and hate thine enemie But I say to you love your enemies do good to them that hate you and pray for them that persecute and abuse you that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven who maketh his Sun to rise upon good and bad and raineth upon just and unjust For if you love them that love you what reward shall you have Do not also the Publicans this And if you salute your brethren onely what do you more Do not also the heathen this Be you perfect therefore as also your heavenly Father is perfect Moralities 1. A Man that loves nothing but according to his natural inclination loves onely like a beast or an infidel The best sort of love is that which is commanded by God is derived from judgement conducted by reason and perfected by Charity Me thinks it should be harder for a good Christian to hate then love his enemy Hate makes him our equal whereas love placeth us quite above him By hating a mans enemy he breaks the laws of God he fights against the Incarnation of Christ wich was acted to unite all things in the bands of love he gives the lie to the most blessed Eucharist whose nature is to make the hearts of all Christians the same he lives like another Cain in the world alwayes disquieted by seeking revenge and it is a very death to him to hear of another mans prosperity Whereas to love an enemy doth not bind us to love the injuty he hath done us for we must not consider him as a malefactour but as a man of our own nature as he is the Image of God and as he is a Christian God doth onely command perfect things not impossible That which is very hard to flesh and bloud becomes easie by the help of grace and reason Our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ being the Father of all harmony can and doth reconcile all contrarieties at his will and pleasure 2. If revenge seem sweet the gaining of it is most bitter But there is nothing in the world more profitable then to pardon an enemy by imitation of our Saviour For it is then that our conscience can assure us to be the children of God and inheritors of his glory We must not fear to be despised for esteeming virtue for such contempt can only proceed from those who know not the true value of that glory which belongs to the just There is no better way to revenge then leave it to God who alwayes doth his own business Ween David wept for Saul who was his enemy his Clemency did insensibly make degrees by which he mounted up to the throne of Iudah A good work which comes from the spirit of vanity is like an emptied Mine good for nothing God who is invisible would have our aspects turned alwayes toward him and blind toward the world Alms given by the sound of a Trumpet makes a great noise on the earth but reaps little fruit in heaven The fly of vanity is a mischievous thing which destroyes all the perfumes of charity What need we any spectators of our good works every place is full where God is and where he is not there onely is Solitude Aspirations O God of all holy affections when shall I love all that thou lovest and have in horrour all that displeaseth thy divine Majesty If I cannot love in some person his defects and sinns I will love in him thine Image and in that vvill I acknovvledge thy mercies If he be a piece of broken glass in that little piece there vvill shine some lines of a God Creator and of a God Redeemer If thou hast chosen him to exercise my patience vvhy should I make him the object of my revenge since he gives me trouble to gaine me a Crovvn He is a hammer to pollish and make me bright I will not hurt him but reverence the arme that strikes me I resigne all vengence into thy hands since it is a Right reserved for thy Almighty power And certainly the best revenge I can take is to gratifie my enemy Give unto me O most mercifull Prince the grace to suffer and let the sacrifice of my sufferings mount up to thy propitiatory throne The Gospel for the first Saturday in Lent S. Matthew 6. Of the Apostles danger at Sea and relief by our Saviour ANd when he had dismissed them he went into the mountain to pray and when it was late the boat was in the midst of the Sea and himself alone on the land And seeing them labouring in rowing for the wind was against them and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh to them walking upon the sea and he would have passed by them But they seeing him walking upon the sea thought it was a ghost and cryed out for all saw him and were troubled And immediately he talked with them and said to them have confidence it is I fear ye not And he went up to them into the ship and the wind ceased and they were farre more astonied within themselves for they understood not concerning the loaves for their heart was blinded And when they had passed over they came into the land of Genesareth and set to the shore And when they were gone out of the boat incontinent they knew him and running through that whole countrey they began to carry about in couches those that were ill at ease where they heard he was And whethersoever he eâ—tred into towns or into villages or cities they laid the sick in the streets and besought him that they might touch but the hem of his garment and as many as touched him were made whole Moralities 1. WHat a painfull thing it is to row when Jesus is not in the boat all our travell is just nothing without Gods favour A little blast of wind is worth more then an hundred stroakes of Oares What troublesome businesses there are how many intricate families do labour much yet advance nothing because God withdrawes himself from their iniquities if he do not build the workman destroyes what he is building But all falls out right to those that embark themselves with Jesus They may passe to the Indies in a basket when others shall miscarry in a good ship well furnished 2. But how comes it about that the ship of the poor Apostles is beaten so furiously by the windes and tempests There are many ships with silver beaks with fine linnen sails and silken tackles upon which the sea seems to smile Do the waters reserve there choller only to vent it upon that ship which carries just persons This is the course of mans life The brave and happy men of this world enjoy theis wishes but their ship doth perish in the harbour as it is sporting whereas God by his infinite providence gives tempests to his elect that he may work a miraculous calme by his Almighty power Dangers are witnesses of their floting and Combats are causes of their merit Never think any man happy in
sufferings and of his death to teach us that his crosse was the step by which he mounted up to beatitude Aspirations O Blessed Palace O Magnificent Tabor which this day didst hold upon thee the Prince of Glory I love and admire thee but I admire somewhat else above thee It is the heavenly Jerusalem that triumphant company that face of God where all those beauties are which shall never cease to be beauties It is for that I live for that I die for that I languish with a holy impatience O my Jesus my most benigne Lord transform me then into thee that I may thereby be transformed into God If I have carried the earthly Image of Adam why should I not also carry the form of Jesus Catch me O Lord within those tissued nets and golden toils of brightnesse which thou didst plant upon this sacred mountain It is there I would leave mine eyes it is there I resolve to breath out my soul I ask no tabernacles to be their built for me I have long since contemplated thy heart O Father of essences and all bounties as the most faithfull abode of my eternity The Gospell upon Munday the second week in Lent St. Iohn 8. Iesus said unto the Iews where I goe ye cannot come AGain therefore Iesus said to them I goe and you shall seek me and shall die in your sin Whither I go you cannot come The Iews therefore said why will he kill himself because he saith whither I go you cannot come And he said to them you are of this world I am not of this world Therefore I say to you that you shall die in your sins For if you believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins They said therefore to him Who art thou Iesus said to them The beginning who also speak to you Many things I have to speak and judge of you but he that sent me is true and what I have heard of him these things I speak in the world And they knew not that he said to them that his Father was God Iesus therefore said to them when you sha l have exalted the Son of man then you shall know that I am he and of my self I do nothing but as the Father hath taught me these things I speak and he that sent me is with me and he hath not left me alone because the things that please him I do alwayes Moralities 1. ONe of the greatest misfortunes of our life is that we never sufficiently know our own good till we lose it We flie from that we should seek we seek that vve should avoid and never begin to bevvail our losses but vvhen they are not to be recovered Those Jevvs possessed an inestimable treasure by the presence conversation of the Son of God But they set light by it and so at last they lamented amongst eternal flames what they would not see in so clear a light Let us take heed of despising holy things and avoid hardnesse of heart which is a gulf of unavoidable mischiefs 2. It is a strange thing that God is so near us and yet we so far from him That which hinders us from finding him is because he is above and we below We are too much for the world too fast nailed to the earth too much bound to our superfluous businesses and cares of this life too much subject to our own appetites He must not be slave to his body that pretends to receive good from God who is a Spirit He must not embark himself deeply into worldly matters who desires the society of Angels He must pass from his sense to his reason from reason to grace from grace to glory If you desire to find God search for him as the three Kings did in the manger in his humility Look for him as the blessed Virgin did in the temple in his piety Seek him as the Maries did in his Sepulchre by the meditation of death But stay not there save onely to make a passage to life 3. When you have lifted me up to the Cross saith our Saviour you shall know that I am the true Son of God And indeed â—t is a great wonder that the infinite power of that Divinity would manifest it self in the infirmity of the Crosse It was onely for God to perform this great design and ascend up to his throne of Glory by the basest disgraces of the world The good thief saw no other title or sign of his kingdome but onely his body covered over with bloud and oppressed with dolours He learned by that book of the Crosse all the glory of Paradise and he apprehended that none but God could endure with such patience so great torments If you will be children of God you must make it appear by participation of his Cross by suffering tribulation By that Sun our Eagle tries his young ones he who cannot abide that shining ray sprinkled with bloud shall never attain to beatitude It is not comely to see t e members of a head crowned with thorn sit in a rotten chair of delicacies Aspirations O Blessed Saviour who dost lift up all the earth with three fingers of thy power raise up a little this sinfull mass of my body which weighs down it self so heavily Give me the wings of an Eagle to fly after thee for I am constantly resolved to follow thee whithersoever thou goest for though it should be within the shadow of death what can I fear being in the arms of life I am not of my self nor of the world which is so great a deceiver Since I am thine by so many titles which bind me to adoration I will be so in life in death in time and for all eternity I will take part of thy sufferings since they are the ensignes of our Christian warfare Tribulation is a most excellent engine the more a man is kept under the higher he mounts He descends by perfect humility that he may ascend to thee by the steps of glory The Gospel upon Tuesday the second week in Lent S. Matthew the 23. Iesus said the Pharisees sit in Moses chair believe therefore what they say THen Iesus speak to the multitudes and to his Disciples saying upon the chair of Moses have sitten the Scribes and Pharisees All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you observe ye and do ye but according to their works do ye not for they say and do not for they bind heavy burthens and importable and put them upon mens shoulders but with a finger of their own they will not move them But they do all their works for to be seen of men for they make broad their Phylacteries and enlarge their fringes And they love the first places at suppers and the first chairs in the Synagogues and salutations in the market place and to be called of men Rabbi But be not you called Rabbi for one is your Master and all you are brethren And call none father to your self upon
said Take away these things hence and make not the house of my Father a house of Merchandise And his Disciples remembred that it is written The zeal of thy house hath eaten me The Iews therefore answered and said to him What sign dost thou shew us that thou doest these things Iesus answered and said to them Dissolve this Temple in three dayes I will raise it The Iews therefore said in fourty and six years was this Temple built and wilt thou raise it in three dayes But he spake of the Temple of his body Therefore when he was risen again from the dead his Disciples remembred that he said this they believed the Scripture and the word that Iesus did say And when he was at Ierusalem in the Pasche upon the festivall day many believed in his name seeing his signs which he did But Iesus did not commit himself unto them for that he knew all because it was not needfull for him that any should give testimony of man for he knew what was in man Moralities 1. PIety is a silver chain hanged up aloft which ties heaven and earth spirituall and temporall God and man together Devotion is a virtue derived to us from the Father of all light who gives us thereby means to hold a traffick or commerce with Angels All which is here below sinks by its proper weight leans downward toward naturall corruption Our spirit though it be immortall would follow the weight of our bodies if it were not indued with the knowledge of God which works the same effect in it as the Adamant doth with iron for it pierceth and gives it life together with a secret and powerfull spirit from which all great actions take their beginning You shall never do any great act if the honour of God and the reverence of sacred things shall not accompany all your pretences For if you ground your piety upon any temporall respects you resemble that people which believes the highest mountains do support the skies 2. There are no sinnes which God doth punish more rigorously nor speedily then those which are committed against devotion and piety He doth not here take up the scourge against naughty Iudges usurers and unchaste persons because the Church is to find a remedy against all faults which happen in the life of man But if a man commit a sinne against Gods Altar the remedy grows desperate King Ozias felt a leprosie rise upon his face at the instant when he made the fume rise from the censor which he usurped from the high Priests Ely the chief Priest was buried in the ruins of his own house for the sacriledge of his children without any consideration of those long services with he had performed at the Tabernacle Keep your self from symonies from irreverence in Churches and from abusing Sacraments He can have no excuse which makes his Iudge a witnesse 3. Iesus was violently moved by the zeal which he bare to the house of his heavenly Father But many wicked rich men limit their zeal onely to their own families They build great Palaces upon the peoples bloud and they nothing care though all the world be in a storm so long as they and what belongs to them be well covered But there is a revenging God who doth insensibly drie up the roots of proud Nations and throws disgrace and infamy upon the faces of those who neglect the glories of Gods Altars to advance their own He who builds without God doth demolish and whosoever thinks to make any great encrease without him shall find nothing but sterility Aspirations O Most pure Spirit of Iesus which wast consummate by zeal toward the house of God wilt thou never burn my heart with those adored flames wherewith thou inspirest chaste hearts Why do we take so much care of our houses which are built upon quicksilver and roll up and down upon the inconstancies of humane fortunes while we have no love nor zeal towards Gods Church which is the Palace we should chuse here upon earth to be as the Image of heaven above I will adore thy Altars all my life with a profound humility But I wil first make an Altar of my own heart where I will offer sacrifice to which I doubt not but thou wilt put fire with thine own hand The Gospel upon Tuesday the fourth week in Lent S. Iohn 7. The Iews marvel at the learning of Iesus who was never taught ANd when the festivity was now half done Iesus went up into the Temple and taught And the Iews marvelled saying how doth this man know letters whereas he hath not learned Iesus answered them and said my doctrine is not mine but his that sent me If any man will do the will of him he shall understand of the doctrine whether it be of God or I speak of my self he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory But he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him he is true and injustice in him there is not Did not Moses give you the Law and none of you doth the Law Why seek you to kill me The Multitude answered and said thou hast a Devil who seeketh to kill thee Iesus answered and said to them One work I have done and you do all marvell Therefore Moses gave you circumcision not that is of Moses but of the Fathers and in the Sabbath ye circumcise a man If a man receive circumcision in the Sabbath that the law of Moses be not broken are you angry at me because I have healed a man wholly in the Sabbath Iudge not according to the face but judge just judgement Certain therefore of Ierusalem said Is not this he whom thy seek to kill And behold he speaks openly and they say nothing to him Have the Princes known indeed that this is Christ But this man we know whence he is But when Christ cometh no man knoweth whence he is Iesus therefore cried in the Temple teaching and saying Both me you do know and whence I am you know and of my self I am not come But he is true that sent me whom you know not I know him because I am of him and he sent me They sought therefore to apprehend him and no man laid hands upon him because his hour was not yet come But of the multitude many believed in him Moralities 1. IT appears by this Gospel that Iesus was judged according to apparences not according to truth It is one of the greatest confusions which is deeply rooted in the life of man that every thing is full of painting and instead of taking it off with a spunge we foment it and make our illusions voluntary The Prophet Isay adviseth us to use our judgement as men do leaven to season bread Al the objects presented to our imaginations which we esteem are fading if we do not adde some heavenly vigour to help our judgement 2. To judge according to apparences is agreat want both of judgement and courage The first makes us
in sinnes and dost thou teach us And they did cast him forth Iesus heard that they câ—st him forth and when he had found him he said to him Dost thou believe in the Sonne of God He answered and said Who is the Lord that I may believe in him And Iesus said to him Both thou hast seen him and he that talketh with thee he it is But he said I believe Lord and falling down he adored him Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all brightnesse who walked accompanied with his twelve Apostles as the Sun doth with the hours of the day gives eyes to a blind man and doth it by clay and spittle to teach us that none hath power to do works above nature but he that was the Authour of it On the other side a blind man becomes a King over persons of the clearest light being restored to light he renders again the same to the first fountain from vvhence it came He makes himself an Advocate to plead for the chiefest truth and of a poor beggar becomes a confessor after he had deplored his misery at the Temple gate teacheth all mankind the estate of its own felicities We should in imitation of him love the light by adoring the fountain of it and behave our selves as witnesses and defenders of the truth 2. God is a light and by his light draws all unto him he makes a break of day by his grace in this life which becomes afterward a perfect day for all eternity But many lose themselves in this world some for want of light some by a false light and some by having too much light 3. Those lose themselves for vvant of light vvho are not all instructed in the faith and maximes of Christian Religion and those instead of approching near the light love their ovvn darkness They hate the light of their salvation as the shadovv of death and think that if you give them eyes to see their blindnesse you take away their life If they seem Christians they yet have nothing but the name the appearance the book of Jesus is shut from them or if they make a shew to read they may name the letters but never can produce one right good word 4. Others destroy themselves by false lights who being wedded to their own opinions adoring the Chimeraes of their spirit think themselves full of knowledge just happy that the Sun riseth only for them and that all the rest of the world is in darkness they conceive they have the fairest stars for conductors but at the end of their career they find too late that this pretended light was but an Ignis fatuus which led them to a precipice of eternal flames It is the worst of all follies to be wise in our own eye sight and the worst of all temptations is for a man to be a devil to himself 5. Those ruine themselves with too much light who have all Gods law by heart but never have any heart to that law They know the Scriptures all learning sciences they understand every thing but themselves they can find spots in the Sun they can give new names to the stars they perswade themselvs that God is all that they apprehend But after all this heap of knowledge they are found to be like the Sages of Pharaoh and can produce nothing but bloud and frogs Thay embroil and trouble the world they stain their own lives and at their deaths leave nothing to continue but the memory of their sins It would be more expedient for them rather then have such light to carry fiâ—e wherewith to be burning in the love of God and not to swell and burst with that kind of knowledge All learning which is not joined with a good life is like a picture in the aire which hath no table to make it subsist It is not sufficient to be elevated in spirit like the Prophets except a man do enter into some perfect imitation of their virtues Aspirations O Fountain of all brightnesse before whom night can have no vail who seest the day spring out of thy bosome to spread it self over all nature wilt thou have no pity upon my blindness will there be no medicine for my eyes which have so often grown dull and heavy with earthly humours O Lord I want light being alwaies so blind to my own sinnes So many years are past wherein I have dwelt vvith my self and yet know not what I am Self-love maketh me sometimes apprehend imaginary virtues in great and see all my crimes in little I too often believe my own judgement and adore my own opinions as gods and goddesses if thou send me any light I make so ill use of it that I dazle my self even in the brightnesse of thy day making little or no profit of that which would be so much to my advantage if I were so happy as to know it But henceforth I will have no eyes but for thee I will only contemplate thee O life of all beauties and draw all the powers of my soul into my eyes that I may the better apprehend the mistery of thy bounties O cast upon me one beam of thy grace so powerfull that it may never forsake me till I may see the day of thy glory The Gospell upon Thursday the fourth week in Lent St Luke the 7. Of the Widows Son raised from death to life at Naim by our Saviour ANd it came to passe afterward he went into a City that is called Naim and there wâ—nt with him his Disciples and a very great multitude And when he came nigh to the gate of the City behold a dead man was carried forth the only Son of his Mother and she was a Widow and a great muâ—â—itude of the City with her whom when our Lord had seen being moved with mercy upon her he said to her Weep not And he came near and touched the Cossin And they that carried it stood still and he said Young man I say to thee Arise And he that was dead sate up and began to speak And he gave him to his Mother and fear took them all and they magnified God saying That a great Prophet is risen among us and that God hath visited his People And this saying went forth into all Iewry of him and into all the Countrey about Moralities JEsus met at the Gates of Naim which is interpâ—eted the Town of Beauties a young man carried to burial to shew us that neither beauty nor youth are freed from the Laws of death We fear death and there is almost nothing more immortal here below every thing dies but death it self We see him alwaies in the Gospells we touch him every day by our experiences and yet neither the Gospells make us sufficiently faithfull nor our experiences well advised 2. If we behold death by his natural face he seems a litle strange to us because we have not seen him well acted We lay upon him sithes bows and arrows we