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
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
then the frankincense to give it an odour of sweetnesse I shall therefore send my part of this work justified with this protestation of the Prophet Jeremy Jere. 17.16 I am not troubled following thee the Pastor and the day of man I have not desired thou knowest ego non sum turbatus to pastorem sequens diem hominis non desideravitu scis for they who have given all their dayes to God are ill advised if they pretend any part of the assignment of their exchange in the night of this Age or in the vapours of the breaths of Men and those of our function that affect much a returne of human praise from the offices of their vocation may be said to burn their own fingers while they are lighting the Candlestick of the Temple therefore my addresse of this Missive shall be Non nobis Domine non nobis sed nomini tuo da gloriam An Introduction to the following Discourse WHen Saint Paul our Christian Hercules had enumerated so many of his private labours 2 Cor. 11.13 Nothing beyond as one might have thought a non plus ultrà might have been set up upon them he seems as it were to slight all those so excellent works and to esteem all personall pressures Those things which are externall Who is weak and I am not weak who is scandalized and I am not burnt but as the out-works of charity and so quitting ea quae extrinsecus sunt when he will glory in the strength of his charity he setteth it out in his care and solicitude for the Churches distresses and so maketh Quis infirmatur ego non infirmor quis scandalizatur ego non uror the verticall point of the Pyramide of his suffering and acting charity which remaineth as an entire monument of his glory after the ruine of all theirs whose persecutions erected it and raised it to that sublimity of virtue And if our Charities have such an analogie with S. Pauls as our vocations have and our zeale beare as much similitude to his as the face of our present times doth to his dayes our part which seemeth off from the publike stage of persecution may be admitted as the most sorrowfull and distressing of all other for surely all exteriour burthens are lighter to our senses then an interiour solicitude in a publike concernment is to our spirit especially when it is in relation to the passions of the Church of Christ And this is our case Solicitude of the Church Cant. 8. who have solicitudinem Ecclesiae impressed upon our spirit in an indelible character so as there is none of your brethrens weaknesses that doth not make an impression as the Spouses seale upon our heart and upon our arme And it may be the larger our prison is the straiter the pressure of it proveth unto us as it is a restraint upon the exercise of our functions in consolating and ministring personally to you in this your fiery tryall Wherefore our hearts being exempt from this separation they take fire at the flame you are in and professe that none of you are scandalized with whom they doe not burne insomuch that the sparkles of that fornace you are in fly even through the sea upon us For every report of a fresh vexation falne upon you raiseth and sharpneth the ardour of our fellow-feeling of your tribulations Cant. 8.7 Many waters cannot quench charity nor shall floods overwhelm it so that we may say with the Spouse Aquae multae non potuerunt extinguere charitatem nec flumina obruent illam since the fire of your temptations and tryals in England passeth over seas and burneth us in Flanders and there is no matter so apt to take and entertaine this flame as our holy unction Desiring therefore much to write you some news for your comfort in these times wherein the want of Priests among you is none of your least afflictions I will tell you there is none of you which have not a kind of character of Priesthood upon you being all obliged to offer up spirituall hoasts of resignation and self-relinquishment and to lay all your naturall senses and apprehensions of your sufferings upon the Altar of the Crosse in adoration of Gods designe upon you and thus in conformity to Christ you are to become your selves both the Priests and the oblations For whiles your hearts offer up your selves and your substances to Gods holy judgements your soules exercise a kind of office of Priesthood upon your bodies and goods which are the materiall part of the oblation and by this consecrating of your sufferings they who would exterminate Priesthood in England shall consecrate as many of these Priests as they lay their persecuting hand upon and as they despoile you of your fortunes 1 Pet. 2.6 they furnish you with the fatter victimes in the function of this your holy Priesthood of offering up these spirituall hoasts acceptable to God by JESUS CHRIST Take therfore this order from the Psalmist Psal 4. Sacrifice ye the sacrifice of justice and hope in our Lord. Sacrificate sacrificium justitiae sperate in Domine and by this your meritorious exercise of Catholike Religion you shall find I hope lesse want of the Ministery of our reall Priesthood among you which may be thus supplyed even by your owne necessities while you make of all your deprivements matter of sanctification by your faithfull acceptance of them and by this disposition you enter into those holy Orders of Sacrificers which Saint Paul gave the Primitive Christians in your cases while you exhibit your bodies a living hoast holy Rom. 12.1 pleasing to God Nor doth this kind of spirituall sacrificature claime a lesse precedent then even the Sonne of God for these were part of the daily Sacrifices he offered his Father while he was upon the earth his privations incommodities and destitutions his not having so much as a house to put his head in was in this kind his daily evening sacrifice and these his quotidian sufferances did continually mediate and interpeale for our remissions You may therefore now be said to be successors of this Priesthood of Christs life which is as I may say a third kind of Priesthood Christ instituted by his life differing from the old of Aaron and that of the order of Melchisedec for it is an offering up to God the want of bread and wine for a sacrifice of selfe-resignation For why may not Christs hunger and thirst and his other wants and exigencies be fitly said to have instituted this holy order of self-sacrificing and offering up all our temporall distresses to Gods pleasure in conformity to this quotidian oblation of Christs life so as those of you who are not called to that sacerdotall function which Christ exercised in his death when he was both Priest and Sacrifice somewhat like whereunto many of us have happily by the grace of God been admitted by Martyrdome seem all called to this holy order
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
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
pillar and strength of truth That as the Prince of the Apostles adviseth his Disciples in your conditions 1 Pet. 8.9 you may be all of one mind lovers of fraternity modest humble not rendring evill for evill nor curse for curse but contrariwise blessing that in that which they speak ill of you they may be confounded which calumniate your good conversation in CHRIST This practical part of your Religion is that which falls within every one of your capacities this is the good fight you are to fight wherein you are not disarmed by being manacled For me thinks I may say as Seneca did of Seaevola That he was happyer in suffering then he could have been in acting as it is a more admirable thing to overcome an enemy by suffering the losse of our hand then by that of striking with it So this your suffering estate may prove more successefull to you then that desperate design of some few acting many years agoe which no good English Catholikes doe justifie for by your patience and equanimity charity for your Countrey in all your losses and sufferances you may perhaps overcome that is sweeten and mitigate the fiercenesse of your enemies by the most admirable and most Christian way that can be projected And thus proving your selves innocent of those combustions wherewith you are charged you may become holy incendiaries of true zeale and charity in your Country by these virtues shining and flaming in your sufferances In the close of this proposition to you I must recall to your memorie that as by these evidences of your solid virtue you may adorne the doctrine of our Saviour God in all things so there is no accesse unto these holy dispositions but through the entry whereunto I have directed you of humble and sincere sorrow and contrition for your sins whereof I shall not now need to inlarge any advises since it is a subject well handled by every body though the precepts are seldome well observed even with the help of affliction to enforce them Therefore I must close up this point presenting you with part of the three childrens prayer upon the occasion of their tryall in Babylon which may be apposite in many circumstances to your conditions in regard of the terrours and comminations you are now exposed unto Dan. 3. Because O Lord we are diminished more then all nations and are abused in all the land this day for our sinnes and there is not at this time nor sacrifice nor oblation that we may find thy mercy but in a contrite mind and spirit of humility let us be received so let our sacrifice be made in thy sight this day that is may please thee CHAP. X. Instructions in the duties of fraternall dilection SUpposing you now purified by this Christian ablution of sincere penitence having had as the Apostle saith your hearts aspersed with this cleansing water I will lead you to the Altar of Christ to make your oblation of Charity to your brethren as well as to those who are but your half brothers being of a diverse mother as to those who have their uterine fraternity with you as children of the Catholike Church And because there are two principall articles of your present examination your behaviour concerning the domestikes of faith and your discharge of the duties of your faith relating to the aliens of Israel I conceive it very pertinent to my subject the endeavouring by the grace of God to present you some brief animadversions in these two Christian offices and your present conditions facilitate your compliance with the first as they bring impediments to the correspondency with the later of them for the association in sufferings conducteth to the straightning of the bands of Charity between persons thus combined but the pressures of afflictions doe naturally loosen and relax our minds in those tyes whereby Religion conjoyneth our Charity to our enemies so that this unfortified part of our nature requireth a strong guard of Grace to defend it against our spirituall enemy when he stormeth it by the injuries of our owne brothers and headeth his fiery darts with the asperity of our owne former friends When the great Maligner of our nature bringeth in such enemies for the imbraces of our charity we had need have our brests well stored with those flames which many waters cannot extinguish when streames even of our owne blood Cant. 8. are thus powred out in enmities upon them and it requires surely much of that love which is stronger then death to return love to that animosity against us which is so much stronger then nature in friends and brothers In this case it must needs be specially requisite that you who are thus assayled by these most powerfull temptations should be furnished with the armour of God Ephes 6. for no lesse then the shield of the Catholike Faith to which is coupled the helmet of salvation can be of proofe against these fiery darts whereof there are now vollyes flying against you As touching the first of these two dutyes I may say as Saint Paul saith to the Thessalonians in the like occasion concerning the charity of the fraternity We have no need to write to you 1 Thes 4.9 for your selves have learned of God to love one another The remisnesse of our vitiated nature in this precept is commonly quickned and invigorated by the same degrees that a common persecution is strained upon us wherefore I may trust even Vox populi in these times to preach fervour to you in this practice It will be then more requisite for me to insist upon what the Apostle proceedeth to recommend in the same place That you walk honestly towards them that are without I shall then onely stay to set up some few lights before the shrine of this sort of Charity referred to your friends and fellow citizens of the Saints Eph. 2.16 and domestikes of God and proceed to the saying of the office more amply of the other part of Charity the dilection of enemies But indeed both these duties are but divers branches which have a continuity and unity in the same shaft before they part and break themselves into these two severall armes of acting for friends and affecting of enemies and so we cannot touch the one without some report and relation to the other For these two exercises are but lower and higher boughes growing upon the same shaft of the charity of God powred forth in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given us Heaven is the orbe of mans joy and earth the element of his misery and love is both the conveyance of man to heaven and the consummation of his joy there and the holy Ghost contriveth the raising of this our conducting love very often out of our consortings in the miseries of this life for society in suffering here exalts mutuall love as communion in joyes there doth heighten reciprocall charity which is some accession to the blisse of heaven And in
order to this we see that the bleeding of the mysticall body of Christ hath alwaies offered a kinde of spirituall cement to unite and compact the parts thereof Whereupon the holy Ghost who hath this commission to produce an union in the mysticall body of Christ John 17.21 23. resembling that of the Blessed Trinity whereof he is the union as he performeth this effectively by love so he raiseth this love very often instrumentally by persecution For we know in those times when opposition to this tender body was most fierce this union was so firme and indissoluble as the holy Spirit seemeth to glory in this operation as having wrought this similitude of unity so perfectly as he pronounceth The multitude of beleevers to have had one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule so that here was that similitude accomplished in them which Christ asked thus of his Father for the beleevers in him Job 17.22 that They may be one as we also are one For this seemeth a good resemblance of that union is in the Blessed Trinity wherein there is distinction of Persons and unity of Essence since here the multitude consisting of divers persons were all one heart and one soule This simplicity and unanimity slakned even in those times by the same degrees that the pressures which lay upon this arch of the Church were lightned and removed But in all times we finde that a common persecution hath in some measure straitened and combined the minds consorted in that band of Religion which is the cause of their pressure and gravation So as we cannot doubt but these times have in a good proportion closed and compacted more your hearts in a mutuall zeal and charity towards one another which unity of spirit is very sutable with the uniformity of your Religion and no violence can suppresse a free exercise of this act thereof And as this sort of communication to one anothers necessities is a means left you still to exercise your charities so I hope in God you are very faithfull and active in this commerce with one another and that both sorts drive a greater trade of charity in your severall faculties then ever Those who have beene in the office of giving materiall almes doe now I hope endeavour to compensate the losses of the poore Pro. 19.17 He lendeth to our Lord that hath mercy on the poore and he will repay him the like who are Gods receivers by proving themselves the devouter and better beggers of God releefe for the common distresses and they who have received much from others upon Gods tickets do I hope now bring them in to God more fervently then ever showing him what they have received upon his account and so may be earnest solicitors for the payment of that Interest which they doe witnesse to be due upon this contract of the holy Spirit Faeneratur Domino quà miseretur pauperi vicissitudinem suam reddet ei and thus both parties may still commerce for their severall accommodations those who have beene Gods creditors in the sense aforesaid may seeme more sensible of the suspension of this quality then of their personall deprivements and may most zealously intercede for the supplying of that office by some other means and those who are miserably distituted now by the obstruction of this conduit of reliefe may be so gratefully zealous as to intend more the bringing into God the accounts due to such ministers of his as stand now suspended then their owne private suppeditations and both shall by this means hold their proper parts in this consort of charity the one shall forget their good works before God and the other shall remember him of them Thus spirituall good works may still multiply among you while the one part of you sorroweth most for the intermission of the practicall ministry of them and the other feeleth more their religious gratitude to their distressed benefactors then their private grievances And this kinde of weeping in your widowes and shewing the coats and garments which the Dorcases were wont to make them Act. 9.59 who are now dead to that function is one of the likelyest meanes to obtaine their resuscitation and re-instating in that condition For as the Wiseman saith It is an easie thing for God to accommodate the poore James 5.11 Facile est Dec honestare pauperem and the Apostle S. James proposeth Jobs temporall resurrection and restauration as an object of comfort to faithful expecters of Gods time and therefore these two duties faithfully performed by both your conditions may make the highest poverty amongst you abound unto the riches of simplicity the which may also intercede so powerfully for the other part as it may prove such an Angelicall mediation as is spoken of in Job Job 33.23 If there shall be an Angel speaking for him one of thousands to declare mans equity he shall have mercy on him and shall say Deliver him that he descend not into corruption I have found wherein I may be propitious to him the voyce of the poore bringing in these testimonies of their former equities for your Jobs whom their friends doe not know sitting in the ashes of their consumed fortunes these I say that have not made the eyes of the widdow expect nor have eaten their morsell alone such bills and evidences brought in to Christ as debts wherewith he hath charged his person may perhaps procure Jobs latter daies for such who have passed thorough his first estate and are now sitting in his second translation But in all cases these notes of the hands of the poore shall be sure assignments for that better and permanent substance which the Apostle saith is their inheritance Heb. 10. of those who have susteined a great fight of passions and have had compassion on them that were in bonds and have taken the spoile of their goods with joy For which reason this mutuall commerce of spirituall charity is that I now recommend unto you for the exercise of fraternall dilection that while you cannot turnish the Altar without the veyle with the fat of your flocks you may the more largely serve the table of Incense with these odours of internall charity What I have said in way of direction to these interiour acts of charity is to extenuate the paines of those Tobiasses who it may be are now reduced from being almoners to be their owne almes-men having scarce left for their support that which was heretofore their waste that ran over and fed their brothers But I doe not intend this as a dispensation to any who have yet any thing left which they may prudently deny themselves in contribution to the releife of such who have no portion of subsistance For now every one should square his mind by the new modell of these times and the same clay that the potter hath beene pleased to turn from a larger into a lesser vessell must attend to his present forme and not reflect upon his
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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