regeneratour and so begot him to a spiritual life or being which his first begetters were not able to confer upon him 2. But S. Paul not content to tell us in this Epistle that we are onely debtours to the Spirit and the reason why because of the bond we entered into at holy baptisme of loving God above all things and of living wholly unto him proceeds to animate us towards the performance of this debt by shewing us the gallant effect thereof namely that it makes us as well the heires as sons of God and not heires onely but co-heires of Christ 3. Now in regard the Preachers office is to tell us how to pay this debt how to live spiritually and by so living to secure ourselves of this ineffable co-heiretage which office the Expositours upon this holy Text have at least in part supplyed therefore it remained onely that our holy Mother the Church should make us such a Prayer as might be most suitable to this doctrine and none so suiting it as that which begs our thoughts may be rightly such as suggest to operations answerable to our beeing spiritual altogether That so as it was a pure act of love in God to adopt us here his children in Grace we by re-loving him that is by living according to our better being may be yet further adopted his children in Glory and thus may be made the co-heires of Christ indeed Say now the Prayer above and see beloved if it be not most apposite to this holy purpose The Gospel Luk. 16.1 c. 1 And he said to his disciples There was a certain rich man that had a Bailiffe and he was ill-reported unto him as he that had wasted his goods 2 And he called him and said to him what hear I this of thee render account of thy Baili-ship for thou canst no more be Bailiffe 3 And the Bailiffe said within himself what shall I do because my Lord taketh away from me the Baili-ship digge I am not able to beg I am ashamed 4 I know what I will do that when I shall be removed from the Baili-ship they may receive me into their houses 5 Therefore calling together every one of his Lords debtours he said to the first how much doest thou owe my Lord 6 But he saith An hundred pipes of oyl And he said to him take thy bill and sit down quickly write fifty 7 After he said to another But thou how much dost thou owe who said An hundred quarters of wheat He said to him take thy bill and write eighty 8 And the Lord praised the Bailiffe of iniquity because he had done wisely For the children of this world are wiser then the children of light in their generation 9 And I say to you Make you friends of the Mammon of iniquity that when you fail they may receive you into the eternal Tabernacles The Explication 1. THis parable shewes that all Christians bear office of Trust in Gods Church and are onely to administer his goods not to waste or use them as their own and this is meant whether they have goods of nature or of grace they are to account for all to him And our accuser here mentioned is the devil who justly layes waste to our charge as well when we use not Gods gifts well as when we use them ill So still Christians must do good and not onely decline evil else they lye liable to the devils accusations 2. O how clement a Master do we serve how gently he rebukes when even in Justice he is bound to take an account of our perfidiousnesse Where he sayes now thou must not be longer Bailiffe is understood I cannot in justice let thee be longer in trust of my goods then whilest thou doest administer them faithfully An excellent lesson to keep us close to our duties 3. We see here the accusation is not false the Bailiffe pretends not that he confesseth his guilt when he asks what shall I do since he cannot hope for longer trust from his master This puts us in mind of our miserable condition at the latter account in respect whereof it followes there is no ability in us to labour amends by further service for then the time as well as the power of further labour is past and to beg relief of any other master is a shame to man that had so good a master of Almighty God whose favour he hath lost for ever 4. This verse shewes the Bailiffe had resolved with himself to cheat his master so to provide for himself by their means whom he had favoured to his masters prejudice 5. 6. 7. These verses need not explanation as shewing only how much he cheated his master of 8. Note the word Lord here is taken for the Bailiffes master not for our Saviour as some mistake it and truly the context proves as much for our Saviour undertakes to tell this story as in the
more since there is no more time to work salvation in then that between his birth and his coming to judgement 12. This verse seems added lest any should conceive the former menaces did not belong to him in particular for such is the condition of humane frailty that who to day is a Saint may tomorrow be a sinner and therefore the Apostle bids us all stand upon our guard 13. This Greek phrase of the imperative moode Let not c. is to be understood in the Latine and English as if it were in the preterperfect tense of the indicative and would say hath not that is the temptations you have had were but mere humane namely to contention to lust to liberty and the like such as are common to all mankind but are easily avoyded by the help of grace bestowed on us by our faithfull God who as the following words assure us will not desert us in our temptations nor let us be tempted above our strength much lesse doth God as Calvin sayes thrust us on or tempt us himself nor doth he as Luther will have it impose things impossible on us to whom his grace as to Saint Paul it was is all sufficient and from whom he never takes the said grace till we reject it or by our consent to sin expell it Contrary God permits us not to be tempted but that we may thereby gain greater force to endure yet further assaults as who should say the issue of our temptation is if we will our victory and inabling us to a new if need be to a greater combat for thus much import the last words of the verse that we may be able to sustain these and yet greater onsets if we will our selves use the grace which God gives us to resist them with The Application 1. THe summe of this Epistle is to tell us Christians that what punishments were inflicted on the little children of Almighty God the Jewes who had onely the Alphabet the Elements of religion bestowed upon them will if we commit the like sins befall us too that a e the Men the Combatants the Champions of Jesus Christ honoured by him so far as to have the perfection of religion taught us by himself not onely in the delivery of his holy word unto us but in the example of his sacred person doing before our eyes much more then he expects from us because we should have no excuse from doing our endeavours in some sort at least to follow his saving footsteps 2. It will therefore behove us that are now marching our long journey through the desert of this world to the kingdome of heaven upon the feet of Christian charity to behave our selves as we were passing some narrow and loose bridge standing o're a precipice of deepest waters full of rocks sure to pash us in peices or to drown us if we fall for to this reflection the 1â—th verse and close of this Epistle lead us And by this means we shall be sure to beg both faith and hope to lead our charity over this dangerous passage lest while she thinks she stands she fall upon the sharpest rock of all before our eyes to day Idolatry by idolizing to her own inventions in seeking of her self not looking after Jesus Christ in her devotions or upon the splitting rock of Fornication by pouring out her affections on the alluring creatures of the world which she hath made by her baptismal vow solemnly sacred to Almighty God alone or into the deepest pit of Tempting Christ in her prayers by praying to God for things she should renounce and not enjoy her own inordinate desires and so indeavouring to give God law instead of begging favour at his hands to make her self God instead of captivating her rebellious will to his holy pleasure or lastly into the desperate swallowing gulf of Murmur by repining at God Almighties bounties when she sees any prosper whom she loves not especially when this murmuring arrives to the malice of envying her neighbours spirituall good 3. O beloved if this be the frequent practise of Christians who pretend charity to be their guide how ought the reflection of it to strike us into a religious awe into a holy fear into a dread indeed lest while we make a shew to men of saintity we practise iniquity And therefore holy Church to day hath made a prayer so excellently suiting to this purpose that it alone said with a heart which beats according to the lip that saies it will suffice to cure us of those evils and to secure our charity she shall hold her footing o're the narrow bridge of danger If while she prayes she perfectly renounce her own desires and beg of God Almighty only that which is agreable unto his holy will and pleasure The Gospel Luke 19. v. 41. c. 41 And as he drew near seeing the city he wept upon it saying 42 Because if thou hadst known and that in this thy day the things that pertain to thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes 43 For the dayes shall come upon thee and thy enemies shall compasse thee with a trench and inclose thee about and straiten thee on every side 44 And beat thee flat to the ground and thy children that are in thee And they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation 45 And entring into the Temple he began to cast out the sellers therein and the buyers 46 Saying to them It is written That my house is the house of Prayer but you have made it a den of thieves 47 And he was teaching daily in the Temple The Explication 41. HEre our Saviour shewed the tender bowels of his humane nature when drawing near Jerusalem the head city of his own chosen people whither he was sent by his heavenly Father to redeem them and all the world besides seeing by his al-seeing eye that maugre the exclamations of the children and people who shewed his way into the City yet he should by the chief commanders there be crucified in requital of his love he fell a weeping mixing the wine of his triumph with the water of his tears to shew us how to temper our pleasures here Three causes there were of our Saviours tears upon this city The first the blindnesse obduracy and ingratitude of his chosen people that would not receive their Messias and Saviour The second the revenge of God upon them by Titus who was to be their destruction by this ingratitude The third the losse as it were of all his own labours upon his best beloved children most of the sons of that city 42. That is if thou o my beloved city didst know as I do and that in this thy day when I come to give thee a kisse of peace from heaven being sent unto thee by my eternall Father when I enter thy gates to redeem and save thee which is indeed a thing appertaining to thy eternall
present good any longer in hope of we know not yet what future happinesse in our celestials therefore to shew the constancy of her charity in doing good holy Church begs it as a grace to day that she may not onely persevere in good works but further do them exactly and purely in honour of Gods holy Name least what may seem good in man's eye prove bad in the sight of his heavenly Majesty Say now the prayer above and see if it be not sutable to this application The Gospel Mat â—8 23 c. 23 Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a man being a King that would make an account with his Servants 24 And when he began to make the account there was one presented unto him that owed him ten thousand talents 25 And not having whence to repay it his Lord commanded that he should be sold and his Wife and his Children and all that he had and it to be repayed 26 But that Steward falling down before him said Have patience towards me and I will repay thee all 27 And the Lord of that Servant moved with pity dismissed him and forgave him the debt 28 And when that Servant was gone forth he found one of his fellow-servants that did ow him a hundred pence and laying hands upon him throtled him saying Repay that thou owest 29 And his fellow servant falling down besought him saying Have patience towards me and I will repay thee all 30 And he would not but went his way and cast him into Prison till he repayed the debt 31 And his fellow servants seeing what was done were very sorry and they came and told their Lord all that was done 32 Then his Lord called him and said unto him Thou ungraciouâ— Servant I forgave thee all the debt because thou besoughtest me and oughtest not thou therefore also to have mercy upon thy fellow servant even as I had mercy upon thee 33 And his Lord being angry delivered him to the Tormentours untill he had repaid all the debt 34 So also shall my heavenly Father do to you if you forgive not every one his Brother from your hearts The Explication 23. THe sense of this verse is that look what this Parable reports to be done here between Debtour and Creditour on Earth the same will be done in Heaven between God and his Creatures wherefore not so much the Kingdom of Heaven as the course of it is here described in this Parable 24. By the number of ten thousand talents of money owing from the Servant to the Master is here assigned a certain for an uncertain Debt or indeed a finite for an infinite namely a mortal sin against Almighty God which how ever finite in the act is infinite in the malice because committed against an infinite Goodnesse So that by deadly sin a man becomes debtour to God and stands bound to repay him all the Gifts Virtues and Graces infused into his Soul by holy Baptisme and squandered away by any one deadly sin so the debt is of the treasure of Heaven the grace of the holy Ghost spent by a sinner which God trusted him with and which by sin he hath wasted 25. By this command to sell the non-solvent debtour as also his wife children and all the goods he hath is intimated that for any one mortal sin a man and all that is dear unto him is confiscate to Almighty God and ought to be sold to be cast into eternal pains and so though this be nothing towards repayment of the debt yet since he had sold grace Heaven God and all for sin now by right God should sell his sin body soul and all to the devil though still his goodnesse as long as man lives reserves a place for repentance such as in the following verse we find Note here the particularizing to sell wife and children adds nothing to the mystery more then to show man looseth himself and all that is dear unto him by sin 26. Alas what can poor man afford towards the repayment of so great a treasure when 't is wasted by him Hence the text sayes true nature cannot make good a debt of grace But yet if the creature do humbly prostrate it self at the feet of the Creatour and acknowledge with sorrow the fault oâ— incurring so great a debt and beg of God grace to make good what nature cannot then God his goodnesse is so great thaâ— he gives such a sorrowing soul so great a help of grace as makes him able to pay the debt to recover what he lost for so may the debtour have again as much as he had spent to repay thâ— Creditour since God the creditour accounts himself repaid for sin by his servants recovering grace which they had lost for the very truth is God cannot lose by any creature and he esteems so much of a creatures cooperation with his holy grace that in such a case he reckons his own gifts to man as a repayment of mans debt to him 27. This verse proves the former to be explicated in a right sense so it needs no more enlargement 28. This verse besides the ingratitude it showes in man to God not forgiving his brother Gods image as himself was forgiven so again it showes the narrownesse of mans heart and the largenesse of Gods one forgiving an infinite debt being but asked so to do the other not remitting a petty one by any entreaty whatsoever 29. Strange that we cannot kneel with humble heart to God but he relents and yet to man no bow of knee or heart prevailes Note here patience or forbearance of the debt was truly and properly demanded upon promise and just hope of payment after a while because it is not out of mans power to pay man what is due unto him though 't is impossible we can hope to make even scores with God unlesse he rather remit then demand the debt So the patience asked by the servant of his Lord was rather an artifice to gain time hoping by intervention of Friends rather to get the debt remitted then that there was any likelihood of this servants payment of it what fair promises so ever he made in the instant of his being pressed because that was a debt from a creature to God but this is onely a debt between man and man so here to delay was not to delude or elude the debt and considering it was asked of him for a little summ who had before obtained remission of an infinite great one truly the debt ought by all means to have been forborn if not forgiven 30. Here we see how true it is that the rigour of the law is highest injury This man did but use the rigour of the law yet he had before a pattern set him oâ— mercy from his master and therefore that ought to have moved him to show some favour at least and to forbear rigour But by this we are advertised how unchristian a thing it is in us to beg absolution for