and accomplishment of our Salvation did so familiarly communicate their joyes and wherein the most excellent Virgin Mary of the House of David and Elizabeth the most venerable amongst the Daughters of Aaron discours'd together The first of these had inclosed in her wombe the Creatour and Redeemer of us all the latter his Forerunner These Saints being made Mothers by a Miracle conferr'd together of the Divine benefits they had received The meeting of this worthy paire was most happie and illustrated with great and glorious testimonies of the divine Grace The one conceived by the cooperation of the holy Spirit the other by Myracle in her old Age and both their issues foretold by the celestiall Angell Iohn as yet imprisoned in his Mothers wombe doth worship his Lord borne to him in Maries Belly and Elizabeth fill'd with the Holy Ghost doth congratulate the Conception of the Sonne of God and the Saviour of Mankinde and prophecying declares her Cousen blessed in beleeving and contemplating the mysteries revealed to her On the other side Mary full of unutterable joy layed up all these sayings in her heart which before she had heard from the Angel and now from Elizabeth and breaks out into a Song of Thanksgiving to the Lord. Who can sufficiently praise so great Mysteries Who can declare those joyes to the full Iohn not yet borne rejoyceth Elizabeth is delighted with the arrivall of the Virgin Mary is extreamely pleased in the Mysteries the Saviour of the world is acknowledged by his Fore-runner not onely the Angels but Heaven and Earth resent the pleasure and the whole Trinitie is glorified with new praises Wherefore the greatnesse of these joyes is to be extolled with especiall commendations and with singular solemnities to be celebrated and the Lord in the wombe the Virgin that beares him the barren that conceives and the Fore-runner that it sanctified ought to be presented with all imaginable praises and honours With this pious and gratefull ordinance of the Church I conclude the visitation of our incomparable Lady and now proceed to her Deliverie We reade in holy Writ of three supernaturall Productions the one of Adam the other of Eve the last of Christ which as most miraculous we are now to treat of Here in his Nativitie as before in his Conception let us turne Inquisition into thanksgiving and with one spirit and voyce sing aloud The stone which the Builders refused is the head of the corner This was the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes This is the day which the Lord hath made let us rejoyce and be glad in it This is our wedding-day wherein by the Sonne we are joyned to the Father This is the day of the new union wherein he who is God remaineth the same that he was yet for our sakes is borne and made what he was not wherein he that was every where without a Body is made present to us by a Body that what God hath by Nature men might receive by Grace This is a great a joyfull a fortunate a desired day the end of the Law the end of the Prophets the beginning of the Gospell nay the Gospell it selfe This is a day of State usher'd by the Angels follow'd by the Apostles Let our Mindes remove the distance of Time and place and dwell a while with our all-holy-Lord and blessed Lady lest we loose the pleasure of this day the least Accident whereof is Mysterious What a brave assembly of Visitants of all Conditions resorted this day to this place which then might rightly be called the Randevous of the Saints Would you see those who are above men but below him who is borne Behold the Angels singing his birth Do you desire to behold the married Here you have Zachary and Elizabeth The unmarried Here you have Symeon Widdows Here you have Anna. Priests Here againe you have Zachary Wise men Here you have them from the East Ideots You have here the Shepheards But here is to be noted that these keepers of Beasts heare the voyce of the Angels before any of the other first receive the Gospell and first divulge it And in this they were more happie then Augustus himselfe who though he had made a firme Peace by Sea and Land and had now the third time shut up the Temple of Ianus yet was he ignorant of the blessed Peace concluded on betwixt God and Man O how much sometimes Ignorance avails in Divine matters Kings Potentates the Rulers of the Earth and the wise of this world are asleepe while Christ is borne These most simple of Mortals and innocent as the creatures they tend watch all night and therefore are first made partakers of these joyfull news As their owne wooll not yet dipt in any dye readily drinks in any colour they please of bestow on it So their minds voyd of all humane wisedome greedily suckt in the Divine Faith is the Compendium of Salvation and humane knowledge of times the obstacle of Faith Aristotle having confined to Heaven the Maker and Moover of it would never have beleeved his birth here below Plato would have derided this miraculous relation who the more he attributed to God the lesse would he have expected his so humble comming into the world Neither would the Stoicks who held God to be a fire nor Hipocrates who thought him to be a warm'th ever have look't for him clad in flesh and bloud Wherefore they are here elected witnesses of this strange truth whose Science was of ability strongly to beleeve not wittily to dispute O what proficients in Faith did these rusticall Swaines prove in a moment What a profound secret is imparted to them Let us examine the verity of this by that infallible Touch-stone the text And there were in the same Country Shepheards abiding in the field keeping watch by night because of their flocke and loe the Angell of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone about them and they were sore afraid Then the Angell said unto them Be not afraid for behold I bring you tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people That is that unto you is borne this day a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a signe unto you you shall finde the Childe swadled and layed in a Cratch And straight way there was with the Angell a multitude of heavenly Souldiers praysing God and saying Glory be to God in the high Heaven and Peace on Earth and towards men good will And it came to passe that when the Angels were gone away from thence into Heaven that the Shepheards said one to another Let us goe then unto Bethlem and see this thing that is come to passe which the Lord hath shewed unto us so they came with haste and found both Mary and Ioseph with the Babe layd in the Cratch And when they had seene it they publisht abroad the thing that was told them of that Childe Here three things
foot was and ought to be more to mee than the eternall sleepe of Lazarus could be to thee And as thy teares for him were tokens of thy humane nature not signes of thy diffidence in that thou knew'st he would forthwith arise so are mine for thee witnesses of my wretched estate not of my distrust who am assured of thy speedy resurrection Nor doe I onely grieve my owne griefe for as for mans sake I rejoyce in thy Fathers Grace who delivers thee to death and in thy Charity who dost suffer it So likewise in mans behalfe I am griev'd that he should be the cursed cause of those thy extreme torments for as not to joy in the benefits thy death hath brought with it would argue his ingratitude so not to condole for the tortures that attend it would demonstrate his cruelty And here I faithfully promise thee that both I while life and thy Church while the world doth last shall yearely spend this dolefull time of thy Tragicall expiration in Prayer fasting severity of discipline maceration of the flesh and contrition of the spirit as becomes thy mournefull Mother and thy gratefull Spouse to doe Thus condoling thus bemoaning hers and the generall losse she attended his herse to the Sepulchre provided by Ioseph where never man was laid before for it was not fit that Incorruptibility should succeed corruption in the same lodging This fragrant Flower was no sooner set in the ground but she sent many a deare drop after it to fasten it at the root for she knew within three dayes it should spring up againe not to grow in the earth but to be translated into Heaven there for ever to flourish and perfume the celestiall habitation Nor were her eyes saith Damascen closed with his Monument but watched themselves almost blinde with a greedy expectation to see the temple of his body built up againe which three dayes since was destroyed After many a longing looke she espied the Tombe to open and her onely joy to issue forth whom full well she knew by the countenance and figure of his Humanity but farre better by the cleere proofes of his Godhead for the Graves delivered up their dead many of which appear'd to their friends in the holy City Some and those of great authority in the Church affirme that after his Resurrection she of all others saw him first and wheras the Scripture seemeth to inferre that Mary Magdalen first beheld him they thus expound it That the Evangelists would not make his Mother the first witnesse of his Resurrection though indeed she was knowing that her testimony by the Iewes would be more suspected than that of Mary Magdalen I dare not positively conclude any thing herein but I may safely maintaine that this her delight for his Resurrection counterpois'd her griefe conceived for his death In her was now made good that of the Psalmist According to the multitude of the griefes of my heart thy Comforts have rejoyced my soule and that of her Sonne Blessed are they that mourne for they shall bee comforted And who makes question but that she who with such unutterable pleasure discover'd his Resurrection faithfully and closely waited on him till his Ascention She who was as inseparable to him as his shadow without doubt was on the Mount Olivet with other of the faithfull when in the sight of them all he ascended She heard doubtlesse his last words received his last benediction and her sight waited on him till the clowds imbrac't him which it in vaine essay'd to penetrate What Soule not in selfe transported with the view of a heavenly object can suppose much lesse expresse what her contentment was when she saw her owne flesh flye above the reach of Envie into the Armes of Glory When she beheld this high Priest his Sacrifice ended and God fully appeas'd enter Heaven there to sit on the right hand of his Father and to be the uncessant and eternall Mediatour betwixt him and man With bended knees erected hands and eyes she worships him ascending and when her sight failes her adoration continues Her zeale passeth all the orbes betweene him and her with greater facility and subtility then the Lightning shooteth through the Ayre Great is the vigour and force of the Spirit when all things else set apart it is wholly intentive on the Meditation of its Creatour When by contemplation it is separated from the body it thinkes onely on him lives onely to him and is as it were drown'd in an inundation of his love When it hath extinguisht the scorching lawlesse desires of the flesh and kindled the holy ones of the Spirit the body rebels no longer but becomes obedient to it in all things When it hath once fixed its eyes on this beloved object it never removeth them thence When it is once illuminated with the beames of the holy Ghost it is presently turn'd into all Eye all Spirit all Light no otherwise than those things the fire once layes hold on are turn'd into fire it selfe Of those who live in Wedlocke it is said that they are two in one flesh and why may it not be said of Christ and the Soule wedded to him that they are two in one Spirit And if ever it might be reported of any surely of this Holy Virgin who though she was devided from her Redeemer in Body yet in soule she was united to him When her eyes were growne dimme with her so long dwelling on that part of Heaven where they left and lost him she cast them downe on the earth the poverty whereof she commiserated in that it was deprived of this one Iewell in value above all it had left And now She returnes into the holy City not disconsolate and dejected as other women are when they lose their onely childe but with a cheerfull look for her Sons victory who had triumphed not onely over the Iew but death and hell it selfe She made her will lacky Gods and though she desired to be dissolved and be with Christ yet since it was his best pleasure she should continue longer here below she readily assented resolving by her example on earth to furnish heaven with Saints Dammianus sayes that after her Sonnes decease she remained ten daies in Prayer and Fasting expecting with a fervent longing the promised comming of the Spirit Saint Luke witnesseth that sixe score men and women were assembled in one rome and joyned in hearty prayer of the which Mary the Mother of IESUS was one And as he names her last so her wonted Humility perswades me that she had the last and lowest place and sate beneath the other sinfull women of inferiour quality in remembrance of her humble Lord now exalted And it is more than probable that she was present with the Apostles when the Holy Ghost came upon them and that she there received the first fruits of the Spirit After which time we reade no more of her in holy Writ For where and with whom how
Kingdome shall be no end To this her answer was How shall that be since I know no man It is true it is true most blessed Virgin thou knowest no man but let thy modesty rest secure for the operation of God and not of man is here required God should never be conceived in thee wert thou not a Virgin nor borne of thee shouldest thou not remaine such Thou canst not be spotted with the conception or birth of an issue so immaculate This feare is as needlesse as that of defiling thy fairest fingers with the purest fountaine If Obededon having received the Arke within his walles was so enriched with all manner of Treasure that Felicity was voyced to have descended from heaven into his house what shall we judge of thy supreme blisse O glorious Virgin who art not to be the receptacle of a wooden Arke but of his only Sonne With confidence therefore consent to thy owne happinesse and the Redemption of all Humanity But indeed I do not wonder at her astonishment when I consider her bashfulnesse Mee thinks I see her now casting her eyes up to heaven now fixing them on the earth and now againe on the Ambassadour himselfe resolving to give up her soule rather then her virginity Harsh must the word conception needs sound to her who was a votary nere to know man whose onely love was prayer whose onely childe was piety But when the Angell urged Gods will she forthwith yeelded a handmaid to her Lords desire Let us intentively listen to the text And the Angel answer'd and said unto her The holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee therefore also that holy thing that shall be borne of thee shall be called the Sonne of God And behold thy cousen Elizabeth shee hath also conceived a sonne in her old age and this is the sixt moneth with her who was called barren For with God nothing shall bee impossible And Mary said Behold the handmaid of the Lord bee it to mee according to thy word See here united an incomparable humility and an obedience even unto death For the consenting to be the mother of God was not easie to her in that a meek and humble spirit with greater difficultie ascends the highest steppe of Honours Throne then a proud descends thence to the bottome it being a thing in nature farre harder to climbe then to come downe If any man shall yet rest unsatisfied and shall make a further enquirie after this difficulty he may please to consider that her humility ballanc't her Sonnes exalted and her owne dejected estate and as well meditated the care the diligency the reverence and obsequiousnes as the dignity and excellency of her whom God would vouchsafe the most glorious title of Mother She wisely weighed that the Angels were not worthy to wait on him and therefore the service of her whole life must as farre exceed as the name of Gods Mother did excell that of Servant or Angell If Saint Peter yet in the dawn of Grace could so clearly discerne his Masters greatnesse as that he cryed out Depart from me a sinner as deeming himselfe unworthy of his presence If the Centurion for the same respect thought his house too base to receive him what should she thinke who was not to take him into her ship or her lodging but into her wombe where he was to remaine not a visitant but a dweller Full well also she understood that her consent was not onely required to be the parent of the Almighty but the Spouse also of his holy Spirit to whose inspirations she ought a greater obedience then others having received from the same spirit a greater measure of grace and honour She clearly foresaw that she was not onely chosen to conceive the Son of God to bring forth to nurse and governe him but also perforce to yeeld him up such being the divine pleasure to a three and thirty yeares persecution and lastly to the cursed death of the crosse the salvation of others depending on his destruction And that she did foresee all this plainly appeares by the speech of the Angell to her who after he had foretold the conception and birth of Christ added And he shall be called Iesus that is a Saviour An awfull reverence and an inconceiveable joy divided without doubt her all-holy heart when she contemplated her future being a mother to the Messias Can a man imagine any thing more difficult more bitter for humane nature to overcome Yet did her active vertue vanquish all these impediments and with an humble ravisht soule she expected the entrance of him into her sacred wombe whom already she had surely seated in her heart Here before we proceed to her conception we must observe two things not amply and fully enough express'd very remarkable in the Angelicall salutation First the dignity of the Ambassadour next the worth of her to whom his Embassy was directed together with her many vertues equally eminent in this divine Dialogue Concerning the first he was not a man but an Angell neither an Angell of an inferiour order but of the supreme Hierarchy which choise and pure spirits having received infinite ornaments and graces from their Lord and Master retained still his favour and ever stood before him S. Gregory stiles him a principall Angell treating of principall things Some have not feared to call him the supreme Angell as Damascen and others Truth will answer for him that amongst all the celestiall spirits none are so predicated in holy Writ as he and Michael to whom the Declaration and Exposition of so high Mysteries so often were committed as in Daniel Zachary and Mary is specified Some will have his name to signifie God and man and that this Etymology containes a miraculous mystery Amongst these is Proculus Arch-Bishop of Constantinople Geber saith he signifies man El God alluding to his Embassy which treated of his approaching birth who was both God and man Saint Bernard judgeth the servant of Abraham to have beene a type of Gabriel for he was sent by his Master not to seek any Virgin that came next to hand but such a one as the Lord God had prepared for the Sonne of his Lord. This Gabriel saith Saint Chrysostome the Painters present to us winged not that God created him so but to denote the sublimmity and agillity of the celestiall Nature as also to admonish us that with gratefull hearts wee acknowledge him to have for our cause descended from his highest habitation And sweetly Chrysologus An Angell treated with Mary concerning our salvation because an Angell had dealt with Eue touching our damnation This blessed Spirit and Saint Iohn the Evangelist Damianus compares to two Lyons which carefully guard this our sacred subject I will not here seeke to satisfie the over-curious and needlesse doubts of Luther and others whether she knew Gabriel to be an Angell or no nor whether or no
apprehension layes hold on the mercie of God in Christ And this goodnesse of God towards us makes our sinnes more odious even in our own eies no otherwise then the tender kindnesse of his Father made the prodigall childe more clearly see his owne errour and disobedience For this makes that speech of God to the Iewes When you come into the Land of promise then you shall know your sinnes as if he should have said How often have you distrusted me and not onely murmur'd against me but abandon'd me and ador'd Idols making them your guides and attributing to them the benefits you have received from me so the regenerated Christian being once entred into the spirituall Kingdome of Christ sees more clearely his sinnes then he did before his calling as having received a greater Light The excellency of this vertue in a Christian is beyond humane expression Not amisse a learned Father of the Church stiles this the Treasurer of all other vertues The antient Christians commonly usurpe Humility for vertue it selfe Christ cals it poorenesse of Spirit and discoursing of mans Beatitude sets it in the Front This and Pride are at endlesse oddes for this is sociable and loves company wheras pride affects solitude and is for the most part alone In the Empire of Pride two cannot stand quietly together whereas in the dominions of Humility an infinite number may be placed without either combat or strife Pride is never void of feare and doubt whereas this stands secure with Ionas in the bottome of the Sea Pride is ever ambitious of the first seate this of the lowest and therefore is as much extoll'd by all men as the other cride downe Pride assumes all to it selfe and is full of selfe-love This refuseth even its owne due and undervalues it selfe as knowing that it can justly call nothing its owne but sinne Pride stormes at an injury receiv'd this embraceth all occasions that may exercise its patience Pride like all things puft up and light is wavering and blown here and there by every gust of Fortune this in stability is a rock not in hardnesse being soft and white as the Downe of Swans Yet though this Vertue be of all other the most innocent and submissive it is withall the most powerfull for as nature so God abhors vacuity and therefore finding the humble utterly empty of affection presumption and what else is derogatory to his honour hee fils him with his grace and spirit What should I say more Humility is fearelesse in danger free in bondage rich in poverty quiet in persecution noble and gloriorious in ignominy lofty in lownesse joyfull in anguish and happy in the midst of misery This made Moses speechlesse Abraham to acknowledge himselfe dust and ashes Iohn the Baptist to esteeme himselfe a meer Voyce and Saint Paul to account himselfe the greatest of all sinners This Iewell was so faire in Christs eye that to purchase it he underwent not only poverty misery and all indignities but even execration and malediction What would we judge of a great Prince who in stead of enlarging his Territories should abase himselfe so farre as to become a poore subject Why this did Christ who being of all things the greatest and best from all eternity by humility became of all the lowest and descended even to the profession of service to the meanest of his creatures It is also an evident marke of his humility that he chose to be borne of simple and obscure Parents whereas he might if he would have allyed himselfe to the greatest Princes This gave occasion to the Iewes to mocke him saying Is not Ioseph his Father and Mary his Mother True it is that he was of the House of David but when he was borne it was in its declination and of no repute As the Moone fourteene dayes together to our sight encreaseth and fourteene againe diminisheth till at length it be seene no more so in the fourteene generations from Abraham to David the House of David received advancement in honour and splendour and was in his time at the full height but in the fourteene following generations it was in the wane and in the dayes of Christ neere utter extinction And whereas he might have inserted Sarah Rebecca and many other Saints in his Genealogy he placed Tamar Raab Ruth Bersabe and others of an incestuous race to shew the world that though he hated sinne he abhorred not sinners What man is there who having a lascivious wife detected of whoredome will take her againe Yet Christ having espoused the adulterate soule of man receives her into grace and favour after she hath committed millions of adulteries To this effect saith the Prophet Though thou hast committed fornication with many Lovers yet returne and I will receive thee Who is there that being injur'd will not onely forgive the Offendor but seeke his friendship I and lay downe his life for him All this did Christ who being grievously and hainously abused by man not onely demanded his pardon as if he himselfe had beene faulty but made an oblation of his owne heart-bloud to quench the wrath of God justly conceived against him Another admirable act of his humility was that God having given him all power in heaven and earth in so much that he could at his pleasure have destroyed Iudas whose treason he foreknew all the revenge he tooke was to wash his feet and to call him Friend when he came to apprehend him To these I may adde his living in obscurity from his twelfth to his thirtieth yeere in all which time we reade not any thing of him I will conclude with all the crosses and calamities he endur'd of which in his life he never reaped any fruit and at his death had his Innocency onely predicated by one and that one a Thiefe In a word during his abode here below whether you consider his Doctrine Actions or Passion he was not so much delighted with the exercise of any vertue as of this gentle meek one that so he might imprint it as his owne sacred stampe or marke in those mindes which he would have known to be his And above the rest into the chast bosome of his dearest Mother did he send this divine gift before his birth by infusion and afterwards engrafted it there by example And this we may well perceive by her so closely following the patterne that she precedes all but himselfe in this milde offencelesse vertue In this rare quality as she had an unequall'd Master so she prov'd a matchlesse Schollar He who is ignorant of the excellency she hath attain'd to in this one perfection I dare pronounce him withall ignorant of Gods holy Writ and incapeable of all goodnesse derived thence Yet some sacrilegious theeves there are who robbe this beautifull Temple of its prime ornament this sweetest Garland of its fairest Flower They maintaine me thinks the earth should shake it selfe and them when they utter it that she was humbled not humble