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
Mar. 3.37 What permutation shall a man give for his owne soule since there is nothing a condigne exchange for the possession of our soules you may chance be much beholding to those who have given you your owne soules at so low a rate as that which they have taken from you The great builder of Magazines had his soule sequestred the same night his Works were finished and it may be many of your souls have been restored to you the same day your houses have been plundered and your lands sequestred for the next degree of leaving all to follow Christ is the having all taken from you for his sake and there are many vocations which doe not admit the relinquishing of all temporalties but there is none dispensed with in point of a cheerfull acceptance of the losse of all for Christ so that to repine at any privation for Gods sake is not onely below the perfection but without the obligation of Christianity ◠Cor. 6.6 Catholikes therefore must put on this armour of righteousnesse either on the right hand or on the left some by a voluntary disseisure of all which answers to the right hand as being Christian perfection but all must weare it on the left hand at least as a shield in the warfare of this life which relateth to a patient submission unto all the violences of this world which dispoyle and expropriate us of such temporalities as we might possesse for the service of God according to the severall necessities of our callings the which when they are extorted from us by the injustice of the world we must account as called for by God to some other use and so we may say of our goods as S. Paul doth of our lives Rom. 14.8 Whether we live we live to our Lord and whether we die we die to our Lord. If our goods continue in our hands they are consecrated to God and if they be torne from us they are still offered up to him by our acceptance of his will unto which our obedience is our sacrifice so that we ought to say alwayes of our Fortunes Whether they live or dye they are still our Lords In conformity to this Saint Paul describeth to us the state of true suffering Catholikes By honour and dishonour 2 Cor. 6.8 by infamie and good fame as seducers and as true as they that are unknowne and knowne as dying behold we live as chastned and not killed as sorrowfull but alwayes rejoycing as needy but enriching many as having nothing and possessing all things These times afford you without asking the one half of these properties of Saints and you must be humble suitors by your prayers that God by the intercession of the Apostles and others whom he hath been pleased to make thus compleatly Saints would vouchsafe you the grace of the other halfe of these qualities which the world cannot give you that you may say with S. Rom. 8.37 In al these things wee overcome because of him that hath loved us Paul In his omnibus super amus propter eum qui dilexit nos Among all the figures which the Fathers have found in the bush that flamed and did not burne this seemeth one of the most apposite The state of the Catholike Church for she hath alwayes been in the fire of tribulation which hath illustrated and purified rather then at all consumed her The Spirit of God residing in her hath given that quality to her fire which the Fathers say was in that of the bush which became more fresh and verdant in the midst of the flame and they who look upon the Church in all ages shall find both inflamation and verdure conjoyned in her perpetuall passions and her propagations It was the same fire that which came down upon the heads of the Apostles and that which flamed in the bush Wherefore it is not strange they should both have those correspondent qualities of ardencie without combustion When you see therefore the Church on fire you need not feare the consumption knowing that God is in the flame And the holy Spirit to intimate to us that the Church is of proofe against all elements Psa 45.5 telleth us by the Psalmist in prediction of her estate The violence of the river maketh the city of God joyfull the Highest hath sanctified his tabernacle the very torrents that break in upon her shall water and fecundate her Whereupon I may fitly say to you in all your exigencies in the name of our Pastor bonus Feare not little Flock for it hath pleased your Father to give you a Kingdome out of which the whole multitude of Churches and states that are now set up against you cannot banish you Remember that he who sent the dearest of his flock as sheepe among Wolves could have sent them as whelps of the Lion of Juda to have destroyed all those beasts he exposed them to but as they were members of the Lamb not of the Lion that is of his humanitie not of his Divinitie So he chose to make them sutable first to his infirmer portion before he would assimilate them to his triumphing condition He could have sent S. Paul to Rome in greater triumph then Nero but he was better pleased to send him thither in chaines and S. Paul charged with his fetters glorieth as in his proper throne remembring so much his being raised up together Eph. 2.6 and made to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus as he seemeth to minde little his present depression in his chaines wherein he boasts as in the seale of his Commission and Legatship Eph. 6.20 This was the order of Christ upon his choicest ministers so as you need not wonder at any temporary distresses you are reduced to as members of that Church whose being exempted from error overpayeth her being exposed to affliction for sure the burthens of the Israelites are much to be preferred before the darknesse of the land out of which they were excepted How much more then are they to be pittyed who are making such Churches as have need of temporall armes for their subsistence then are those who are suffering in such a Church as no human violence can demolish For Christ having left unto it his passions hath also promised the presence of his person unto the consummation of the World Mat. 28.20 I will conclude this point of the Covenant of suffering as Catholikes with this cleere evincement of it by S. Pauls testimony who saith 1 Cor. 15.19 If in this life onely we be hoping in Christ we are more miserable then all men Si in hac vitâ tantum in Christe sperantes sumus miserabiliores sumus omnibus hominibus so as our portion in this life seems to be decreed so constantly miserable as we are not allowed to flatter our selves with the hopes of felicity in this world Justly therefore where the Apostle bids us Be rejoycing in hope Rom. 12.12 he joyneth to it the being
and at the same time seeth him to be the brightnesse of his glory and the figure of his owne substance this must needs propitiate God infinitely to that body which representeth to him such an honour he hath received from the head thereof who being equall with him did thus admirably subject himselfe for the exaltation of his glory Doth not then the suffering Church rememorate to God continually the highest point of all his glory For the holocausting or incineration of infinite worlds in honour of the Majesty of God would not have been an oblation equivalent to the least drop of blood drawne from the person of Christ and therefore Christs designe in leaving his mysticall body in a suffering posture is one of the highest straines of his divine providence both in order to the honouring of his Father Ephes 4.13 and the purifying of his Church till The body and the head meet in the perfect man in the age of the fulnesse of Christ It then we review the state of the Church even since the Empire of the world undertooke her protection and repose we shall finde her still continuing an image of the life of Christ who we know had divers intermixtures in his course through this world sometimes he was in want and hunger in the desart sometimes declared in the glory of his miracles feeding multitudes and curing all diseases and again sometimes we find him withdrawing and hiding himselfe from the fury of the people and then at other times we behold him in authority and magistracy expelling the prophaners of the Temple and casting out the evill spirits out of the images of God and converting them into the temples of the Holy Ghost These vicissitudes we finde also in the state of his Church sometimes prospering spreading and feeding those multitudes which sodainly after have risen against her and forced many of her members to fly out of their reach into desarts and more dispeopled places in some times again she hath propagated miraculously and established her doctrine and her jurisdiction among many unbeleeving nations in a wonderfull felicity and in sequence of time hath beene banished and eliminated out of these dominions These alternative mutations are evident in the progresse of her dispersion through the world and we know she shall extend her selfe at last to the ends of the world and if not cover the face yet leave some of her markes upon the whole face of the earth Wee see her now as it were shipped away almost quite from Africa where she was so firmly planted many ages before America was so much as knowne to be in the world and now shee spreads there to a good growth while her plantation in Africa lies waste and desolate and the good seed which is falne in that ground seemeth to answer for the semination of those tares which the Enemy hath cast into these territories of Christianity And we may note that all the ancient heresies which so much infested the Church in former ages are now almost eradicated according to the fate of them Sap. 4.3 Spuria vitulamina non dabunt radices altas and the new ones which are now so flowerd and full blowne will shed and fall away like Tulips which commonly vary their colours every yeare somewhat till the roote it selfe in a few yeares leaveth bearing and these varieties of vexations will successively spring up to the Church out of the ruines of some errors new wil be erected and thus she shall be exercised to the end of the world till the man of sin Antichrist shall come to purge her by a generall conflagration as it were of the whole world in the flames of his blasphemy which shal be the last perfecting fire of tribulation shall reduce the Church to the finenesse of that gold which must pave the heavenly Jerusalem This is Christs method and designation of the manner of his Churches passage through this world up to him in whom since there can be neither impotency nor severity to this his body for the Apostle tells us Ephe. 5.29 He nourisheth and cherisheth it as a man doth his owne flesh we must resolve that this order is in reference to the presenting his Father with a continuall intuition of his suffering body whereby he is the most eminently honoured Ephe. 5.27 Not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it may be holy and unspotted and to refine this body to the most perfect degree of purity which this locall separation from the head can admit of to reduce it at last to that glorious estate Non habentem maculam aut rugam aut aliquid hujusmodi sed ut sit sancta immaculata Wherefore I may properly say to you as members of this suffering body 1. Pet. 4.12 from S. Peters mouth Thinke it not strange in the fervour which is to you for tentation as though some new thing happened unto you for all that you are exposed to is in consequence of that order wherein Christ conducts his Church through this transitory world TO clucidate farther this position That God is propitiated by the sight of Christs suffering body we may make this animadversion upon the constitution of the Catholike Church That soone after the issue of bloud was stenched so as the bodies of the Martyrs did no longer afford that object of passions the Holy Ghost who had charge to preserve the Church in the most acceptable condition to God presently infused a spirit of voluntary mortifications and sufferings into the Church whereby many holy persons were divinely inspired to congregate bodies and societies of sufferers which should be united by a vow of perpetuall afflicting and exercising their bodies and making themselves lively images of Jesus Christ crucified by the rules of selfe-abnegation and exhibition of a life intirely sacrificed in the toleration of all sorts of austerities This spirit wrought upon both sexes and hath produced those admirable orders of mortified and crucified Christians which are so eminent in the Catholike Church so that the strongest powers of flesh and blood have been subdued by the weakest portions of it Virgins in the succeeding times have been as sanctified by their civill death and spirituall mortification as they were by the violent destruction of their lives consecration of their bodies in martyrdome to this ministery of the Churches sufferings which were wanting to the passions of Christ and so this order of selfe-sacrificing seemeth to have succeeded in the Church to the vacancie of the Martyrs whereby God hath this spectacle continued to him in the passions of the body of Christ in bodies and societies expresly set apart from the world for that intendment which are all the religious orders of the Catholike Church whose lives are nayled to the Crosse by many vowes of austerity penance and self-crucifixion and these make such a propitiating sacrifice of their lives to God as we may be assured he smels it as an odour of sweetnesse
obedient to death even the death of the crosse for the which thing God hath exalted him So that here Christs power is referred to his purchase of it by his passions Therefore a Christian that repineth at any affliction in this life seemeth to forget what he oweth the Crosse for his redemption from misery and to what he was sealed by it when it was laid upon him in water to ingage him even before he could beare it in a heavyer matter and to oblige him to serve under all those crosses of fire or water this life should passe through for after this comes a stronger baptisme of fire in the tryals of a Christian Those who are not Christned with the signe of the Crosse may have some pretence not to understand the use or obligations of it but you on whose heads it hath been laid in Baptisme and pressed as it were into them by Confirmation can have no colour to mis-conceive the use of Crosses and since it is a defence against evill spirits the making but the signe or figure of the Crosse with our hand it must needs be of greater efficacie against both the world and the devill the having of them made upon us by the hand of God who chastiseth every child he receives and so crosseth his children alwayes either to expel some evill spirit or to mark a lodging for the better reception of his holy mission into it In this signe thou shalt overcome Look up therefore to heaven and you shall see In hoc signo vinces ingraven upon all your Crosses I will close up this proofe of your second covenant as Christians with this advise to you how in all the shipwracks of your lives or fortunes in this storme you may save your selves by a right use of the Crosse The Fathers doe usually call the Crosse Tabulam naufragii that plank whereon humane nature was saved when all her goods were cast away and you must take the manner of saving your selves by your crosses from that conception of making them planks to beare you up and you know the same piece of wood lying upon you will sink you which would carry you if you lay upon it In like manner if the weight of your present crosses lye upon the sensitive part of your soules and you consider them meerly as sensible oppressions and gravations in this world flesh and blood will be dejected and sunk by them when that feeleth all the charge upon it the mind may easily be cast downe by the heavinesse of the senses but if you lay your minds upon your crosses that is extend your thoughts orderly upon the meditation of the Crosse of Christ from which all yours derive a vertue and efficacie to work upon you the image of the Sonne of God laying your minds in this posture upon your crosses they will beare up your hearts instead of sinking them and thus this storme shall but drowne your worldly and earthly affections and your crosses in this posture under your minds shall carry and land you in the land of the living Wherefore I beseech you to cast your thoughts in this posture upon the Crosse of Christ 2 Cor. 13. For although he was crucified of infirmity yet he liveth by the power of God for we also are weake in him but we shall live with him by the power of God resting upon it with confidence that it will support you and rest your minds upon your owne crosses as conceiving them to be rather carriages of your soules to spirituall aspirings then materiall onerations upon your bodies and then you may easily apply to your selves this comfort of S. Paul out of the crucifixion of Christ Nam etsicrucifixus ex infirmitate sed vivit ex virtute Dei nam nos infirmi sumus in illo sed vivemus cum eo ex virtute Dei CHAP. III. Of the Covenant of suffering as Catholiques the Champions or true Church of Christ IN my preceding discourse having I hope in God sufficiently proved this your second bond of sufferance by the two irrecusable witnesses of Christs life and his death I shall proceed to put the third in suit against any reluctant and querulous humor which flesh and blood may breed in you to plead against your spirituall conformity to your temporall condition that in poverty of spirit you may be suited to the penury of your fortunes when you consider seriously your selves bound by this triple cord to crosses adversities in this life The third of your Covenants I proposed to you was the being Catholiques which notion seemeth to be like the wheele in the middle of a wheele in EZekiels Vision for the Catholique Church is contained within the greater circle of Christianity as a lesser sphere within a larger and we may properly say that the spirit of life is in this smaller wheele for the being a Christian in the large acception of it will admit many stations of Religions without the inclosure of the Catholike Church wherein the Symbol of the Apostles incircleth the true Christian Faith and because this terme Catholike is now the notionall distinction of your true Religion from all other whose sects are comprehended in the amplitude of the terme Christian it will not be impertinent to explain unto you in a few words the Churches sense of this denomination Catholike We know the first followers of Christ were called Disciples It seemeth Christs humility would not admit so much honour in his life as the faming of his name by this celebration of it which men affect especially to set upon the front of their intellectuall edifices for Christ all his life endured the meannesse of his earthly habitation to be branded upon his Disciples who were called Nazareans or Galileans rather then the gloriousnesse of his office to be charactered upon them For his sirname of Christ which is Anointed hath a reference to the highest dignities of the world so as it was long after his death before he admitted his followers to that honourable name of Christians for you know it was at Antioch that the Disciples began first to be named Christians and he who never sleepeth was early up sowing tares for Simon Magus Act. 11.26 who was his first seeds-man sowed even in the same furrows the Apostles were plowing and his followers wore the badge of his name and many other Heresies sprang presently up all which covered themselves with this large cloake of Christian in so much as the name of Christian was justly odious in that apprehension the Gentiles had of it For the Heresies that were clothed with that upper garment were in their owne nakednesse foule and execrable in all sorts of pollutions For those we call now Simoneans and Gnosticks and Ebionites and many other which by the Authors of their Sects are now stigmatized in those times were all involved in the latitude of Christians Whereupon before the death of all the Apostles this denomination of Catholique was peculiarly affected
patient in tribulation knowing all our hope must rise out of sufferances as they are the ligaments and connections of the body to a crucified head Wherefore I will desire you for your comfort as well as your conviction in this point to cast your thoughts upon the Crosse and consider only the last miracle which Christ was pleased his body should exhibit to us after his soule was departed from it You may note how out of that wound which Longinus the Souldier gave him after he was dead there issued the two greatest mysteries of the Church to oblige us to beleeve that much more the head himselfe never woundeth or permitteth to be offended any of the members of his living body upon earth but upon some speciall reason which alwaies resulteth to the good of that part he striketh unlesse the part it selfe prove the impediment by some miscarriage in the state of cure Wherefore that portion of his body amongst you which is now bleeding under his hand need feare nothing but their own ill diet irregularity in their hurts for they may prove so healthfull to you as they may convert even the diseases of your naturall bodies into a good constitution of your souls and the regiment of your selves in this case is prescribed by S. Paul 1. Cor. 16.13 Watch ye stand in the faith doe manfully and be strengthened upon occasion of the same infirmity in his time Vigilate state in fide viriliter agite confortamini This prescript containeth a direction to your three constitutions of Sufferers Doe manfully relateth to you as you are men Be strengthened belongeth to you as Christians Watch and stand in the faith respecteth you as Catholikes and if you apply these remedies respectively to your infirmities even every one of these your three Vae Vae Vae's upon earth shall afford you a Sanctus in heaven and so as Men Christians and Catholikes weeping here you may attain to the singing eternally of Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus in heaven CHAP. IV. Of the manner of discharging these duties of Sufferings WE may observe that Christ spake neither so frequently nor so cleerly of any one thing to his Disciples as of the sufferings and passions he was to undergoe and yet they never understood him in them They were alwayes either in such feare or such wonder concerning them as they never durst aske the question for the explication of their perplexities They quickly sought the explication of all his Parables Mar. 9.31 that seemed referred either to his power or his promises but in this point of his disparagements and his passions they seemed so little desirous of an illumination as when he was ready to be seized according to his prediction and upon the point of separation from them he is faine to reproach them that they were dejected only not desirous to be informed whither he was going John 15.5.6 whereupon depended all their reperations The apprehension of sufferance and passion seâ—meth to have such a quality as is reported of the Torpedo for it often stupifies and benummeth our nature so as it leaves not so much as even curiosity stirring in it towards an inquisition of reliefe In like manner there may be many who have heard much of our exposure to sufferings and afflictions in this life and yet remain little inlightned in the right conception of them and which is worse little inquisitive of that method whereby we must extract benefit and utility out of them Wherefore it is requisite to exhibit as faire a copy of that method as I can let forth to their comprehensions that they may not be dismaied by this Onus Domini Jer. 23. The burthen of the Lord. nor be deluded by this supposition that they are all the spirituall children of Abraham who have this marke of the Covenant of sufferances upon their bodies or their fortunes for it is not this moral circumcision or uncircumcision that intitles us to the promises but the spirituall signature of Christ upon the heart it is not the exterior infliction of misery that qualifies us for the reward proposed nor a present immunity and quiet that ejects us out of the society of Christs passions it is the interior disposition in both cases that constituteth the rightfull title to remuneration In those who are actually exercised under their crosses it is the patient and pious resignation which intitleth them to the conditions of the Covenant and in those who are in a present suspension or truce enjoying a serene conveniency it is the preparation and disposure of their hearts to accept humbly all orders of God in how sharp a stile soever they shall be issued against their persons or estates This frame of the mind is their evidence before the eyes of God of their right to the contract of suffering members of Christ Job's disposition in his quotidian sacrifices was no worse an odour to God then the suavity of his patience fuming up from that meane altar whereon he lay offering up his ashes The materiall part of affliction doth not sanctifie no more then the same part in alms or charity doth expiate they are both but Egena elementa Gal. 4.9 Barren elements of themselves the heart and the spirit wherewith they are designed animateth and enliveneth them Wherefore we may say of sufferings that which Christ said of a case not much unlike to this Mar. 7.15 That no affliction which goeth into a man doth actually sanctifie him but it is the spirit of sufferance which resideth in him that must render him holy for out of the heart only good intentions and humble conformities doe issue so as the externall crosses that fall upon the man doe not formally purifie him it is what comes out of the heart as the emissions of humility patience and charity which his heart sendeth forth to meete and imbrace all Gods pleasures which can onely hallow and sanctifie the man Therefore I may very fitly say if any man hath eares to heare let him heare that you may not prove so unhappy as to beare the weight and heat of the day and to forfeit at last your hire for though God saith He chastiseth every child he receiveth he doth not say He receiveth every one that he chastiseth S. James therefore when he proposeth to his distressed country-men The esteeming it all joy their falling into various trialls and temptations coupleth this reason with his proposition James 1.2 Knowing that the probation of your faith worketh patience So that the benefit must be derived from the effect of tribulation which is the producing of patience the which doth not naturally spring out of misery for this is but the matter or the subject whereon this virtue is exercised not the spirit or forme of this holy disposition For which reason the Apostle compleateth his advise by proceeding to direct them how to compasse this necessary adjunction to the matter of their afflictions to render them subjects of joy saying
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
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
this perfection we shall quickly find we have no dangerous enemies left when we have once undertaken ingenuously our own reduction We must not expect to taste suddenly the good relish of mortification The first fruits of Canaan were held to be unclean to figure to us that there is alwayes some impurity in our first thoughts and designes of a spirituall conformity we must expect such a progression in this perfection of Christianity as Isaac made in the digging of his Wells in the Land of Promise The first water he called contention the second enlargement at the last he came to that he called abundance when all strife and difficulty was ceased So we shall in the beginning of our digging for this refreshing water of Patience finde the inhabitants of our earth our sensitive appetities raise great opposition and in our pursuance and progresse we shall meete with lesse contradiction Job 7.38 Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water and more enlargement of our spirits and at the last after a faithfull prosecution we come to that abundance of water which Christ promiseth Flumina de ventre ejus fluent aquae vivae which is not only acquiescence but joy and exultation in all pressures and distresses This is the method of our advance in spirituall graces as the Psalmist designeth to us Psal 87. They shall goe from vertue into vertue Ibunt de virtute in virtutem Wherfore we must not be dismayed and relaxed when at first we encounter difficulty and contestation in our senses against patience and conformity but remember how gracious and indulgent God is to a little tender vertue that hath but the quality of sincerenesse Apoc. 3.8 Behold I have given before thee a doore opened which no man can shut because thou hast a little power and hast kept my word an◠hast not denyed my name as the holy Spirit intimateth by the Angel in the Revelation saying Ecce dedi coram te estium apertum quod nemo potest claudere quia modicam habes virtutem servasti verbum meum non negasti nomen meum So as here we see God to a little disposition openeth a large passage towards plenitude and consummation When therefore we finde our hearts set to keep Gods Word and that in the first inchoation of our vertue we doe but accept afflictions in his name he that is Sanctus The holy one the true one Verax will open that doore of perfection which the violence of the whole world shall not be able to shut any more against us Wherefore in all our straits and coarctations either of our spirits or of our fortunes let us remember how the holy Spirit calls to us Dilata vs tuum implebo illud Psal 8.11 Dilate thy mouth and I wil fil it As long as we doe not contract and shrinke our hearts in a perverse chagrin we need not feare the finding them yeeld and give a little at first in the pressures of affliction and though we never arrive at this last station of perfect Patience of joying in tenrations there are many mansions in heaven which answer the severall promotions upon earth Non omnes Apostoli 1 Thes 5.14 Not all Apostles not all Prophets non omnes Prophetae the Angel promiseth their reward Timentibus nomen tuum pusillis magnis so long as we acknowledge our own minority we may hope for our portion among the little ones Apocal. 13 To them that feare thy name little and great This I say onely by S. Pauls warrant of Cōsolumini pufillanimes suscepite infirmos for I perswade every one to this holy ambition of ascending as high even as the steps of persecution can raise them and there is no ladder so good as this of the Crosse to scale by and in our invitation to the nuptiall supper of the Lambe it is not humility but rather pusillanimity to aime to sit down but in the lowest place they who point no higher design to stay too neer the door and so may more easilyer fall short of that then they who aspire to the place of those who have left all for Christ which is the throne of judging nations With good cause then I humbly advise every ones aspiring to the supremest pitch of patience and resignation And I have warrant to discharge every one from dejection and confusednesse in this case of imperfection when they doe loyally and ingenuously enterprise a proficiency in this virtue Phil 3.15 Let us as many as are perfect be thus minded if you be any otherwise minded this also God wil reveale to you And for this reason the Apostle when he adviseth perfection yet admitteth infirmity to an expectance of Gods perfecting thereof saying Quicunque ergo perfecti sumus hoc sentiamus si quid aliter sapitis hoc vobis Deus revelabit They who are not already stated in the occomplishment of this vertue may hope for a further improvement by the compassion of God to ingenuous addresses Gods indulgence to the incompleatnesse of our Patience must therefore be taken hold on onely as a stay to keepe us from falling into dejection and is not to be used as a rest whereon to leane the wrynesse and bent of our perverted nature for so we may insensibly in duce an habit of crookednesse and petulancy into our owne dispositions Let us therefore have this direction of S. James alwaies in our designe at least Let patience have a perfect worke James 1. that you may be perfect and intire failing in nothing By this we may rest assured of the perfection which is contained in Patience since the Apostle ascribeth this integrity and indeficiency to it in all things So that when we are possessed of this compleatment of Patience then we are instated in a fortune which is so unobnoxious to the distresses of any want that all privations administer to us the end of all possessions which is joy and satisfaction This hath alwaies been the state of the Saints 1 Cor. 6.10 by which having nothing they were possessing all things For out of this treasury they who lose parents children houses Mar. 10 30 and Lands for the Gospell have their assignment for the hundred-fold now in this time And in confirmation of this truth we finde by experience that there is no condition so perfect in this world that hath not often need of Patience to make it tolerable and they who have perfect Patience never want any other possession to make their conditions acceptable All which duly pondered I shall not need say more in recommendation of this excellent virtue but it is requisite to close up this point with the recalling to your memory that our only addresses to this plenipotentiary consolation is a constant re-search of it by prayer 2 Thes 1. Our Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God patience of Christ In that order therefore I shall leave
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
remoter kindred of this blessed Testator who hath left the whole Catholike stock of the Country proportionate meanes to their callings of being edified by his Testament the which you must endeavour to dispense to them according to their severall qualifications and while you doe providently manage this portion of example he hath left you you may enrich your selves so as if Christ shall please to call you to the honour of drinking of this his owne cup you may also leave this rich talent of Martyrdome improved to your survivors and heires that every Martyr may seeme to adde somewhat to the stock of the Nations merit to counter-balance in the sight of God somewhat the provocation of the other part and that by the descent of this spirit of sacrifice amongst you there may be a successive provision made of such holy hoasts out of this family of God the which will alwayes propagate by this generating death to the end this spirituall progeny may be continued by the fruitfull seed of Martyrdome untill it shall please God to regenerate the whole Nation by that way which may seeme strange to many Nicodemuses by making her enter againe into her mothers wombe Wherefore I may lawfully charge all you that are his heires and executors with this Commission from him Take an example Jam. 5.10 brethren of labour and patience the Prophets which spake in the name of the Lord Behold we account them blessed that have suffered And for that part of you which remaines in the outward court of the Tabernacle and so are not appointed to the Altar of Holocausts you are called to take an instruction from this sacrifice which may silence all your complaints to wit that your clothes as it were are but used as this your brothers person was for it is your goods onely that are quartered and drawne from you so that if you should seeme too sensible of that separation it might be reproached to you that your worldly substances were more inviscerate in your hearts then the hearts of those your brothers were in their bodies whereof they so cheerfully accept the sequestration I beseech you then by the bowels of Jesus Christ to act your parts as graciously and to bring in your offerings with as much alacrity every one according to the severall divisions of graces 1 Cor. 12. and the same spirit that each of you may be as S. Peter saith a good dispenser of the manifold grace of God And thus while you offer your different oblations with the same fidelity the service of the temple may be consummate between you when one part of the body furnisheth the blood and the other the fat of the sacrifice Psal 65. My mouth hath spoken in my tribulation holo causts with marrow wil I ofter to thee By this consort of zeale in all parts the Church among you may sing with the Psalmist I ocutum est cor meum in tribulatione mea holocausta medullata offeram tibi And this is the most promising course can be pursued to plead for a mitigation of Gods chastisements on his little flock and to mediate the reduction of the straying part of the Nation into the fold Wherefore the Apostles advice to his Countrymen is very apposite in this occasion of yours Meb 13.7 Remember your Prelates who have spoken the word of God to you the end of whose conversation beholding imitate their faith I will not follow this invitation which seems to call me to say over the office of the Martyrs in honour of this supremest vocation of Christianity since I may presume that all those among you who stand candidat for this dignity of whitening their robes in the bloud of the Lambe are better qualified then my selfe for this election Wherefore I will rest in this payment of my humble reverence to this particular Saint who hath so lately overcome with the same armes of the Lambe of God slaine from the beginning so is now according to his promise Apoc. 3.21 sitting with him on his throne invested with power over nations humbly beseeching him to intercede unto his Head Christ Jesus for those hands unhappy unto themselves that have been so beneficiall to him and to solicite him for his brothers remaining in the foulenesse of this earth that those who are not called to the honour of washing their robes as he may at least be furnished with the grace of watching and keeping their garments Apoc. 16.15 that they walk not naked and shew their turpitude but may be found in all their temporall despoilments and devestures clothed with that silke which is the justification of the Saints and so may be dressed in their wedding Garment for the marriage supper of the Lambe Apoc. 19.8 And this which is my supplication to Christ by the intercession of this Saint desires all that be witnesses of it to be partners in the same petition to the Lambe of God and to him who sitteth upon the throne After this little usuall Parenthesis which stands like an Island in a stream that rather beautifies the river in breaking a while the course of it I wil carry you on in the same current of Motives to joy we were upon which I designed to branch out into severall channels that might run through and refresh the different estates of the sufferers among you unto all which the Apostle offereth this generall congratulation Phil. 1.28 To you it is given for CHRIST not only that you beleeve in him but also that you suffer for him These are words that do highly extoll the grace of sufferance for Saint Paul paralleleth it here with the grace of beleeving nay it seemes an exaggeration of that of suffering to a degree above the other his saying that to them was given not only to beleeve but to suffer as some superaddition of an extraordidinary gratification from God And surely if we reflect considerately upon the grace of suffering virtuously for Christ we shall finde that it is the accomplishment of our faith and the last term of Christian perfection in this life for it is not only a demonstration of our faith and hope but an unquestionable evidence of our love For what the Apostle Saint James saith of beleeving and working James 21.18 supposing the occasion holdeth adequately between loving and suffering for to any who shall confide in their untryed love I may say with the Apostle You have love and I patience shew me your love without patience and I will shew you my love by my patience you love God while you are benefited doe not the heathens doe the same This application doth quadrate me thinkes to this case for indeed it is not possible to shew our love when we are called to suffer without manifesting it by a religious patience and by that we doe cleerly evidence our love Therefore it is excellently said by a holy man That a Christian who knoweth not how to suffer knoweth as little how
These considerations I am certain may justifie my giving you joy of your present conditions and if you take it you will need solicite no other reparatory for if the poverty of Christ doth thus enrich you O! what may you hope for in the plenitude of his treasure from such a master as is able to furnish joy to the followers of him in his sorrow what may be expected at the entring into that masters joy Thus I have visited the principall stations of our Crosse-bearers and according to my best capacity I have offered the hungry meat the strangers hospitality the prisoners society I have served every one faithfully with their severall portions of consolation which the great master of the family distributeth to them through my hands therefore I shall now exhibit unto them all collectively this Pharmacum Catholicum this Canonike or universall receipt of Saint Paul applyable to all conditions Phil. 1.28 In nothing be terrified of the adversaries which to them is cause of perdition but to you of salvation and that of God for to you it is given for CHRIST not only that you beleeve in him but also that you suffer for him CHAP. XIII A Summary of the precedent Treatise WHen I view these sheets mee thinks they call to my minde the Booke sent to the Prophet Ezekiel written full with these three Contents Lamentations A Song and Wee whereunto the three Covenants of Sufferance the subject of my lines may be not improperly accommodated For the first of them as Men answereth well to the Lamentations of the Prophet as consisting altogether of sorrow and labour And the second as Christians reporteth to the Song which signifieth praising and gladnesse for under the notion of Christians we may fitly sing and rejoyce in our obligation to suffer And the last as Catholikes relateth not unfitly to the third of Wee For as Persecution and the Crosse was the Mother so affliction hath alwayes been one of the nurses of Catholike Religion And the state of Christians standing in the middle doth like the Sun in the Skie inlighten the orbes above and below it for this condition of suffering as members of Christ disasperates the thorns left in the sides of the sonnes of Adam and sweetens that Cuppe mingled with Myrrhe which we take from the hand of our mother the Catholike Church who gathereth Myrrhe with all her Aromaticall spices And I would to God there were but as much similitude between the persons as between the Commissions of the Prophet and mine for he was sent to treat of these subjects with people in your condition the Church of God in persecution and captivity to enjoyn them Lamentation for their sinnes to promise them joy to their obedience and to denounce Woe against their inconformity Which offices I have discharged to the best of my capacity and I may owne the charge from God in that order wherein all good gifts come from above Jam. 1.17 from the Father of lights and more precisely by Saint Pauls direction 2 Cor. 3.9 of Communicating to the necessities of the Saints Rom. 12.13 without arrogating any thing towards the least glimpse of pretending an extraordinary warrant The Apostle investeth us with this honour of being Gods coadjutors Wherefore the meanest of that function may avouch his Spirit for the author of what tendeth to the communicating of his good impulses to the refection and solace of his desolated brothers So that whatsoever in these lines shall bring any drop of consolation passeth my pen but as through a pipe which giveth conveyance only no virtue to what is transfused And I desire there may be no more ascribed to my inke then ought to be to the durt or the water of Siloe John 9.24 which were used in the blinde mans cure for it may be truly answered to all such as shall receive any benefit by my pen Give glory unto God for we know this man is a sinner They who will benefit by these my prescriptions must be desired to enter into a serious consideration of these three points which doe naturally issue from the heads of our triple covenant The first is the misery of our estate as sonnes of Adam The second is the dignified condition of the members of Christ The third is security of being such by our incorporation into the Catholike Church the which only is his body and his spouse The first may be ministred against all refractory humour that exasperateth our grievances the which we may-sweeten by this reflection that We are born to sorrow as birds to fly Job 5.7 This may well asswag our distempers to consider sufferance not as an estate of compulsion but of consonancy to our condemned nature The second may present to us our sentence of sorrow converted into a gratification by proving the means of our connexion to such an head who by putting the griefs and dolours of our nature into his bosome hath taken out the sting and hath taught us to kill their venome by imbracing them And the third ascertaineth us to be within that circle wherein the eternall benefit of all the sorrows of the head or members are limited and determined This triangle of meditation is well proportioned to all your suffering hearts in which forme I have drawn this present of my heart unto you and having borrowed of Saint Paul the most of what I have presented to you to make up the want of weight in what is of mine owne stock I will borrow this also from him 2 Cor. 12.15 This little labour I most gladly bestow and will my selfe moreover be bestowed for your soules If I may make a request to you upon this present it shall be to retain châ—ifly the second of these three points I have treated which are your obligation to suffer your manner of bearing the Crosse and your merit in the faithfull carriage thereof There is little danger of your forgetting the first in these times nor any feare of Gods forgetting of the last both in this time and in eternity Heb. 6.10 God is not unjust that he should forget your work and love which you have shewed in his name So as all the difficulty rests in your coÌ„plying faithfully with the Evangelicall manner of suffering exhibited so fairely to you in the practise and precepts of our Saviour Christ Jesus who as Saint Peter urgeth it to us 1 Pet. 2.21 suffered for us leaving us an example that you may follow his steps which I have set out before you as fairly figured and impressed upon these papers as my skill can afford their edition I have shewed you their Marches towards friends and their Postures to enemies in the exercises of all sorts of charities active and passive I have exposed unto you the Apostles and the Martyrs following of Christ in the same track all making one procession of the Crosse I have removed all those stumbling blocks and stones of scandall I could find in
your way that might endanger you in your following and carrying your Crosses safely and graciously in this traine I have cleered all those scruples and dissipated those temptations I conceived the most obnoxious and the most subtile the enemy could object to amuse you or excite to seduce you Against both which impediments in the way of the Crosse to wit of doubts which might keep you unresolved and of offers that might divert you I have given their precautions and defences respectively to the natures of the dangers Having thus furnished you the armes of righteousnesse on the right hand and the left with all sincerity and as much ability as God hath pleased to impart unto me I may use the termes of the beloved Apostle upon the same occasion 1 John 14. These things we write to you that you may rejoyce and your joy may be full For surely if out of these principles of Catholike Religion you doe but extract some drops of joy Psa 109.7 Of the torrent in the way shall be drink therefore shall he exalt his head now while you are drinking or the torrent in the way with him of whom the Psalmist saith De torrente in viâ bibet propterea exaltabit caput with what a torrent of joy shall you be refreshed when you come to be united to that exalted head and drink as it were with his mouth tasting the same volupty which he feedeth and liveth upon In this contemplation me thinks it should be no harder a matter for you to be pleased now in your pressures and vexations then it is for a Generall to rejoyce while his wounds are dressing though with much sensible paine which are the memorials of a glorious victory All the paines and asperities of temporall affliction unto a heart fastned to the Crosse of Christ Act. 5.41 in which posture there is an actuall triumph are but such smarts and pungencies as the body of a Conqueror may feele in his hurts while his minde is elevated with a superiour Joy and Delectation There may be such a present dolorousnesse in the senses of those victorious sufferers while their spirits are going rejoycing with the Apostles in these stripes which their persons resent for Saint Paul the great Doctor in consorting this suavity and asperity telleth us Heb. 12.11 All discipline for the present truly seemeth not to be of joy but sorrow but afterward it will render to them who are exercised by it most peaceable fruit of justice Therefore a Christian who liveth by faith more nobly then by sense rests not upon what he feeleth but passeth on to what he beleeveth and hopeth 2 Cor. 4.18 The things that are seen are temporall but these that are not seen are eternall considering that Temporalia sunt quae videntur quae autem non videntur aterna Me thinks Job upon his triumphall arch raised upon the consumption and ashes of all his temporalities prefigureth to us the estate and directeth the course of a Christian He hath set me as it were a proverb for the common people and the just shall hold his way and with clean hands shall adde strength These contrarietyes must be expected yet this rectitude in the way and this proficiency in the advance must be endeavoured and by those gaining upon our selves we attain to that joy which our Saviour hath promised none shal take from us for our King hath associated two things more incoÌ„patible in the state of our nature then the Emp. Merva was so much celebrated for in the state of civill regiment which was that he had conjoyned two things before his time insociable Empire and Liberty But our Prince of peace hath consociated even the sword and peace for he professeth he came to separate the neerest alliances of nature and yet to confederate joy and sorrow in these separations And this capacity imparted to our nature of rejoycing and suffering all together seemeth a resemblance in us of the ineffable union in him of his Divine and Human natures For these two operations Angelicall and Humane seeme now conjoyned in the faculties of man when he rejoyceth as if he were an Angel while he suffereth as a Man This concordancy hath Christ made between these two antipathies of joy and sorrow by that power which joyned himselfe to us in such a sort as no mortal shal ever conceive the manner of it And the same power giveth us this capacity of issuing as it were out of our selves in such a kind as we cannot comprehend that virtue by which we are thus enabled to joy and sorrow in the same conjuncture But though we doe not conceive fully the virtue by which we act we are cleerly informed of what we are to endeavour in all distresses never so averse to our nature for where he whom we beleeve equall to God returned him thanks and prayses for all his crosses and passions we who are but wormes and dust cannot doubt how we are to comport our selves in our chastisements and corrections under the hand of our Creator The Apostle in these instructions given to the Roman Catholikes for their behaviour in persecution compriseth and summeth up in a few words all my ratiocinations Be fervent in spirit Rom. 12. rejoycing in hope patience in tribulation instâ—nt in prayer These are the Wedges out of which I have by way of expansion drawn all the leaf-gold which I have laid upon these sheets out of which every one of you may take stuffe enough to gild over his Crosse and now I present you with the barres themselves out of which each of you may draw that fire-tryed gold which the Angel counselleth them to buy that would be made rich For as the prince of the Apostles saith of these same dispositions and in little differing terms 2 Pet. 1.8 If these things be present with you and abound they shall make you not vacant not without fruit in the knowledge of our Lord JESUS CHRIST And you will please to remember that I have marked you out the way of having this presence and abundance of these graces and endowments by fervent and indeficient prayer which openeth the eares of even the unjust judge and much more his who hath given us this expedient for all our releefs Luk. 18.2 It behoveth alwayes to pray and not to be weary 1 Thes 5.16 Oportet semper orare non deficere so that this precept of our righteous judge and mercifull master cannot be too much iterated and urged upon you in this time of your tentation And certainly Saint Pauls Rejoyce alwayes and his Pray alwayes are fitly set together for they are Correlatives prayer being the father and joy the sonne In this life our necessities require continuall supplies and in the other life where we shal know no want these two shall change their relations joy shall be the parent and prayer the issue for there the fulnesse of joy shall beget perpetuall prayer whereas here the abundance
of prayer is it that produceth a continuation of joy It is prayer then that is the anchor of our joy in this world Heb. 6.19 which may be fastned to the inner part of the vayle where Jesus the precursor is entred he hath left us this anchor to cast upwards to stay our peace in all afflictions and storms of this sea we sail up and down in for a while and if in any calm of spirit we lessen our prayer we doe but as if in faire weather a Ship should cut off her anchors confiding in the continuance of this serenity and consequently it can be no lesse then desperatenesse not to be very instant and intentive in prayer in the foule weather of persecution This prescription then of the Apostle is the most soveraign that can be ministred to your exigencies 2 Tim. 8.2 I wil therfore that men pray in every place lifting up pure hands without anger or altercation Volo ergo vires orare in omni loco levantes puras manus sine irâ disceptations When your hands are thus lifted up to Heaven the Amalekites are easilyer defeated then while they are retorting back their own darts of malices and animosities Whereupon David in his Canticle of resurrection wherein he acknowledgeth his marvailous restaurations assigneth all to the vertue of Prayer saying Psal 65.19.20 Therefore hath God heard and attended to the voice of my Petition Blessed be God who hath not removed my Prayer and his mercy from me Upon which words Saint Augustine gives us this rule That as long as we find not our Prayer removed from us we may be sure Gods mercy is not far from us for God doth often misericordiously deny our prayers that are in order to temporall reliefe as the Physitian knoweth better then the Patient what may be conveniently granted him but while he giveth us this perseverance he bestoweth his will upon us which must needs be better then our owne it may be we beg a serpent and he giveth us bread infallibly when he inspireth this indeficiency in Prayer Wherefore in resemblance of Saint Augustines excellent ejaculation of Lord give what you command and command what you please I will propose to you this adjunction in the unsuccessefulnesse of all your petitions Lord be pleased not to deny us the persistence in Prayer and deny us what you please of our prayers This is then the universall remedy I humbly offer to all your wounds or distempers exteriour or intrinsike the constant application of Prayer which is as the Spirit to the body of Religion whereof no violence can interrupt the exercise which I shall leave recommended to you with this testimony of the holy Spirit Prov 31.29 Many daughters have gathered together riches thou hast passed them all very applyable to the prerogatives of Prayer Multae filiae congregaverunt divitias tu supergressa es universas Upon the premission of all these principles of Christianity I may justly charge you with this injunction of Saint Paul to his brethren upon the same occasion Heb. 12.12 For the which cause stretch up the slacked hands and the loose knees and make straight steps to your feet that no man halting erre but rather be healed Cast off then all faintnesse and pusillanimity let not your hearts hang down as oppressed with that weight which groweth the lighter the more your hands are elevated and lifted to heaven And nothing is more opposed to the cure of your hurts then this halting the Apostle disswadeth to wit the favouring of your nature in that part it is offended by the world still leaning and swaying your thoughts towards the desires of temporall restitutions towards animosities to enemies and limping a little between repining and resignation These are the haltings in which our nature seemeth to ease her selfe but in effect this is but to favour a sore part by which tendernesse we may suffer the nerves to contract and the members may be by degrees rendred uselesse by this error of indulgence For this cause we are advised to make our steps straight to tread confidently in the vestiges and footsteps of our Saviour who Heb. 12.2 joy being proposed to him sustained the Crosse and the power of walking upon the same waters is denyed to none who have faith enough to tread confidently upon them when they are called to come to him in those his paths of many waters He who hath bid us all take up our Crosse and follow him cannot be answered John 14.5 Lord we know not whither thou goest and how can we know the way For we know he hath entred into his glory this way and hath set our glory at the end of the same passage wherein not onely his precedencie guideth us but the concomitancy of his grace and vertue supporteth and carryeth us and that the easilyer the more we leane upon them Therefore turne not your heads awry out of this narrow way to looke upon the broad flowrie passages of sinners but making straight steps in your owne track follow your glorious Crosse-bearer crying to him with the Psalmist Psal 93.12 13. Blessed is the man whom thou shalt instruct O Lord and shalt teach out of thy Law that thou mayst give him quietnesse from the evill dayes till a pit be digged for the sinner There is a Mine digging under all the rosie banks of full blowne prosperity and it is not our parts to know the times or moments of Gods springing this mine Let it be then your application to draw as many as you can by your prayers from under this hollow ground they are walking and building on and not your study to calculate or prognostike the day of their destruction This you may be assured of from the mouth of the Prophet and compassionate their sentence in comparison of your present sufferings Upon the ground of my people shall thorns and bryars come up how much more upon all the houses of the City rejoycing You may therefore rejoyce Esay 32.13 that you are but scratched a little by those thorns and bryars while others are in danger to have their roses and flowers turned into the fuell of eternall flames O then how much more are you to be accounted blessed upon whom is entayled that inheritance incorruptible and incontaminate conserved in the heavens Wherein you shall rejoyce 1 Pet. 1.6 7. a little now if you must be made heavy in divers tentations that the probation of your faith much more precious then gold which is proved by the fire may be found unto praise and glory and honour in the revelation of JESUS CHRIST Therefore in all the provocations of these times either by our personall distresses or by the contumelies and exprobrations of your religion let your spirits answer the reluctant impulses of your sensitive nature 2 Tim. 1.2 I suffer these things but I am not confounded for I know whom I have beleeved I am sure that he
is able to keepe my deposite unto that day Apoc. 13.10 Apo. 22.11 with this reply of the Apostle and Master of the Gentiles Haec patior sed non confundor scio enim cui credidi certus sum quia potens est servare depositum meum in illum diem remembring alwayes that there is no promise but upon fidelity even unto death Here is as Saint John saith The patience and the faith of Saints which expecteth Gods time for all mutations and untill that fulnesse of time be come we must acquiesce to what the Angel signified to Saint John and you may take it for an instruction apposite to these times He that hurteth let him hurt yet and he that is in filth let him be filthy yet and he that is just let him be justified yet and let the holy be sanctified yet And these two effects are consequents of one another for the impiety of the unrighteous is raised by their exercising and perfecting pious patients whose sanctity is refined by the others inquination Gods wisdome maketh use of all evills which he permitteth but to extract goods and so alloweth all vicissitudes their times untill he Who is the first and the last cometh to render to every man according to his works Wherefore doing good let us not faile for in due time we shall reape not failing Let this be then your consolation in all that displeaseth you that it proceedeth from his order who can be pleased with nothing but what is just Having thus summed up all the parcells and fractions of these lines I shall seale the totall with this signet of our Apostle and Doctor of all sufferers glorious Saint Paul Gal. 6.9 Thanks be to God who hath given us the victory by our Lord JESUS CHRIST 1 Cor. 15.57.58 Therefore my beloved brethren be stable and unmoveable abounding in the work of our Lord alwayes knowing that your labour is not in vain in our Lord. Now me thinks upon my delivery of this masculine issue of Catholike Religion the throes of my labour may be easily forgot but there is a harder worke belonging to this birth which is to Christen it with sincere humility the Sacrament as I may call it that entreth all these sorts of children into that Covenant whereby they become acceptable to God as being marked with the Character of Christs spirit and disposition who sought not his own glory in any of his works and hath left this rule John 7.18 He that seeketh the glory of him that sent him he is true and injustice in him there is not Wherefore in all humblenesse raising my heart and bending my knees to the originall Crucifix upon whose image I now fix mine eyes I lay myselfe and this issue of my spirit at his feet unfainedly acknowledging the first motion of this designe to have issued from his holy suggestion to me a particular zeale for the procuring you some comfort in these times of your destitutions of all ordinary succours and the abundance of extraordinary tentations I humbly therefore praise his goodnesse in this choice of me the youngest of his house to blow these sparkles of consolation among you riseing from that coale wherewith he hath been pleased to touch my lips and in a true sense of his mercy and my own meannesse I ought not to beleeve any thing I have written in this work so worthy the offering up to God as what I have not writ in it which is my name This manner of consumption and annihilation of self-regard may breath out some odour of humility which is like to be of better savour then any other quality of the oblation If now then I most humbly offer up to the honour of his holy Spirit all my propriety in this labour that the work thus consecrated may have this property of an hoast the having no longer any owner but Gods name and that by this means there may be no thoughts shed upon the author by the way but the whole praise and glory may passe up directly and intirely to the holy Spirit the Father of lights from whom all good gifts descend this is the greatest contribution I can bring towards the obtaining a blessing upon this worke that by the immediate and single glory which you render to God in acknowledging to him this solicitude for your necessities he may be moved to give the greater efficacy to these administrations of comfort Cast then I beseech you your thoughts at least upon such an object as my eyes are now fixed upon and looking on the Author of faith Heb. 12.1 and the consummator Christ Jesus who joy being proposed to him sustained the Crosse contemning confusion Let me beseech you to joyne with me in this Petition to him for a blessing upon my labours and his promised beatitude upon your sufferances A Prayer to CHRIST represented by a Crucifix GRacious Lord Jesus casting our eyes and thoughts upon your Crosse and considering how by your owne disfiguring you have repaired in us the image we had defaced of our creation we may joyfully accept this image of our Redemption stamped upon us by our present Crosses whereby we are conformed to you crucified and so intitled to that similitude we may expect by but looking upon you glorified O! let this present object have in some degree such an operation and make us like you upon the Crosse by looking on you in that distressed exposure that we may derive now from that sight these virtues of Patience Humility and Charity somewhat perfected as we shall then partake Joy Glory and Love consummated by that other vision of you Glorious Lord Jesus who are now risen from this throne of your humility to that of your Majesty give us leave to challenge this your promise of drawing all things after you when you were thus exalted be pleased then to draw our humility and fidelity after yours that they may extend even unto death that when we finde any naturall reluctancy against our crosses and humiliations we may feele a more powerfull attraction of our conformity after your precedency O! we have no excuse left when we looke upon your hands stretched out upon the Crosse in an equall expansion on both sides to active and passive Charity the one extended to the reliefe of the necessities of others the other reached forth to the toleration of all their injuryes whom you were relieving encompassing thus the whole globe of Charity Be pleased O Lord to fasten us in this manner unto the Crosse with you that being perfect Crucifixes in our dispositions as well as in our disfigurements by the World we may have the neerer configuration to your image when we shall no longer neede to labour a likenesse to you but the very seeing you shall transforme us into the same similitude Grant then O Lord while we are in this laborious resemblance of you that the character of your patience may be as visible upon us as that of your passion and that our enemies by the virtue of our wants may be releeved in their own necessities while our prayers growing the richer by our patience we may the better purchase their remissions This effect was a grace pertaining to your Crosse which we humbly beg may in some measure be conferd on ours that upon this ladder we may scale heaven our selves and open the gates to our enemies These were the consequences of your Crosse and we may become one Spirit with you by our adherence to you submissively plead for some such resultancies from our sufferings that being enabled by your grace to say with you that we have glorified God upon earth and consummated the work that was apointed us we may expect our presentation from you unto the glorious Trinity in the list of those that are come out of great tribulation and having abundance of teares in our eyes to wipe off when we come to be led by the Lambe to the fountaines of the Water of life the plenty of these waters have stood here in our eyes may fill our vessels the fuller of those celestiall springs Be pleased then O Lambe of God! that we may follow you now so faithfully through the streets of earthly Jerusalem without clamour or contention as we may be qualifide for our following you wheresoever you goe in that heavenly city where our duty and our delight will be incessant acclamations of your glory which shall be answerd by a continuall replication of our own Beatitude In the mean time grant that the meeknesse and humility of our spirits under our crosses may extoll the virtue of your crosse and the praises of your Catholike Church over which the gates of hell shall never prevaile and the which only shall prevaile upon the gates of Heaven Haec est victoria quae vincit mundum 1 Joh. 5.4 fides nostra Quia propter te mortificamur totâ die Rom. 8.36 astimati suâ—â—â—â— sicut oves occisionis sed in his omnibus superamus propter cum qui dilexiâ— nos FINIS Faults escaped correct thus Page 4. line 2. read matris eorum l. 4. r. adinventio p. 7. l. 8. r. clog p. 8. l. ult r. centre the. p. 10. l. 21. read good of mans life p. 31. l. 22. r. rapiunt p. 32. l. 1. r. line p. 33. l. 26. r. as another bow p. 36. l. 7. r. no imitation p. 37. l. 7. r. goods and l. 9. r. matter p. 44. l. 13. r. surer p. 48. l. 20. r. head p. 83. l. 4. r. that p. 123. l. 20. r. affected with p. 144. l. 13. r. rectify p. 151. l. 17. r. renitencie p. 155. l. 23. r. consolamini p. 162. l. 11. r. fleeting p. 169. l. 25. r. probation p. 171. l. 23. r. proved p. 194. l. 3. r. cogitationes p. 202. l. 1. r. with p. 204. l. 11. r. hand p. 214. l. 11. r. as bringing p. 254. l. 2. r. foeneratur p. 264. l. 2. r. inferd p. 266. l. 8. r. as thus p. 287. l. 25. r. lesse then their p. 295. l. 5. r. 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