mysteries which we have faithfully received we may be purged from sinne and delivered from all dangers On the fifth Sunday after Easter The Prayer O God from whom all good things do proceed grant unto thy humble supliants that we may thinke on those things which are good thou inspiring us and thou governing us we may put the same in execution The Secret REceive O Lord the Prayers of the faithfull with the oblations of their sacrifices that by these offices of pious devotion we may passe into eternall glory The Post-Communion GRant unto us O Lord who are filled with the vertue of the heavenly Table that wee may desire those things which are right and receive what we desire On Sunday within the Octaves of Ascension The Prayer OMnipotent Eternal God grant us ever to have our wills devoted and our hearts sincerely bent unto the service of thy Divine Majesty The Secret MAy the Immaculate Sacrifices purifie us O Lord and afford unto our souls the Vigor of supernal Grace The Post-Communion BEing replenished with thy holy Gifts grant unto us we beseech thee that we may always remain in thanksgiving FINIS THE THIRD PART Of the first TOME On the Feast of Pentecost OR On WHIT-SUNDAY The Antiphon ACTS 2. v. 1. ON this day are compleat all the dayes of Pentecost Allelujah This day the holy Ghost did appear to the Disciples in fire and gave unto them gifts of graces sent them over all the world to preach and testifie that he which shall believe and be baptized shall be saved Alleluja Vers The Apostles did speak with divers tongues Alleluja Resp The wonderfull works of God Alleluja The Prayer O God who on this day hast taught the hearts of the Faithfull by the Illumination of the holy Ghost grant unto us in the same Spirit to relish those things that are right and ever to rejoyce in his consolation The Illustration IF we look back to the three last sundayes-Sundayes-prayers we shall find them all as it were preparatives to this which we now make to day of relishing those things that are right and rejoycing in the consolation of the holy Ghost And indeed our B. Saviours whole life and death had no other aim then by making God man to winn man into an affection of deity and of being content to become God and when by the last mystery of humane redemption as far as lay on our Saviours part his glorious Ascension we were brought to devote our wills and our hearts affections sincerely to the service of Almighty God now we are led into that holy School and unto that heavenly Master where we shall be taught how to set our hearts right to his heavenly Majestie and this by the Illumination of the holy Ghost which that we may do the better see how to day we pray that in the same Spirit we may relish those things which are right and rejoyce in the consolation thereof as if in this School flesh and bloud were to have no place which had so far and so long mis-led us and indeed the very Apostles themselves so long as they looked upon Jesus Christ as man they did not relish the pure service of Almighty God they were not set right in their hearts affections they doted upon flesh and bloud and so fell into the errours thereof S. Peter of denying Christ in his afflictions S. Thomas of doubting of his Resurrection but we never heard that after the coming of the holy Ghost any of the Apostles fell into those or any other errours in the rectitude of their service towards Almighty God but were alwayes in the right and took content in nothing that was wrong or swarving from the doctrine of their Master our Saviour Jesus Christ And why this Because the holy Ghost who was the Spirit of Truth had possessed them and taught them all truth and made them not onely relish it but disrelish all things that were contrary thereunto Nor is it without reason that erring man in his most solemn prayer should beg the grace of God to relish what is right for we never please our selves with what we do not relish nor do we ever relish what displeaseth us whereas to relish what is right is to relish at least what is pleasing unto God however it doth oftentimes nor please our selves and therefore in this grand day when we are to be weaned from the nurse of flesh and bloud and brought into the school of Spirit and are to ask our Master a boon now we see his hands full of bounty and benevolence we are taught to beg that we may relish and take content in whatsoever is right towards God be it never so averse to our selves because our teeth being set on edge with flesh and bloud and our mouths quite out of taste with Spirituall food nothing is of more import to us then that we may relish such meat as we must hereafter live and nourish by Spirituall consolations not earthly delectations any more for the first set us and our hearts affections right to God the last draws us headlong to death Now it will be the least of our cares to day to adjust this prayer unto the Epistle since this is altogether of the coming down of the holy Ghost into the school of spirituall comfort where he is to reade his lessons to mens hearts as this prayer tells us and as we read Jerem. 31.33 I will write my law in their hearts whence it is holy Church to day takes the Antiphon out of the Epistle rather then out of the Gospel and yet rather makes it then takes it for though the sense be the same neverthelesse the letter is not so which perhaps was mysteriously contrived to shew that as soon as the holy Ghost came down to teach the Church was able of her self to reade a lesson to her children and immediately we see S. Peter preached but indeed as the Gospels ever tell us the stories of our Saviour's life so the Acts of the Apostles tell us the history of the holy Ghost first that of the fact when and how he came next that of the effect how prodigiously he wrought in the hearts of those he did descend upon so the Epistle being to day out of the Acts of the Apostles is as the gospel of the holy Ghost made the place whence Preachers take their texts or whereunto at least they drive the design of all their Sermons And to this the prayer is apparently suited yet it is not therefore unsuitable to the Gospel also of the day wherein S. John tells us in our Saviours name he that loveth me observes my words which is in effect to say doth relish my words doth relish that which is right for nothing more right then the word of God since we may take that for verity and rectitude it self especially being taught us by the holy Ghost who this Gospel tells was to come purposely to teach us truth the truth of that word by the
Fishermen knowing and learned Doctours Teachers in fine to all the World convincers and confounders of all humane Learning that stood in opposition to their doctrine Divine and all this in an instant without learning any other Lesson then to dilate to open the affections of their Hearts unto the Holy Ghost where by the Illustration of his holy Grace he reads unto them in a moment all Divinity by onely teaching them the Art of Divine Love by onely giving them indeed the grace to love God only and what is lovely in the eyes of his heavenly Majesty Stay beloved if this be all why may not we hope once a year at least to learn as good a lesson 'T is but renewing every year as on this blessed Day the solemn vowes we made in Holy Baptisme 't is but reiterating now those good purposes we make some times of the amendment of our lives 't is but dilating and opening our hearts to this holy Spirit and begging of him that he will there work in us what we cannot work our selves the new creation of a new Will in us by our renunciation of the old and this by the Illustration of his holy Grace which alone is able to light and lead us up to heaven which alone is able to teach us all Truth and afford us all the comfort that our Hearts can wish The Holy Church would otherwise surely pray to day for some thing else which yet she doth not in the Prayer above The Gospel JOHN 14. v. 23 c. 23 Jesus answered and said unto them If any love me he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make abode with him 24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my words And the word which you heard is not mine but his that sent me the Fathers 25 These things have I spoken to you abiding with you 26 But the Paraclete the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and suggest unto you all things whatsoever I shall say unto you 27 Peace I leave to you my peace I give to you not as the world giveth do I give to you Let not your heart be troubled nor fear 28 You have heard that I said to you I go and I come to you If you loved me you would be glad verily that I go to the Father because the Father is greater then I. 29 And now I have told you before it come to passe that when it shall come to passe you may believe 30 Now I will not speak many things to you For the Prince of this world cometh and in me he hath not any thing 31 But that the world may know that I love the Father and as the Father hath given me commandement so do I. Arise let us go hence The Explication 23. THis answer of our Saviour was to the interrogatory of the Apostle Judas Thaddaeus the brother to St. James the lesser demanding ver 22. why Christ was pleased to manifest himself to the Apostles onely and not to the whole world because he said to them The world doth not see me but ye see me which though spoken in the present tense was meant in the future alluding to what the Apostles did after see in him namely his Passion Death Resurrection and Ascension And the reason why he did manifest himself to them and not to the world was as St. Austin observes because they did love him but the world did not so and this I premise to shew that what followes here alludes to this as to the effects which the love of God procures in those that do truly love him as this Gospel begins to day with an effect of love keeping Gods commandements which taken as here it lyes in this Gospel is rather an absolute assertion then a relative answer to a question and yet in truth it was the answer that Christ gave to the question of St. Jude as above in the immediate verse before whereunto Jesus answers saying If any love me he will keep my word as who should say as I loving my Father keep his command of coming into this world to manifest his glory to you that love him and by you to all the world though not immediately to them all as I mean to do to you So do not think that after my Resurrection when the Holy Ghost shall come down and inflame the hearts of many Infidels and Gentiles with the love of God that then I shall onely manifest my self to you alone that are my Apostles and now are onely those that love me no no then I shall be so manifested to others that they will love me as you do and this shall be the testimony that I give you thereof that their love shall be such as by vertue thereof they will keep my Commands my words will be to them dear as now they are to you and as you receiving the holy Ghost receive with him both my Self and my Father for we three are all one inseparable Substance or Essence however distinct and several Persons just so shall the whole Blessed and undivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost enter into the hearts of all that love me and keep my Commandments or my word and consequently to them as well as to you shall I be then manifested And in this sense you see this verse is an exact answer to the question of S. Jude which otherwise seems a meer disparate or an incongruous reply to that interrogatory And from hence we may perceive how hard it is to understand the true sense of almost any part of holy Writ unlesse we see clearly the connexion it hath to precedent or consequent parts thereof so what S. Jude meant of his personal or visible manifestation to these few onely that were eye-witnesses of his Actions he means of his spiritual or invisible beeing made known to all the world by his Faith and doctrine received and embraced amongst them through the preaching of the Apostles and their Successours But we must note that coming or going of God who is at all times in all places by reason of his immensity is not to be understood as if he did come or go from one place to another but he therefore is said to come or go because he operates or operates not at all times or in all places alike for his operation is his coming and so every new inspiration of grace we have is as if God made a new visite unto us within the temple of our soules where he delights to be and though he be never separated from us locally since he fills all place yet he is said to come a new into our hearts every time we produce or exercise a new act of love unto him and if we continue one Act all our lives then he doth all that time operate within us and so consequently is said not only to come unto us but even to live with us to
the same childe was first cause of pain so he is cause of comfort the like of Christ dying and rising again Sixthly both joys are excessive Great whereas they take away all sense of Sorrow So here the Passion of Christ is in this Parable supposed to be the labour or travail of the Apostles dolorous as a womans in childe-bearing and his Resurrection is supposed to be as the Birth of a Son to them after so hard a labour as they were in whilest all the world jeered and scorned them for hoping after so impossible a comfort as it was thought when the Apostle calls it a scandal to the Jews and to the Gentiles a folly St. Augustine is so acute upon this place as to say Christ compared the Apostles sorrow for his Passion to the pains of a woman in labour of a Boy and not of a Girl because those are the greatest labours of women and again he makes a special remark that the Text saith here the Mother forgets her pains not because a Boy is born but a man one that is to be the Support and Prop of her house when her self can no longer live for saith St. Augustine Christ was as it were born by his Resurrection to the World not as a Childe but as a Man conquering Death winning eternal Glory to himself and to all his Posterity to all Saints of Heaven who are the Children of his Grace 22. This Verse applies all the rest by way of Repetition to the Senses as above while it tells the Apostles this shall be their Case about him this their Grief at his Death this their Joy at his Resurrection like the travail and comfort of a woman first in labour then delivered of a Son But when he adds this Close That their joy no man shall take from them he means neither in this world nor in the next for such shall be their joy to see Christ risen who was dead that even the menace of Death to themselvcs shall be comfortable out of their assurance to share with Christ in the joy of his Resurrection if they partake with him in the pains of Death by dying for his sake Whence St. Paul boasting said who shall part us from the Love of God Nakedness the Sword Persecution Rom. 8.35 No no the love of Christ and hope of Heaven are comforts above all afflictions whatsoever whence we reade of the Apostles that they went rejoycing from the bench of the Iudges because they were held worthy to suffer contumely for the name of Iesus Act. 5.41 And this to shew that no man could takâ— away that joy which God gave them as the Text above hath told us The Application 1. IT is worthy our observation that amongst so many passages as were between Christ and his Apostles after his Resurrection this days Gospel is taken out of Saint Iohn Evangelist his Story of our Saviours Actions reporting what he said to his Apostles immediately before his Death For we see the Expositors upon the first Verse of this Gospel tell us all that is here said alludes to the Death Passion and Resurrection of our Lord as well as to his Ascension and to the coming of the Holy Ghost Then certainly our Mother Church reads us this Lesson to day with intention to draw from us such like Acts of Faith as our Saviour desired the Apostles should make when he told them he was shortly to dye and shortly to rise again 2. And since this Parable aims at raising consolation in the Apostles hearts out of the disconsolate Death and Passion of their Lord and Master by vertue of the Faith they had in his future Resurrection after his Death Assuredly it is now our parts that are Christians to make the Cross of Christ our chief content the Death of our Saviour the onely hope we have to live and his Resurrection the ground of our Faith that by vertue of his Blessed and Incorrupted Body risen from his Grave our corrupted flesh and blood shall rise again and be made partakers of those heavenly Joys which he hath prepared for all that do firmly believe in him and live according to the Rules of Christian belief 3. Note that amongst those Rules a Principal one is read unto us this day of believing firmly that all the sorrows this world can afford us are not able to rob us of the future joys prepared for us in Heaven if from erring Infidels we become right believing Christians and live according to the light of Truth The Faith of Jesus Christ that is if we do such Actions in Vertue of that Faith as We pray to day we may do say then the Prayer and see how pat it is to this Doctrine of the Church On the fourth Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 16. v. 5. I Go to him that sent me but because I have spoken these things unto you sorrow hath filled your hearts Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who makest the mindes of thy faithful to be of one accord grant unto thy people that they may love what thou commandest and desire what thou doest promise that amongst worldly varieties there we may fix our hearts where are true joys The Illustration O Beloved what a Prayer is here what an elevated language doth the holy Ghost speak in to day behold hold a whole Sermon in a few lines what preacher needeth other Text then this Prayer to dilate upon even till the day of Judgement shall I speak a big word upon this Prayer be it but with us as this day we pray and we are even with God himself at our journeys end and why should we despair thereof since in vain we are bid to pray for this if it were not by Prayer to be obtained beg it then beloved on your often bended knees beg it earnestly fervently heartily and doubt not but it will be granted for God doth not feed us with fond hopes of what he will not grant if we so a k it as we ought But stay how comes it that with so much plenty of Spirit we finde to day so little seeming connexion with the Epistle and Gospel which yet I am confident will prove both as it were eminentially contained in this admirable Prayer And first observe how suitable it is for holy Church to pray thus when we are now in the time that Jesus Christ prepared his Apostles to be content to leave him or at least that he should leave them How often did he command them resignation on all occasions to the will of Almighty God was not this the very form of his Prayer Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Matth. 6.10 Hence the Church begs to day that we who believe in Christ may live all of one minde and since it is morally impossible so many men should be consenting all in one therefore we see the prayer gives that to God saying it is he
The whole house was filled with this noise to shew all their hearts who were within should be filled with the Holy Ghost for thus the Text affirms immediately saying vers 4. and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost Note it is said they were Sitting both to shew the rest and quiet Gods holy Spirit bringeth with it and to shew that prayer of expectation and such this was is perhaps best when it is performed sitting thus S. Bernard a great Saint was noted to proceed in his deepest meditations 3. By parted tongues is here understood tongues divided amongst many not in themselues as commonly Painters make them thinking thereby to expresse the activity of fire rising up in many-pointed flames but the reasons why the Holy Ghost would have the forme of a tongue to declare his coming are many First because the Apostles were by this coming confirmed to be the Preachers of the Gospel and the proper instrument of a Preacher is his tongue So the gift of tongues was first expressed by the species of a tongue where we are to note this gift includes three properties the first the knowledge of languages the next the true signification of the words of different languages the third a volubility of tongue adapted to the several articulations requisite to several Languages and consequently a prudence to use all these in a right way The second reason is because a tongue hath a great affinity with a word as therefore the Holy Ghost was the Spirit of the VVord so he came in the species of a Tongue and as by the word of the mind is produced the voyce of the tongue so from the Divine word did proceed the Holy Ghost whence the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. vers 3. sayes no man can say Jesus but in the Holy Ghost The third as the tongue distinguisheth tastes so doth the Holy Ghost truths from falshoods heavenly from earthly things insomuch that St Paul tells us The Animal man doth not perceive the things of the Spirit 1 Cor. 4. Lastly because the tongue is both the best and worst instrument of man Proverb 12. Death and life are in the hand of the Tongue Prov. 16. It is in man to prepare his heart but the government of the tongue is from our Lord wherefore there was great reason to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to tame rule and sanctifie the tongues of men As for the tongues themselves whether they were true fire or true tongues is questioned yet resolved best that they were not truly fire but only fiery forms like unto tongues as some ayr condensed and made into that form and illuminated so as to seem fire but not to burn because it was to set upon the heads of those it fell upon Of their pyramidal form we give many reasons First to shew the Spirit of God only penetrates all deep and hard mysteries Secondly to shew it penetrated the very hearts of those it fell upon and made them cordially love Almighty God Thirdly it made them aspire from earth as high as heaven Fourthly that the very tongues of those who had this gift should penetrate the hearts of men to their conversion Lastly to shew it should give them the discretion of spirits that had this gift to distinguish betwixt good and bad inspirations in themselves or in those they were to direct spiritually And these tongues were rather fiery then of any other kind to shew God is all a flame of Love as Deut. 4.24 Thy God O Israel is a consuming fire And therefore as the Law of Moyses shewing Gods Will was given with the Circumstances of Thunder and Lightening so the Law of Christ now was to be confirmed by the holy Ghost with like signes to shew it was the Will of the same God abrogating the former and constituting this new Law Secondly as all the old Prophets were authorized by circumstance of fire Isaias his lips being touched with a coal of fire became as we read Chap. 6 ver 6. like fire and his words seemed all fiery too and Elias being carried up in a fiery Chariot into heaven 4 Reg. 2.11 and of Hieremias it is said from above he sent fire into mens bones and thereby instructed them Thren 2. v. 13. and Ezechiel foretelling of Christ his Chariot supported by four Cherubims of whom he sayes Chap. 1. v. 13. Their looks were like fire coales all which were but types of the more univocal fire that did accompany the election confirmation and conversation of the Apostles true Prophets of the new law foretellers of heavenly things Thirdly to shew Christ his law was a law of love of charity of coelestiall fire Fourthly to shew the effect of this love was to produce the fire of love divine in all Christian souls Fifthly to shew the spirit of God was searching as fire the most subtle worker and penetratour that is in nature The reason why these fiery tongues were said to sit in the singular number not plurall upon the Apostles was to shew that though the tongues were and must be many for each to have one yet the Spirit giving them was one and not many namely one onely God And this Spirit was rather expressed setting then otherwise to shew the constancy of Gods holy grace and gifts in those he pleaseth to bestow his speciall favours on and their ease and rest in the possession of that Spirit as also that the holy Ghost was to rest in the hearts of the Faithfull to the worlds end 4. They were all replenished whereas before they had received the grace of God now they had the plenitude thereof not all alike but some more some lesse according as was requisite to their callings No marvell then if the Apostles being full of grace and the gift of tongues they could not contain themselves but say The Things which we have seen and heard we cannot but speak nay so much they spake that some believed they were drunk with new wine and so it was indeed with the wine of the heavenly grape the holy Ghost not otherwise and as they were inforced to speak the praises of God by the irrefragable impulse of this holy Spirit so they spake to all purposes that is to the capacity and understandings of all hearers of what nation soever for they spake all kind of languages or tongues which some will understand as if each Apostle speaking a severall language among them all they had all languages others conceive that they speaking onely in their own Syro-Hebraean tongue all the several nations understood them as if their languages had been various as in this manner S. Vincentius Ferrerius preaching in Spanish was understood by severall nations as Italians French Flemish English c. each conceiving they heard him in their native tongue grounded in these words following v. 11. We hear them speaking in our tongues But the true sense is they did really and truly speak upon occasion all languages by the gift
person of another man so he cannot mean himself when he sayes the Lord but must needs mean the Bailiffes real master did praise his own Bailiffe of iniquity that is did commend the invention or manner of the cheat not the cheat it self and said that the children of this world used more wisdome and prudence in their worldly wayes then the children of light This may put us in mind how ill it is that we study more to damne then to save our soules 9. This verse cleares the sense of the former to be spoken in the name of the master to the Bailiffe for here Christ having told us that masters sense now makes profession to speak in his own name in these words I say unto you give almes do good deeds unto the poor with your Mammon of iniquity your treasures for by vertue of these almes the poor may plead your admittance into heaven and obtain by their intercession that your almes may cover a multitude of your sins So this is a parable speaking properly to rich men of this world who are not true Lords of their own estates but owe them to God and have the portions of the poor in their hands and own all their treasure but as Lords of iniquity as heapers up of wealth which they have cheated the poor of and when they pay them not by Almes they lye lyable to the like censure of this Bailiffe to render account for they are such to God The Application 1. THis Gospel being wholly Parabolical we are at the greater liberty to make our applications thereof according as we can best avail our selves by it further then what by the Illustration and Explication above is already done First therefore albeit this Parable aymes directly at rectifying the inordinate excesses of Rich men who abuse the trust God hath reposed in them of relieving the poor when they lavish away their estates vainly and do not by their charities pay the poor mens Portions which are included in the rich mens revenues yet we may very properly here mind the Priests of Gods holy Church that as they are indeed the chief Bailiffes of their heavenly Master trusted with more of his Estate and Treasure then all the world besides namely the receiving and distributing his holy graces the livelyhoods of their own and other mens soules so when they waste these Treasures either by their own idle mispending them or by their undue dispensing them to others especially by palliating the sins of the people and flattering them with needlesse dispensations from their Christian duties never valid but when really necessary then are they most properly such ill Bailiffes as this Gospel specifies 2. Secondly in regard there is no Lay-man free from the Bailifship of a huge though lesser trust also reposed in him by Almighty God of all those rich graces vertues and gifts which are bestowed upon us in holy Baptisme therefore every Lay-man as well as the Priest may piously fear he playes this ill Bailiffes part and that chiefly out of this root his giving way to unjust thoughts such as propend him to unrighteous actions by not being rejected but disputed with untill the temptation of sordid gain or pleasure overcome him and make him unjustly act that which at first was but unrightly thought 3. Now this evil holy Church hopes to amend in us by prayer adapted to the Bailifship we are intrusted with absolutely of our own soules and partly of our neighbours too in point of edification to him at least whereby we are charitably to contribute also to his salvation which we shall then perform in act if our thoughts be first set upon the doing it Thus we see how the debt we owe of charity to our neighbour puts us in mind of the greater debt we owe thereof unto our selves and to Almighty God And by this charity it is we are best able to perform what we this day Pray for with holy Church that by alwayes thinking thus charitably right we may do uprightly we may live spiritually to that good God without whom we have neither spiritual nor yet corporal Beeing On the ninth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 19.46 FOr it is written that my house is the house of prayer to all Nations but you have made it a den of theeves And he was daily teaching in the Temple Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt the eares of thy mercy O Lord be open to the prayers of thy suppliants and to the end thou mayst grant the things desired to those that ask make them ask such things as to thee are pleasing The Illustration BLessed Jesu that the holy Ghost should teach us perfection of prayer in a language arguing imperfection in Almighty God mutation from his not bearing to the opening of his mercifull ears to the prayers of his Suppliants Whereas his eyes being alwayes open to see our actions his cars cannot be shut from our petitions since we can as little speak what he doth not hear as we can do what he doth not see It is not therefore because he at any time hears us not but that we deserve not to be heard sometimes even when we pretend to pray that we are taught to beg his open ears to our petitions and that if we will hope to be heard we must ask such things as are pleasing to his Divine Majestie rather then what is desired by us wherefore we were taught by our Saviour himself to pray that the will of God might be done in earth as it is in heaven which in effect though in other terms we pray to day when we begg that to the end God may grant what we desire he will make us ask such things as are pleasing to his Divine Majestie Yes beloved this is the full scope and sense of the prayer above and by this we see 't is one and the same spirit that now dictates the form of prayer to holy Church which our blessed Saviour had when in the garden he gave us the most excellent method of praying called to this very day our Lords prayer onely this we find peculiar now that all prayers of holy Church are so set after the stile of our Lords prayer which alone includes all the requests we are able to make that they are adapted to peculiar emergencies and do specially relate unto the present service of the day As for example the prayer above now doth unto the Epistle and Gospel of the Masse in regard they both mind us of the severe punishments inflicted both upon the Gentiles and the Jews who in their prayers runne after their own inventions and made their sacrifices which should appease the wrath of God to be the highest provocations of his fury as the Idolaters fornicatours and murmurers did whereof S. Paul here minds the Christian Corinthians who it seems were also inclined to make idols of their own desires rather then to adore in true
eternall glory and by our cooperating with him give us the rewards of his own operations in us whom he makes labour in his vineyard here a while that he may set us in eternall rest at his own heavenly table where though he be pleased to delight in us yet we shall be the onely gainers by enjoying him for he gets nothing but to be content that we get all by being but willing to present our selves to him as the humane subjects wherein he is pleas'd to produce the divine work of our salvations while he is satisfi'd to call us his fruit that he may be our food for all eternity Thus we are taught in the prayer above and may saying it with the same spirit that made it saint our selves as is desir'd we should by the holy Ghost who gave us this sainting prayer for that holy purpose FINIS On VVhitsunday The first Prayer O God who on this day hast taught the hearts of the Faithful by the Illumination of the holy Ghost grant unto us in the same spirit to relish those things that are right and ever to rejoyce in his Consolation The Secret SAyntifie we beseech thee O Lord our offered gifts and mundifie our hearts by the Illustration of the Holy Ghost The post-Communion LEt the infusion of the Holy Ghost O Lord purifie our hearts and fertilize them by the inward aspersion of his heavenly dew On Trinity Sunday The first Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who hast granted to thy servants in confession of the true Faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of Majestie to adore unity we beseech thee heartily that in the firmnesse of the same Faith we may ever be defended from all adversity The Secret SAyntifie we beseech thee our Lord God by the invocation of thy holy name the Hoste of this oblation and render us thereby unto thy self an eternal present The post-Communion GRant O Lord God that the receiving of this Sacrament and the confession of the sempiternal Holy Trinity and of the undivided unity thereof may avail us to the health both of our body and soul On the first Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God the strength of those that trust in thee be mercifully present to our prayers and because without thee mortal infirmity is of no ability grant the assistance of thy grace that in doing what thou dost command we may please thee both in word and will The Secret VOuchsafe appeased we pray thee to accept of these our offerings dedicated to thee O Lord and grant that unto us they may afford perpetual help The post-Communion BEing filled with so great gifts grant O Lord we beseech thee that while we receive these wholsome boones we may never cease from praising thee On Sunday within the Octaves of Corpus Christi being the second after Pentecost The first Prayer MAke us O Lord equally to have both a continual fear and love of thy holy name because thou dost never leave them destitute of thy government whom thou doest instruct in the solidity of thy Love The Secret MAy this oblation sacred to thy name purifie us O Lord we beseech thee and from day to day carry us to such actions as conduce unto our heavenly life The post-Communion NOw that we have received thy sacred gifts we beseech thee O Lord that together with frequenting this mysterie the effect of our salvation may increase On the third Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God who art the Protectour of those that hope in thee without whom nothing is valid nothing is holy multiply we beseech thee over us thy mercy that thou being our ruler thou our guide we may so passe by the temporal goods of this world as not to loose the eternal of the next The Secret LOok we beseech thee O Lord upon the offerings of thy suppliant Church and grant that what we are to receive may by perpetual sanctification prove unto the health of thy believing people The post-Communion MAy thy holy things O Lord received quicken us and prepare us being expiated for thy everlasting mercy On the fourth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer GRant us O Lord we beseech thee that by thy order our course in this world may be peaceably directed and that thy Church may enjoy a quiet devotion The Secret BE pacified O Lord we beseech thee having received our oblations and propitiously compell unto thee our even rebellious wills The post-Communion MAy the received mysteries O Lord purifie us and by their bounty defend us On the fifth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God who hast prepared invisible good things for those that love thee infuse into our hearts the desire of thy love that loving thee in all things and above them all we may attain unto thy promises which surpasse even all our desires The Secret BE O Lord propitious upon our supplications and take unto thee benignely these offerings of thy servants of both sexes that what every one hath presented in honour of thy name may profit all of us to our salvation The post-Communion WHom thou O Lord hast filled with thy heavenly gifts grant we beseech thee that we may be cleansed from our hidden sinnes and delivered from the snares of our enemies On the sixth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God of powers to whom all belongs that is best ingraft in our breasts the love of thy holy name and grant in us the increase of Religion that thou mayest nourish those things which are good and being so nourished maintain them by the practise of pietie The Secret TAke unto thee O Lord benignely these oblations of thy people and be propitious upon our supplications and that no ones desires be frustrate no ones request in vain grant we beseech thee that what we ask faithfully we may obtain efficaciously The post-Communion WE are O Lord full with thy gifts we beseech thee grant that we may be cleansed by their effect and defended by their help On the seventh Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God whose providence is so disposed as it never can be frustrated remove we humbly beseech thee all things that are hurtfull and grant whatsoever may be beneficiall unto us The Secret O God who hast concluded the diversity of the legall hosts under the perfection of one sacrifice receive the same from thy devout people and sanctifie it as thou diddest the offerings of Abel that what every one tenders thee in honour of thy Majesty may avail to the health of us all The post-Communion MAy thy medicinall operation clemently free us from our perversities and bring us to those things that are right On the eighth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer GRant us O Lord we beseech thee propitiously the spirit of thinking and doing what is right that as we cannot be without thee so we may live unto thee The Secret REceive O Lord we beseech thee what of thy
in this with a mighty authority of Fathers so 't is no weak assertion I hope of mine nor any ill-grounded recommends being thus supported O Beloved what an ineffable dignity doth this set upon these Prayers What an Emolument may we bring to our selves by saying them in such society What a vast Treasure of devotion shall we find wrapt up in them In fine what a supine negligence shall it be in us not to avail our selves of this devotion which without envie I may say is such as none that is vocall can equall it and which yet I have aymed to contrive into so short a method as shall not hinder us from any other pious exercises whatsoever onely let me beg this favour of our Sodality to ranke this way of prayer in the number of those duties towards Almighty God whereof it is truly said Mat. 23. ver 23. Haec oportet facere These things we ought to doe which yet shall nothing clash with what followes truly averrable of other Devotions to Et illa non omittere Those we need not omit for using these Not that I affirm we must of necessity say this Trinity of Prayer which here I have suggested to deserve the Title of good Christians or of Trinitarians as some from hence may call us but that I mean we must prefer the publike prayers of holy Church before all others whatsoever And truly since the first of these three Prayers will by this Book appear to bee an Abstract both of the Epistle and Gospel of the day rather than I shall attribute this devotion to my own Invention I will conceive it was the pristine practice of the Church because the very nature of the Piety is such as seems to draw its source from the better fountaines of devotion than any I can lay claim unto namely the zeals of the Antient Fathers of the Church True it is I can not positively say it was so but thus much I need not scruple to avouch That as the Epistles and Gospels are the expresse Doctrine of our blessed Saviour or of his Apostles as where S. Paul sayes Non Dominus sed ego Not our Lord but I c. 1 Cor. Chap. 7. so the Churches publike Prayers are the speciall Dictates of the Holy Ghost that is to say the avowed suggestions of that Holy Spirit which avowment our private praiers do want though whether the blessed spirit were resolv'd The holy Fathers who made these Publick Prayers should with reflection frame them suiteable to this Designe which I now draw them to that is more than I dare venture to affirme but certainly that holy Spirit did suggest unto the Pastors of the Church a stile so proper and so deep withall as might sound the lowest bottome of the Sea of holy Writ and so exhaust even the abstrusest sence thereof which whether I have alwayes done I know not but I beleive the meanest understanding will perceive I often make the Collect expresse the substance of the whole Epistle and Gospel of the day and where I come not home to this 't is rather that I see it not than that the Prayer extends no further or suits no better unto this Design suffice it now the door is open that stronger-sighted soules may see much farther into the Paradise of this Devotion than I have done and shew the world much rarer fruit therein To me the Honour is too much that I have made a great Attempt which is to render that Book sweet and easie wherein we may presume the Holy Ghost directed the Composers of it for the publick use of the Layety the Primmer I mean whose Prayers I hope henceforward will be found as sweet as they are sound and not so hard as to be laid aside for either barren or too deep to be understood by the common People The Hymmes whereof I conceive are lately made so smooth so eloquent and yet so easie too in the Manuell lately printed at Saint Omers that every one who can but read the English Tongue will find them very pleasing The Lessons I shall explicate in my second Tome of this Christian Sodality which I intend to Publish next following the like method as here I hold in this upon all the Feasts of our Lord as also upon those Festivals of his ever Blessed Mother the Virgin Mary those especially which allude to any Mystery of our Redemption As to the particular Feasts of other Saints I shall spare the labour to write upon them in this method but shall recommend them for daily Garnishing or Sawces to the Dishes added now and then as they occurre to the constant Table of the Churches Sundayes and weekly food out of the Epistles and Gospels of the Season First Because the Prayers we use to Saints are cheifly addrest to God by the merits of his sacred Son as in the close of every Prayer appeares ending still Through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Secondly Because the particular honour we give to Saints must never interrupt the generall duty we owe to God at all times and upon all occasions Thirdly Because I find these Prayers have rather a Report to the Martyrologe or Stories of Saints lives and deaths than to the Epistle and Gospel of the day in regard one and the same Epistle and Gospel is common to divers Saints yet we may piously beleive those Saints whom then we serve have served God in their life time by being eminent in such perfections as the Epistles and Gospels read upon their Feasts doe recommend unto us all Neverthelesse I shall in my second Tome set out the Communion of Saints in such order as I intend to doe the Feasts of our Lord and of his sacred Mother that by this meanes the Layety may see in generall at least the severall Degrees of Saintity in Holy Church as those of Angels Apostles Martyrs Confessors Virgins and Widdowes whence they may easily distinguish the particular Proportion of every particular Saint as his or her Feast occurres in that line of Perfection which the common Glasse of Saintity shall represent As for the like regard I intend lastly in my second â—ome to add the Communion of Vigils the Embers and Rogation Dayes in this self-same method as these above because my third â—ome else of Lent will be too long if set forth after this manner there being six and thirty feriall Dayes in Lent besides the Sundayes already published in this first Tome and every day hath as well a particular Antiphon and Prayer as a particular Epistle and Gospel proper to it self whereof divers are very long besides those four long Gospels of the four Evangelists read all at length in Holy week which will swell this third Tome to a mighty bulk being done in this method where every verse is particularly gloss'd and by this meanes I shall render as much Scripture easie to the people as will occurre in the flux of the whole year which is the cheifest motive I have to give
my self the labour of this last laborious Tome and but for this I had indeed spar'd my pains therein the rather because there are already extant admirable Entertainments for Lent excellently well written by Father Causin and rarely well translated by Sir Bazill Brook into our mother Tongue which I doe heartily recommend to those of this Sodality as well for ever as untill my third Tome shall come out according to the method of this now published already whereunto I have here prefixed a larger Preface than ordinary because I will excuse the labour of any other Preface to the following Tomes As for the Psalms which are indeed the hardest part of all the Primmer I hope the Table that I shall adjoyn to the end of this Preface will prove a Key to open every Lock of this our Davids Psalter and to make us thus farre at least to understand the Psalmes as to know the Royall Prophets Drift therein for as Saint Hilary well observes in the latter end of his Prologue to his Exposition upon the Psalmes that Book is like a City ful of stately Buildings divided each into their several partiments to which doe open Doors distinct and every Door still opened by a speciall Key peculiar to it self hear to this purpose this reverend Fathers words as you have heard his sence We must saith he use a diligent and deliberate judgement upon the Exposition of every Psalm that we may know by what Key to open the genuine sence thereof Now the learned Preists of our Nation who have translated the whole Bible into English fixt on this authority of Saint Hilary having undertaken to assign to every Psalm its proper Key I shall advise the Devotes of this Sodality to take speciall notice of those Keyes and if upon this suggestion they doe not cause their Primmers to be printed with some mark of such a Key as those Priests above have assigned proper for every Psalm at least I shall wish them to get some charitable freind with a Pen to mark their Books with some one of these Keyes which are but Ten in all alluding to the Ten-string'd Harp of holy David and for their more easie doing this as also that their Books may not be blemished with the mark these following figures 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. may suffice to denotate the Keyes aforesaid so that as soon as e're the eye perceives the Figure o're the Psamle the understanding knowes to which of the Davidike Keyes that Psalme was set And consequently if the mind be fixt in praising God according to the sense of such a Key although some of the words do surpass the understanding of the Readers yet they shall finde their Souls delighted to be praising God in that same sense which David made that Psalme to praise him in and where the Verses now and then may vary from that sense yet they will ever fall into some other of the Nine so this variation will be as little distraction to Souls praying thus as in Cromatick Ayres a Discord neatly taken is from spoiling of the Musick which indeed it betters by that Art when flats and sharps are finely woven in a song and taken sweetly up from one another This I speak from my own experience as well as that of others even Religious women who have found exceeding comfort by this means when I have told them how to say their Latine Office with Devotion though they did not understand the language because by help of such a Figure which I markt their Books with they lifted up their Hearts to God and praised his Heavenly Majesty in the very proper sense of David all the while they sung their Office in the Quire So that I doe not venture to suggest a doubtfull thing in this particular because I have had experience of it in many who at first hearing thought it a thing incredible Now having thus prosecuted in this Preface the Method of this present Tome and told the whole designe of both the other two that are to come wherein all the parts of the Primmer will be rendred easie to the People I doe not doubt but I shall quickly understand this Primmer will from henceforth be esteemed a very Paradise of Prayers of best most sollid and most sweet Devotion and by being dayly said will render us a Sodality of understanding Saints united as well in Hearts-affections as in Voice and Prayer whilest the Lay-people reading their Primmers read the best Praying part of all the holy Sacrifice and service of the Day And in so Praying as this Christian Sodality adviseth is supplyed the want of Preaching too because in these short Prayers once rightly understood as by their Glosses here they are Illustrated they have as much as all the Pastors themselves are able to Preach while their very Prayers abstract the Preaching parts of holy Churches Services Much as your spirits doe the sweetness of the Rose they are extracted from and carry it about as I have aimed to doe the sense of both Epistle and Gospel of the day in the Spirit of the Prayer And truly the best way I had to shew their longer senses were abstracted into shorter Prayers was to strike the stone of difficulty which I found therein upon the harder steel of constant Meditation on that very subject and by this means the Spirits of a sweet Connexion issued out such as you see like sparks of Piety to run along on that dry Reed of Illustration which I have made by way of Paraphrase upon the Prayers if I call it the loosest Tynder of discourse perhaps it is a phrase of strength enough for that weak sense I write But lest I be misunderstood I shall advertise here the Christian Reader that I take the latitude of all sorts of allusions between the parts of holy Churches services contenting my self to find in any sense a Sympathy of Parts be it Literall Allegoricall Morall or Anagogicall which are the four Celebrated Senses that the Expositours rely upon in the explanation of the holy Text. The true meaning of which Senses are in these following Verses declared Litera Gesta docet quid Credas Allegoria Moralis quid Agas quo tendas Anagogia Which is to say the Literall Sense tells the Fact that is past the Allegoricall what we must believe the Morall what ought we to doe and the Anagogicall to what end we doe it namely to bring our Souls to Heaven by so doing Thus we see four severall noted wayes how one speech may allude unto another how what is Literally spoke in the Scripture may be figuratively understood Now if I shall be obliged further to recur unto the severall wayes whereby one thing may be contained in another for example Formally Virtually or Eminentially I hope I shall not be esteemed to strain a Sense too hard since nothing is more common in the Schools And truly for compassing so great I may modestly say so rich a Designe I see
no common Priviledge allowed to others that can be held too great for me in particular But lest the common Reader should be lost in this discourse that begs a School-prerogative I shall crave leave of the more learned to give unto the lesse intelligent examples of those three severall wayes how one thing is included in another As formally when the included doth denominate the includer So we say whiteness is in a wall that is white because whiteness is the form which gives the wall that denomination Virtually when effects are included in their causes as the Son in his Father as the greatest Tree or fairest fruit in the little seed thereof Eminentially when the creatures are contained in the Creator which last kind is the most excellent way of any thing being contained in another because the creature is more perfect in the Creator then any effect is in the virtuall cause thereof or any form in the subject which it denominates Or then indeed the creature is in it self where we find a world of imperfections though in God there can be none at all so to be eminentially contained in a thing is a more noble and excellent way of being included then either virtually or formally to be contained is And thus now and then wee shall find the Word of God to be as it were eminentially contained in the Churches prayers because in them the Holy Ghost seems to communicate himself most like himself most spiritually of all when by the spirit of prayer he opens the sense of the letter in the holy Writ And no marvell since our Saviour left his own sacred Word to the Exposition of the Holy Ghost who was sent on purpose to teach the world all truth upon all occasions of debate about the meaning of the Text. For as Christ is the word of his eternall Father so the Scripture is the word of Christ and so the prayers of Holy Church are the word of the Holy Ghost setting an eminentiall ground of harmonious musick unto the dayly descant of the Epistles and Gospels of the day since wee see the Antiphons commonly taken thence are still prefixt before the Prayer to shew how one reports unto the other Now if in this First Tome it happens here and there that some one Sundayes work bee longer then another yet there is not any so long which may not with much ease bee read in seven dayes and studyed diligently to thence to make the benefit of reading by a little meditation upon every Verse Nor have I suffered some of those Sundayes to passe much shorter then the rest namely those in the third Part of this Tome both because that Part alone containeth almost half the Sundayes in the year as also because I did there indeed begin this work in that brief way which afterwards I did inlarge because I was loath to lose so much sweetness of devotion as the larger Exposition of the Text affords And if any part shall prove lesse pleasant then other let me beseech the Reader to consider That as in Preachers there are three signall Faculties whereof any one renders the owner excellent Namely To teach To move To delight So it is in Books for these are all well written wherein some one at least of those three faculties throughout the Book appears either that of teaching what is true and solid Doctrine That of moving to amendment of our lives or that of delighting us with a sweet delivery of what is written whether it be by the eloquence of language or by the quaintness of conceit in which the Writer doth expresse his mind it imports not much and albeit I cannot boast of happiness in any one of these three faculties yet I will hope to have taken such advantage in the contriving of this Book that what is any where wanting in me will bee supplyed by the Authority of Texts both out of Holy Writ and out of the Expositors upon the same Thus having run over the parts of the Primmer whereunto I aim to adopt the whole work of these three Tomes intended thereupon I shall now desire the Reader to take such an account as I am able to give him of the Parts of this my present Book consisting of Antiphons Versicles Responsories Prayers Epistles and Gospels as for the Illustrations and Applications they being wholly mine the little that is already said thereof above is more then enough unlesse any thing I can doe were more considerable The Explications being all of them in substance though not in words the Fathers glosse upon the holy Text have their worth and authority in themselves more then I can add unto them Onely I desire the Reader to know I rather chose Cornelius à Lapide then any other Expositor both because he hath written largely upon all the Books of Holy Writ which do occur in the Churches Service throughout the year and because his Morals are more for my pious purpose then the other more literall Glosses would have been of more speculative Authors though withall he falls not short of the literal sense where it is requisite to follow it First therefore as to the Antiphons True it is they are now and then taken from some other Part of Holy Writ then commonly they use to be As for example That on the first Sunday of Advent is out of S. Luke Cap 1. v. 30. whereas the Epistle of that dayes service is taken from S. Paul Rom. 13. And the Gospel from S. Luke cap. 21. but the reason is that in this Antiphon the Church reports to the mystery of the Incarnation which must needs precede that of our Saviours Birth so here respect unto the Time or Season hath prevailed for omitting the usuall way of ordering the Antiphons before the Prayer and for the same reason the Anthiphon also on the Third Sunday of Advent varies in this manner to being taken out of Saint Luke cap. 1. v. 41. whereas the Gospel on that day is out of S. John cap. 1. v. 19. and so the prayer is answerable thereunto Thus for respect unto the Persons praying in those dayes as now the Church would have us do The Antiphon on the fourth Sunday of Advent alludes much to the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets manner of calling upon the Messias to come away after so long an expectation of him as four thousand years together hence that Antiphon is then taken as it were out of those ancient Patriarchs mouths rather then from the Epistle or Gospel of the day and therefore it is alwayes one of the seven great Os or exclamatory prayers of the holy Prophets groaning and crying out with an impatience of delay in the Messias our B. Saviour being born And these are the onely Three Antiphons in all the year that are not taken out of the Epistles and Gospels of the Divine Service proper to their day As for the Antiphon on Palme Sunday though it be not in that Gospell wihch I have here inserted in
Columnes that are marked with the denote the number of the Psalmes Those that are marked with the * declare the numbers of the Keys whereunto every Psalme is appropriated and in what sense it ought to be understood according to the meaning of the Royall Prophet David * 1 7 2 6 3 8 4 7 5 9 6 7 7 8 8 5 9 3 10 3 11 6 12 7 13 5 14 10 15 5 16 3 17 8 18 6 19 7 20 5 21 5 22 7 23 5 24 7 25 8 26 3 27 8 28 6 29 8 30 7 31 7 32 2 33 3 34 5 35 3 36 7 37 7 38 3 39 5 40 5 41 10 42 1 43 4 44 6 45 6 46 6 47 6 48 7 49 9 50 7 51 8 52 9 53 7 54 3 55 8 56 8 57 3 58 8 59 8 60 5 61 7 62 8 63 7 64 6 65 6 66 6 67 6 68 5 69 8 70 7 71 5 72 9 73 7 74 9 75 3 76 4 77 4 78 6 79 5 80 7 81 7 82 6 83 10 84 5 85 7 86 6 87 7 88 6 89 2 90 3 91 2 92 6 93 10 94 5 95 5 96 9 97 6 98 5 99 1 100 7 101 7 102 7 103 2 104 4 105 4 106 3 107 8 108 5 109 5 110 6 111 7 112 3 113 4 114 7 115 5 116 6 117 6 118 7 119 7 120 3 121 10 122 7 123 3 124 3 125 7 126 3 127 7 128 6 129 7 130 7 131 5 132 7 133 1 134 1 135 2 136 4 137 7 138 3 139 10 140 6 141 8 142 7 143 8 144 1 145 3 146 2 147 6 148 2 149 6 150 1 FINIS THE Christian Sodality On the first Sunday of Advent The Antiphon LUKE 1. v. 30. FEar not Mary for thou hast found grace with our Lord Behold thou shalt conceive and shalt bring forth a Son Vers Drop dew ye Heavens from above and let the clouds rain down the Just Resp Be the earth opened and let it bud forth a Saviour The Prayer ROwse up we beseech Thee O Lord thy power and come away that from the eminent dangers of our sins thou protecting we may deserve to be freed and thou delivering us we may be saved The Illustration of the Prayer SHould a Turk or Heathen ask me what report this Prayer hath to the Epistle and Gospel of the day there being scarce one word of either in it I should not wonder at him but did a Christian ask me such a question I should pitty him as either not well Catechized or at least as not reflecting on what he hath been taught for example that past Mysteries are by Holy Church presentiated unto us as now actually flowing namely that Advent represents the time when the Blessed Virgin Mary was near to her delivery of her Sacred Son the Messias our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into this world and for respect unto this time the Antiphon of this day is taken out of the 1. of Saint Luke not out of the 21. as the Gospel is because that 1. Chapter puts us in minde of the time which this Prayer reports unto so doth the Versicle and Responsory and so doth the last Antiphon of Advent being one of the great Os as we call them importing the exclamations used by the holy Patriarchs in their Prayers calling upon our Saviours Birth as near at hand and consequently the Prayers of Advent must be adapted to the times past to the voices of the Ancient Patriarchs and Prophets looking up to Heaven with their Predecessours and their own wearied eyes for four thousand years together all crying out as if they durst not believe their own eyes but would awake as it were the sleeping God that had so long left the world under the lash of a Triple Tyranny which they did groan beneath of Death Sin and Damnation and speaking by the dictate of the holy Ghost like men to God as if there were more or lesse of power in his Omnipotency beseeching him to hasten away with all his Rowsed power and by his protecting grace to free them from the eminent dangers they were in that had slept so many years in the night and trance of sin that is to say in the guilt thereof and next to deliver them from all future punishment due unto them for that guilt by a saving sentence in the latter day of Doom and so briefly praying to be secured from all dangers they were liable unto either of Guilt or pain of Sin He I say that looks upon the present Prayer with this reflection which is but due unto it will soon perceive the connexion it hath by beseeching God to Rowse up his power and come away to the Epistle specifying the greatest roots of Sin from the guilt whereof we desire protection and freedom by the coming of Christ the source and fountain of all Grace and to the Gospel telling us we are then before all the world finally truly and most absolutely delivered from the due penalty of Sin which is eternall damnation when the Devil and all his accursed crew shall see us called at the latter day of Doom unto an everlasting Bliss and Glory by the happy sentence of Salvation passed upon us For though we are protected here and by the Grace of God set free from the guilt of Sin yet we are then most properly delivered from all danger of punishment for the same when we are declared which God grant at the latter day maugre the Devils malice to be saved Souls But that all this may more clearly appear see both the letters of the Texts in Epistle and Gospel with the Expositours senses thereupon suitable to this Illustration of the Prayer as above and then confess there is more depth of sense and spirit in the Churches Prayers being all dictates of the holy Ghost than at first sight men will imagine or without deep meditation ever find out and believe The Epistle ROM 13. 11. ANd knowing the season that it is now the hour for us to rise from slâ—ep for now our salvation is nearer than when we believed 12. The night is past and the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of Darknesse and put on the Armour of Light 13. As in the day let us walk honestly not in Banquettings and Drunkenesse not in Chamberings and Impudicities not in Contention and Emulation 14. But put ye on our Lord Jesus Christ The Explication 11. THe Apostle in the immediate Verse before had told them That the fulness of the Law was Love and supposing them thereby prepared to fulfill the same by loving one another he now adds the convenience of the season and happiness of the present hour to encourage them to perfection But we must note he applies his speech both to the Jewes and Gentiles in this place to the former alluding unto the time when they did onely believe the Messias was to come whom now they can see with their own
and soften towards his God who like a melted Goodnesse came to pour out himself amongst us This this beloved were the part of good Christians to pray now in this sense to run like Lacquies nay like shadowes near up to the new Incarnate God who being in himself an Inaccessable light was fain to ecclipse his Glory in the cloud of humane Nature that so within the shadow of his shade-yeilding body we might approach unto him and whisper our necessities in his sacred Ears who now as man will hear us however as God the whole world seemed to cry out in vain to him for 4000. years together Say then Beloved this Prayer to day with this religious Duty this All-ghostly sense dictated unto us by the holy Ghost and we soon shall see the effect it worketh in us towards rendring us the perfect Christians that this dayes Epistle exhorts us to be Joyfull modest resigned thankfull and peacefull even to the surpassing the understanding nay more inlightned Angels running before the face of Jesus Christ to his Crib where born he will immediately dispence in ample manner the speciall Grace of his visitation to us all that thus like Baptists as the Gospell to day exhorts shall now prepare his wayes before him to the future Feast of his Nativity And thus we see both Epistle and Gospell of this day though not litterally yet Mystically if not as it were eminentially too included in this Prayer above The Epistle PHIL. 4. ver 4. c. 4. REjoyce in our Lord alwayes again I say Rejoyce ye 5 Let your modesty be known to all men our Lord is nigh 6. Be nothing carefull but in every thing by Prayer and supplication let your Petitions be known with God 7. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and intelligences in Christ Jesus The Explication 4. TO Rejoice that they were Christians and had the happiness of true Faith true Hope true Charity This the Apostle meant by rejoycing in our Lord in his holy gifts of Spirit bestowed upon them not that he had made them noble rich or great Persons but religious Christians for this he bids them alwayes rejoyce in our Lord again and again rejoyce And when he said always he meant as well in affliction as in prosperity because to zealous Souls no humane trouble ought to be disturbing so long as they have the comfort of a good Cause and a good Conscience too 5. Modesty is a vertue giving a mean to all the actions of a man and therefore that we might see Christianity sets all things in order both with the inward and outward man the Apostle exhorts the Philippians to give a proof of their perfection in Christianity by their Modesty and by such a modesty as might be known to all men such a modesty as puts a gracefull blush upon all their actions lest any one might see the infirmity of man in him who was become more than man by beeing a true and perfect Christian and therefore S. Paul tels us here we should stand upon a modest guard because our Lord who is to be our Judge is nigh and hath his eyes upon us as needs he must when he gives us the concourse of his Divine Assistance towards our each thought and deed but our Lords being nigh may now in Advent be applyed to the Nativity of our Saviour and for this purpose holy Church appoints that place of Scripture to be read to day though litterally the Text alludes to the latter day of Doom 6. By Care is here meant Anxiety or trouble of minde not that he prohibits a diligence a due regard to doe what is on our parts to be done but beyond that he will not have us goe he forbids us all anxious sollicitude and recommends a perfect resignation of our selves to the will and pleasure of Almighty God And though he bids us have a care to pray upon all occasions as well of Prosperity as of Adversity yet he allowes not any sollicitous care in us about the effect of our Prayer whether we obtain our requests or not made unto God by Prayer but will have us leave that freely to his Divine Majesty for indeed Beggars who want all things must not choose what supply they will first receive but humbly accept of whatsoever is given and if denyed they may ask again but never must be troubled when they are refused nor is our Prayer to God other than an expression of our despicable beggery and exigence of all necessaries both for Body and Soul and since from him we receive all our supplyes what hand soever it be that gives relief to him must our Prayer to him our Supplication to him our thanks and for his sake to those that are his Messengers his Ministers of help unto us and then we glorifie him when we thank them by whom he hands his Blessings to us 7. By the peace of God we may here understand either that increated peace which is God himself whereof peaceable creatures participate or the peace which Christ made between God and Man by his passion appeasing the Divine Wrath or the peace which we make among our selves when we forgive each other our Offences or the peace we have within our selves of a quiet Conscience for all and every one of these are truly called the Peace of God And yet when the Apostle sayes That peace which passeth all understanding he seemes to incline to the first and last acception of Peace for as that surpasseth the understanding of Angels so this is indeed past all humane understanding to know how unquiet man can attain the happiness of that peace which a quiet conscience affords him since it calmes all the tempests of outward persecution and trouble and makes a man by the equality of his mind equally to bear all unequalls whatsoever can befall him keeping our hearts our wills and our Intelligences our understandings still sixt upon Almighty God still adhering unto him and united to his sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ The Application 1. IN the first Verse of this Epistle we are taught how to comport our selves towards God Alwayes rejoicing in him to bear even the afflictions of this world with a contented mind So Saint Paul Rom. 5. We glory even in our tribulations and glory we cannot in any thing that gives us not content that doth not joy our hearts for the momentary tribulations of this world born with patience secure us of eternall consolations in the next Whence the same Apostle Cor. 6. sayes As it were sad yet alwayes rejoicing because in our patient suffering we serve and glorifie The God of all consolation 2. In the second Verse see how we are to demean our selves towards our neighbour Modestly ever because our Lord is nigh As who should say we can never look upon our Neighbour but as on our fellow servant holding up the hanging to let our common Master in to us that followes
thence retrive that sweet connexion we are at a seeming losse of and shall conclude the key we want to open this connexion lyes hidden in the preamble of this Prayer in the very courtship we use when we call upon God as moderating at once heavenly and earthly Things that is making the earthly obedient to his will when he pleaseth to have them suitable to those that are heavenly Things Thus water by the heavenly will of God became this day wine thus all the materiall parts of this dayes service became as it were immateriall that is to say spirituall Thus the Temporall gifts mentioned in the Epistle of Prophecy Ministery Teaching Exhorting Ruling Mercy Love Joy Hope Patience Prayer Almes Hospitality Vnanimity and Humility are made spirituall in being ordained to a spirituall end by conformity in us earthly creatures to the will of our Creator which is effected by vertue of that moderation God hath set between heaven and earth when he so moderates humane minds and actions as they become subservient to his heavenly will Thus carnall pleasure between man and wife is in them limited by Gods holy grace moderating the excesse and intemperance in that pleasure which indeed carnall men commit but spirituall men avoid God moderating fleshly appetites in them so as they shall not intrench upon spirituall duties but give way to serving God though with abridgement of their own delights and this is done when Saint Pauls counsell is followed Let those that have wives be as if they had none 1 Cor. c. 7. v. 29. when God Almighties service so requires as when attending first to prayer they afterwards return to the same corporall pleasure they forsook to pray and this is called a spirituall continence even in the bed of incontinency not as that term imports sin but as it argues lesse perfection than virginity or absolute containing from all corporall commixture but further and more prodigiously yet this miraculous moderation between heavenly and earthly Things is seen when married people have liberty allowed them for their due and seasonable mutuall pleasures with one another and yet withall at the same instant they have a limit set them beyond which they must not passe but like to flowing Seas must ebbe just at their own bounds and fall to the low-water of a non-temptation towards any other carnall pleasure than between themselves Here I say if ever more eminently than other it doth appear God moderates heavenly and earthly Things at once for here is a kind of continuall miracle betwâ—en man and wife when Saint Pauls counsell is followed as above and since the Story of this dayes Gospel runs upon a marriage and the Prayer concludes with begging peace here is the grant of that petition when man and wife thus moderated live happily together not defrauding one another here is further that peace granted to all sorts of Christians when they apply the Temporall gifts recited in the Epistle to spirituall to heavenly ends and when in the prayer we say Grant us thy peace in our dayes it is no lesse than the peace of that God who at once moderates heavenly and earthly things which we demand Now if any would dive further into that peace let them look back to the seventh verse in the Epistle on the Third Sunday of Advent and to the Explication thereof There they shall see how ravishing how plentifull a peace it is And having thus wrought out our design of connexion here where it was so seeming hard at first but now to flowing from every part like honey from the Combes of this dayes Epistle and Gospel upon the bread of the Prayer let us never despair of as good successe all the year along nor can there be a sweeter Prayer than this thus glossed and in this sense reiterated as often as we find reluctancy in us between nature and grace For then thus to call upon God as moderatour between heaven and earth is to quell all rebellion of nature against grace which God grant we may doe by praying as above The Epistle ROM 12. ver 6. c. 6. ANd having gifts according to the grace that is given us different either prophecy according to the rule of Faith 7. Or ministery in ministring or he that teacheth in doctrine 8. He that exhorteth in exhorting he that giveth in simplicity he that ruleth in carefulnesse he that sheweth mercy in cheerfulnesse 9. Love without simulation hating evill cleaving to good 10. Loving the charity of the Brotherhood one toward another with honour preventing one another 11. In carefulnesse not sloathfull in spirit fervent serving our Lord. 12. Rejoycing in hope patient in tribulation instant in prayer 13. Communicating to the necessities of the Saints pursuing hospitality 14. Blesse them that persecute you Blesse and Curse not 15. To rejoyce with them that rejoyce to weep with them that weep 16. Being of one mind one towards another not minding high things but consenting to the humble The Explication IN regard there was reference made to this place on Sunday last concerning the rule of Faith therefore we shall here take hold of the last part of this verse first and having premised what is peculiarly necessary upon this which is hugely controversiall we shall then proceed in our wonted manner for expounding the rest of the Text. We are therefore here to note That by the Rule of Faith is not understood onely the Apostles Creed branched into twelve Articles as we have received it from age to age but a set Form of life delivered by word of mouth unto the People by the Apostles who had first held Counsels about it amongst themselves and stood resolved all their teaching should be conformable thereunto And this Rule is not as Hereticks will have it the holy Scripture written by the Apostles for this Rule was made long before any Scripture was written and it was never delivered abroad but by word of mouth in their preaching and exhortations so it is properly called the Apostolicall Tradition which is yet even unto this very day the Rule of Faith to the whole Catholick Church to the Decrees of all Councels to the sense or exposition of the holy Scriptures and consequently Scripture cannot be as Hereticks pretend the sole Rule of Faith though true it is there must be nothing nor is there any thing at all in holy Writ contrary to this Rule or Apostolicall Tradition which was much larger than the written Word and therefore it ever was and still is even to the sacred Word a kind of Rule or Test to try it by since before the Apostles issued out their written books of Scripture those books were examined by this Rule of Faith which was framed by common consent of the whole number or Colledge of Apostles whereas all of them did not write nay two onely of the twelve were Evangelists or Writers of the Gospels for Saint Mark and Saint Luke the other two Evangelists were not dignified with the stile
had each of them some quantity within them wherefore Christ to take away all colour of deceit first bids all those vessels to be filled full of water up to the top that so each person in the room might see the certainty of the miracle and the liberality of God when he pleaseth to open his bounteous hand unto us 8. This done Jesus bids them draw of the vessels full of water a cup full and carry it to the cheif Steward of the feast because he could best tell whether or not he had provided that plenty and such rare Wine as those pots full of water did afford For it was the Jewish custome ever to have some modimperatour or prefect of good order at such feasts so Christ gave him the respect of first tasting this cup of grace and the presence of such a prefect makes the company of Iesus and his Mother more avowable at the feast since where a prefect of good order was there could be no suspition at all of the least excess or disorder 9. This verse shewes us the modimperatour having found Wine come in more than he had appointed and knowing none durst provide any besides himself unless by chance the Bridegroom took the priviledge so to doe which yet was not usuall presently calls to him saying to this effect 10. This is beyond the ordinary course two wayes first that you have more Wine than I was privy too next that you have reserved to the last your best Wine for this is singular good much better than what we had before And yet the bâ—st is alwayes first served in that in case of want worse may suffice at the latter end when the tast being glutted before is not so able to distinguish the difference yet this was so superlatively rare as even to those Palates formerly glutted in a manner it did tast extraordinarily well indeed to admiration nor was it strange since the works of God are ever perfect 11. Many doubt wheither or no this were the first miracle that Christ wrought willing to believe divers former which he did in his youth though in regard Gelasius the Pope hath condemned a fictitious book published by Hereticks intituled The miraculous infancy of Jesus and full of inventions of their own it is not improbable this was the first he did after his Baptisme with any purpose to be noted for the Messias By the manifestation of his Glory here is understood the shewing of his power wherein he was glorified and for which cause the Disciples are here said to believe him to be the true Messias and the true â—amb of God who as John the Baptist had told them was come to take away the sins of the world and this miracle he chose to work at a marriage as alluding thereby to the solemnity he made this day of his own wedding between his Divine and humane nature since now he was resolv'd to discover himself to be as well God as man whence this was done mystically on the Third day after he was published by the Baptist to shew now the Third state of the world was begun The first being hat under the Law of Nature The second that under the Law of Moses and this that under the Law of Grace besides the miracle was done in the Gentiles Cana to shew Christ came to call all Nations it was also done in Cana of Galilee as importing the transmigration of possession that is amongst Christian people who are the possession of Christ as bought by his bloud and therefore are to passe yet from earth to heaven their better and finall possession The Wine he so abundantly gave imports the doctrine of Christ and his holy grace inebriating the soules of the Faithfull The Application 1. LEarn Husbands hence to love your Wives as Christ doth love his Church learn Wives to obey your Husbands as the Church obeys her Head our Saviour Jesus Christ since marriage is a Sacrament representing the union between Christ and his holy Spouse 2. Learn married people hence to moderate excesses both at bed and board for neither Jesus nor his Blessed Mother can behold excesse and they to faintifie your marriage must be there 3. Learn Parents hence to breed your Children rather to supply the Angels rooms in Heaven than for to be your own Successours here on Earth thus will the waters of humane infirmitie be turned into Wine of Christian perfection by grace moderating natures exorbitances and making peace between two fatall enemies the spirit and the flesh As the Prayer to day petitions On the Third Sunday after the EPIPHANIE The Antiphon MATH 8. ver 2. O Lord if thou wilt thou canst cleanse me and Jesus said I will Be thou cleansed Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer OMnipotent eternall God look we beseech thee propitiously on our infirmity and extend to our protection the right hand of thy Majesty The Illustration IT is remarkable to see how negatively Saint Paul in this dayes Epistle minds us of being sinners when positively he exhorts us to be Saints with the Romans for what greater signe that the Apostle found a world of infirmities in the Romans than that he stirs them up so much to Vertues contrary to the vices they abound in and thus the Epistle insisting all upon vertues is well adapted to the Gospell running all upon infirmities mystically representing vices for what else doth the corporall leprosie of the Leper or the paraliticall disease of the Centurions boy purport than the like scurvy latent diseases of sin in our Souls to those which were apparent in these two bodies Whence it was but fitting this dayes Prayer should beg to have the same right hand of God extended over us which was the cure of these temporall diseases types of our spirituall infirmities nor can we hope this will be done unless God of his infinite goodness be propitious to us and therefore we beseech him in the Prayer first to look propitiously on our infirmities and then to extend to our protection the right hand of his majesty that is to say all his power as if our vice required no less than an infinite vertue to cure it our weakness no less than all Heavens forces to protect us And since both the Leper and Paralitick saying this Prayer in effect obtained corporall cure thereby why should we doubt of Spirituall cure if we say with like Faith like Hope like Love the same Prayer to day and truly to say it with less were a confusion to Christianity that Jewes and Gentiles should exceed us in fervour of Piety besides we have yet an easier task than they in hand for their demands were no less than to have a Miracle wrought upon them by a Physicall cure without a Physicall cause unless we shall say the touch of Christs hand was a Physicall cure for all diseases whereas we onely demand a favour not a miracle a little Grace to blot out a great
Octave of the Epiphanie The Prayer VVEe beseech thee O Lord prosecute with heavenly Piety the desires of thy suppliant people that they may both see what is by them to be done and be able to perform what they see they are to doe The Secret GRant O Lord that this Sacrifice offered unto thee may quicken alwayes and defend us The Post-Communion VVEe humbly beseech thee Omnipotent God that whom thou hast with thy Sacraments refreshed thou wilt gratiously grant they may serve thee with an agreeable comportment On the second Sunday after the Epiphanie The Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who doest moderate at once both Heavenly and Earthly things hear clemently the Prayers of thy people and grant us thy peace in our times The Secret SAnctifie O Lord our offered gifts and purge us from the spots of our Sinnes The Post-Communion O Lord we beseech thee let the operation of thy vertue be increased in us that nourished by thy Divine Sacraments we may be prepared through thy bounty to receive thy promises On the third Sunday after the EPIPHANIE The Prayer OMnipotent eternall God look we beseech thee propitiously on our infirmity and extend to our protection the right hand of thy Majesty The Secret VVEe pray thee O Lord let this Host cleanse our sins and sanctifie the bodies and soules of thy subjects towards the celebrating of thy sacrifice The Post-Communion TO whom thou doest O Lord grant the use of so great mysteries vouchsafe we beseech thee that we may truly be adopted unto their effects On the fourth Sunday after the EPIPHANIE The Prayer O God who knowest us set in so great dangers that we cannot through humane frailtie subsist gran unto us health of mind and body that what we suffer for our sins thou helping we may overcome The Secret GRant we beseech thee almighty God that the offered gift of this sacrifice may ever purge our frailtie and defend it from all evill The Post-Communion LEt thy gifts O God free us from terrene delights and refresh us alwayes with heavenly food On the fifth Sunday after the Epiphanie The Prayer KEep we beseech thee O Lord thy family in continuall pietie that resting on the onely hope of heavenly grace it may ever by thy protection be defended The Secret WEe offer unto thee O Lord the Host of Pacification and that thou mayest mercifully absolve us from our sins direct our drowsie hearts The Post-Communion WEe beseech thee almightie God that we may have the effect of that safety the pledge whereof we have received by these Mysteries On the sixth Sunday after the Epiphanie The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that alwaies meditating those things which are reasonable we may both in our words and deeds doe what is pleasing unto Thee The Secret LEt this oblation O God cleanse and renew govern and protect us we beseech thee The Post-Communion BEing fed O Lord with heavenly delights we beseech thee that we may alwaies covet those things by which we truly live On SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY The Prayer VVEe beseech thee O Lord clemently to hear the Prayers of thy People that we who for our sins are justly afflicted may for the glory of thy Name be mercifully delivered The Secret THou having received our gifts O Lord and our prayers cleanse us with thy heavenly mysteries and hear us clemently we beseech thee The Post-Communion BEe thy faithfull O God strengthened by thy gifts that they may without end knowing seek and seeking know the same On SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY The Prayer O God who seest we confide not in any of our own Actions grant us propitiously that against all adversities we may be armed by the protection of the Doctor of the Gentiles The Secret MAy this sacrifice offered unto thee O Lord alwaies revive and protect us The Post-Communion WEe humbly beseech thee Almighty God to grant that those whom thou doest refresh with thy Sacraments may graciously serve thee with their good behaviour On QUINQUAGESIMA Sunday The Prayer O Lord we beseech thee hear clemently our Prayers and being loosened from the fetters of our sins keep us from all adversity The Secret MAy this oblation O Lord we beseech thee purge away our sins and sanctifie the bodies and souls of thy subjects for the celebrating of this sacrifice The Post-Communion VVEe pray thee O God Omnipotent that we who have received Heavenly food may thereby be guarded from all adversity FINIS The END Of the FIRST PART THE SECOND PART Of the first TOME On the first Sunday in Lent The Antiphon 2 Cor. 6. v. 2 c. BEhold now the acceptable time behold now the dayes of health in these dayes therefore let us exhibite our selves as the Servants of God in much patience in fastings in watchings and in unfeigned charity Vers To his Angels God hath given charge of thee Resp That in all thy wayes they may keepe thee The Prayer O God who doest purifie thy Church with an annuall observation of Lent grant unto thy Family that what it endeavoureth to obtaine of thee by Fasting it may finish the same by good workes The Illustration IF in the holy time of Lent we find not so exact a report between the Epistle Gospell and Prayer of the day as at other times of the yeer it must be given to the more then ordinary regard had unto the Lenten Fast which we shall observe all these Prayers make speciall mention of as if holy Church intended nothing more then a recommends of that wholesome Fast unto us neverthelesse I shall not despaire to find the Epistle and Gospell even like full-sail'd Vessels falling down this channell of holy abstinence and directed by the helme of the Prayer come full fraughted with the same concording Spirits into the Ports of our ever open hearts to Ghostly comforts which the other seasons of the yeare afford unto us But before we venture upon a thing so hard let us facilitate the way by first cleering the full sense of the Prayer for when we know what we aske therein we shall see what relation the Petition hath to the Epistle and Gospell whence we must draw it out Observe then first in this Prayer an acknowledgement that Almighty God doth purifie his Church with an annuall observation of Lent so the end of this Fast is the Churches purification Next see how the Prayer begs that what we endeavour to obtaine by Fasting we may finish by good workes so though purification be the end of our Fast yet the Fast alone is but an endeavour towards that end and nothing brings us home unto it unlesse to the endeavouring fast we adde the finishing help of good works and this with great reason too for as we are never said to be perfectly purified untill we can in a chaste body represent a pure Soule to God so by Fasting alone we onely chastize our bodies but by good workes the grand affaire is finished our Soule is made pure and then the Churches
seen the Example of Humane Frailty in the chief Pastour of Gods Church that since the Sword of spiritual Power was put into their hands they might also have reason to shew mercy and not to retain other mens sins being penitent fiâ—ding their own were remitted upon Repentance and it was not without Reason that Christ foretold his Apostles he would rise again and appear to them in Galilee because he knew after his Death the Apostles and all the rest of his Disciples or Friends would be both afraid to meet together in Judea and that the Jews were so malicious against Christ as they would not suffer so great a number of his Disciples as Christ had above the eleven Apostles to appear amongst them much less to make assemblies Again the Apostles were most of them Galileans and so Christ knew they would be retreating to their own homes when he was gone or soon after if he rose not presently Lastly he had himself done many miracles in Galilee and therefore chose to get belief of them all at once by this one above all the rest his rising from the dead to Life again besides Galilee imports as much as transmigration and Christ passing from Death to life chose to do it in a place proper to the mystery which was yet redoubled by his appearing to multitudes at once in Galilee to shew he found the Jews no longer worthy his aboad among them and so he passed from them to the Gentiles where he had left many Disciples besides those Twelve he chose Apostles and whereof Judas was turned Apostata and dyed despairing so when the Angel said to the Maries Go tell his Disciples he meant tell all his Friends who are many in Galilee and St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. v. 6. seems to say that at the first apparition of Christ in Galilee there were more then five hundred of his Disciples or Friends and such as believed religiously of him whom therefore he rewarded by making them undoubted witnesses of this most doubtful and much controverted Truth his rising from the dead The Application 1. THe scope of all this Gospel is to prove the real Resurrection of our Blessed Lord and by that means the Immortality of Humane Souls so to wean them from their Temporal desires and plant their Loves upon Eternity the doubt if not the ignorance whereof made them embrace the Transitory Pleasures of the World and laugh at those for fools who thought of any happiness or misery to come when this life had an end by Death 2. Hence when the Apostles preach't our Saviours Resurrection it was held a scandal to the Jews and a folly to the Gentiles because it brought the tidings of Eternity to men that knew not any thing before but fleeting time and so for want of hoping in eternal Happiness by leading holy Lives fell headlong in a trice to everlasting Misery by living viciously according as the Royal Prophet said They lead their days in Jollity and in an instant they descend to Hell 3. As therefore when our Saviour died good men began to think it folly to be good because their Vertue was not able to maintain them living still So when he rose again bad men began to fear they might as well revive to misery as happiness and consequently were more easily reclaimed from Vice and brought in Love with Vertue so that Eternity we see is made a special Root of Christianity when even a desire to live eternalâ—y is held a motive strong enough to work a Sanctity into our Souls Since Holy Church makes it her rule to day that as by Christ his Resurrection the door was open to a blest Eternity so our desires thereof may be preserved in us by him that gave them to us by his prevenient Grace On White or Low Sunday The Antiphon Joh. 20. v. 26. AFter eight days the doors being shut our Lord entring in said unto them Peace be to you Alleluja Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who have accomplished the Pascal Feasts may retain the same in our Manners and Lives by thy bounty inabling us so to do The Illustration WE heard last Sunday the Churches Prayers were now to run in a peculiar Channel of Life-giving Waters those of the Resurrection of our Lord See therefore this days Service sliding sweetly down that stream but in this Prayer I finde a Phrase so strange as needs a gloss to make it understood though it speak plain English too for how can we retain a thing that 's past as is the Paschal Feast and yet this is it we pray for to day and not onely to retain this feast in our memories but in our manners and our lives sure then the meaning is we must retain those good desires which we besought God to prosecute in us in our last Sundays Prayer and which as by his preventing grace they were afforded us so by his continued bounty we now beg ability to continue or retain them in our manners and lives Now albeit this makes the Prayer above to be as it were a recapitulation of the last Sundays Prayer since the Octave Day is a closing up one and the self same Feast that began seven days before yet we must finde a deeper sence in this days Prayer such as petitioneth we should retain the Vertues which did occur to the accomplishment of the Paschal Feast as the good desires to those Vertues and if we look back to what those Vertues were we shall finde them to be sincerity and verity or rather in a word perfect Sanctity such as might make the old Leaven in us of sin to be White Manchet of Sanctity as if it were nothing for us to make yearly Memory of Christ his Death and Passion and of his Resurrection for in these two Mysteries consist the Paschal Feast unless our selves did remain ever dead unto sin and ever alive to God by vertue of our resurrection in his holy grace assuredly this must be the sence of our Prayer to day for this is truly to retaine in our manners and lives the Feasts of Pasche that are past when we make our selves Paschall Lambes by the Sincerity and Sanctity of our lives and manners For thus we shall first by our Faith overcome the world and next by our good works give the testimony of Gods Holy Spirit being in us which this dayes Epistle so much insisteth on as the effect of our Faith and of our Victory over the world by the same Faith And to the Gospell this Prayer is literall whilst it beggs we may retaine in us that Paschall Feast which is the whole scope of this dayes Gospell telling us how our Saviour appeared in confirmation of his Resurrection to his Apostles and in the narration of Saint Thomas his infidelity exhorting us to a firmer Faith in that and in all the other mysteries of our Redemption To conclude
exaltation when Saint Peter in his Epistle tels us we that are Christians are called to suffer with Christ who gave us example by his sufferings to follow his steps even unto death for him who did vouchsafe to dye for us And is not this the full sence of the Prayer As for the Gospell if we look with a regardfull eye upon it 't is but the same sence in other words for while it runs upon the nature of a Shepheard it never comes unto the hight of his commends untill it layes him low as death to save his sheep so still it drives to that abasement which is our exaltation and drawes us sweetly on to dye for him while it gives us an example of confidence that admits no fear because there is no security but in Trust and who can we trust more safely then him that knowes no guile our Saviour Jesus Christ who rather dyes in us then we can dye for him and if he dye it is that we may live and joy eternally with him that by his resurrection conquered death Thus do the sparkes of spirit flye from every letter of the Holy Text when they are strook against the steele of this dayes Prayer and thus the high dignity of Pastorate acquires a glory from the lowest stoop the Pastor makes even that to death so in a word our highest sanctity consists in our lowest humility as this dayes Prayer Epistle and Gospel do all avouch The Epistle 1 Pet. 2. v. 21 c. 21 For unto this are you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving you an example that you may follow his steps 32 Who did no sinne neither was guile found in his mouth 23 VVho when he was reviled did not revile when he suffered he threatned not but delivered himselfe to him that Iudged him unjustly 24 VVho himselfe bare our sinnes in his body upon the Tree that dead to sins we may live to justice by whose stripes you are healed 25 For you were as sheep straying but you are converted now to the Pastor and Bishop of your soules The Explication 21. SAint Peter had before advised to bear patiently not onely just punishments inflicted on the faithfull to whom he writ dispersed as they were some here some there of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia but also to bear injuries with the like patience saying that to this Christians were called because Christ did suffer for us most unjustly leaving us example to doe the like if need were and as there were three causes which moved God to become man this last is one of them The first was by his death to redeeme us the second by his preaching to teach us the third by his example to draw us to imitate his sanctity of life And to this last the Apostle now chiefely exhorts in this place as we see by the following verse contrary to the Hereticks Doctrine who hold it needless Christ having dyed for our sinnes that man himselfe use any mortification or doe any penance at all 22. Nor could he do any because he was God as well as man and hence Calvins Doctrine teaching Christ was a reall sinner and that he was in regard of his sins afraid to dye and did sweat bloud for fear thereof were all most abominable blasphemies because though in Christ there were two natures humane and divine yet there was in him but one person so had that person sinned God had sinned as well as man since the actions are attributed to the suppositum or person not to the natures contracted by the person but see the Apostle mindes us that Christ was not onely free from sin of fact but also of word and consequently of thought which is by word expressed nor is this marvell since out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Matt. c. 12. v. 34. but certainly God was the most abounding in Jesus his heart and so his words were all holy he being the very word of the eternall Father to whom as nothing is more proper then veracity so nothing is more improper then falsity or dissimulation fraud or guile 23 As indeed he was reviled when they called him drunkard raiser of seditions blasphemer nay conjurer or devill as casting out devils in the devils name yet did not he revile those who used him so ill nor did he recriminate as commonly men doe that excuse their own sins by casting other mens faults in their dish though in pure charity we read in Saint Matthew cap. 23. How roundly he did rebuke the Jewes to see if by a temporall check he could preserve them from eternall paines of hell which is a far other aime then those use who excuse themselves by way of recrimination of others for their end is not charity but passion or revenge and when he might have terrified the Judges that unjustly did condemne him he did not give them the least threat but gave himselfe up to the hands of Pilate his unjust judge how farre short are we of following this example whose whole indeavors are in all our actions even in those that are unjust to justifie our selves whereas if we would follow Saint Bernards counsell we should finde a remedy for all evils and injuries done unto us in the passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 24. The Apostle here assimilates Christ to the Emissary Goat in Levit. cap. 16. v. 21. Sent out into the desert loaden with all the sinnes of the people and so Christ came into the desert of this world out of his Eternall Fathers heavenly Pallace carrying all our sinnes upon his shoulders though by sins here is not understood the fact or guilt thereof but the punishment due unto them by the tree is meant the Crosse of Christ whereon while he dies hee represents us to his heavenly Father as dead to sinne because he dyes for us and for our sins whereupon Saint Ambrose sayes divinely well c. It was not our Life but our Sinne which dyed when Christ our Saviour dyed upon the Crosse So we being dead by that meanes to sinne may live to justice that is in the sight of the just Judge may deserve Eternall life in heaven for living justly here on earth O Soveraigne Stripes which bruising Christs body do cure our Soules more ulcerated with sinne then his body was with stripes 25. Straying we were indeed from God from vertue from Salvation from heaven and running to the devill to vice to damnation to hell had not Christ our Shepheard â—â—duced us to his fold againe by converting us to an amendment of our lives and winning us to follow the Footsteps of our heavenly Pastor and Bishop of our Soules See Bishops are metaphorically called Pastors because as shepheards feed their sheep so do Bishops by Doctrine and example feed the soules of men but Christ is eminentially called both as feeding soules not onely by grace here but with glory in the next world The Application 1. HOw sweetly Holy Church
however purchased once by Christ for us but we losing our right to them by sin cannot too often petition for their recovery Lastly because by Prayer we exercise the noblest Acts of Vertue Faith Hope and Charity the first believing God can do all things the next hoping he will do all we can desire the last loving him as a Father of whom we ask all supplyes both for our selves and others as to his own adopted sons 28. Here our Saviour alludes not onely to his temporal generation by his heavenly Fathers commanding him into the Womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary but to his eternal Generation also whereby he was from the beginning begotten coeternal and coequal God to his heavenly Father so that as his coming into this world was his going as we may say out of his Fathers bosom to seek lost man in the Wilderness of our Earth in like manner his leaving this world was his return with man found in his sacred Person into the same paternal bosom which he came out of 29. This argues he had answered now home to all their doubts and interrogatories by telling them he was the Son of God who came from him to them and was to return from them to him again this was cleer naked and simple Truth no Proverb no Riddle no Parable at all unto them 30. Now that thou hast by this Answer told us cleerly what thy meaning was by a while we should see thee and again a while after and we should not see thee again and this not as asked by us but as onely revolved in our thoughts whereunto thou hast now answered compleatly and while thou doest answer to the thought thou doest convince us thou art from God and comest out from him since he onely can come into and search all the corners of our hearts where thou hast been and found we would but durst not at first ask thee what thy meaning was by that Riddle of a while you shall and after a while you shall not see me because I go to my Father in this therefore we believe thou art God that thou needest not be asked to tell us what we think what we wish or would have since without asking thou canst tell us all and give us more then we can receive this alone were there no other would suffice for argument sufficient to prove thou comest so from God as thou art also God thy self The Application 1. NO marvel this Gospel insists so much upon ordering the Apostles whom to pray unto and how to pray since it is pointed out for Rogation that is to say for Praying week and since it is also appointed for concluding the Doctrine of Faith in the Resurrection and Deity of Jesus Christ by beginning the practice of our Hope which is best exercised in our Prayer For however all the forty days between the Resurrection and Ascension were dedicated by our Saviour to settle the Apostles and others in a right belief of Christian Doctrine yet we never till now did hear the Apostles declare the work was done and that they were satisfied and settled in their Faith of Christ his being truly the Son of God which yet they now profess in plain tearms saying Now thou speakest plainly this we believe that thou camest forth from God and art his eternal Son that did become man wert born hast suffered and dyed for our sins art risen from the dead art to ascend too unto thy heavenly Father and art thence to send us the holy Ghost to be our continual Comforter Teacher and Governour 2. Say then beloved since the work of Faith is finished by their own confession who were so hard of belief what remain but that we proceed to the next thing required of a Christian which is to Hope for the promises made by Jesus Christ in whom we have so much reason now fitmly to believe and since Hope as was said above is best exercised by Prayer let us now make it our whole imployment from this day forward until the coming of the holy Ghost to pray in such sort as by our best Master we are here directed that is to say to pray in his Name and how we shall do that the Expositors above have told us excellently well and that at large so t is but looking back to know it 3. To conclude since all our Prayer must be accompanied with Faith as Saint James hath taught us Cap. 1. saying If any man want for example wisdom and the like is of all other exigences let him ask it of God but let him ask in Faith not any ways faultering since I say this Gospel mentions Faith with Prayer See now beloved whether the Church to day do not most properly begg this Faith concomitant to her Hope or Prayer when calling upon God as the Fountain whence all good proceeds she prays as above That first her understanding may be rectified which is the work of Faith residing there and that next her Will may be ready to do what Faith and Reason dictate to be done and this by the gift of Hope infused for perfection of the Will by captivating it to Reason elevated by the gift of Faith as our Christian Doctrine tels us On Sunday within the Octaves of Ascension The Antiphon Joh. 16. v. 4. I Have spoken these things unto you that when the hour shall come you may remember them for that I spake them unto you Alleluja Vers Our Lord in Heaven Alleluja Resp Hath prepared his Seat Alleluja The Prayer OMnipotent Eternal God grant us ever to have our wills devoted and our hearts sincerely bent unto the service of thy Divine Majesty The Illustration NO marvel if the river of the Resurrection end in the speer of a Fountain rising upward through the Conduite pipe of our Blessed Lords Ascension and follow him to Heavens gates since we see waters how low soever they fall will mount again as high as their first Fountain is thus Jesus being the Head-spring of all Devotion carries our lumpish souls along with him as high as Heaven now he is seated there Hence Holy Church to day requires that though our Saviour hath left us we do not yet leave him but follow him how high soever he goes and how follow him with a forcible speer of Piety such as may shew his will and ours are one whilest our hearts are sincerely bent unto his service even as the Blessed Spirits are that sing perpetual Hymns of Praise to his heavenly Majesty and lest we fail of doing this see how to day we pray that we may do it beseeching God to grant our wills may be devoted and our heaâ—ts sincerely bent to the service of his Divine Majesty O! could we but reflect upon the Obligations we have indeed to serve him with sincere hearts we should never swerve from doing this under a thousand fond presumptions of our serving God whilest yet we seek nothing but our own wills and not his service nor is there any
Verse of the Gospel is Preparative to the Apostles both to Love and Hope That as he dy'd for love to them so they should be content to dye for love of him and for the Hope of Heaven Especially when they remember he that foretold their Sorrows told them of the Joyes they should beget such as no man should deprive them of such as no time should ever waste O how apt an exercise is it for Christians now to Hope and Love Which that they may do they are fitly taught to pray present as above FINIS THE END Of the Second PART On the first Sunday in Lent The Prayer O God who dost purifie thy Church with an annuall observation of Lent grant unto thy family that what it endeavoureth to obtaine of thee by fasting it may finish the same by good workes The Secret WE solemnely immolate the sacrifice of our Lenten beginnings beseeching thee O Lord that together with the restraint of our fleshly feastings we may temper also our harmefull pleasures The Post-Communion MAy O Lord the holy tasting of thy Sacrament restore us purged of the old creature make us pass into the fellowship of this saving mystery On the second Sunday in Lent The Prayer O God who doest behold us voyd of all strength guard us we beseech thee exteriourly and interiourly that we may be defended from all corporal Adversity and purified from the evil contagions of our souls The Secret APpeased we beseech thee O Lord to intend unto these present sacrifices that they may both further our Devotion and our Salvation too The Post-Communion VVE humbly beseech thee Almighty God that whom thou hast refreshed with thy Sacraments those thou wilt gracious grant to serve thee with their good behaviours On the third Sunday of Lent The Prayer VVE beseech thee Almighty God look down on the desires of thy humble people and extend the right hand of thy Majesty in our defence The Secret MAy this Hoste O Lord cleanse we beseech thee our offences and sanctifie the Bodies and Souls of thy Subjects for the offering this Sacrifice unto thee The Post-Communion VVE pray thee O Lord mercifully to absolve us from all our guilts and dangers since thou hast made us partakers of so great a Mystery On the fourth Sunday of Lent The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who through the merit of our own actions are afflicted by the Consolation of thy Grace may be comforted The Secret VVE beseech thee O Lord vouchsafe appeased to be intent unto our present Sacrifices to the end they may advance both our Devotion and our Salvation too The Post-Communion GRant unto us we beseech thee O merciful God that we may Celebrate with sincere Duty and always with faithful Souls receive thy Sacraments wherewith we are incessantly replenished On Passion Sunday The Prayer VVE beseech thee Almighty God propitiously behold thy Family that thou giving we may be governed in Body and thou reserving we may be preserved in Soul The Secret VVE beseech thee O Lord that these thy Gifts may unloose the fetters of our Iniquity and restore us to the Gifts of thy mercy The Post-Communion O Lord our God be present with us and whom thou hast recreated with thy Mysteries defend with thy perpetual Supplies On Palme Sunday The Prayer OMnipotent everlasting God who hast caused our Saviour to take humane Flesh upon him and be crucified for mankinde to imitate the example of his Humility grant propitiously that we may deserve to have both the instructions of his Patience and the fellowship of his Resurrection The Secret GRant we beseech thee O Lord that the offering we have made in the eyes of thy Majesty may obtain us the favour of Devotion and acquire unto us the effect of a blessed Eternity The Post-Communion BY the operation O Lord of this Mystery may our sins be purged away and our just desires be accomplished On Easter day The Prayer O God who this day by thy onely begotten Sonne hast opened unto us the doore of eternity by the destruction of death prosecute we beseech thee in us these good desires which thou preventing hast afforded us The Secret REceive we beseech thee O Lord the Prayers of thy people with the oblations of their Hosts that the entrance into these Paschall mysteries by thy contrivance may availe us for a help to our eternity The Post-Communion POure into us O Lord the Spirit of thy love that whom thou hast filled with Paschall Sacraments thou maist make them by thy Piety unanimous On Low Sunday The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who have accomplished the Paschall Feasts may retaine the same in our manners and lives by thy bounty inabling us so to doe The Secret ACcept we beseech thee O Lord the offerings of thy exulting Church and to whom thou hast given cause of so great joy grant the fruit of perpetuall mirth The Post-Communion WE beseech thee O Lord God that these sacred mysteries which for the security of our reparation thou hast bestowed upon us may be made both a present and a future help unto us On the second Sunday after Easter The Prayer O God who by the humble abasement of thine own Son hast raised up the prostrate world grant we beseech thee unto thy faithfull people perpetuall joy that they whom thou hast taken out of the danger of eternall death may injoy perpetuall felicity The Secret MAy this ever sacred oblation confer upon us a wholsome benediction that what it doth in mystery it may perfect in power The Post-Communion GRant unto us wee beseech thee Almighty God that receiving the favour of thy inlivening we may alwayes boast of thy bounty On the third Sunday after Easter The Prayer O God who unto those that goe astray to the end they may returne into the way of Justice dost shew them the light of thy verity grant unto all those who by profession are esteemed Christians that they may both eschew those things which are contrary to this name and pursue those which are agreeable unto the same The Secret BE it granted unto us O Lord by these mysteries that mitigating terrene desires wee may learne to love heavenly things The Post-Communion THe Sacraments which we have received wee beseech thee O Lord that they may repaire us with spirituall food and defend us with corporall helps On the fourth Sunday after Easter The Prayer O God who makest the mindes of the faithfull to be of one accord grant unto thy people that they may love what thou commandest and desire what thou doest promise that amongst worldly varieties there we may fix our hearts where are true Joyes The Secret O God who hast made us partakers of the highest Deity by the commerce of this revered sacrifice grant we beseech thee that as we know thy verity so we may with meet behaviour follow the same The Post-Communion VOuchsafe us O Lord God thy presence that by these
Illumination of his holy Spirit and was to make the often dead letter of that word to be the life of our Souls for so it must needs be when it brings us that peace which it promiseth namely another manner of peace then the world giveth which is alwayes mixed with war for whoever relisheth what is right hath a true peace within his conscience and so is at no variance or war at all In a word the Gospel being out of the story of our Saviours Life tells us the effect of this fact the fruit we shall receive by the coming of the Holy Ghost by relishing those things that are right and by rejoycing in the consolation of this holy Spirit that comes to read lessons of Divine Love unto our hearts and to wean us from the humane affections we have unto creatures and consequently this Gospel wants no adjusting to the Epistle and Prayer of this solemn day but makes good still our main design in this book The Epistle Acts 2.1 c. 1 And when the dayes of Pentecost were accomplished they were all together in one place 2 And suddenly there was made a sound from heaven as of a vehement wind coming and it filled the whole house where they were sitting 3 And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire and it sate upon every one of them 4 And they were all replenished with the Holy Ghost and they began to speak with divers tongues according as the holy Ghost gave them to speak 5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jewes devout men of every nation under heaven 6 And when this voyce was made the multitude came together and was astonied in mind because every man heard them speak in his own Tongue 7 And they were all amazed and marvelled saying Are not loe all these that speak Galilaeans 8 And how have we heard each man our own tongue wherein we were born 9 Parthians and Medians and Elamites and that inhabite Mesopotamia Jewrie and Cappadocia Pontus and Asia 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia Aegypt and the parts of Lybia that is about Cyrenee and strangers of Rome 11 Jewes also and Proselytes Cretensians and Arabians we have heard them speak in our own tongues the great works of God The Explication 1. THat is to say Fifty dayes after the Resurrection for as the Christian Pasche is a fulfilling that Feast of the Jews which was a figure thereof so likewise the Christian Pentecost is a fulfilling of the like figure of the Jewish Pentecost or of the delivery of the Law upon Mount Sinai by the like confirmation of the Christian Law upon the Mount Sion when the holy Ghost descended purposely for that end But as the Jewish Pasche was on Saturday which was their Sabbath so was the seventh Saturday after their Pentecost and the Christian Pasche being the day after which was Sunday makes the seventh Sunday following to be the Christian Pentecost both to shew Christ did abrogate the Jewish Sabbath by rising on Sunday and the Jewish Pentecost by sending the holy Ghost the seventh Sunday after which proves that the Christian Religion as it was successive to the Jewish so it did abrogate the same By those that were here in the place of the last Supper assembled we are not to understand onely the Twelve Apostles but also the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the rest of the Disciples and friends of Christ then in Jerusalem to the number of about one hundred and twenty as S. Luke recounts and S. Augustine gives a very pious reason for this number saying What Christ did promise onely to his twelve Apostles he performs into a ten-fold multiplyed number for ten times twelve make just one hundred and twenty so Christ to shew his liberality made his promise good ten times over and indeed it is usuall in Almighty God to better the expectation of his creatures 2. The mystery of this noise or sound was that thereby the Jews might come together out of curiosity to see what the matter was when they heard a sudden clap like thunder just over the place where the Apostles were assembled and likewise to raise up the hearts of those within the place to heaven expecting hereupon something of consequence to follow it was sudden for two reasons First to shew it to be a voluntary and free gift of grace such as could not be merited by any our previous preparation thereunto Secondly to shew the efficacy of that holy grace working to all purposes in an instant as we see it did in S. Paul and S. Mary Magdalene both instantaneously converted from notorious sinners and made eminent Saints whence S. Ambrose sayes truly commenting upon the first of S. Luke The grace of the holy Ghost brooks no delayings This sudden sound came from heaven to shew that as Gods throne was there so he came by his holy grace to call and to carry the Apostles and all good Christians thither it came like a huge high wind to shew the effects it was to have when the voices of those it sell upon were heard all the world over from one end to the other as was prophetically foretold by holy David Psal 18. Now we are to note the holy Ghost hath appeared severall times in severall wayes as first like a Pigeon or Dove upon Christ baptized to shew the columbine simplicity of grace and good works next like a Cloud in the Transfiguration to shew the fertility of Christian Doctrine falling like a fruitfull rain upon the barren souls of men and covering them from the nocive sinne of lustfull desires Thirdly like a Breath to shew the manner of Christian conversion was to be by aspiration or breathing of the holy Ghost upon our hearts and giving us thence a spirituall life and this was when at the last Supper Christ breathing upon his Apostles said Receive ye the holy Ghost to remission of sinnes Joh. 20.22 Fourthly as here both like fire and wind the first to shew the holy Ghost did inflame the hearts of men to the love of God and burn up in them all the stubble of their terrene affections the last to shew the efficacy that the Apostles preaching should have to convert all the world and like a whirl-wind blow down the resistance of Princes and Potentates as so many Towers standing in their way and also blow all infidelity all heresie all sects and schisms quite away as so much chaff and drosse in respect of solid doctrine not that there was a reall wind but yet a reall sound or rather an effect as of a reall wind for had the wind been reall being so great it had overthrown the house and done mischief to those within and indeed the Text saith it was a noise like the coming of a high winde nor was it marvell God could produce a sound without a winde for as the fiery tongues were not reall tongues but onely similitudes thereof so was this noise no reall wind but onely a likenesse of it
that is be full fraighted as she could possibly sail and then we might hope she would enter safe into the harbour of eternal rest when the labours of her militant state would be converted into the repose of her state Triumphant 8. 9. 10. Onely Peter of all the rest astonished as they were at the miracle expressed himself more then others did thereat fell immediately at our Saviours feet to adore that power which had wrought this miracle and for this his singular Faith and humiliation see him exalted and made head of all the Church to shew we cannot out do Almighty God in goodnesse his rewards are never short but alwayes above our works And 't is worth observing that S. Peter here desires Jesus to go from him because he is a sinner and doeth not deserve the honour of his presence A high expression of humility in him and of his reverence to the person of his Lord as if he had rather lose the honour of Christ his presence then so great a Majesty should be dishonoured by so unworthy company as his and all the rest that were as the ninth verse sayes all astonished at the greatnesse of the miracle in such an unexpected draught of Fish whom our Saviour comforts up in the tenth verse and bids Peter cast off his fear because he should be from that time a fisher of men of soules which he should bring in as great shoales to heaven as these fishes came to his net 11. What marvel they left all to follow so good so great a Master who did not alter but exalt their trade by innobling their draught which was formerly food onely for mens tables but henceforward they should take Fish that should be served up to the table of the King of heaven of God himself The Application 1. THe sum of this Gospel is the demonstration of our Saviours charity to his Apostles and of his like love to all the world by their Ministry whom he professeth here to make Fishers of men converters of soules by their teaching and preaching according as himself instructed them in that art by his own Sermon to them and to the multitude that followed him So we are not here to seek for charity where so high an act of love is exercised that of saving soules by preaching to them the word of God 2. But what we are to observe here is that the Apostles left all they had in the world to follow Christ and to seek after souls so that hence we see Church men especially Pastours and missionary Priests who by office have the care of soules lye upon them are to renounce all other cares or thoughts whatsoever are to divest themselves of all worldly cloggs or interest and to dedicate themselves wholly and solely to their Pastoral Functions 3. Neverthelesse they are not to rob the world of their suffrages prayers and sacrifices for in them they are still to have a memory of the whole world and to beseech God that he will blesse and prosper every private condition every peculiar state and all the general ranks and orders of the Universe that it may be in each with every one and through the whole as God in his Goodnesse and Wisdome hath ordained with Kings as best is for their Majesties with States as most conducing to their safety with subjects as befits them best and that so Temporalities may be ordered by Almighty God himself as the Spirituality be not interrupted nor molested but that all Church-men may be free to pray to preach to sacrifice and give the Sacraments to all as though the world would never be in order if the Church-men were disordered or not allowed peace and tranquillity in their devotions Sure this must be the meaning of the Text when it is the petition of the Prayer to day On the fifth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 5.24 IF thou offer thy gift at the Altar and shalt remember that thy Brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the Altar and go first to be reconciled to thy Brother and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who hast prepared invisible good things for them that love thee infuse into our hearts the desire of thy love that loving thee in all things and above them all we may attain unto thy promises which surpasse even all our own desires The Illustration SEe see beloved how little those that professe to love God ought to set their affections on creatures when by this Prayer they are told the good they ought to aym at is as invisible to them here as God himself is to our corporal eyes though in that God are contained all things that are good and worthy of our love See how because we cannot naturally love that which we see not we are bid to beg it as a boon of God that we may at least desire to love him and that this desire may be by him infused into our hearts so that loving God in all we do see and above all we can imagine we may thereby hope to attain unto the fruition of that Invisible good we see not which yet we are created to enjoy and which is so great as it surmounteth all our own most vaste desires A gallant and an easie way to heaven by onely loving what is onely worthy of our love the Invisible God who is the Authour and giver of all that can be good visible or invisible And since we may easily loose the hopes we have of attaining our spiritual good we are by this Prayer taught to love nothing visible that may indanger us to loose the invisible treasure which is hoarded up for us that is not to love any thing visible but as it relates to what is invisible namely to Almighty God and as thereby we may honour and glorifie God by loving it which rule can never be observed by loving creatures but even equally to their Creatour and yet commonly we love them and dote upon them much more God help us whereas if we follow the rule of this Prayer we shall not onely cure that disease in us but further attain to the height of perfection and sanctity which consisteth in loving God above all things and all things else for his sake not for their own respects since we cannot lawfully so much as love our selves but onely in order to God O admirable solidity of devotion O admirable profundity of spirit in the prayers of holy Church Let us now see how this Prayer is adapted to the Epistle and Gospel Excellently well to both For what is the Epistle else but a rule of perfection which this Prayer begs we may observe what else is the Gospel but a rule of more perfection in us Christians then ever God required at the hands of his chosen people the Jewes and what is this Prayer but a petition of the highest perfection and
the answer thereunto those who before knew not the number of them should by knowing how slender it was admire the miracle the more that followed when out of the mystical number of seven loaves four thousand persons were fed For mystical they were as having relation to the seven Sacraments which are so many several conduit-pipes of Gods grace into our soules whereby they are spiritually fed as those four thousand men were temporally with seven loaves they Were figures also of the seven-fold grace of the Holy Ghost giving to us seven special vertues three Theological four Cardinal in holy Baptisme as also of the seven gifts beside of the same holy Spirit 6. That the ground was the Table whereon our Saviour made his feast is no marvell for so in the law of nature men sate at meals to shew the superfluity of costly tables was as little agreeable to God as the excesse of their dishes also were and therefore here is onely bread and fish to feast upon since nature being content with little grace will not make her any meanes of excesse That he brake and blessed the bread before it multiplyed argues the vertue of his Benediction to have caused the multiplication so in the beginning of the world he blessed the creatures which he bid encrease and multiply to shew their multiplication was the fruit or effect of his Benediction That he gave not the bread himself to the people but to his disciples to distribute argues his breaking to the world the bread of his holy word not immediately by himself but by his Apostles and their Successours 7. The addition of fishes to the bread of this banquet argues that Priests must alwayes adde unto the word of God the pulpe or pap of good life that so our food may be in all kinds nourishing to soules 8. That hungry people did eat their fill no marvel when God allowed plenty That they took up the scraps was to instruct us never to permit the least of Gods Blessings to be wasted or lost much lesse the least of Gods words here signified by the crums falling from the Preachers mouth That there were seven basquets full of fragments no marvel neither since there were seven loaves at first and so it was fitting the Blessing of multiplication should appear in each by the reliques of every one of them as also to shew that all Almes to the poor are rewarded with abundance remaining to the giver 9. This verse onely recounts the number of those who were present at the feast and shared in the miracle who were not dismissed till each of them were satisfied and had their fill to shew that God leaves none of his servants unrewarded for their paines of loving and following him wheresoever he goes The Application 1. IT is admirable to see the fecundity of Gods holy Spirit how aptly the Prayer above corresponds to these two Texts that seem far differing from one another yet are both driving at all the same ends of increasing Religion in us and of nourishing the good things it bestowes upon us by the practise of Piety Which Piety we see was a special gift of the Holy Ghost infused into us in holy Baptisme and for the which we can no wayes be answerable to Almighty God but by the continual study or practise of it and doubtlesse this Piety is then very well practised in one particular thereof when men frequent the Blessed Sacrament which is the truest nourishment of goodnesse in us that can be imagined 2. Nor is this other then a genuine sense of the present Texts both of the Gospel and of the Prayer to day For all Expositours agree that this miracle alludes to the Blessed Sacrament whereby not onely many thousands but infinite millions of soules are fed and thereby nourished in the perfection of that Religion which by holy Baptisme as above they made profession of So that here by the practise of Piety we are to understand the frequent Communion 3. True it is we were told upon Sunday within the Octaves of Corpus Christi that this Communion was then given us as the figure thereof was given under the Juniper Tree to Elias for a food sufficient to carry us through the long way we had then to go before we came to Advent but that notwithstanding we may receive it as frequently as holy Piety moves us thereunto For this advantage the substance hath above the shadow the thing figured above the figure of it that what was once done to suffice for the nature of a figure may be often exercised in the thing figured because the love of grace is perfected by the frequent exercises of those acts that do confer grace whence it is that holy Church obligeth us once a year at least and that about Easter to receive this Sacrament as a viaticum unto us for the journey we are to make in the long way of vertue all the year after Neverthelesse by way of practising Piety our pious Mother allowes the frequent Communion besides permits us to eat of this heavenly food this bread of Angels as often as our devotion moves us thereunto by permission of our Ghostly Fathers not otherwise which to those that have many worldly businesses may be every moneth or three weeks it being now thereabouts since the Octaves ended of the Blessed Sacrament that now we have a memory of that holy mystery again and may be a good ground for Priests to regulate this devotion by yet this may be more or lesse frequent as the discretion of the ghostly Fathers shall order according to the progresse their penitents make in vertue by this and other Practises of Piety For to permit more frequent communion to those that do not daily advance in vertue were rather to give way to a dangerous singularity then to the practise of a profitable Piety since more regard must be had to a worthy receiving then to the frequency thereof Say now the Prayer above and see if both it and the Gospel be not exactly exhausted by this special Practise of Piety called frequent Communion On the seventh Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 7.18 A Good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit nor an evill tree good fruit Every tree which yieldeth not good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God whose providence is so disposed as it never can be frustrated remove we humbly beseech thee all things that are hurtfull and grant whatsoever may be beneficiall unto us The Illustration This prayer doubtlesse is very well suited to the present calamitous times we live in when we have no other helm to steer us out of the sea of troubles we are in but that Providence we now call upon which is so disposed as however we seem tossed in the waves of destruction it will infallibly bring us to the safe port of salvation if we sail or hold
to take away all hurtfull things and grant them all availing ones to their salvation but especially this most availing of all the rest to send them true Prophets good and holy Priests such as may teach them as well by the exemplarity of their lives as by the veritie and soliditie of their Doctrine for as the Text commands us to beware of others so the Prayer by consequence must beg for these On the eighth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 16. v. 3. WHat shall I doe for that my Lord taketh from me the Bailiff-ship To dig I am not able to beg I am ashamed I know what I will do that when I shall be removed from the Bailiff-ship they may receive me into their houses Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer GRant us O Lord we beseech thee propitiously the spirit of thinking alwayes and of doing what is right that as we cannot be without thee so we may live unto thee The Illustration O Beloved what an excellent Prayer is this How deep how sweet how alone able to save us if said with the same spirit that taught it and if performed as well as â—aid For if we neither think nor do amisse how can we ever sin and consequently how fail of being saved Again if we onely subsist by the preservation of Almighty God as is most true how can we presume to live unto our selves and not unto him As therefore our beeing is purely and onely by him so ought our living to be purely and onely to him not as it is God help us to our selves as if we had been our own makers or could for the least minute preserve our selves how daring so ever our comportment is as though we were our own and not God Almighties creatures Idolizing dayly to our selves sinning hourely and provoking God to undo his own handy work by damning not annihilating of us were not his mercy above our malice which malice onely can attempt our annihilation I need say no more of the excellency of this Prayer for whilest I strive to amplifie it by other words I do contract it rather then inlarge it which is more patheticall and significant in the short method it observes then any ampliation even by the tongues or pens of Angels can make it and shewes us That as God is but one simple essence in himself yet contains within him all the variety that is possible in infinite millions of creatures or worlds indeed so he can if he please contract into one word the sense and meaning of all the languages of the world and truly much is contracted in this Prayer above I shall therefore say no more in commends of it but onely shew how rarely well it suites with the Epistle and Gospell following how as it were eminentially it contains them both the former in begging first the spirit of alwayes thinking and doing right that so we may be and live to God as the Epistle adviâ—eth which you see quits us of all obligation to our selves and ties us up to the duty of a spirituall life and of a corporall death both which are petitioned in the Prayer the latter in shewing us how to prevent the danger of such like cheats to our Lord and Master which the Gospell mentions by prepossessing our thoughts with a right addresse of them to our masters pleasure and profit and consequently by preventing our actions towards him to be unjust when we acknowledge we cannot be at all but such creatures as he makes us and thence we can have no hope to be preserved by him in a wicked being which he never gave us nor can we expect he should preserve us in it so the Prayer concludes begging we may live onely to him who onely is the authour of our being The Epistle Rom. 8. v. 12. c. 12 Therefore Brethren we are debtours not to the flesh to live according to the flesh 13 For if you live according to the flesh you shall die but if by the spirit you mortifie the deeds of the flesh you shall live 14 For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God 15 For you have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear but you have received the spirit of adoption of sonnes wherein we cry Abba Father 16 For the Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sonnes of God 17 And if sonnes heirs also heirs truly of God and coheirs of Christ The Explication 12. THis therefore is S. Paul's inference or conclusion upon the premises wherein he had said we were by Baptisme regenerate born again not of flesh and bloud but of Christ in whom the Baptized must live as he did in spirit not in flesh and so consequently are no longer debtours to flesh but to spirit and must no longer live to the flesh but to the spirit 13. By the spirit is here understood Christ and his grace not our own soules for though our bodies live by our souls yet our soules must live by Christ who is their life and we must by conformity to his will mortifie both our own bodies and soules too if we will live spiritually in and by him we must dye to concupiscence and inordinate desires for till then they are not mortified but live in us and we by them live fleshly not spiritually 14. To be led by the Spirit signifies that Christ should act in us not onely we in our selves and then we are true Sons of God when we are led by him by his holy Spirit who is our life as he was S. Paul's when the Apostle said Gal. 2.20 he lived now not he but Christ in him But here S. Austin playes prettily upon the word acting We must saith he act our selves and yet let our action be from him rather then from us for then we act well when he makes us act when our action is radicated in him and squared to his holy will So here to be led argues the impulse of his holy Spirit and the voluntary cooperation of our action too for then saith S. Austin we are led by his Spirit when we do as we ought to do 15. The spirit of servitude or servile fear was that which God led the Jewes withal fear of temporal punishments but we are led by a better spirit that of love and so must serve God for love of him rather then for fear of hell and as his adopted children rather then servants so much nobler is our condition then that of the Jewes And this spirit of adoption is no lesse then the holy Ghost himself communicated unto us as v. 6. was said on Sunday within the Octaves of Nativity For as God gave his own Deity to Christ when he made Christ the Son of God so the holy Ghost gives us himself to make us also the Sons of God by adoption in virtue of our Saviours Passion whence we have the priviledge
Charity in him upon his spirituall conversion wrought together with his corporall cure the Church with all the reason in the world prayes to day for increase of the like virtues and thus adapts the Prayer unto the preaching parts of this dayes service so exactly well as we may freely say the spirit of the Epistle and Gospel is as it were eminentially contained in the Prayer above The Epistle Galat. 3. v. 16. c. 16 Brethren to Abraham were the said promises and to his seed he saith not and to seeds as in many but as in one and to thy seed which is Christ. 17 And this I say the Testament being confirmed of God the Law which was made after foure hundred and thirty years maketh not void to frustrate the promise 18 For if the inheritance be of the Law now not of promise but God gave it to Abraham by promise 19 Why was the Law then It was put for transgressours untill the seed came to whom he had promised ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediatour 20 And a Mediatour is not of one but God is one 21 Was the Law then against the promises of God God forbid For if there had been a Law given that could justifie undoubtedly justice should be of the Law 22 But the Scripture hath concluded all things under sinne that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe The Explication 16. IN recompense of his faith were these promises made to Abraham which are read Gen. 22. c. Nay even of Isaac himself whom his Father Abraham obediently sacrificed would Christ descend that so in Abrahams seed the promises might be made good Yet this seed is not to be understood Isaac but Christ of Abraham by Isaac lineally descending Note these promises were not made so to Abraham as to fall upon his person but upon the person of his seed Christ Jesus for in him indeed were all the promises truly performed which were made to Abraham since by believing in Christ we are all saved not by any merits of Abraham So Abrahams seed or posteritie is not here taken collectively as importing many but as importing one onely branch of the said posterity namely Jesus Christ 17. Since it was said before v. 15. mans will and testament is not to be broken much lesse that Testament which is confirmed by God himself which were these promises to Abraham no they are not violable by any Law lesse by a Law subsequent thereunto as by the Law of Moses which was 430 years after these promises to Abraham 18. Hence it is evident Abrahams seed did not inherit these benedictions by virtue of the Law which was delivered to Moyses on the mount Sinai 430 years after God had made the promise of these benedictions as if that Law were giving life or saving souls but by virtue of the promise made before the Law of Moyses was written So that our salvation flowes out of the faith we have in Christ to whom the promises were made that by his person being the seed of Abraham all men should be made happy For this promise involves the faith of Christ as the means to save us so doth not the Law of Moyses rehearsing onely the said promise 19. This question is of difficulty the premises in the precedent verses considered yet it is evident the Law here mentioned was not saving but rather to terrifie the transgressours and to declare their transgressions then to save them for neither was there time yet or place for a saving Law since the Saviour of the world was not come so this was at most but a middle Law between that of nature before it and this of grace following of it which we now enjoy and so it was adapted as to a middle use to civilize rather then to save men who even in the time of this law were not savd by virtue of it but by virtue of Faith Hope in Christ who was to come after this law and who was prefigured by it So S. Paul speaks plainly when he sayes in this vers this law was made but for transgressors untill the seed of promise that is untill Christ should come In the following words ordained by Angels is insinuated the Catholick Doctrine telling us this Law was written and delivered by Angels or Gods Embassadours not by God immediately and so like Embassadours they use his name and speak in his person whom they personate that is in Gods Name whence it is that part of this Law which was confirmed by Jesus Christ comes elevated or dignified unto us by the dignitie of the deliverer the Sonne of God himself not onely an Angel By the hand of a Mediatour is understood the person of him that did then mediate between God and the People of Israel namely Moyses into whose hand the Law was given For since a Mediatour must be a party placed between two and partaking of both sides here Mediatour must not be understood of Christ who was not then in being as man but onely his Deitie had being his Humanitie had it not Nor is Christ called our mediatour as God onely but as God and man for as God he partakes of the dignitie and authoritie of his Mediatourship as Man he exerciseth the works and merits of a Mediatour Besides the Angel is said here to use the hand of the Mediatour to deliver the Law by but that was Moyses hand so in this place he must be understood to be the Mediatour 20. This verse again confirms what was said in the former that Moyses is spoken of for Mediatour as distinguished from God whilest the Apostle sayes a Mediatour is not of one so Moyses was not of one side onely but of Gods and the Jews or rather Gods chosen people the children of Israel So Mediatour is not taken here for Christ as mediating between God and Christians or all Nations but as Moyses mediating between God and the Jews onely a particular nation for this mediation was not to salvation since that was Christs and could be none others because he could both plead as man and forgive as God This is yet cleared more by the following words saying God is one and so could not be the Mediatour here mentioned which was Moyses for God had not then put on humane nature to render him of a double consideration or concern but onely was one creating not mediating God which must be man too So that the true sense of this place is God who is one then made Moyses Mediatour between him and the Jews and since made Christ Mediatour between him and all the Nations of the world Wherefore that law of Moyses was rather an usher to Christ his law then a fulfiller of the promises made to Abraham for they were onely fulfilled by Christ and his holy Gospel being the means as well to save as to govern men whereas Moyses his law could onely govern them but their salvation had root in the
time by doing homage to Almighty God So by this account all Sundayes Holy dayes require an exercise of these three virtues Theologicall and consequently all the time of private prayer is to be spent in actual exercise of these because that prayer is an addresse to God as all the time of persecution that being suffered for Gods sake all the time of troubles for those are caused by sinne against Almighty God and must have end by saintitie so by this account all our life time must be a practice of these virtues an increase of them indeed as the onely means to make us saints to make us capable of God Almighties promises by loving these his easie his sweet his saving commandements which are the continual exercise of these Theologicall virtues whereby we are made capable of his heavenly promises And least it should be with us as with these nine ungratefull Lepers cured from their Leprosy which is a type of all sinne whatsoever but especially of the foulest of all others Infidelity Therefore holy Church to day to prevent all sin in her Christian children and above all the sin of ungratefull infidelitie commends unto us the Prayer above that by often saying this Prayer we may exercise the noblest and most essentiall virtues that belong to Christianitie and by their increase make our selves worthie of our Saviours promises to all good Christians On the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 6. v. 33. SEek first the Kingdome of God and his righteousnesse and all things shall be given you besides Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer KEep we beseech thee O Lord thy Church with perpetuall propitiation and since without thee humane mortalitie faileth let it alwayes by thy helps be withdrawn from such things as are hurtfull and directed to those that are saving The Illustration HOw excellently well is the much of the Epistle and Gospel contained in the little of this Prayer wherein we confesse it is by the perpetuall propitiation of our Saviours passion without which our humane mortality would be alwaies failing as the onely help conducing to support us that we can be withdrawn from the works of the flesh and directed to walk in the Spirit that is to say taken off from those things which are hurtfull and directed to those that are saving And what else is the whole Epistle but an exhortation to leave off the works of the flesh and to pursue the fruits of the Spirit Again what are the two masters which the Gospel saies we cannot serve at once but the flesh and the spirit what the drift of all the Gospel but to dehort from one and exhort unto the other So here Epistle Prayer and Gospel speak all one thing how severall soever the language be of each and no marvell because the spirit of Almighty God is able to animate all the creatures of the world Act. 17.28 For it is he in whom we live are moved and have being Now having thus made good our main affair of this work the mutuall connexion of parts in holy Churches service it rests onely to elucidate a word or two in the Prayer above to render the same in it self perfectly understood The first is the perpetuall propitiation wherewith we beg the Church may be kept for though above we called that propitiation an effect of our Saviors passion yet here we must further give a reason why we did so call it and also why we in the Prayer affirm the same to be a perpetuall effect thereof Know therefore it is the effect of his passion because it is not onely a satisfaction for sinne but also a pacification of Gods wrath against mankind who by sinne had provoked Almightie God to a high indignation against the whole race of men And therefore we call this propitiation perpetuall because it is infinite in duration as well as in power of appeasing for though it be now above 1651. years since our Saviour did actually suffer yet the virtue of his suffering is still vigorous and shall be to the worlds end because it was the suffering of God as well as of man and therefore must needs have an eternall operation that is be able for all eternity to appease the wrath divine and in this sense we say the preservation of the world in being is the continuation of the act whereby it was created so the preservation of mens souls from the wrath of the heavenly Father is the continuation of the passion of his sacred Sonne The next phrase of this Prayer which we are to clear is that wherein we say without our perpetually propitious Lord Humane mortalitie would fail as if there were any other mortalitie then humane that were capable of the benefit of our Saviours passion of his perpetuall propitiation Truely no there is not for since it was onely Humane nature that he assumed and by assuming it was pleased to redeem the same we say rightly well no other mortalitie was capable of the benefit of this redemption not but that other natures are mortall as all terrestriall creatures are in the very rigour of death or mortalitie because they all die by way of corruption and if we say the celestiall spirits are mortall too because they may be held to die when they fell from heaven to hell from the state of grace to the state of damnation we shall not speak improperly and truly the phrase of this Prayer seems to allude to that mortality of the blessed spirits when therein we are taught to affirm that our Saviours passion was a propitiation peculiarly provided for the subsistence onely of humane mortalitie since it was a remedy provided onely to recover so often as they chance to fall mortall men and not any other mortall creature besides either terrestriall or celestiall And thus the stile of humane mortalitie is most apposite because man onely had the happinesse of mercy to be shewed him for his sins which was a favour never done to any Angel whatsoever and this mercy is just the same which this present Prayer avoucheth begging that our humane mortalitie which needs must fail without it may have the benefit of our blessed Saviours perpetuall propitiation by the application thereunto of his bitter death and passion which will afford it helps to avoid what is hurtfull and to follow what is saving The Epistle Galat. 5. v. 16. c. 16 Brethren I say walk in the spirit and the lusts of the flesh you shall not accomplish 17 For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh for they are adversaries one to another that not what things soever you will these you do 18 But if you be led by the spirit you are not under the Law 19 And the works of the flesh be manifest which are fornication uncleannesse impudicitie lecherie 20 Serving of Idols witchcrafts enmities contentions emulations anger brawles dissentions sects 21 Envies murthers
horrour of sin or the least affection thereunto which peace of conscience the Apostle magnifies so that he sayes it surpasseth all sense and cannot be sufficiently expressed Philip. 4.7 so great a fruit this is of charity and these are the chief internal fruits Now the external are Patience whereby we bear with the provocations of others that attempt to disturb the tranquillity of our minds by which we neither loose our own nor disquiet others Benignity goes further whilest it not onely bears patiently all external attempts against our internal quiet but even endeavours to sweeten their asperity who are harsh unto us to oblige others who would disoblige us as well as to requite the courtesies we receive from them this consists chiefly in a sweetnesse of language in an evennesse of actions towards all men and is such as very good men may want unlesse they have the special gift thereof and this is the main vertue by which we gain from others the reputation of being Saints Goodnesse rests not satisfied in doing well for all men and in all we do but in declining offence to any either God or men this consists chiefly in ayming to profit our selves or others and is therefore esteemed the fountain of utility Longanimity hath a great share of patience as if it were a continuation thereof yet hath this speciall difference from it thâ—t this reports rather to time then persons and useth the exercise of patience properly upon all diversity or difference of time past present and future for that every minute of our lives ought by this virtue to be a patient expecting the good hour of Gods holy will to be done in us whilest we live by our sanctification when we dye by our salvation 23. Mildnesse is here understood to be diametrically opposite to anger or revenge of injuries and differs by that notion from patience as also by rendring a man tractable and flexible to all that is desired and good to be done Faith is of two considerations first as it is opposite to heresie and so assenteth to whatsoever is proposed by God or holy Church to be believed though never so much above nature and this faith is not so properly called a fruit of charity or of the holy Ghost as it is indeed the root or first principle of religion Secondly as it imports fidelity or veracity in point of promise and as it is opposite to fraud or lying and thus it is properly a fruit of the holy Ghost or of charity or as it is said here by the Apostle of the Spirit and of this Faith S. Paul sayes Charity believes all things 1 Cor. 13. so it consists in a kind of genuine simplicity by considing in the veracity of all men and believing rather then distrusting what they say Modesty imports an equal temper in all words and actions and renders a man well composed for the exteriour of him grateful and acceptable to all men being an effect of his inward rectitude or composition Continency is as it were a militant chastity and consisteth in the act of resistance to temptation so it is rather an imitation or inchoation of chastity then chastity it self which may be perfect when and where there is no opposition or temptations as a man is said to live chaste so long as he sins not carnally but continent whilest he actuaâ—ly resists temptation to carnality though this vertue is a kind of transcendent perfection over all mens actions and thus it is as well a temperance from excesse of meats as from all other vices Hence married people may be said to be continent though not chaste when they forbear all carnal pleasure but that which is the moderate use of the marriage bed Chastity consists in an absolute forbearing all carnal pleasure whatsoever as well that of marriage as not of marriage and is highly commendable as labouring to bring the body to the simplicity or purity of a spirit by declining all corporeal commixtion or impurity And against these fruits or the producers of them there is no law that is they are not forbidden any way nor punishable by any law at all but may freely be practised Which doctrine of the Catholick Church is against that of Sectaries forbidding vowes of chastity as if they were vowes against the law of nature 24. This last verse ends the forementioned war between the flesh and the spirit telling us that those who are truly Christs have by the grace of the Spirit by the help of the holy Ghost not onely overcome the flesh but crucified it too allayed even all the desires and concupiscences thereof by works of penance and mortification which is called a spiritual crucifixion because it imitates the death of our Saviour who dyed that we might live in spirit and never dye to him There are five noted wayes of this crucifying our concupiscences by feare of hell by conformity of our will to Gods holy will by guarding of our senses by prayer and by fasting watching and almes deeds or any other mortifications either of mind or body The Application 1. IT is no marvel if after so deep a root as our Faith took last Sunday we see to day the same Faith rise with a mighty stemm a stock of Hope topt with a gallant Head of charity and become a dainty Tree laden with several fruits of all sorts of vertues whatsoeuer for the many numbred here in this Epistle are an epitome of all the rest and indeed however Charity be the best and highest of all vertues yet she must have the staffe of Hope to rest upon and the root of Faith to suck the triple breast of the single Deity the milky mystery of the B. Trinity or else she is not ripe enough to gather and be served in as fruit sit for the heavenly Table 2. But that we may know when she is ripe indeed see here how she is set against her opposite the flesh which is a love to sense but not to soules to creatures but not to the Creatour so the Apostle playes at once the husbandman the painter and the Philosopher whilest he to day gives charity to us full â—ipe and with her best life colour made by the shadow of the flesh that sets her off as foyles do beauties and as two contraries set forth one another see them both in their several effects in the Explication of the Text above 3. But because fruits do wither where the grounds are dry and have not sapp to feed the Roots therefore S. Paul doth close up his Epistle to day with the Aqueduct of life giving waters to all Christian vertues our Saviour and his sacred Passion for when he sayes Those that are of Christ have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscence he must needs conclude that Christ first overcame this flesh by his Spirit and that it is by the application of his Passion we are inabled also to do the like and that without the application of this
therein Just thus it is with holy Churches preaching admit a million of people be assembled to one sole Preacher in the pulpit is his Sermon ever the worse because it dynts the soul of every hearer there and moves him so as if the Preacher knew the heart of every auditour he had whom yet he never saw in all his life nor knowes him now he sees him would any man condemn this Preacher No admire him rather and in him adore Almighty God who with one speech could touch the quick of every soul alive And so it is with holy Churches prayers the commoner they are the more peculiarly they touch each pious persons soul if rightly understood they seem to reach as far as all the preachers of the Church can scrue into a soul and farther too for who so sayes them with a zeal suitable to the Spirit whence they flow he like a river runs into the sea whence all the waters have their spring and is not lost although he beâ— not found but rather swells to be a sea of spirit while he falls out of his private devotions into the Ocean of the Churches prayer and sayes to himself Matt. 23.23 These things ought to be done and those things ought not to be omitted O Christians what a sovereign cure have we to day against the worst contagion in the Church the spirit of division of faction Say but this prayer devoutly read but the lessons of the other services of holy Church to day agreeable to this prayer and I shall hope to hear no more of faction in the Church of division in the house of the Holy Ghost of dissention among Roman Catholicks much lesse amongst the Priests of holy Church for in them it were a contagion worse then diabolical who as they are all Ministers of one onely God so should they all agree in one to guide the souls they are to govern in the spirit of peace and unity of love and charity which they shall never teach better then when they give example of it to their flocks The Epistle Ephes 4.1 1 I therefore prisoner in our Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called 2 With all humilitie and mildnesse with patience supporting one another in charity 3 Carefull to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace 4 One body and one spirit as you are called in one hope of your vocation 5 One Lord one Faith one Baptisme 6 One God and Father of all which is over all and by all and in us all 7 Who is blessed world without end Amen The Explication 1. THe cause why he beseecheth them is in regard they had the happinesse to be made of Gentiles Christians and so equall with the Jewes that were the chosen people of God He calls himself prisoner in our Lord because he was in prison for our Lord for teaching the faith of Christ Walking here is understood living Note the word Vocation is of speciall regard and so imports a speciall obligation they had to comply with their said vocation which was indeed their conversion from Gentilisme to Christianitie 2. This verse specifies the eminent marks of Christians from Gentiles the one proud harsh furious quarrelsome the other therefore humble milde patient loving that so it might appeare a religious change to come from one contrary to another Supporting each other imports bearing with each others infirmities In Charitie is to say by or with Charitie repending good for evil 3. By unitie of spirit is here meant unanimitie that is though in bodies divided yet in mind they should be one and make it their studie so to be thus to comply with the care thereof commended if not commanded also This verse is hugely against all schismaticall division in the Church receding from the common Doctrine to follow the fancies of private spirits By the word bond is understood removing private sense in point of religion for a bond imports a tie between parties and so abandons singularitie when it must binde many together in the peace of unanimitie 4. This verse is exhortatorie stirring up to be all as one body and one soul that as you are called to one hope of Heaven by this your vocation to Christianitie so you goe all thither as one man since the Church is properly called one civill man while all the Members of it are regulated by one Law of Christ by one holy Spirit And indeed Saint Paul useth a huge Art telling us we have all one hope namely Heaven thereby to make us tend all one way to the attaining thereof 5. One Lord Christ Jesus one Faith that which the Apostles preached one Baptisme that which is given in due matter and forme applied with due intention water accompanying these words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost according as holy Church intendeth when this Sacrament is administred 6. In this verse the Apostle summes up all he said before As we have but one God who is our common Father so we must have but one spirit lest we degenerate from being his children who will own none but those that are one in him and one to one another all others are bastards and cannot be brothers because not begotten of him that knowes no division but consists of unitie and simplicitie No God is above all men by his Majestie and Deitie he is through all things by his power and efficacie in them penetrating and passing through them all as freely as we doe through the Aire in all things by his essence and being in us Christians by his grace which makes us be his children and by his glory which makes us be his heires Others understand by this triple division the Apostle means that God the Father is above us all by creation God the Sonne by redemption runs through us with the Sea of his passion God the Holy Ghost is in us all by his sanctifying grace The Application 1. SAint Paul being by his imprisonment separated from his Converts the Ephesians and desirous in litle to send them much counsell how they might walk worthy of the vocation in which they were called summes up here those virtues that are most necessary for new converted souls Humilitie as the foundation whereupon they must build their monuments of a blessed Eternitie in imitation of Almightie God who raised all the fabricke of humane salvation upon the Basis of his own abasement Mildnesse in testimony they were no more children of wrath and indignation but of their milde Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ A charitable Patience that is to say for love of God supporting bearing with one another as the onely means to keep themselves in favour with Almighty God whom they hourely much more exasperate then any man can do them And Unanimitie as the badge of perfect Christianitie testifying they are onely true lovers of one another who are right believers in Jesus Christ
instead of purifying our intentions of honouring as we ought to do one onely God when even under that pretence by the contagion of factious doctrine we Idolize to as many devils as mislead us in the wayes of faction and division For prevention whereof holy Church fitly prayes as above that our intentions may be purified by the unity thereof by intending Gods honour only in those services that are pretended done for Gods sake and not our own interest On the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 9. v. 7. THe sick then of the palsie took up his bed in which he lay magnifying God and all the people which beheld it gave praise to God Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt O Lord the operation of thy mercy direct our hearts because without thee wee cannot please thee The Illustration IF any man doubt what is meant by the operation of our Lords mercy mentioned in this prayer S. Paul in the first verse of this daies Epistle will tell him it is the actual grace of God which the Apostle alwayes gives thanks for as being the cause of the Corinthians conversion of their being enriched in all things appertaining to Christian religion so as to want nothing but the revelation of Christ in glory whom already they beheld in grace as also of their perseverance without crime till the day of doom in that belief unto which by this grace they had been called This is the summ of the Epistle and undoubtedly this is the sense of the prayer begging that as by the operation of Christ his mercy the Corinthians became Christians so we that are by the same meanes of the same profession may by the same help have our hearts directed by the operation of our Saviours mercy towards us by the encrease of his grace within us And indeed that encrease is also properly the operation of his mercy too for the first gift thereof was rather the exhibition then the operation of his holy grace and yet to us it seems like an operation of it too within his own bowels and so as we said above the exhibition of it in our eyes is as the effect of his mercie upon himself but the encrease thereof is the operation of it upon us to whom it is exhibited so by the exhibition of this grace we become children of God and by the encrease thereof we grow to be his champions to live his Saints and die his Martyrs rather then renounce the Faith of Christ Thus we see the first clause of this Prayer hath exhausted the whole Epistle of the day Now that the Gospel should be by the close thereof exhausted too would seem strange if already stranger mysteries had not appeared in the mysterious prayers of holy Church And certain it was for the depth of their spirit that S. Gregory the great collects them all together into a book intituled of Sacraments that is to say of Mysteries as in the preface of this book was hinted not that the stile of Churches prayers is other then plain and easie but that the depth of their meaning is prodigious We have examples in the simple stile of Thomas à Kempis authour of the following of Christ the plainest and the deepest book that ever was written next to holy Writ the fullest of common places and yet the most home to every mans particular that reads it So it is with the Churches prayers they are in words simple and facil but in sense such as the deepest understanding may not be able to sound the bottome of them For instance see how the whole story of the Gospel is wound off by the onely close of this daies prayer if yet the former clause thereof were not appropriable thereunto For what imports the pressing into Jesus presence of the paralytick and those who from the houses top did drop him down into the room where Jesus was when they found not entrance any other way but an infinite faith they had of being cured by the least touch of his sacred person and this to satisfie our selves with the letter of the story not recurring as we might to the mystery thereof What I say means this passage else then a remonstrance of this paralyticks faith in Jesus Christ And who doth not see the close of this prayer excellently well allude to faith since we read that without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Do not we Christians then implicitely beg if not the gift which we have already at least the encrease of faith when we end this prayer with confessing We cannot without God please his Divine Majestie that is to say as without the gift of faith we can be no Christians at all so without the encrease thereof through the operation of Christ his mercy in us we cannot become good Christians such as by works of charity still encrease our faith in Jesus Christ and by that encrease deserve with the paralytick as well the remission of our sins as the cure of corporal diseases since without such remission we cannot please Almighty God and without him no such remission can be had that is without his mercy operate first upon him to pardon us and then upon us when pardoned to offend no more not that this operation of Gods mercy upon himself is any new act but ever is ever was and will be one and the same act in him seeming new to us by the new effects it produceth in us So every way is it an undoubted truth that without him we can no wayes please him And thus do we still adjust the prayers of holy Church unto the other service of the day The Epistle 1 Cor. 1. v. 4. 4 I give thanks to my God alwayes for you for the grace of God that is given you in Christ Jesus 5 That in all things you may be rich in him in all utterance and in all knowledge 6 As the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you 7 So that nothing is wanting to you in any grace expecting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ 8 Who also will confirm you unto the end without crime in the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ The Explication 4. IN these words S. Paul gives thanks to God incessant for the grace of Christ which was given to the Corinthians who thereby were made Christians An excellent lesson and ought to be frequently practised by us to acknowledge that our perseverance is a continuation of our vocation to Christianity 5. In all things appertaining to your religion Rich in him rich by him that doth enrich you every hour by preserving you in the same vocation he hath called you unto In all utterance in all your words whereby is preached this faith In all knowledge in all true spiritual understanding the doctrine of Christ as who should say I thank God that hath by mine and by Apollo's preaching afforded you all understanding and true sense
this life our charity may enter into a security of enjoying him in the Paradise of glory in the life to come On the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon John 4.52 BVt the father knew that it was the same hour in the which Jesus said thy son liveth and he believed and his whole house Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer VVE beseech thee O Lord thou being pacify'd grant unto thy faithful pardon and peace that they may be both clean from all offences and serve thee with secured soules The Illustration WHat is remarkable in this Prayer is the filial language of it to the heavenly Father of whom we beg first that he will please to be pacified for the offences of his children next that he will not onely pardon the said offences but further grant unto us the highest of all favours his blessed peace the same which surpasseth all understanding as we have heard formerly and the reason why we are not content with pardon unlesse we have also the peace of conscience to boot that which is never struck up between God and man without a kisse of love the close of this prayer tells us because as by pardon we are cleansed from all offences so by peace we are made able to serve his Divine Majesty with secured souls And of what are we secured of his undoubted reconciliation to us by the kisse of love which sealed a happy peace between us Blessed JESU how fond the holy Ghost is of us that inspires aged men to demean themselves in their devotions like little children sitting in the laps of their loving parents For such is the language of this prayer even as in a word or two we said to God Almighty Kisse and be friends for without a kisse of love it is impossible to hope for peace of conscience to serve God with souls secured that we are in his favour But that this glosse may appear to be as congruous to the other service of the day as to the prayer above see how by S. Paul the holy Ghost speaks to us to day as to little children bidding us walk warily and be wise redeeming lost time and wisely now leave to run after the rattles of our own inventions and learn to understand what is the will of God to forbear the riotous company of sinners and to converse with Saints those that are not glutted with the wine of worldly pleasures but filled with the grace of the holy Spirit which makes them never speak in other language then in psalmes hymnes or spiritual canticles sung in their hearts to our Lord God or then in some thankesgiving to him in the name of Jesus Christ that hath made us subject to one another without any other fear then of our Lord and Saviour from whom we are confident to obtain pardon of our sins testified with a pledge of peace given us by a kisse of love as often as we shall like dutiful children demand it And if we take the Gospel in that mysticall sense wherein the Expositours do explicate the parable thereof we shall find this glosse we have made to be hugely suitable thereunto For the Expositours will have the soul of man to be the Lord or little King who demands of her father Christ the great King of heaven cure of a sick son a depraved will and imployes all the senses as so many servants sent to beg this cure when the soul renounces the world the flesh and the devil in holy baptisme and is by that Sacrament as by a touch of the virtue of our Saviour cured of her ague her inordinate desires and appetites and this at the seventh hour that is to say by the seven-fold healing Spirit of the holy Ghost we shall then see this prayer is penned in a language speaking though in other tearmâ— the very sense of this Gospel too For what doth the pardon begged in the prayer allude unto but original sin remitted by holy baptisme and actual sin forgiven by the Sacrament of penance and to the pledge of peace sealed with the kisse of love when by the Sacrament of the holy Eucharist we see our selves not onely set as it were like darlings in the lap of Christ but even the blessed Trinity delighted to dwell in our hearts cleansed as above from all offence and serving God with secured soules that then all is well between us and our heavenly Father when in testimony thereof his Divine Majestie makes our soul here his temporal throne that we may hope to have his bosome our eternal tabernacle in the world to come And thus we see how particularly this Prayer is grounded on the other service of the day what ever common place of piety it seems to be to those that will not study the special mysterie thereof The Epistle Ephes 5. v. 15. 15 See therefore brethren how you walk warily not as unwise but as wise 16 Redeeming the time because the dayes are evil 17 Therefore become not unwise but understanding what is the will of God 18 And be not drunk with wine wherein is riotousnesse but be filled with the Spirit 19 Speaking to your selves in Psalms and hymns and spirituall canticles chaunting and singing in your hearts to our Lord. 20 Giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father 21 Subject one to another in the fear of Christ. The Explication 15. THe Apostle here speaks to the Ephesians out of the abundance of his care when he bids them see how they walked as if the least trip in them now they had so clear a day so bright a sun-shine to walk in as is that of the Gospel were unsufferable in regard the word of God was like a lanthorn to their footing Psal 118.105 shewing them where they might fix everystep securely and walk converse warily as if they were to render an account not onely for every idle action but for every idle word Mat. 12.36 since they had the honour to be instructed by Jesus Christ the wisdome of the eternal Father how to lead their lives here so religiously wary as that they need not fear to live eternally happy in the next world And not to do this S. Paul here tels them is folly and they that do so are not wise but fools to wast away that precious time in idlenesse which was given them to work out their salvation in with fear and trembling lest by loosing any part of the time allotted them for this end they might by sudden death be prevented in that very losse of time they made and so with the foolish virgins be shut out of heaven as not ready nor fit to enter in when the Bridegroom comes by with whom or never they must be admitted in 16. And that the Apostle in the verse above intimated their regard to a good use of time in their conversations this verse restifies bidding them not onely have a care to
spend the time present and to come religiously but even to redeem the time past which they had misspent or else it needed not to be redeemed but that he did account it quite lost unto them who had not spent it well Now the best way to redeem past time ill spent is to be sure that every instant of time be not onely well imployed but that in it over and above some good deed be superadded more then rigorously we are bound unto with intention to redeem time past thereby and this may be done by prayers mortification almes contrition and tears laid down upon the account of misspent time before so that as we secure every instant of present time by doing good all the while it flowes away from us we shall likewise redeem our lost time past if we produce an act of sorrow for it and let our repentance for not having done well heretofore accompany our well doing for the present Note the dayes are not said to be evil that there is any malice or iniquity intrinsecal to time which is no other thing then the suns motion and this we may call the measure of al other movings but that the malice of an evil action which takes up time whilst it is in doing is of so malignant a nature in the sight of God that it renders the doer of it and the time wherein 't is done ungratefull to his divine Majesty and consequently as that man is evil who doth ill so that time is accounted evil also which is spent in evil doing and since there is no man that doeth good of himself no not one Ps 13.3 therefore the Apostle reflecting on what we do of our selves sayes absolutely the dayes are evil are rendred such by our evil deeds And that they may be good he exhorts us in the following verse 17. That we become not unwise in wasting time by following our own imaginations but wise in studying to understand what is the will of God namely to spend our time in acts of virtue not in idlenesse or sinfull courses 18. And for instance that this was his true meaning the Apostle gives us warning above all others of that idlenesse and wicked course of life which drunkards spend their time in who seem to drink off their own damnation by every cup of drink they take in any notable excesse or as if they did begin a health to the devil and he to pledge them swallowed the drinkers of his health up into the pit of hell This seem to be affirmed by the instance of the effect that follows drunkenness or rather by the description of it what it is when S. Paul saies it includes riotousnesse in it self it exposeth men to all sort of sin and we know whither the great master of Ryots Dives went immediately to hell so do all his followers that die guiltie of that soul-swallowing-sin of drunkennesse for few there are who once give way to this absorbing vice that ever leave it off because it brings them to wantonnesse quarrels and what not besides so consequently great is the danger of it and therefore the Apostle names it here as the greatest or one notorious mis-spending of time principally to be avoided by Christians But if your thirst be such as you must alwaies be quenching of it and so endanger being drunk loe S. Paul gives you a safe and lawful cup whereof he allowes you to drink your fill the cup of spirit not of material liquours but such as the Apostles drank when their hearers thought them drunk Act. 2.13 14. though they were not so save onely that by the plenitude of the holy Ghost of the cup of grace they did seeme to be like drunken men 19. Alwaies talking both in Church and house at home and abroad of the Almighty God of heaven or of heavenly things as if the wine of grace had set our tongues a running so as we could not hold our peaces and yet to shew what cup it was we were filled with our talk ought to be spiritual even singing as commonly drunkards do but differently from them spiritual hymnes and canticles praising Almighty God for our spiritual inebriation and this even in our hearts as the Apostle adviseth which argues our heads are not to be full of drink but our hearts full of love that is our soules full of grace So here we see the difference between brutish and spiritual drunkards the one is feeding full the other fasting the one prating the other preaching the one howling the other singing the one wallowing in the mire of sin the other swimming in the sea of grace and see one more admirable difference that even while our tongues are silent our hearts and soules are singing the praises of Almighty God when they are drunk in spirit This the Apostle saies in plain tearmes while he bids the Ephesians and in them us Christians sing in our hearts which may be done not onely while we hold our peaces but while we waking pray mentally nay while we sleep or which is more while we are extatically rapt in a deep contemplation more benumming our outward senses then soundest sleep can do and in such a circumstance was S. Paul himself when he was rapt to the third heavens and said of himself he knew not whether his soul were in or out of his body 2 Cor. 12.2 but well he knew that his heart was singing praise and glory to his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to Almighty God And the best evidence of our being thus spiritually drunk is when we are alwayes chearfull in our countenances and speeches whatsoere befall us in our persons sickness or health peace or persecution favour or frowns of Princes or the like 20. Giving God the Father alwayes thanks for all in the Name of Jesus Christ good or bad that shall betide our persons that is to say taking good as encouragements to deserve better bad as punishments to terrifie us from continuing to do ill And while the Apostle bids us live alwayes giving God the Father thanks in his Sons Name who gave him the best be alludes unto the double title by which God requires these continual thanks at our hands first as he is God and Master of all goodness secondly as he is our Father incessantly imparting part of his inexhaustible goodness unto us 21. By being here subject to one another is not understood denial of all superiority as some would fondly infer but the speech is indefinite not determining how many shall be subject and how many command yet absolutely commanding Subjects to obey their Superiours Children their Parents in the fear of our Lord for fear lest our Lord punish those that break this command not by the penance which superiours here impose upon the offenders but by eternal or at least far greater purgatory punishments to be inflicted on them by our Saviour the Judge of all the Universe then any this world can afford And yet by this fear is not
that number who according to holy Davids example Psal 118.109 have their soules alwayes in their hands that is to say who make account their every thought word or deed ought to be such as together with the same they are ready to deliver up their very souls into the hands of their Creatour and those souls so regulated as in this sodalitie we are taught according to the pattern of the blessed Virgin Mary Luke 2.19 who conserved in her heart every word that fell from the mouth of her sacred Sonne and as we shall then appear to conserve the same when out of the abundance of his holy word lodged in our hearts we make our mouths to speak and this we do whilest all our prayers are abstracts of the Word of God and all our conversation answerable to those prayers as if we can observe the methode of this book they will be And if beloved you but look upon the first contriver of this devotion Saint Gregory the great you will not undervalue it because it had so mean a reviver as my self Know it was he that called the Prayers of holy Church Mysteries Sacraments and surely for this one reason amongst the rest because they did mysteriously couch the sense of holy writ as we have hitherto assayed at least to shew and as to day we hope to make it appear this prayer above contains the sum of both Epistle and Gospell following though I confesse no soul would think it at first sight for in all the book there is not any prayer which holds a lesse visible proportion with the holy Text then this and yet if I mistake not we shall find it comes as home as heart can wish to our designe when once we shall resolve what is meant by the fruit of the divine work for that 's the key to all the treasure of Devotion couched in this prayer What if we say that fruit is our salvation since this is a work so truely divine that there is none indeed but God himselfe can bring forth such a fruit and yet so good a God we serve that he is pleased we shall our selves prepare this fruit and serve it up unto his heavenly Table while we are bid pray this day that since our understandings are already sufficiently instructed in our duties what they are and ought to be to God our wills may be stirred up to a performance of those duties to the more diligent preparing the fruits of the divine work the salvation of our soules that by redoubled diligence we may receive the greater remedies of God Almighties mercies meaning so much of his grace in this life as may secure us of his glory in the life to come which when with all the diligence imaginable we do obtain 't is still a mercy to us and must be gratis given or else we may justly fear to go without it so great a work it is to save a soul and therefore well is it called a work divine But what are we the nearer now for adjusting this Prayer unto the Epistle and Gospell of the day Admit this be the genuine sense of the Prayer above what report hath it to Judgement which is the subject of the Gospel Why this at least that the best preparative to save a soul is to remember the dreadfull day of doome and therefore when the Prayer beggs to have our wills stirred up to a more diligent preparing the fruits of the divine worke the salvation of our soules the Gospell puts us fitly in minde of the day of Judgement so to fright us into this diligence least through our sloth the Judge do want that crop of fruit which then he comes to gather And thus we seem to draw a little more neare at least to the end of our designe But if we reade the latter end of the Gospell comparing the day of Judgement to the sprouting out of a figg-tree we shall come nearer yet and if we hearken to the Expositours upon the 32 and 33 verses of this Gospell how sweetly they expound that Parable we shall then come fully home to the sweetest harmonie imaginable between the Gospell and the Prayer And for the Epistle it is nothing else but an exhortation of Saint Paul to the Colossians and in them to us how to prepare our soules to salvation even in the very language of the Prayer for example how to fructifie in all good works that we may at the latter day of doome whereof the Gospell minds us now be made worthie to partake of the lot of Saints to be delivered from the power of darkenesse and translated into the Kingdome of the Sonne of Love in whom we have redemption the remission of sinnes in a word the salvation of our soules or the ripening of that fruit which we must with all diligence prepare for the heavenly Table as beeing the worke of our heavenly Lord. When I say we doe consider this then we shall need no more to seek for a connexion between the preaching and the Prayer of holy Church to day in this period of our work wherein we were almost at a losse even now that we stood in greatest need of making good our whole designe in the close thereof And who can marvell now that this sweet Prayer should be suitable to the sower day of Judgement when we see that dreadfull story in the Gospell closed up with the gladsome Parable of a fruitfull Spring And why to shew that to the Blessed the day of doome is a time oâ— Joy and that the just alone are of consideration with Almightie God In a word please but to reade the Expositours upon that point as in the glosse below you find them and tell me then whether this Prayer doe want connexion unto that glosse of theirs if not then you will grant the Prayers of holy Church to be as Saint Gregory calls them Sacraments mysteries indeed of Pietie but such as when explained are sweet as honey and facile as we can desire For what more easie now then to see this Prayer alludes to Judgement in the same sense that holy Church desires her children should be ready for it that is to be prepared fruit for the heavenly Table and by that preparation to be worthie to receive the greater remedies of God Almighties mercies at the day of Judgement against the corruption of humane nature namely his gifts of glory added to those of grace And thus we shall close up the Ring of our devotion with the same Christian dutie we began it whilest mindfull of the day of doome we pray our wills may be raised up to an alacritie in our Christian dutie as they were by the same spirit of Prayer raised upon the same subject on the first Sunday of Advent which this foure and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost inclines unto in like manner as all parts of a circle bow to meet each other with a plie to circularitie and so the dutie of a Christian is then best performed
proceeded by an Act of mutuall love between the Father and the Sonne but all confesse his procession to be from both while it is from the Father by the Sonne 14. True it is by the passion of our Saviour we are redeemed but if we ask what it is to be redeemed we cannot expresse it better then here the Apostle doth by calling it remission of sinnes for as by sinne we were made slaves to the devil so by remission thereof which we obtain by Christ his passion we are made children of God and are thus redeemed from the captivity of the devil not unlike to men freed from prison by their creditours remitting unto them their debts for which they clapt them up but we are in a more liberall way redeemed from the prison of hell that was our inheritance when Christ not we payes the debt and so it is most freely remitted to us since we neither did nor could pay it our selves The Application 1. BLessed S. Paul we have thee now in half a word the Colossians were as dear to thee as the Ephesians the Romans and all thy other Converts what thou didst write to one upon the news of their conversion by thy preaching thou dost in other terms but in the same spirit write to all the rest Again we know our holy mother the Church reads thy ancient lessons every day anew to us that we her children may be Christian Catholicks like thy happy Converts And to that purpose she brings our charity to day with thy Epistle home to her annuall journeys end as the best usher to lead her to this lifes end also and to the entrance into everlasting life that of eternall happinesse and glory 2. See how to day our holy Mother sets us all a preaching to our selves to this effect while she doth make us pray to God that he will raise up our affections to our own salvations Why Blessed Jesu is it come to that must we be courted to our own felicity can we be lesse then willing to be sav'd I dare not say it but I doubt it much And therefore holy Church I see petitions it lest we should vainly think we had advanced farre when God Almighty knows the many years that passe upon our heads are like so many labours lost and therefore at the end of every year 't is piety to think we do but then begin to wish we were but willing to be sav'd yet we must wish it faithfully sincerely earnestly and we must pray withall that God will graciously please to raise our wish to the perfection of a will at last that if we value not our selves we will not undervalue God Almighty who looks upon us as the apples of his eyes as the fruits of all his labours in creating preserving and governing the world and us in redeeming and saintifying of us for no other end but to save us at the last and that at so easie a rate as can be possible our onely cooperating with him to that happy end our onely being willing be should work in us that saintity we cannot work in our selves without him 3. To conclude the many books of controversie in the point of merit may be summ'd up all in this petition of the Churches Prayer to day so deep so copious so facund and so fecund withall is the spirit of the Holy Ghost couch'd in those teaching Prayers What is it else we say defending merit but that we must cooperate to our salvation but that the more we do cooperate the greater Saints we are but that the improvement we make of one grace procures us another greater then the former but that we so take in hand the work of our salvation as we do not think it is nor can be any work of ours but must be still the work of God in us though by us too whose onely part is to be pulling down the greater remedies of his Piety towards us by improving his lesser and to be drawing from him grace upon grace so fast untill by means thereof we render our selves a fruit of the work divine as ripe as grace can make us here ready then to be transplanted into heaven where yet the sunne of glory will mature us more so farre indeed as we shall never fear to be corrupted but shall hang upon the tree of everlasting life an ornament to the celestiall Paradise Say now the Prayer above and see how home it is to this construction in it self to this instruction of us by it if we say it in the sense above The Gospel Matth. 24.15 15 Therefore when you shall see the Abomination of desolation which was spoken of by Daniel the Prophet standing in the holy place he that readeth let him understand 16 Then they that are in Jewry let them flee to the mountains 17 And he that is on the house top let him not come down to take any thing out of his house 18 And he that is in the field let him not go back to take his coat 19 And wo to them that are with child and that give suck in those dayes 20 But pray that your flight be not in winter nor on the Sabboth 21 For there shall be then great tribulation such as hath not been from the beginning of the world untill now neither shall be 22 And unlesse those dayes had been shortened no flesh should be saved but for the Elect the dayes shall be shortned 23 Then if any man shall say unto you Lo here is Christ or there do not believe him 24 For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders so that the Elect also if it be possible may be induced into errour 25 Lo I have foretold you 26 If therefore they shall say unto you Behold he is in the desert go ye not out behold in the closets believe it not 27 For as lightening cometh out of the East and appeareth even to the West so shall the Advent of the Son of man be 28 Wheresoever the body is thither shall the Eagles also be gathered together 29 And immediately after the tribulation of those dayes the Sun shall be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light and the Starres shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be moved 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven and then shall all tribes of the earth bewaile and they shall see the Son of man comeing in the clouds of heaven with much power and majestie 31 And he shall send his Angels with a Trumpet and a great voyce and they shall gather together his Elect from the four winds from the furthest parts of heaven even to the ends thereof 32 And of the fig-tree learn a Parable when now the bough thereof is tender and the leaves come forth you know that Summer is nigh 33 So you also when you shall see these things know ye that it is nigh even at the