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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58916	A sermon preach'd in the chappel of His Excellency the Spanish embassador on the second Sunday of Advent, December 4. 1687. On which was solemniz'd the Feast of St. Francis Xaverius, of the Society of Jesus, apostle of the Indies and Kingdom of Japan. By the R.F. Lewis Sabran of the same Society. Permissu superiorum.	Sabran, Lewis, 1652-1732.	1687 (1687)	Wing S221A; ESTC R219047	32,337	38

things else that they all vanished frequently from his Thoughts whilst God only ever reigned in his Heart If the Second Duty of Charity be to love all things else for Gods sake in view only of the Report which they have to him and in the Measure he requires as St. Prosper observes how perfect was the Love of Xaverius for God when for his sake he embraced so tenderly what Nature so much loaths so much abhors As Toils Want Disgraces Dangers Pains Death and even hated all what Sense is charmed with or what natural Inclinations most affect whenever it failed that they opposed the increase of his Charity This this is the surest Test the infallible Proof of a Divine and truly Apostolical Mission that richest of Gods Gifts that Flaming Gold so prized in the Revelations the Love of God. The Second unquestionable Mark by which if we may believe our Blessed Lord his true Disciples are to be discerned is their tender Love for their Neighbor a passionate Zeal for In hoc cognoscent omnes quod discipulimei istis si dilectionem habueritis ad invicem Joan. 13. his Salvation In this Virtue Xaverius perfectly Copied the great Apostle of the Gentiles His Voyages over most dangerous Seas and his Journeys ever afoot by Land in the pursuit of such Sinners as wandered from God led him so far in Ten Years time that he might with a far flower Motion have gone often round the Globe of the Earth Yet in the Transports of his Zeal he designed as his Letters witness not only to Preach the Gospel to the vast Empire of China and Tartary but after he had subdued those to the sweet Yoke of Christ to return thence by the North into Europe that he might retrieve those Lost recover those Separated Hereticks and gather them again within the Pales of that One Sheepfold of the Catholic Church where they should hear again with due Submission the Voice of their own only Shepherd Nothing could fright his Zeal not the three Shipwrecks he had suffered not the Danger he had run like another St. Paul for three Days and Nights exposed on a narrow Plank to the mercy of the most boistrous Waves and loudest Storms He often dream'd before he was designed for the Conversion of the new World that he carried an Indian on his Shoulders he groaned under that Burden 'T was not One but a Million of them he bore after in his Heart weeping often most bitterly when he reflected on the almost inevitable danger of Eternal Misery they unhappily were exposed unto He highly valued the Conversion of any one single Soul rightly apprehending its worth Redeemed with the most precious Blood of his Saviour and capable to love and possess God for all Eternity Hence he suddenly engaged himself in a long Sea-Voyage only to use that Opportunity of winning to a true Repentance One single loose Liver who was on Shipboard To retrieve three Souldiers from their wicked Life he consined himself for a whole Lent to their most uneasie Company Day and Night He sent word to the only two impenitent Sinners he had left at Ternate that whenever they should let him know that they had a thought of Repenting and altering their lewd Life he should instantly repair to them from the utmost Extremity of the East to favor their pious Disposition and direct them in so happy a Design He seemed comfortless when he observed that some Merchants led by Covetousness had discovered Countries to which his Zeal for the Instruction of the Ignorant and Conversion of Sinners had not yet brought him As long as he found Children to Catechise Europeans to Preach unto Indians to Instruct unmindful of himself he joyned Nights unto Days in those Apostolical Functions without allowing his wearied Body and decayed Spirits the least refreshment of Food or Rest Then and then only he conceived himself with the blessed Martyr Ignatius Nunc incipio esse discipulus Christi S. Ig. Epist ad Rom. to begin to be a Disciple of Christ a Member of the Society of JESVS All other Virtues ever wait on their Queen Charity They were in Xaverius in as large a measure His Humility was so unfeigned and great that he never blamed the Stubbornness Blindness or other ill Dispositions of those Souls in whose Conversions his Endeavors were frustrated or who opposed the progress of the Gospel but sincerely persuaded that his Sins put the whole obstruction to Gods Graces condemned himself to severe Penances for their Expiation Tho' the Character of Legat à Latere from his Holiness seemed to add such a Lustre to his Mission and on several occasions could favor his Apostolical Attempts yet his Humility never permitted him to publish it or to use the Power it conferred save once not long before his Death when he conceived that nothing else could open him an Entrance into the Empire of China which the Avarice and Envy of Alvares Governor of Malaca had shut up His Obedience was so ready so punctual so nicely exact that he consulted his Superior and Father St. Ignatius on every occasion even at that vast distance and never swerved from his precise Orders acknowledging that the least Letter of the Alphabet the least i which in Latin signifies Go dropt from Ignatius's Pen should move him to abandon without the least reluctancy his greatest Enterprises for the Glory of God tho' at the same instant the largest prospect of certain Hopes the fairest appearance of Success should Court his Stay yet that small Letter should lead him with Joy to any part even of the unhabitable World. His Chastity was so Entire that his Confessors judged him to have preserved that tender Virginity unsullied without the least Blemish So well guarded that when the Enemy not daring to assail him awake attempted by immodest Dreams to disturb the innocent Repose of his Soul the violent motion of his Body in rejecting from him those Phantômes of tempting Objects and the more eager reluctancy of his Soul made him bleed To omit the Particulars of his other Vertues I shall conclude with the Maxim and Practice which gave them their first birth favored their growth and preserved them in their full lustre This great Principle of a Christian Life he had learnt from St. Ignatius at his first Conversion it had from that moment been deeply engrave in his Memory and the sense of it in his Heart a Tantum proficies quantum tibi ipsi vim intuleris Your Self-denials your Mortifications the violence you use in curbing your own Inclinations are the measure of your advancement in Gods Service He knew that Sacrifices have ever been the chiefest part of Divine Worship and that no Victims are so acceptable as a mortified b Cor contritum humiliatum Deus non despicies Psal 18. a contrite and humble Heart He had learnt from our Blessed Lord how the Kingdom of God that especially of his particular Graces and Favors

Habit I have the Honor to wear the Society I am an unworthy Member of challenges it a Society he won such a Credit unto and reciprocally so valued that his last Letters from Cochino into Europē own that he miraculously escaped an infinity of Dangers by recommending himself to the Merits and Prayers of the living and deceased Members of it that he could make no end when he spoke of the value of and love for it which he had that he should sooner forget his h Cum oblitus fuero tui societas Jesu oblivioni detur dextera mea Epist l. 2. Ep. 2. Ex Card. Anton Zapata own Right-hand than that tenderness In fine this very Chappel of the Catholic King forbids me to pass by a Saint of the Royal Blood of Navar whose prodigious Success in Apostolical Labors hath gained to Spain the glorious Character which St. Prosper gave to Catholic Rome to wit That i Quidquid non possidet armis Religione tenet Carm. de Ing. what Parts of the World her Sword hath not subdued to her Empire her Piety and Religion hath Conquered for Christ k Maria sancta Mater Domini nostri Jesu Christi obtine pro nobis ab amabili filio tuo ut credamus hanc veritatem sine ullo dubio Epist l. 1. Ep. 5. Sacred Virgin the great Xaverius never begun a Sermon or Catechism without begging by your Intercession the Knowledge and Practice of the Vertue he treated of In Imitation of him I beg of your Divine Son by the Mediation of your Intercession that I may even to the most wilfully blind of Sectaries shew in the Life and miraculous Actions of Xaverius the most evident Proofs of true Religion and Piety to be found only in the Catholic Church and to the Members thereof the Security of their Faith the Sanctity of their Law the Piety of their Practices AVE MARIA OUR Blessed Lord being to give convincing Proofs of his Divinity to St. John's Disciples such as by their Evidence should lay them and the whole Nation of the Jews under a clear Obligation of owning him drew them not from the written Law or any part of Holy Scripture nor from any Character of Divinity or any such self-persuading Truth that appeared in his holy Word tho' uttered from his own Blessed Mouth or from the Holiness of his Principles the Sanctity and Congruity of his whole Doctrin such Marks could be comprehended by few or were the very Points in Debate He took them from plain Matters of Fact exposed to the dullest proportioned to the meanest Capacities for such ought to be the Proofs of a Religion which excluded none from its Profession but opened Heaven equally to all This was the first the grand and certain Motive of Credibility disposing all to reduce their Understandings unto a due humble subjection to Faith The blind see the lame walk the leprous are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised to life By which he left to each Man this Argument to frame Where such evident Prodigies are wrought 't is clear that Gods Hand subscribes to the Doctrin in Evidence whereof they are brought But Gods infinite Veracity cannot attest and his equal Bounty cannot admit us to be most credibly persuaded that he does attest an Untruth Therefore all that Christ teaches is true he is then the Son of God since he declares himself to be so In the beginning of his Preaching he had exposed to the Jews the same Motive by which he pretended they were to be convinced of their Obligation of receiving him to wit because a Hunc enim signavit Deus Joan. 6. his Father Sealed his Commission by which he authorised him to Preach Some Ages before the Prophet Isay warned that incredulous Nation that the clear Marks by which they should undoubtedly know this great Prophet should be these self-same b Tunc aperientur oculi caecorum aures surdorum tunc patebunt saltet tanquam Cervus claudus Isa 35. miraculous Cures of their Sick their blind their lame their leprous Which Wonders were so convincing that our Blessed Lord owned to the Jews that altho' they refused to yield to those Motives which he offered them in his Sermons yet they could not without obstinacy refuse c Opera quae Ego facio testimonium perhibent de me illis credite si verbis non vultis Joan 10. a Belief to his Works which could part from no other Hand but that of God. Such was their Blindness yet such also was the Light his Miracles did yield towards the discovery of the Truths which he taught them that he acknowledged they might have found an Excuse for their Insidelity and without sin have refused to submit to him had he not d Si opera non fecissem in illis quae nemo alius fecit peccatum non haberent Joan. 15. 1 Cor. 4. 2 Cor. 12. wrought greater Miracles than any before amongst them to which consequently no other like Miracles could be pretended to be opposed and therefore nothing that might weaken their Divine Authority to which they could not without a heinous sin refuse Obedience and an entire Submission This was the Method used by Christ as the most natural and clear the most capable to conquer Mens proud yet dull Minds and to fasten their unsteddy and wavering Hearts to Faith and Religion His Apostles used the same To instance in one St. Paul challenges a submissive Belief to what he had Preached from the Corinthians because he had proved himself an Apostle not only by his Patience the true Test of Real and Solid Virtue but also by Signs Prodigies and Power And there being some false Apostles who oppos'd him seduc'd from him his Neophytes and valu'd themselves much on their Preaching and Discourses he minds them that the Word of God is not chiefly attested by Words but by Power And indeed as St. Chrysostom observes a Quando novum a liquid fit praecipuum signa Deus facere confuevit praestat qurdam pignora suae potentiae iisqui legem ejus accipiunt Chrys ho. 14. in Mat. when God declares any new thing or orders any of great importance and such is if any a General Reformation in Faith he uses to work Wonders yielding some pledges of his Power to those who receive his Law. b Adjuncta sunt paaedicatoribus miracula ut Fidem verbis daret virtus ostensa Nova facerent qui nova praedicarent Greg. hom 4. in Evang. Ut magnitudinem promissorum probet magnitudo signorum Hier. Matt. 10. Infirmos curate c. He joyned saith St. Gregory Miracles to Preaching that such an appearance of Power should give credit to Words and their Works should be unusual whose Doctrin was new That their great Promises saith St. Hierom should find a fit warrant in equally great Wonders Hence we no sooner read that Christ had chosen Twelve Apostles and had sent them but that we find