If any of you want wisdome let him aske it of God who giveth it to all men abundantly So as this joy is a spirit extracted out of patience not inherent in the matter of passion and patience is a virtue too celestiall to be educed as it were ex traduce by the materiall body of affliction It is infused by the holy spirit which S. Paul confirmeth when he saith Rom. 5. that Tribulation worketh patience shewing the reason of this operation in the next words after the sequence of many good productions derived from one another he setteth this for the effective cause of all because The charity of God is powred forth in our hearts by the holy Ghost Rom. 5.5 So as it is the spirit of God moving upon these Waters which divideth the light from the darknesse not the Chaos it selfe that actively produceth these two lights of patience and hope although the troubles and confusions of this world may be the elements out of which the spirit may extract them For sufferings seeme to be to patience that which matter is to the artificer for though the art be seated in the minde yet it cannot be actuated and expres'd but by some matter that supports it so patience though it be a spirituall disposition inherent in the soule cannot be exercised but upon some passion and contrariety which is the subject that renders it visible and discernable for the Theory of this virtue can no more assure us of our abilities in it then the studie of all the Geometricall rules of Sculpture can ascertain a Statuary of his sufficiency untill he hath experimented it upon either stone and brasse or waxe or clay at least some matter is requisite to reflect to him the sight of his notions formed and reduced to their last terme which is a visible exhibition of them So there must be some afflictions though not the severest yet some at least of a softer quality which must minister some matter of contrariety and vexation to be as the ground and subject exposing to our selves the worke of our patience upon it Wherefore as joy in tribulations must be derived from Patience so this vertue must be acquired by Prayer They who look lower then God for patience doe commonly look also lower then heaven for the order of their afflictions and so fall short both in the knowledge of the nature of their evils and their remedies For they who rely on nature or morall reason for their cure may well be judged to impute their malady to Fortune Whereupon S. James giveth this further advise to that of our petitioning and postulating of wisdome James 6. that We must aske in faith without any doubting or haesitation not tossing in an irresolution of referring our crosses to the eye of Providence or to the blindnesse of Fortune Such a wavering aestuation of spirit the Apostle saith must not expect to receive any thing Our prayer therefore must be as fixed in the beliefe of Gods speciall providence in all contingencies as it is in the confession of a God for the one involveth the other and then we shall finde such a joy in patience as our reason it selfe shal witnesse to be divine as being beyond her reach so much as she must avow it to be Digitus Dei Wherefore I beseech you to beware of the fluctuation of these times betweene the strength of morall reason and the rest of faith for there is nothing so injurious to reason as under the pretence of exalting it to raise it out of the owne sphere of activity exacting such effects of Reason as are not to be found lower then the orbe of grace For they who assigne themselves peace and repose in all tribulations out of the stock of Phylosophie prejudice Reason much by their over-promising for it For Morall Phylosophie at the highest is but as it were a Meteor suspended in the ayre betweene the earth of a meere sensuall 1 Cor. 15. The first man of earth earthly The second man from heaven heavenly and the firmament of a spirituall man It is not so much raised above the man who is de terrâ terrenus as it is below him who is de coelo coelestis wherefore all the sweet-sounding and harmonious tongues of the Phylosophers are but sounding brasse or tinkling cymbals when they come to be used without the charity infused by the fiery tongues of Sion We shall find the hollownesse of such tongues which raised their noise to our eares very light when we take them into our hands to weigh against the heavinesse and gravations of sad crosses and oppressions Methinks many of the Heathen Phylosophers supposed in their prescripts concerning the minds insensiblenesse in all the passions and pressures of the body that the body had but such a coexistence of place with the mind as we say those bodies of aire have with the Angels that assume them in which those spirits are onely as movers in a moveable subject not at all united or affected thâ—â— matter appeareth about them which is not informed by them but assumed by them to expose them to our sight and so is only moved by them without any connexion to them So sure their suppositions that the minde may remaine unconcerned in all the sufferances and tortures of the flesh require that our bodies should be but such ayery matter rather moved only then informed by our soules For that apathie the Stoicks propose in all the bodies distresses cannot hold in that connexion our soules and bodies have with one another and so whosoever shall relye upon their conclusions shall finde their conceits ayery and vacuous and their owne bodies too solid and too closely conjoyned to their souls not to be affected with the burthens and pressures of it Wherefore our faith teacheth us to resort to a higher Principle residing in our soule and yet is no part of it which is the Holy spirit of God infused by his grace whereby we are instructed in the incapacities and deficiencies of our owne nature and the detection of our minds inability in her own single power proveth her enforcement nay inablement to resent all the bodies grievances yet to bear them without distraction or reluctancy and this discernment of that obnoxious state the soule is exposed unto showeth her That as she can doe nothing of her selfe but suffer and complain so in virtue of that supplementall aid she can rejoyce in tribulations and professe Phil. 4.14 I can doe all things in him that strengthens me Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat Whereupon we must be possessed of this principle that peace of minde doth not spring up in affliction as the plants did in Paradise Genes 2. without either raine or culture Patience which is the dew of heaven must be drawn from thence and this as it is attracted only by the meanes Elias used to open heaven so likely it holds this analogy with his small cloude he could
be violated and offended nay he subjected himselfe to his greatest enemy the Divell himselfe when he suffered him to carry him up to the pinnacle of the Temple so there is no creature from the sublimest to the meanest from the best to the worst to whom Christ did not humiliate himselfe And thus you see this arche of humiliation set as it were on another bow in the clouds of his humanity for a signe of this Covenant of sufferances wherein I have suggested to you your ingagement and this bow of his Covenant is so extended as it makes a perfect circle it reacheth from the sphere of angelicall to that of inanimate substances to both which we see Christ did submit himselfe and so his subjection toucheth the highest and the lowest point of his owne creatures Which consideration of his ineffable humility must needs assure us of that admirable effect it hath produced of converting crosses into the nourishment of his body left upon earth and so to bring that which separated his soule and his body now to be the meanes of reuniting the body to the head For the Crosse is left in his Church to conjoyne and consociate the members unto their suffering head Christ Jesus and we may well adde that this Divine signe of the Crosse set in the Heaven of his Person so conspicuously remains as a sensible marke of his promise to the Church of never being drown'd in any inundation of crosses falling on her Looking up therefore to the heavenly object of Christs sufferings we may be comforted by our similitude and we may rejoyce at our security which this Covenant recapitulateth to us as often as we contemplate it insomuch as there is none of you who groan under any pressure or tremble under any oppression Heb. 12.2 that looking up upon the anthor and finisher of our faith Christ Jesus may not see him bearing the same crosse with joy despising the confusion of it Whether you sweat under your burdens or whether you bleed under the edge of these times you shall find your persecution both civill and sanguinary patternd to you in the person even of God and Man Christ Jesus who hath not left so much as your feares and terrors out of the exemplar of his passions Mar. 14.33 He began to be heavy and to feare his Caepit taedere pavere was designed purposely as a cordiall in your fits of fainting and if there were any point in your afflictions which were not exemplifide to you in Christs passions that circumstance ought to prove to you a sufficient consolation in that you had some suffering to offer to Christ of your owne besides the copye and pourtraicture of his But alas all that we can imagin in our own paines wherein there is imitation of his is that which we may better blush at then boast of for it is only the guilt of deserving more then we can endure in this life this is simply ours in our afflictions wherein we find no resemblance in the figure of Christs sufferings which part of our cases may make us offer up to Christ a thankfull alacrity in all temporall penalties inflicted on us for having taken off from us the burthen we could not remove by any sufferings and having left us only such pressures as may aleviate the weight of that intolerable gravation which is the guilt of sinne for our crosses in this life by the vertue of the Crosse of Christ whereof our heaviest are but chippes or shavings doe not only keepe our sinnes lower but also weigh against the temporall penalty of those which are in the scale It may admit a question whether it be a more precious Christian exercise to doe good or to endure evills That state is certainly the best in which both are conjoyned when suffering many grievances we act as many good as we are able yet God hath provided matter of meriting in both conditions severally let them then who have nothing left to give to God by way of actions rejoyce in the faculty of sorrowes which furnish them meritorious offerings in all their necessities When King David extols the dignity of man he raiseth it upon this ground that God had made him but a little lower then Angells Psal 8. But in this respect we may say that God hath advantaged him above them by furnishing him with more instruments of meriting then they have by having coupled a body to this spirit in which he may suffer for Christ when many other capacities of expressing his gratitude are suspended For man hath not only all the severall powers of his minde but also the senses of his body given him as organs of meriting by carrying the Crosse upon them With this corporeall furniture man is enriched above Angells so as man may even out of the greatest infirmities of his constitution extract matter of glorification This vertue hath been imparted to the vility of flesh and blood since God vouchsafed to be invested in it our flesh received this priviledge not only of being admitted into heaven but of contributing to the soule 's degrees of glory by the proportions of the bodies fufferings and as S. Paul saith Rom. 8.13 It is no wonder that God having given his owne Sonne to human nature should have given all these other prerogatives with him Out of this state of our mortality the Saints shall rise as high as they should have done from the state of innocence immortality which shews that they are equally sanctified in the brevity shortnesse of their life now to what they should have attained in many ages if they had remained immortall The multitude of sorrowes and crosses by the grace of Christ countervaileth and compensateth the numerousnesse of the yeeres of our service Our Redeemer hath left this compendious way of meriting by the necessities molestations of our flesh the which he would not expunge in it that he might present his Father the children of his most precious passions as much purified in a little time as they should have been in the efflux of many ages He who raised above the highest heaven the heavinesse of our earth upon this Engine of the Crosse hath left it us to winde up the easilyer our terrestrial qualities upon the same machine This was the means which S. Paul made use of in all his elevations up to the third heaven Christo confixus sum cruci Gal. 2.20 With Christ I am nailed to the Crosse carryed him up to that sublimity and he kept himself so close nayled to the Crosse all his life as when he was weak he was strongest and never esteemed his raptures so much as his revilings and ignominies He professeth to glory willingly in nothing but in his humiliations Libenter gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis 2 Cor. 12. Gladly wil I glory in my infirmities in contumelies in necessities in distresses for Christ c. in contumeliis in necessitatibus in angustiis pro
equanimity and patience the devill himselfe knew not how to calumniate his pride would not allow him to own such expressions of power and so that temper of passivenesse was accepted as divine often when the thunder and lightning of the other side of their Commission passed for diabolicall Patience then seemeth a property which God doth not allow the devill so much as to counterfeit the possession of He is permitted to transfigure himself into an Angel of light rather then into the forme of a resigned contented sufferer as being an unalienable prerogative of Christ and the most dangerous delusion whereby he could worke upon the spirits of men and therefore this is the speciall difference between the suggestions of good and evill spirits to us when they come both clothed in pious supervestures that the hand of the proud spirit leaves alwaies some elation disquiet or impatience in us to vent and divulge the virtues and graces he seemeth to dispense but the sincere inspiration of the holy spirit alwaies calmeth and stilleth any emotion or impatience in the possession of his graces and leaves no heat or glowing in our hearts that solliciteth us to evaporate that spirit of joy and peace by which they are solaced but humbly and patiently to enclose them within the humility of our own breasts And thus true Christians by the virtue of their Comforter cording to Christs advice possesse their soules in patience which giveth them so inviolable a possession of their mindes as the devill can neither distraine them by the power of his ministers injuries nor distract them by the paintings of his owne artifices Wherefore God doth punish the devill by allowing him the exercising of the patience of his Saints as S. Gregory saith Holy Job was more Sathans torturer then Sathan was the others tempter for Jobs felicity was not repealed by God but only translated out of prosperity into adversity which is the mother-tongue of the Saints Patience is so unintelligible even to the devils subtilty as if he could conceive it he might quench his flames with it but God in punishment of his first strange impatience in not resting quieted with his condition hath made eternall impatience the fuell of his tortures and on the contrary Patience which induceth an equality in the Saints in all their various vexations of this life is a kinde of image of the state of their beatitude while in all their externall commotions they retaine a smooth and even composure of mind which is a kind of image of eternity that is alwaies the same and in relation to this S. Paul states the highest virtue of the glory of Christ in this Coloss 1.2 of remaining in all patience and longanimity with joy so as that work which all the voluptuary arts are long about and after much labour make but a little joy and quickly looseth it again patience finisheth in a moment and converteth all into delight and satisfaction and treasureth it up as an eternal provision nay patience is so powerfull as it can turne into pleasure all those occurrences which sensuality must run away from to save her petty joyes All sorts of injuries of fortune or of time are presently translated by this vertue into nourishment and delectation for patience as Tertullian saith hath God answerable for all she layes up in his hand if she deposite an injury in his hand he is her revenger if a losse he is her reimburser if a sickness he is her mediciner if death he is her reviver What a freedome doth God allow Patience to make him her debtor of all she commits to his trust And thus we see unless we can finde somewhat that God cannot convert into joy there is nothing that doth not return that profit to Patience The Philosophers commended Patience highly because they accounted suffering an evill which that did asswage and mitigate but a Christian may in regard that it is good for him to suffer esteem Patience as the best of his virtues because it keeps him the longest in that which is so good for him Fortitude or active courage runs through difficulties with all the haste it can Patience goes on leisurely and enjoyes the good of suffering and on it begets mortification and humility which are the legitimate issue of a regenerate man and by this constant assuefaction inurement to sufferings some become by degrees as it were impassible and lovers of trialls for as fire doth no longer burn ashes the which receiving no hurt from it doe seeme to love the fire and to cherish and conserve it so one that is consummated in Patience comes often to a state of being no more diminished by afflictions then ashes are by fire and to desire rather to keepe alive the fire of his tribulations then to exstinguish it for perfect Patience doth not decline suffering but suppresses immoderate sorrow which is the best office for it is so provident as not to deduct at all from the matter of our meriting but only to mitigate the molesting part of our affliction and thus contriveth our advantages so well as we may enjoy the deserving portion of our troubles and not be desolated or oppressed by the sorrowfull property of them We see also Christs method in carrying them who were to convert the world through all sorts of tortures that their Patience might be a meritorious miracle which was a better quality then their powers of speaking all tongues casting out of devills or curing all diseases Their patience in their own wounds was a more advantageous grace then their gifts of cures upon all maladies for by that they improved their own soules and by this they did but repaire the bodies of others they were but organs to passe these miracles into the world but they were owners of the other divine quality And the residence of the Holy Ghost in them may be said to be express'd by their Patience and by their other miracles only a transition of him through them Whereupon S. Chrysostom saith that to suffer patiently is a greater gift then to raise the dead for indeed we are but debtors to God for this and we have Christ our debtor for the other and it may be there will be as many pearles even in number hanging upon the crownes of the Apostles and Martyrs depending on their Patience as on their powers S. Justin Martyr one of the greatest lights of the primitive times confesseth that the stupendious equality and constancy of the Christians in all their pressures convinced him of a divine inspiration thereof and Antiquity testifies infinite numbers of conversions upon the same perswasion Before Christ dignified Patience and rendred it so meritorious the Heathens were so disposed to honour it by the light of nature as this transcendency of it in Christians easily prevayled with them to seeke an author of it even above all that they had before accepted for their gods of whom they had no records but of their delights and volupties
pains as might produce this strange effect in our nature to make our root the lesse capable of bearing fruit by the excrescence and growth of these springs out of it For temporall affliction springeth cut of sinne as out of the root thereof and nothing drieth up and infecundateth so much the radicall fructifying vigor of this roote as the springing up of temporall miseries and distresses so as the fruit of sinne which is death is killed the soonest by the fertility of sufferings in this life Since Christ hath then by the vertue of his Crown of thornes imparted this faculty to the asperities of our life of taking off the growth as his did the guilt of sinne we need not wonder why he hath left all these temporall bitternesses upon our nature which he himselfe took expresly to taste of in our nature so as we may be said to become the more Christians the more we are called to be Patients Which Position we shall find the more cleerly demonstrated to us the farther we advance into the Principles of Christianity S. Paul when he wrote to the Romans in those times when in a parallel of your cases the Christians were partly immured up in prisons and partly expelled to the adjoyning fields thought it seemeth to sweeten their condition to them by representing that Mortification and Sufferance was their calling and profession For he asketh them as of a notorious thing Whether they knew not this to be the Constitution of Christianity saying Rom. 6.3 Are you ignorant that all we who are baptised in Christ Jesus in his death we are baptised An ignoratis quicunque baptizati sumus in Christo Jesu in morte ejus baptizati sumus Intimating that our first incorporation into the body of Christ is in effect an expiration to this world and a translation by the vertue of the death of Christ into such a sort of life as he had pattern'd to us by the inception progresse and consummation of his life And the Apostle presseth thus the proofe of this assertion Rom. 6.4 For we are buried together with him in baptisme into death Consepulti enim sumus cum illo per baptismum in mortem to evince this position that our mundanity is drowned and buryed in our Christening and that the life of Christ which was a continued part of mortification is to be as it were our breath and animation And while we are in this spirituall manner buryed in the life of Christ that is covered and inclosed with indignities oppressions we are acting that part we took upon us in Baptisme where we listed our selves into that Militia which was erected by him who killed death by dying and hath left the same Discipline to all his Souldiers to destroy death by dying to the world Mortifications therefore must needs be the proper duties of that service a Christian is upon and his pay is conditioned rather upon his suffering then his acting as the Apostle proceedeth to testifie For if we become complanted to the similitude of his death we shall be also of his resurrection Si enim complantati facti sumus similitudini mortis ejus simul resurrectionis erimus so as in a Christians case the wages of death is life for if he die here by a privation of the carnall life of this world he performeth the condition of his life everlasting For which reason S. Paul who was the great Commander of the Gentiles in this militancy where by this kind of dying death is swallowed up in victory hath left us his Discipline in Quotidie morior 1 Cor. 15. I die daily and he giveth us those orders to be the followers of him as he was of Christ whom he began not to follow untill he was overthrown in the command he had in this world was as it were resuscitated by the same hand that had killed him We may remember he was revived by what is distructive to this life by being almost famished and illuminated by this worlds darknes restored to corporall light only to see how much he was to suffer for that name for which all the sufferings he had in his head were to be imployed but in a manner farre differing from his designe for they were signed to be enjoyed by himselfe not to be dispensed to others by his hand so as this seemeth the gratification of his Christianity the having all that treasure of crosses he had prepared for other Christians appropriated to his owne use whereof he grew so sensible as in gratitude to this his preference he returned his Superabundo gaudio in omni tribulatione But let us look upon his Master I doe exceedingly abound in joy in all our tribulation and ours Christ Jesus in his owne time of tribulation and we may represent him to our selves in the first instant of his conception accepting this order from his Father which he gave to his follower S. Paul of Ostendam illi quanta oporteat eum pro nomine meopati Act. 9.15 I wil shew him how great things he must suffer for my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel ut portet nomen meum coram gentibus regibus filiis Israel In which Commission he laboured three and thirty yeeres wherein all we are acquainted with of his life is either laborious or incommodious or in extremity dolorous and painfull It seemes the holy Ghost did not think any thing worthy to stand upon record for CHRIST that was not eminently suffering and therefore passed over in silence those parts of his life which we may suppose to have been the least distressefull If we look upon his way that is drawn out to us from his Cradle to his Crosse we shall finde that temporall honour and ease were so inconsistent with Gods designe upon him as he never had any proffers of them that did not speedily procure him some sharper vexation The Star that proclaimed him King at his birth presently proved his proscription to death and that the law of suffering might seem enacted in his first step into the world it was put in execution upon innocent babes whose blood as S. Augustine saith made the first tincture of Christian martyrdome so that the cryes of the mothers and the infants followed close the voyces of the Angells that glorified him When the people thought of making him King it put him presently to flye alone into the mountaines When the evill spirits proclaimed him the Son of God the Pharisees doubled their spies upon him to traduce him and sharpned their wits to ensnare him by captious questions His entring into Jerusalem with the acclamations of Hosanna hastned the persecutions of his enemies and within few dayes the voyces of the same Jerusalem strained higher in the Pharisees aire of Crucifige whereby we may conclude that hee had so entirely assigned himselfe to sufferances and passions in this life as he did not thinke it a sufficient discharge
out of the strong shall issue sweetnesse The Lyon of the Tribe of Judah hath infused honey into the teeth of all these Lyons he le ts loose upon his Church and a resigned patient shall taste more the honey then he shall feele the teeth of the beast that quartereth him They therefore who will finde the suavity of persecution must suck it out of Christs Passion where it lyes ready made and not amuse themselves to work it out of the order of Gods providence wherein it rests implicated in the folds of many mysteries and our curiosity in seeking it will return us rather Sauls anxiety upon his enquiry of Samuels ghost then Sampsons sweetnesse in the Lyons jawes which he found when he looked not for it And out of S. Pauls mouth who was once a raging Lyon till he was killed by him of whom Sampson was a figure we may take this hony to dulcifie all those bitternesses of our lives 2 Cor. 4.18 Our tribulation which presently is momentanie and light worketh above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory in us Quod in praesenti est momentantum leve tribulationis nostrae supra modum in sublimitate aeternum gloriae pondus operatur in nobis HAving thus seene and considered Gods hand and manner in the figure of his dearly beloved Son upon the Crosse by which he conveyed him to his Coronation let us now consider also Christs method in ordering his Church after he professeth that all power is given him both in heaven earth so as the sufferings of the Body to such an Head must needs be by order not infirmity For after he had suffered sufficiently for more worlds then he shed drops of blood and for as many ages as worlds he might well have allowed the members of his body all joy and felicity for the rest of those few Ages this world was to subsist But he who was Wisdome it self chose another method as he told his dearest friends Ego dispone vobis sicut disposuit mihi Pater meus regnum He copyed his Fathers hand upon himselfe in his drawing and figuring his Church upon earth Lu. 22.29 I dispose to you as my Father disposed to me a kingdome so as after his glorious body was enthroned at the right hand of God he left his mysticall body hanging as it were upon the crosse in Calvary for some Ages wounded by the launces of the Gentiles and vilified by the scornes of the Jewes In this posture it hung exposed many yeers a scandall to the eyes of the one and folly to the understandings of the other insomuch as the extreme passions of this body might well have extorted out of flesh and blood a Deus meus ut quid dereliquisti me The afflictions were so intollerable as no body that had not a God for the head of it Mat. 27. My God why hast thou forsaken me could have growne and prospered in so bleeding an infancie It seemeth Gods unsearchable Wisdome designed Christs mysticall body to be formed on the face of the earth as his naturall body was in the wombe of the Virgin in the composition whereof there was onely the Spirit of God working upon the pure blood of the Virgin and in like manner the vertue of the holy Ghost came upon the blood of the Martyrs forming and animating the Primitive Church For in those times we find the vertue of the Spirit working most upon blood to forme and procreate the body of the Church And thus by the admirable vertue of Christs Passion it seemed not an effusion but rather a transfusion of all the blood was drawne conveying it into other veynes and the same spirits seemed to be carryed in it into other bodies which successively making the same use of it might make one think it had been the very same blood infused into other veyns which like channels rather then owners of it poured it out againe so freely and in this way of generation the Saints and Martyrs procreated the descent of the family of Christ for above three hundred yeeres The Apostles seemed to poure out their blood into the veynes of their Disciples and Successors and they in like manner to transfuse theirs into those discended from them and by this successive transmission the Progeny of the Church was deduced through the Primitive Persecutions This was the operation of that one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule the Apostle saith was then in the multitude of the Beleevers And indeed the records of those times may well make one reflect on the doctrine of Pythagor as in his transmigration of soules for in those times the spirit of acting and suffering which was transmitted from one to another seemed so much the same as one might fay there was a transmigration of the soules of the first Martyrs into the surviving issue of their spirit Herod is said to have suspected that the soule of S. John Baptist had passed into Christ when he said Mat. 14.1 This is John the Baptist he is risen from the dead and therefore vertues work in him Hic est Joannes Baptista ipse surrexit à mortuis ideo virtutes operantur in eo The doctrine of transition of soules from one body to another was much followed in those times But we may wel in a pious and sober sense say that the soule of S. Peter seemed transmigrated into his successors for many yeeres for the same spirit of fervour in watering with their blood the Rock whereon Christ had planted his Church possessed above thirty Popes successively after S. Peter and so all their bodies seemed to be cast as a mold of earth upon that rock whereupon the faith of the Romane Church did spring the plants whereof even all acknowledge their Churches to be who have now severed themselves from that radicall communion and forgetting the benefits of those Josephs who sed them in the famine of their Faganisme are now laying burthens on their children In this manner the Primitive Church was nourished in her cradle instead of having milk given her to make blood of she sucked blood and made milke of it by the which she hath nursed the succeeding times for in all the Churches following persecutions the faithfull have been sustained and refreshed by that milk which the blood of those times did make for them for their examples descending with their doctrines hath confirmed and strengthned as well as alimented all their future progenie It is an admirable evincement of the truth of Christian Religion to remark that as it was founded upon a supernaturall conjunction of a body that might suffer to a person that was impassible so it was propagated by the destruction of those bodies which were the organs of tradition of it to posterity for the wounds of the Apostles and the Martyrs seemed but so many more mouthes opened to speak out louder the mysteries of the Gospel and to prove those verities by daring to dye for them which were not to
humbled me Luke 16. I am tormented in this flame shadow over to us everlasting miseries Whereupon many come to confesse with the Psalmist Bonum mihi quia humiliasti me and too many to complaine with the rioter in the Gospel Crucior in hac flammâ for having wanted the gentler fire of this life Thou didst receive good things in thy life time Iob. 21. They lean their dates in mirth and in a moment they goe down to hell and having had too much of Recepisti bona in vitâ tuâ For alas how many doth this sentence of the holy Spirit surprize Ducunt in bonis dies suos in puncto ad inferna descendunt Although prosperity in this life be not formally an evill yet as there are many aliments which are in themselves sound and harmlesse yet unhealthfull respectively to severall constitutions so the felicities of this life find very few such constitutions as can digest them and convert them into the increase of the body unto the edifying it selfe in charity This is the advance and growth which is expected from the members of Christ Ephes 4.6 the augmenting in charity whereof we may too truely say at least Iob 2 8. It is lately found in the land of them that live pleasantly Rarò invenitur in terrâ suaviter viventium Wherefore holy Saint Bernard upon the rich mans being cast into flames and the reason being given him that he had received good things in this life infers from thence That the blessing of suffering must be greater in this world then that of fruitions and argueth it thus That the Divine judgement did not cast Man out of the garden of pleasure to allow him by humane invention to contrive another Paradise for himselfe out of the earth but left him with a sentence of being borne to labour and so if he decline travaile and pains as he avoideth what he was borne to in this world so he shall be excluded from what he was designed to in the next In which consideration S. Gregory saith A man who passeth carelesly on crowned with roses through this life is like a Prisoner carryed through pleasant fields and delightfull gardens who being amused with the agreeable objects in his passage forgets what he is and whither he is going So dangerous a conveyance is worldly felicity as the Devill dares trust that even alone without any provocation but even plenty it selfe to bring us to him For the adherence to the commodities of the earth quickly raiseth such a damp and indevotion in our spi its as there needs no crying sins to mend our pace This very stilnesse stupefaction and spirituasi Lethargie which we sleepe our selves into in the love of this world is one of the safest wayes the Devill can wish us into Wee may therefore fitly say of the state of many mens prosperities that which S. Basil said elegantly upon the cleernesse of the skye in a great drouth producing a famine that It was a sad serenity in which the very fairenesse and purity was a punishment So the smoothe and undisturbed felicity of many fortunes proveth an unhappy calme occasioning a great sterility in all spirituall productions Our love to Christ thrives best in such a mould as his to us was planted in which we know was an abundance of all sorts of passions and such a soile is so much more proper for our faith and charity to prosper in as the same temptations which master us in felicity are defeated by us in adversity as S. Gregory noteth in Jobs tryall saying that Man who was overthrowne in Paradise overcame upon a dunghill there the Serpent overcame him by a woman here he vanquisheth both the Serpent and the woman So as we may say That sufferings seeme to render even our decayed nature stronger then felicity could preserve our intire For Adam was ruined by the same attaques which Job repulsed Scarce any thing can endeare the vertue of affliction or raise the obnoxiousnesse of prosperity above this instance And surely although there were not so much facilitation towards our being perverted in temporall happinesse yet me-thinks this defect which is so notorious in it should discredit the affectation thereof for it is evident that we cannot have so good a tryall of our loves to God whilst we are under his sensible caresses as under his severe corrections We see Satan had so much colour for that argument that in prosperity there can be no tryall whether a man love God or no as he presseth it even to God himselfe in Jobs case asking Doth Job feare God for nought alleadging that Gods benefits did not admit of a totall probaâ—tion of that servant whom God himselfe commendeth Therefore he putteth God to the tryall and examination of his love when it hath nothing but pure duty and no temporall interest to feed it and it seemeth God allowed this as a good argument when he changed his condition into that which was the properest for the examination of his love and might prove an irrefragable evincement of his sanctity For a patient acquiescence and a faithfull praising God in affliction doth not only silence even Sathan himselfe in his office of accuser but setteth us so much out of his command as to render us his impeachers and accusers before the throne of God For there cannot be a higher charge against his contumacie in his beatitude then mans returning praises to God in his miseries You may see then that Affliction doth not onely furnish us with armes defensive against our enemie but also ministreth offensive armes in Gods cause against his Rebell for nothing woundeth Lucifer deeper with this point of his ingratitude then a Lazarus playing the Angel finging Gods praises in all his sores and provocations And it seemes very equitable that they who are to possesse the estates of the delinquent Angels should serve God thus here on earth against them whose confiscations are assigned to them And in order to this we may observe how God hath alwayes imployed his dearest followers in this service to shame and confound the Devils first impatient pride by their equanimity and calmnes of Spirit in all their pressures and desolations making the praises of the scourger as S. Augustine saith the plaister of their wounds For which cause holy Iudith when she undertaketh to comfort her brethren in a desperate extremity suggesteth to the Priests to represent to the people that their fathers had alwayes been tempted to try whether they did sincerely love God and biddeth them remember how Abraham was â—â—proved by many temptations and so made the friend of God and Isaac Jacob and Moses passed the same way of probation And concludeth with this inforcement of the vertue of afflictions Judith 8.2 All that have pleased God through many tribulations have passed faithfull Omnes qui placuerunt Deo per multas tribulationes transiverunt fideles We may remark also that among all the Patriarks and Prophets who had
of tentations so as being furnished with this ability adequate to our charge we may well be concluded eased by this extenuation of our burthens for being thus entred into Christs yoke we finde that gentle and our cariage very portable God doth then give vertue and vexation concomitantly as the Apostle affirmeth God is faithfull 1 Cor. 10.13 who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able but will make also with temptation issue that you may be able to sustein So that I may safely promise in Christs name what he did to his Disciples when they were entering into the lists of persecutions that all these signs shal follow all those who do intirely strip and devest themselves of the pressures and incumbrances of their conscience They shall take serpents in their hands without offence Mar. 16.27 and though they drink poison it shall not hurt them though they remain incircled with the thorns and stings of affliction they shall not feele any noxious sharpnesse or asperity in them and they shall drink of the cup of sorrow without any aversion or nauseousnesse but shall rather cheerfully pledge Christ in it saying in conformity to him shall not we drink of the Cup which our Head hath given us And this cup which the Psalmist calleth the Wine of compunction shall then have a much better relish then that of Babylon which we have eased our hearts of For as the Holy spirit saith Pro. 27.7 A soule that hungereth taketh all bitternesse for sweet and such soules Christ calleth blessed in their hungering and thirsting and yours after this pious motion and exercise in resorting to this call of Christ and unloading themselves of all their spirituall onerations will certainly get this good appetite which our Saviour calls a blessed hunger and shall be satisfied with present peace and tranquility of spirit and an hopeful expectation in a future blessednesse The sooner then and the sharplyer we deplore our sinnes the readier and greater deduction we make from all our other sorrows according to the assertion of the Apostle 2 Cor. 7.10 The sorrow that is according to God worketh pennance unto salvation that is stable Upon which words S. Chrysostome saith excellently sorrow is given us not to grieve for any thing we cannot remedy and so it is onely a receipt for the cure of sinne for it augmenteth all other evills whereunto it is applyed and recovereth us onely out of that extremest of all mischiefs Therefore sorrow was onely made for sinne out of which it was first extracted and so like a moath corrodeth and consumeth the matter that produced it And this holy corrosive is so powerfull as it will eat away not onely all the dead flesh whereunto it is applied but even take out and obliterate the foulest brands can have been impressed upon our hearts Therefore if any for feare of a little burning in the hand in the heat of these times hath chosen rather to stigmatize his heart with the marke of apostasie let not even such a desperat character doubt of an effaceing by the virtue of sincere contrition for as soone as it is rightly applyed the operation is unquestionable Let not then any such set Caines stamp upon this his first brand for could Judas have applyed this corrosive he needed not have used his cord to suppresse the noysome stenches of his conscience This receipt would have broken his heart so happily as to have kept his bowells from bursting for we know that a broken and contrite heart repayres even all her owne breaches If in these evill dayes then there should be any that hath done worse then the disciple that left his mantle and fled naked to save himselfe for if any to save their clothes and coverings of conveniencyes should have left Christ and have joyned with the party armed against him yet even he is called by this voice of Come all ye that labour to come back and unload himselfe of this unfaithfull pusillanimity No weight that sorrow can bring in can be too much for him to take off who carieth all things by the power of his word and whose mercy is above all his works and consequently must needs be far above all ours Wherefore Despaire seems miserably to vie against the superiority of Gods mercy in this accursed dejection there is this derogating contention whereas faithfull sorrow hath alwayes an obliging confidence He therefore that cannot find in his heart to give so much as sorrow towards the redemption of his sinnes ought not to expect so much as pitty even in their eternall vindication Wherefore in this particular prescript of Consolation I may aptly say with the Apostle 2 Cor. 7.10 2 Cor. 2. Who is it can make me glad but he that is made sorry by me For the efficacy of all I can minister unto you dependeth upon your orderly application of this godly sorrow for your sinnes which may reconcile you to the man of sorrow who under that notion was the mediator between God offended and man condemned and so admitteth not even his owne merits to mediate peace between God and man after his offending him without the intervention of this sorrow of man so that this house is as much better then that of feasting as reparation of a house is better then ruining in so much that though you have no other house left to put your heads in this of penitence which it may be the ruines of your other have built up for you may prove such a receptacle of peace and rest when your sinnes are rased and demolished as you shall confesse in comparing the change of houses that Your bricks are fallen down Esay 9.10 and you have built with square stones and have by the hands of this holy contrition converted your ruinous tenement into reedified temples from whence all the devout fighes are breathed up as an odour of perfume unto heaven and as the fire which was to light the odours upon the table of Incense was to be brought from the Altar of the bloody Sacrifices so the incense of our prayers and petitions must be kindled first by the ardency of our sorrow and contrition for our sinnes which answer to the outward and first Altar From thence the fire of all our zeale must be first taken that is all our petitions must take their rise from our penitency and when they are offered up in this order they doe often impetrate more then they sollicite for they obtaine not onely spirituall acquiescence but even temporall refreshments We must remember then that this holy sorrow is a kind of spirituall Baptisme which is the first gate of the Church triumphant through which all our requests must passe up to the altar so that we shall doe well to set this inscription of the Psalmist upon this portall of contrition Psal 117.20 Open ye the gates of justice to me being entred into them I will confesse to our Lord this is
order to this we see that the bleeding of the mysticall body of Christ hath alwaies offered a kinde of spirituall cement to unite and compact the parts thereof Whereupon the holy Ghost who hath this commission to produce an union in the mysticall body of Christ John 17.21 23. resembling that of the Blessed Trinity whereof he is the union as he performeth this effectively by love so he raiseth this love very often instrumentally by persecution For we know in those times when opposition to this tender body was most fierce this union was so firme and indissoluble as the holy Spirit seemeth to glory in this operation as having wrought this similitude of unity so perfectly as he pronounceth The multitude of beleevers to have had one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule so that here was that similitude accomplished in them which Christ asked thus of his Father for the beleevers in him Job 17.22 that They may be one as we also are one For this seemeth a good resemblance of that union is in the Blessed Trinity wherein there is distinction of Persons and unity of Essence since here the multitude consisting of divers persons were all one heart and one soule This simplicity and unanimity slakned even in those times by the same degrees that the pressures which lay upon this arch of the Church were lightned and removed But in all times we finde that a common persecution hath in some measure straitened and combined the minds consorted in that band of Religion which is the cause of their pressure and gravation So as we cannot doubt but these times have in a good proportion closed and compacted more your hearts in a mutuall zeal and charity towards one another which unity of spirit is very sutable with the uniformity of your Religion and no violence can suppresse a free exercise of this act thereof And as this sort of communication to one anothers necessities is a means left you still to exercise your charities so I hope in God you are very faithfull and active in this commerce with one another and that both sorts drive a greater trade of charity in your severall faculties then ever Those who have beene in the office of giving materiall almes doe now I hope endeavour to compensate the losses of the poore Pro. 19.17 He lendeth to our Lord that hath mercy on the poore and he will repay him the like who are Gods receivers by proving themselves the devouter and better beggers of God releefe for the common distresses and they who have received much from others upon Gods tickets do I hope now bring them in to God more fervently then ever showing him what they have received upon his account and so may be earnest solicitors for the payment of that Interest which they doe witnesse to be due upon this contract of the holy Spirit Faeneratur Domino quà miseretur pauperi vicissitudinem suam reddet ei and thus both parties may still commerce for their severall accommodations those who have beene Gods creditors in the sense aforesaid may seeme more sensible of the suspension of this quality then of their personall deprivements and may most zealously intercede for the supplying of that office by some other means and those who are miserably distituted now by the obstruction of this conduit of reliefe may be so gratefully zealous as to intend more the bringing into God the accounts due to such ministers of his as stand now suspended then their owne private suppeditations and both shall by this means hold their proper parts in this consort of charity the one shall forget their good works before God and the other shall remember him of them Thus spirituall good works may still multiply among you while the one part of you sorroweth most for the intermission of the practicall ministry of them and the other feeleth more their religious gratitude to their distressed benefactors then their private grievances And this kinde of weeping in your widowes and shewing the coats and garments which the Dorcases were wont to make them Act. 9.59 who are now dead to that function is one of the likelyest meanes to obtaine their resuscitation and re-instating in that condition For as the Wiseman saith It is an easie thing for God to accommodate the poore James 5.11 Facile est Dec honestare pauperem and the Apostle S. James proposeth Jobs temporall resurrection and restauration as an object of comfort to faithful expecters of Gods time and therefore these two duties faithfully performed by both your conditions may make the highest poverty amongst you abound unto the riches of simplicity the which may also intercede so powerfully for the other part as it may prove such an Angelicall mediation as is spoken of in Job Job 33.23 If there shall be an Angel speaking for him one of thousands to declare mans equity he shall have mercy on him and shall say Deliver him that he descend not into corruption I have found wherein I may be propitious to him the voyce of the poore bringing in these testimonies of their former equities for your Jobs whom their friends doe not know sitting in the ashes of their consumed fortunes these I say that have not made the eyes of the widdow expect nor have eaten their morsell alone such bills and evidences brought in to Christ as debts wherewith he hath charged his person may perhaps procure Jobs latter daies for such who have passed thorough his first estate and are now sitting in his second translation But in all cases these notes of the hands of the poore shall be sure assignments for that better and permanent substance which the Apostle saith is their inheritance Heb. 10. of those who have susteined a great fight of passions and have had compassion on them that were in bonds and have taken the spoile of their goods with joy For which reason this mutuall commerce of spirituall charity is that I now recommend unto you for the exercise of fraternall dilection that while you cannot turnish the Altar without the veyle with the fat of your flocks you may the more largely serve the table of Incense with these odours of internall charity What I have said in way of direction to these interiour acts of charity is to extenuate the paines of those Tobiasses who it may be are now reduced from being almoners to be their owne almes-men having scarce left for their support that which was heretofore their waste that ran over and fed their brothers But I doe not intend this as a dispensation to any who have yet any thing left which they may prudently deny themselves in contribution to the releife of such who have no portion of subsistance For now every one should square his mind by the new modell of these times and the same clay that the potter hath beene pleased to turn from a larger into a lesser vessell must attend to his present forme and not reflect upon his
against momentany tribulatioÌ„s the eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 which ballancing of your coÌ„ditions must needs draw from you all this confession that your masters yoke is sweet and his burthen light nay you shall finde that your carriages are rather a support then an oppression to you according to this elegant conceit of S. Bernard In our course through this life the faster we run the casier it is for us and the light burthen of our SAVIOUR as it increases growes more portable Doth not the numerousnesse of the plumes and feathers elevate and not onerate the birds that beare them Take away the feathers and the rest of the body sinketh downward by the remaining weight so the discipline of Christ the sweet yoke and burthen of the Crosse in their rejection and deposition only prove our depression because they rather carrie us then as loads are carried by us while our minds feele the worth of that weight which they beare And I hope I have shewed you in conformity to this how God hath alwaies set plumes of this kind unto such as he hath designed to raise as the Prophet saith above the altitudes of the earth Those Eagles which are to be congregated to the Glorious Crucified body have their wings formed of these plumes of crosses persecutions defamations and such like materialls on which they make their mounties up to their rest So that very often when in tendernesse to our friends we wish their deliverances from pressures and tentations we vote as impertinently their good and exaltation as if in pitty to birds in summer we should wish them unfeathered that they might be cooler lighter For the sweet yoke and the light burthen of Christ are to Christians what plumes are to such creatures which are caryed by this kinde of their owne portage since our minds like their bodies would lye still upon the earth if they were not raised and elevated above it by these exercitations Wherefore confiding onyour virtues I doe lament most their miserable estate that while they are now stripping and denuding you are feathering and imping out these spirituall wings for your elevation and are fastning milstones about their own necks by this scandalizing the little ones who are under his protection that hath interminated this sentence against their offenders Nay all the power and prosperity of this world is so vaine and variable even in the scene of this life as abstracting from the menaces of the other world there is nothing worthy of emulation in them relating onely to this age Esay 40.30 and what the Prophet Esay saith is very accommodable to the condition of your persecutors and your fidelities in this persecution Even the youth shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall but they that wait upon the Lord shal renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as Eagles they shall run not be weary they shal walk and not faint In contemplation of this improvement of the faithfull S. Aug. saith the divell little knows how much good he is doing while he is in his highest point of raging for he is indeed but blowing the coals of Gods furnace where his gold is refining and blowing out the flames of his owne impure forges For as God served himselfe of the Angels of Sathan to blow out in Saint Paul those sparks of vanity and selfe-love which are glowing still in our most mortified nature lying but raked upâ—n our ashes not extinguished so doth the holy Spirit make use of the breath of the maligne one to abate and mortifie the flames of pride avarice and sensuality while he bloweth the coals of persecution and purgation of the children of God This considered may not I justly addresse my selfe to all ranks and postures of mourners amongst you in these termes of Saint Paul to his countrvmen in our conditions Heb. 13.22 Heb. 10.34 I desire you brethren that you suffer the word of consolation for with the more joy you take the spoile of your goods the greater share shall you have in that better and permanent substance you are purchasing Doe not therefore lose your confidence which hath great remuneration your firmnes and perseverance is an adornment of the doctrine of your Saviour a jubilation of the Angels that are lookers on in your combat and a contexture of your own crowns which when you have finished by perseverance unto the end you shall finde in them all the ornaments you have set upon your Saviours doctrine and the gladnesse you have afforded the Angels and Saints in your laborious framing of your crownes so many severall prerogatives of glory shining in them and the joyes your victories have contributed to the blessed Spirits shall then be rendred you by every one of your partners in so incomprehensible a measure and manner as each one shall pay his former receipt of joy from you and in the same act acquire infinitly more by your receiving theirs and your Masters joy While I am upon these motives of joy June 30.1646 the Letters of this week bring me one very proper to remit back unto you which is the glorious martyrdome of one of your brothers which newes I take me thinks as the women did what the Angel told them of at the tombe concerning Christs Resurrection with feare and great joy Mat. 28.8 For in one respect Fluminis impetus latificat civitatem Dei Psal 45. The violence of the river maketh the city of God joyfull in order to the fortifying and confirming your pieties such objects of the power and grace of Catholike Religion are to be rejoyced at and towards the propitiating of God unto all your necessities such oblations are very efficacious for they are so many Commissioners sent from time to time from amongst you to solicite fresh supplyes of graces for the rest of you who are in the same militancie but as they lye under the Altar Apocal. 6.10 crying with a loud voice for revenge of their blood on those that dwell upon the earth in this respect the charity we owe our Nation intermixeth a sad and trembling apprehension to find the measure of their fathers still filling up which when it comes to be commensurate to that proportion God hath permitted it will draw downe vials of wrath for every drop of this blood wherewith the Land is contaminated by the unjust effusion of it Doe you then for Gods sake strive to make as much benefit as the occasion offereth Wherefore all you who are his brothers of the same Tribe and so by the Law his next heires ought to account your selves as indeed you are left executors of his labours charities and pious offices to your brothers and enjoying your owne legacies of fervour patience and fidelity which his example hath left you you may also faithfully dispense the severall benefits of this holy pattern which respectively belong to all the conditions of the Nation that are the