to them that hearing me speak they may come after me or you to know the meaning of what I said and so to increase in them their zeals by little and little opening their eyes and understandings and this may I hope suffice for a sufficient exposition of the two Verses Now to the Parable and Explication thereof as our Saviour himself delivered it to his Disciples that thereby the Faith they had in him before might be increased when they see how much solidity of clear Doctrine and true Piety was couched under his parabolicall expressions 5. 11 12. As to the fifth or eleventh and tweltfth verses for these are in sense all one as our Saviour himself declares in the very letter of the Texts we are therefore onely to give a reason why the Word of God is compared to seed of Corn sowed in the fields and we shall finde as many reasons for it as there are Analogies between the Seed and the Word the Sowing the one and Preaching the other as first because the Word of the Preacher is cast into the ears of his Auditory out of the Pulpit as the Seed is cast over all the ground by the sowing Seeds-man Secondly as the Word links from the Ear of the hearer into the Heart so the Seed descends by degrees from the surface or superficies of the earth into the bowels thereof Thirdly as Seed is the Mother of all Fruits so the Word of God is the Parent of all good Works Fourthly as the Earth without Seed brings forth nothing but weeds bryars and brambles so Man without the Word of God brings forth nothing but futility vice and vanity Fifthly as Seed requires soft manured and tilled ground to grow in so the Word of God must finde gentle rich and mortified Souls to fructifie upon Sixthly as Seed requires moisture and sun to bring it forth so the Soul requires the tears of sorrow for our Sins and the Son of Justice his heat of Grace to make the Word of God fructifie in mans heart and bring forth Acts of love to God Seventhly as the Seed in the Earth must first dissolve and die before it spring so must the Word of God be ruminated upon by meditation and procure in us a death to the world before we can find in our selves the spring of living in Gods favour Eighthly as the Seed must first take root then sprout up branch into leaves and boughs next blossome and then knit into a fruit so the Word of God must first enter deep into our hearts then rise by holy cogitations branch it self into variety of good desires blossom into Religious resolutions at last knit it self up into the knot of good Works which are the fruits of our lives Ninethly as the force and vertue of all fruits is contracted into its Seed so the force of all our good Works is lodged in the Word of God Tenthly as diverse seeds bring diverse fruits so diverse sentences of Scripture bring forth diverse Vertues in our Souls Eleventhly as to the child of fruit are required two parents the Seed as the male and the Earth as the female so to the Children of Vertues are required the Word of God and his holy Grace Lastly as from the best Seed man preparing his ground with most industry proceeds the best Crop of Corn so from the best chosen Texts delivered by the best Preachers those that use the most diligence in preparing and making soft the hearts of their penitents towards God proceed the best fruits of Vertue and good Works here as unto the best Saints to serve as fruits for a Heavenly banquet in the next World Now we see the meaning of the seed let us examine the reasons why these severall effects follow upon the severall grounds the Seed falleth on First that falling on the high-way cannot enter to take root for growth and consequently lying open to be both trodden to pieces by passengers and pecked up by birds must needs be like to so much cast away such is the Word of God as Saint Matthew sayes Heard but not understood because the hearer doth not ask his spirituall Adviser the meaning of what is told him but pretends to be satisfied therein when indeed he carries away the onely empty sound of words but is wholly ignorant of the sense through his own lazinesse in not asking the meaning thereof and consequently what is thus ignorantly received is not understood and by that means makes no entrance into the heart of the hearer so is trodden to pieces even by our own trampling over it whilst we run from Sermons as if we had never heard a word of what the Preacher said unto us which indeed is commonly their case that come to Church for curiosity to hear Humane Eloquence not Divine Preaching to see and to be seen not to hear their faults and amend them to laugh indeed at the Preacher if he please not the pallate of their fancy or curious ears as those did to whom for that very reason Christ spake Parables not clear sense and to such as these be the Preachers words never so clear never so easie they sound as Parables in his ears whose own distracted minde robs him of the faculty of understanding what he hears and though such men seeme to come to God when they appear in Churches yet in very truth their coming is to the Devill in Gods House and no marvell then he carry them and their understandings away with him lest hearing that is intelligently hearing they believe and believing plow up the high-way their hearts with acts of Love and so render the Corn the Word of God capable to sink into their Souls and take root to their emolument indeed to their Salvation as Text the speaketh 6. 13. The first reason of the Corn failing to grow was the want of sinking into the earth now it fails though sunk because it wants moisture by incountring a stony or rocky ground which is onely covered with a shallow superficies of earth and cannot receive moisture enough to carry the Corn deeper into the ground and to root it there This place alludes to schismaticks whose petrifying hearts whose cold affections to God turn all they hear of him how ever they believe it to be true into rocks and stones into sterility and barrenness of Soul and hence rather than suffer the least temporall losse for Gods sake they hazard to loose themselves eternally A clear place to covince Hereticks by that Faith alone is not sufficient without good Works to save them and that Souls though once in the Grace of God may nevertheless loose his favour and the Kingdome of Heaven too 7. 14. The second reason of failing was for want of ground to take sufficient root and to cherish the Seed in both which may seeme to be defects of intrinsecall requisites now this third reason points at what is extrinsecally necessary and rather at defects of redundance than of want because the
will protect us as it did S. Paul The Gospel LUKE 8. vers 4. c. 4 AND when a very great multitude assembled and hastened out of the Cities unto him he said by a similitude 5. The sower went forth to sow his seed and whiles he soweth some fell by the way side and was trodden upon and the fowles of the ayre did eat it 6. And other some fell upon the rock and being shot up it withered because it had not moysture 7. And other some fell among thornes and the thornes growing up withall choaked it 8. And other some fell upon good ground and being shot up yeelded fruit an hundred fold Saying these things he cryed he that hath eares to hear let him heare 9. And his disciples asked him what this parable was 10 To whom he said to you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdome of God but to the rest in parables that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand 11. And the Parable is this The seed is the word of God 12. And they besides the way are those that heare then the devill cometh and taketh the word out of their heart least believing they may be saved 13. For they upon the rock such as when they heare with joy receive the word and these have no roots because for a time they believe and in time of temptation they revolt 14. And that which fell into thornes are they that have heard and going their way are choaked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life and render not fruit 15. And that upon good ground are they which in a good and very good heart hearing the word do retaine it and yeeld fruit in patience The Explication 4. SAint Matthew tells us this parable was delivered out of a Bark or little Ship which our Saviour went into and set off from the shoare as in a pulpit removed from the people and as giving him advantage of height above them so that he might be seen by all his Auditory which was great the people flocking after him out of the Cityes and villages which way soever he went such was the fame of his miracles and preaching so this Gospell we may looke upon as a sermon to the people delivered first in a parable and afterwards at his disciples entreaty explicated by our Saviour himselfe whence it will need the lesse help of any other Expositors for the the fifth verse is explicated by the eleventh and twelfth the sixth by the thirteenth the seaventh by the fourteenth and the eighth by the fifteenth so there will remaine to expound apart and by it selfe the ninth and tenth verses which I shall rather choose to doe before I begin the rest because they may not interrupt the connexion of those that must be brought together in the exposition though delivered asunder by the Preacher as also because these two verses being cleared first will give an open gate to the understanding or introspection into the rest let us therefore begin with the ninth verse 9 10. Though S. Luke doe here seeme to tell us the Apostles themselves did ask the meaning of this Parable expressed in the four verses above as if they being in the Ship with Christ were wholly ignorant thereof and had no regard unto the people on the shoar yet Saint Matthew in his thirteenth Chapter recounting the same passage makes the Discipâ—es ask our Saviour the meaning of this Parable for the peoples sakes saying Why do ye speak in Parables unto the people as if they had told him it was lost labour in regard they on snoar did not understand him which may import the Disciples themselves were not altogethâ—r ignorant of his meaning delivered in this dark parabolicall sense and yet to these Disciples after he had left the people lost as it were in their understandings our Saviour fully explicates the meaning of the Parable and this seemes the reason why the interjection of these Verses the ninth and the tenth doe interrupt this Sermon of our Saviour because the parabolicall sense thereof was onely delivered to the people and his clearest meaning was afterwards declared to the Apostles But we must here solve a difficulty before we proceed further and that is to give the reason why our Saviour who did nothing in vain should upon designe loose his labour that is to say Preach to a people who did not understand one word of his Sermon nay why he should so couch his speeches as to make them not intelligible by the people as if he were resolved to take away the little understanding they had before by this present parabolicall expression of his minde unto them and indeed Saint Matthew in relating this Story tells us as much in plain termes saying our Saviour answered his Disciples to this question in these termes chap. 13. ver 12. He that hath to him shall be given and he shall abound but he that hath not even that whiâ—h he hath shall be taken from him This was his answer being asked why he spake to the ignorant people in this Parable and his meaning in this was as followes To you my beloved disciples that have some Faith in me I shall give more and you shall thereby abound not onely in belief but in all knowledge that followes the singular gift of Faith But since these people notwithstanding all I have said to them of my being the Messias all what my life tells them was foretold by the Prophets concerning me nay all the Miracles I have wrought in Capernaum amongst them and elsewhere will not believe in me and since I know they come now most of them out of curiosity rather than zeal many out of malice to laugh and scorn at my Doctrine to these therefore that have not the gift of Faith which you have I shall by my speeches take away from them what they have in a greater measure than you their naturall abilities their learning their so much vaunted understandings in the Scriptures for they shall be blinded so as not to see what is cleerly set before their eyes nor understand what is as plain as their Alphabet unto them for so were the works of the Messias to the Doctors Scribes and Pharisees when Christ appeared and yet none of them would believe him to be the expected Redeemer of the World in a word to these what they have shall be taken from them namely their being the Elect of God the Synagogue the Masters of a Law these Prerogatives I will take from them they shall be cast out of all favour both of God and Man their Synagogue shall be effaced and their Law abolished abrogated antiquated and in testimony of all this I speak now to them purposely to prevent their designes of scoffing at what I say because I will not speak to be understood by them yet withall in regard there are some few amongst them who have a little zeal therefore I speak in parables at least
Hell or an indefinite number meant by this definite of seven for so the malice of the Jews imports when it grew more inraged against the Son of God then all the devils of Hell alone could have expressed had not the more hellish Jew concurred to encrease the same Blessed God! how truly doth this Verse close saying These devils dwell there since we are told the refractory Jew shall never be dispossessed absolutely of this devil till the day of Judgement when Jew and Gentile shall both make up one Church of Christ though but for a little time yet sufficient to verifie the Oracle of Truth There shall be one sold and one shepherd And thus literally we may expound these three Verses mystically the recess and access of this foul Fiend is verified when Baptismal Grace first cast a single devil out of our Souls guilty onely of single Original sin and he by our reiterated actual sins returns again with his increased numbers his sevensold Fiends the seven deadly Sins or some such graceless rabble who made the last of this man worse then the first God send he dwell not in us till the Day of our private Doom as certainly he will unless we cast the waters of Contrition on him to quench the fire of his Malice both against God and us and so smoak him out of his Mansion house by making it a Temple for the God he hates when it is perfumed with the incense of Devotion and adorned with all varieties of Vertues 28 29. It seems there was a huge energy in Christ his delivering himself upon this subject when a pious woman ravisht as it were with admiration of his Sanctity and solidity of discourse cryed out praising and magnifying not onely him but even the womb that bare him and the paps that gave him suck not without special Providence of God ordaining her speech to the praise of the Mother not the Father to shew he had no Father as he was man 30. This did not deny but it was indeed a great blessing for the virgin Mary to have had her Saviour in her wombe but yet it tels us both she and others are more blessed to have him in their Souls and so to make their Soules Mothers to the Words-Spirit or of Spirituall Words is to be much more honourable then to have the word-flesh in their bodily wombe or to be the Spirituall Parent of Christ bringing forth the fruit of his Gospell then the corporall bringing forth his flesh and bloud so the word of God is valued above the body of Christ his Spirit is better then his Flesh And the reason is that to bee Mother of God was a grace gratis given not making gracefull but to heare and keep the word of God is an internall grace rendring one acceptable againe to be Gods Mother did not suffice to save her but to heare and keep Gods word doeth the one proper to her the other common to all Christians The Application 1. WE heard in the first Sundayes Epistle of Lent the Priests were bound to Preach unto us this holy time as in Catholick Countries they do every day now we are particularly minded of our duty to heare them Preach as a work appertaining to the Integrity of our holy Fast And lest we should thinke we had comply'd with our obligation in this particular by a bare hearing of Sermons in Lent see our Saviour adds another branch to integrate this duty namely to keep the word we heare that is to conserve it in our hearts by meditating thereupon and by doing as the Preacher tels us we are bound to do for those only that so heare as they also keep this holy word are they our Saviour proclaimes to be blessed Soules 2. Now as this Active word of God cannot lye still in our hearts so it was fit to day to tell us of casting out a Dumb Devill thereby to minde us we are bound to speak forth the praises of Almighty God this holy Time of Lent as wel as to heare his sacred word delivered to us 3. And because we are not silent only out of sloth to speak forth the praises of God but sometimes out of shame are dumb and will not speake the guilt of some foule sin that lies upon our soules when yet we are bound in confession to discover it at which time we are truly possessed with a Dumbe Devill who by the story of this Gospell is not to be removed but by maine force therefore the most forcible of other words that we call divine and the mighty finger of God himselfe are said to be the only meanes to cast this devil out who lest he enter in to the disturbance of our holy aimes We fitly pray as above to keep him out and so to be defended from him On the fourth Sunday in Lent The Antiphon John 6. v. 3. IEsus therefore went up to the mountaine and there he sate with his Disciples Vers To his Angels c. Resp That in all c. 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 Illustration SEe how the Lenten Letter of our Holy Fast is silently carryed down the mysticall streame thereof in this present Prayer for why doe we now afflict our bodies with abstinence but because we have justly merited that punishment to be inflicted on us through the merits or demerits rather of our sinfull actions more it is to be wondered how we dare close this Prayer with a Petition of consolation how we can hope to be comforted by his holy grace with whom we are so deeply in disgrace as to lye actually under the lash of his correction but here is the difference betweene Almighty God and man the latter never mixeth favors with his frownes of the former the royall prophet tels us that even whilest he is angry he is mindfull of mercy towards us so hence it is we begge this consolation of his grace to be our comfort even while we are under the affliction due to the demerits of our actions and this with reason because every action that is absolutely ours is mixt with sin and so merits punishment but this obedientiall action of our Holy Fast is rather an act of grace then of nature and thence it is we presume to begge the comfort of that grace which doth enable us to this act of pennance But we have yet a harder taske in hand what relation is there in this Prayer to the Epistle and Gospel of the day where is there here a word of Agar and Sarah Abrah Jsaac or Jsmael Sinai or Sion where a Syllable of a miracle of the multiplication of five loaves and two fishes into food sufficient for above five thousand persons yet these are the Subjects of the Epistle and Gospel and we must finde report to these as well as to the time of Lent in the Prayer above or
claime of God in respect of his own merits but in respect of the merits of Christ elevating mans workes to a height of value more then in themselves they have or can have or to speake more plainly not that man workes his own Salvation by his owne power but that God workes that in man which man alone cannot work in himselfe and which yet by cooperation with Gods holy Grace he may claime not as absolutely due to him but as due to Christ working in him The Application 1. WHilest St. Paul brings us in the very front of this Epistle our Blessed Saviour himselfe the High Priest officiating to day no marvell that the Church erects the Altar of the bloody Crosse for Christ to celebrate upon and this Passion Sunday when the ensigne of the Passion is display'd alone the holy and the bloody Crosse of Christ 2. As little marvel 't is we are to day depriv'd of all the suffrages of Saints in Publick Office of the Priest such as we formerly made open intercession to beseeching their assistance in the close of Lawds and Even-song because we now are to suppose that time is flowing when there were no Saints at all nor any Angels able to relieve us since we see the Saint of Saints the Son of God begins to suffer more decreed to dye hence are the usuall Ornaments removed to day the Churches left with naked wals in Catholike Countries where Rights and Ceremonies are observed the Pictures of the Saints pull'd downe and nothing left us but the bloody Crosse to minde us that Almighty God nev'r look't propitiously on us but when he frown'd upon his Sacred Son and made his Passion our Propitiation 3 Say then beloved what 's our duty now is it to wave the Holy Fast or no is it to seek for dispensations by corrupting our Physitians by deluding Ghostly fathers by flattering indeed by cheating of our selves under pretext of sicknesse or infirmity fie no where these are reall there 's no Fast commanded where they are not dispensation's Null because the Fast obligeth maugre dispensation Cease then O Christians cease to pamper sinners while God suffers for our sinnes looke for no favor but from Christ himselfe take no reliefe but what his sparing hand gives to your bodies now reserving greater graces for your soules as in the Illustration we have heard Adde rather frequent Tears unto your Fast for the accomplishment thereof adde your Compassion to our Saviours Passion because there is no company acceptable to our bleeding Christ but a weeping Christian Thus may we hope for the Propitious look we begge to day when he beholds us the relenting the resigned soules we ought to be whilest holy Church prayes as above The Gospell Io. 8. v. 46 c. 46 Which of you shall argue me of sinne If I say the veritie why do you not beleeve me 47 He that is of God heareth the words of God Therefore you heare not because you are not of God 48 The Iewes therefore answered and said to him do not we say well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a devill 49 Iesus answered I have no devil but I doe honour my Father and you have dishonoured me 50 But I seeke not my own glory There is that seeketh and judgeth 51 Amen Amen I say to you If any man keepe my word he shall not see death for ever 52 The Iewes therefore said now we have known that thou hast a devill Abraham is dead and the Prophets and thou sayest if any man keepe my word he shall not taste death for ever 53 Why art thou greater then our Father Abraham who is dead and the Prophets are dead whom doest thou make thy selfe 54 Iesus answered If I doe glorifie my selfe my glory is nothing it is my Father that glorifieth me whom you say that he is your God 55 And you have not known him but I know him and if I shall say that I know him not I shall be like to you a lyer But I doe know him and doe keep his word 56 Abraham your Father rejoyced that he might sete my day and he saw and was glad 57 The Iewes therefore said to him thou hast not yet fifty yeeres and hast thou seen Abraham 58 Iesus said to them Amen Amen I say to you before that Abraham was made I am 59 They tooke stones therefore to cast at him but Jesus hid himselfe and went out of the Temple The Explication 46. IT was in the presence of the High Priest as well as of divers Doctors and Pharisees that Jesus used this art of proving he might uncontrouleably reprove the people because he knew they could not answer him by recrimination nor put him to the blush of turpitude in a doctor reprehending others who is himselfe faulty in the same kind so Christ here reprehending the abominable sins of the Jews takes the priâ—iledge he cannot be denied of urging them to tax him if they can with sinne and yet lest his immunity from sinne might not suffice in their esteeme which yet was rooted both in his beatificall vision and hypostaticall union making God and man but one person he futher tels them it is pure verity that he preacheth to them so by these two titles of his veracity and sanctity he claimes beliefe of his doctrine and authority of rebuking their sinnes and he doth not here meane onely a naked delivery of truth but a demonstration of all hee tels them to be undoubted and absolute verity rooted in his owne divine veracity and so not to be any wayes disputed but exacting their firme and constant beliefe whence with great reason he sayes here why doe you not believe me 47. It is here to be noted that the Manichaean Heresie was ill grounded from this place as if there had been some men born of a good and others of a bad Spirit and so they of necessity not of choice were either good or bad since here Christ alludes not to the natural but to the supernatural man Hence when he says he that is of God his meaning is he that is inspired by the Grace of God and of his Spirit such it is that hears the word of God and therefore they heard it not because they followed the inspiration of the evil and not of the good Spirit Now that he meant this as to them ill at that time inspired not ill created or naturally made ill it is evident for diverse of them were afterwards by his death and by his Apostles preaching converted and doubtless saved too whence it follows that as they naturally were not made so bad as no good could come of them so they were by supernatural and not by natural means made the good people which afterwards they became and thus those once good become bad again when leaving the inspiration of the good Spirit they follow the dictamens of the bad one 48. It seems by this manner of speech they were used frequently to call him Samaritane
so now they think they have reason and do well in so reproaching of him because first they had observed he did frequently converse with Samaritanes next that he was bred up in Nazareth a City in Galilee neer to Samaria whence the Jews of that place were esteemed to be much like the Samaritanes Lastly and most literally that the Religion of the Samaritanes was mixed partly with Judaism partly with Gentilism since they did worship the god of the Assyrians from whom they were descended as well as keep the Rights of the Synagogue and for this cause the Jews held them Schismaticks and so detested their Sacrifices that to call Christ a Samaritane was to shew they did detest him too which appeared by their adding he was also possâ—ssed by some Devil and spake as mad men do that are in diabolical frenzies But the truth is they did really believe he was some Devil himself because he laid claim to be the Messias and to be the Son of God which they looked upon him for as if he had been Lucifer himself and Christ understood their meaning to be thus when in the next Verse he tells them 49. He neither is nor hath in him any Devil because in telling them he is the Son of God he doth not boast his own descent so much as that he gives the honour and glory of all he doth unto his heavenly Father and for this Act of his they seek to disgrace and to dishonour indeed to revile him O unparalleld meekness and deep reply in one word to both their calumnies for though he mention not Samaritane in this Reply yet by saying he hath no Devil in him he includes the other since the Schism of the Samaritanes made them slaves of the Devil wherefore he replies onely to the Slander cast upon his Father by calling him Devil to shew he regards not much the abuse they committed against himself as he was man but as he was the Son of God whence he must needs vindicate his Fathers if not his own cause 50. How well might he say this who had professed he came hither by command of his Father that he preached his Fathers not his own Doctrine and the like I do therefore said he not seek my own but my Fathers honour and glory it sufficeth me that I know when the hour of his holy Pleasure is come he will clarifie glorifie me as afterwards he did when Christ said unto him before his Transfiguration the hour is come clarifie thy Son Joh. cap. 17. v. 1. and as then he did honour him by manifesting his glory and avouching him to be his Son so the other part of this Verse will be verified when he shall judge as God and punish those that revile his said Son not that in this place Christ reflected on the general Iudgement which is referred to himself but unto the private Judgement that God makes either by punishing temporally the sins of the people as he did in the destruction of the Jews by Titus and the Romans for having crucified Christ or eternally if he reserve their punishment till the hour of their death for Christ is not properly said to come as Iudge to every Soul dying but to all Souls at the latter day So our private Iudgements are the Sentences of God rather then of Christ upon us yet not to the exclusion of Christ neither 51. Whereupon turning to his own veracity rather then regarding their falsehood he says Amen Amen Truly Truly or since I am God and cannot lye be mens opinions what they will yet really and truly be it so that whosoever shall hear and keep my Word shall never dye eternally for so he would taste eternal death but though he dye temporally through the separation of his Body from his Soul yet he shall not dy eternally that is he shall not sin mortally which can onely cause eternal death and even that death of the body I shall take away too when at the general Resurrection I shall give both corporal and spiritual life everlasting to those Blessed who have inviolably kept and observed my word by living as I have given Law unto them 52 53. By this Reply we may see they understood not the true Sence of Christs meaning when they think to obtrude the lye and the Devil upon him by shewing he hath asserted a manifest lye in saying who believe in him should never dye for say they though thou were God yet would it not follow to hear thy word and keep it were enough to render one immortal since Abraham and the Prophets did hear and keep Gods Word and yet are dead whereas he never meant they should not dye temporally but that they should not dye eternally or which is all one dye in deadly sin nor can indeed the other Sence be rationally inferred out of the Letter of the Text which alludes onely to eternal death No marvel they should wonder at his pretending to be greater then Abraham whom they were content to make Head of the Synagogue by reason he was the First Believer for this proceeded not onely out of their affected but indeed out of their reall ignorance that Christ was God as well as Man and so they held it absurd he should pretend to an immunity not granted to the best of them as then they to argue against him were content to admit Abraham to be he being indeed the Father of all Beliefe the first Believer of all the Synagogue for they went not to Adam nor to the Faithful under the Law of Nature though indeed Moses was the first Member of the Synagogue framed into a Body for Abrahams Beliefe was Personal onely Moses his was Legal 54. The beginning of this Verse is his Answer to the close of the last as who should say he did not make nor boast himself to be much though he might with modesty and truth enough have done it so he doth not desire any other or more glory then what his Father gives him and says if he desire more it proves null alluding to the Judgements of Courts that never take the Testimony of any Party in his own Cause and so now that he is in contrast with them he pretends not to his own Testimony of himself but remits all to his Father whom they did confess to be their God and consequently beyond all exception to be believed 55. Observe he tells them they do not know his Father though they confess him to be their God when they heard him speak and profess Christ was onely his beloved Son and bid them hear that is believe him for then they did not or would not take notice this voyce came from heaven from God the Father as it did indeed But the literal sence of this place is that though they knew there was but one God and did believe in him yet they did not know that God who was one in Essence was Trine in Persons and consequently did beget the word his eternal
our being by the word of truth begotten since the Apostle doth close this verse with telling us how to make our selves more apt to receive the word of truth into our soules or as who should say since wee are begotten voluntarily by the word of truth let us endeavor by all meanes to preserve in us this regeneration this inborne word in us this filiation to God this adoption to glory and by the name of uncleanness the Apostle here alludes to concupiscence drawing us from the life of this word unto the death of sinne by the name of malice hee alludes to the sinne of anger before inculcated as hindering our justice such as by meekness we produce in our selves and so preserve the inbred word our filiation to God which must be our finall salvation of our soules by taking in or receiving the ingraffed word is here meant keeping it for this was spoken to those who were already Christians and the allusion is pretty which is here made to a graft for as by ingrafting on the body of an Apple-tree the gardiner if he please brings forth a Plum or Peare so the word of God ingrafted into our soules brings forth the fruits of grace which are the Seeds of better fruit of glory if any aske what is this ingrafted word we may say it is God incarnate for his incarnation is as it were an ingrafting or inoculating God into the hearts or soules of men since as the graft is alwayes of a better kinde then the Stock it is ingrafted on so the Divinity is much more sweet and fertil then our sowre Crab of humane nature whereas by the Hypostaticall union God and man in Christ became one person as the Tree and the graft become one body when the Sap unites and cements them together againe as all grafts are first cut from their own homogeneall Stock before they be ingrafted into another so the second person of the Trinity was taken as it were out of the hosome of his eternal Father to be ingrafted in the wombe of the Blessed Virgin Mary and so was brought out of his heavenly to be planted in our earthly Paradise or rather wilderness indeed for such it was when he came downe to earth and as from the sowre Stock of a Crab-tree we must first cut a branch before we can ingraft a better fruit upon it so was there cut off from Christ his humane hypostasis and he made to subsist by the hypostasis divine besides as the graft and the Stock are bound together till they fasten into one another so by the hypostaticall union was the divine graft bound to our stock of humane nature that thereby God and man might grow into one person consisting of two natures others will have this ingrafted word to be the Blessed Sacrament united to our Soules others understand it to be Christ crucified on the Cross others contend it is the word of God ingrafted by the Preachers into the hearts of the Faithfull The Application 1. THe two first verses of this Epistle point directly at the gift of Faith which is indeed the Best and most perfect gift eminentially called the gift of God and is such a Light to our Reason as can come from none but the Father of Lights in it selfe the Blessed Trinity but as to us we may say it comes from the Father of our Light that is of our Faith our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath indeed voluntarily begotten us by the word of Truth the Holy Writ the Record of our Faith whereby we have our first beginnings of being God Almighties creatures 2. The two next verses tell us with what Alacrity and Promptitude we should hear this Sacred word of God as also with what Patience we should bear the Rebukes and Checks it gives our Consciences when it reprehends our vices In plaine termes we are told that to be Angry at any holy reprehension is an evident signe of our not being Right beleevers since by our operative Faith we are made just as we have often been taught and nothing is less consistent with justice then Anger 3. The last verse tels us what effects Faith ought to work in us namely Purity Love and Meekness for without these we are not capable of saving our soules by the ingafted word of God in us which yet of it self is sufficient to save us if received with that Purity which renounceth all mixture of Heresie Schisme or Infidelity for these are the Obstructions to the unity of minds which Faith worketh in the soules of true beleevers making them therefore all of one minde because they are all of one pure and impermixed Faith such as is only in the Catholicke Church and the effect whereof is to make them therefore love even the hardest commands of that good God they do beleeve in and to covet ardently what he promiseth unto them in requitall of their love who amongst all the allurements in this world fix their hearts only upon heavenly joyes which are promised in the next world not on such shadowes of joyes as we possess here in a word not to fix their hearts upon our present loanes but upon our future promises for God here doth not properly give us any thing how ever he lends us all we have his gifts are for eternall enjoyment not for temporary uses onely Now that we may doe this see how fitly Holy Church Prayes as above The Gospel John 16. v. 5 c. 5 But I told you not these things from the beginning because I was with you And now I goe to him that sent me and none of you asketh me whither goest thou 6 But because J have spoken these things to you sorrow hath filled your hearts 7 But J tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I goe for if I goe not the Paraclete shall not come to you but if I goe J will send him to you 8 And when he is come he shall argue the world of sinne and of Iustice and of Iudgement 9 Of sinne because they beleeve not in me 10 But of Justice because I goe to my Father and now you shall not see me 11 And of judgement because the Prince of this world is now judged 12 Yet many things I have to say to you but you cannot bear them now 13 But when hee the spirit of truth commeth hee shall teach you all truth for hee shall not speake of himselfe but what things soever he shall heare he shal speake and the things that are to come he shall shew 14 He shall glorifie me because he shall receive of mine and shall shew to you The Explication 5. TO understand what the Apostle meanes in this verse we must know the meaning of the foregoing words and though many wil have these things to report unto what went before namely our Saviours having told them they should be persecuted and punished to death for his sake after he was gone which he told them of that when it
we did firmly believe he would not forbid us any pleasure but as knowing it were hurtful to us certainly we should refrain all forbidden things and embrace all that were commanded by him 3. As when our Saviour would have a Proof of Saint Peters love he bid him prove it by keeping his commands so if Christians will make it appear they are all of one Faith they must be consequently all of one minde they must all do as that one Faith teacheth them And what that is no tongue of men or Angels can better express then is declared in the Prayer above let us say it then beloved fervently and practice it faithfully so that we be right Believers true Lovers and happy Saints On the fifth Sunday after Easter The Antiphon John 16. v. 24. ASke and you shall have that your joy may be full For my Father loveth you because you have loved me and have beleeved Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God from whom all good things doe proceed grant unto thy humble supplyants that we may thinke on those things which are Right thou inspiring us and thou governing us we may put the same in execution The Illustration WHat a home Prayer is here that rectifies at once all our Thoughts and Actions too at least beggs a rectitude in them all and no marvel for t is now Rogation week we enter into asking week in which the Holy Church appoints this Prayer it is that week when our Saviour bid his Apostles and in them us too ask what they could wish before he left them to work out that salvation which he is going to secure them of in Heaven according to their working And 't is a Petition large enough to all purposes for if we always think and do rightly we cannot fail of being saved nor will it clog our Saviour in his ascending up to Heaven that by this Petition all the world tye themselves fast about him since we know his own words When I shall be exalted from the earth I will draw all things to my self Joh. 12.32 Again it is no marvel since here we ask of God to inspire us to think on those things which are good that we first confess all good things proceed from him for indeed from our selves we know there cannot come any one good thought as little marvel it is that we begg he will govern us in putting our good thoughts in execution in doing the good which by his Grace we think to do for so little are the good deeds we do our own that it is both from God we are inspired to think of doing good and to put our good thoughts in execution And yet so good God is that he accepts as our works what he alone inables us to do When will man do this what master is there that doth not look for the profit and honour too of all the pains his servant takes whereas God gives us not onely the honour of our own labours but the profit also of his own pains taken in our behalfs whilest Heaven is given to man in consideration of the Death of Christ But we must see how this Prayer suits with the other parts of this days service and first with the Epistle of St. Iames truly it is so suitable that it exhausts it entirely while we pray we may not onely think well but do well also as St. James in the first verse of this Epistle bids us saying Be doers of the word of God not hearers onely and the like is of all the other Counsels given in this Epistle for as they are the inspirations of the holy Ghost so we pray to day we may be governed in the execution thereof As for the Gospel which is all of asking truly the Prayer is very pat to it which asks no less then all that can be wisht to save a soul namely always to think always to do well and surely this Petition is as the Gospel bids it should be in Christ his name when we ask it as professing Christ to be the very God from whom all good proceeds 1 Cor. 11.12 and when in that profession most pleasing to his heavenly Father we secure our selves of the grant that we demand since when the Apostles understood and believed Christ was God they rested satisfied that his recess from them to his heavenly Father was for their good and that by sending God the holy Ghost unto them they should be well repayed for the absence of God the Son since God who is every where cannot be absent any where and thus ends the Feast of Resurrection when the last Prayer proper thereunto is a leave taking of Christ risen from his Grave and a preparation to his ascending up to Heaven while we ask before he goes all we can want or wish when he is gone The Epistle Iac. 1. v. 22 c. 22 But be doers of the word and not hearers onely deceiving your selves 23 For if a man be a hearer of the word and not a doer he shall be compared to a man beholding the countenance of his Nativity in a Glass 24 For he considered himself and went his way and by and by forgat what an one he was 25 But hee that hath looked in the Law of perfect liberty and hath remained in it not made aforgetfull bearer hut a doer of the worke this man shall be Blessed in his deed 26 And if any man thinke himselfe to be religious not bridling his tongue but seducing his heart this mans religion is vaine 27 Religion cleane and unspotted with God and the Father is this to visite pupils and widdowes in their tribulation and to keepe himselfe unspotted from this world The Explication 22. HE alludes here to the ingrafted word mentioned in the verse before and by doers understands workers according to the exigence of the said word as working sanctity and perfection into your soules for that is the end of hearing Gods word to make it the motive and meanes of our perfection since Christ did not know better then he did doe nor did he teach more then himselfe did practise deceiving your selves that is saying Christ hath done enough for us we need onely now to hearken unto him to beleeve in him and be baptized by him for it is written such shal be he saved yes if they performe in deeds what they beleeve in their soules but to frequent the Churches meerely to heare Sermons and not to put in practice the Doctrine there delivered that is to seduce our selves for our Saviour gave nor his blessing to those onely that heard but to those that hearing kept his holy word obeyed his commands followed the counsel given them by their good Angels their ghostly Fathers or spiritual advisers These and onely these make the hearing of Gods word a blessing to them 23. By this comparison Saint Iames makes the word of God to be as a glass to a man
Master in his passion so lest we by surprizing sloath or by sleeping in Prayer be overtaken in our other actions he puts a watchfulness before our eyes especially in Prayer as the best remedy to help us to stand upon a close guard in all our other actions and indeed the life of man especially of Christians ought to be a perpetuall watchfulness because our adversary the devil is alwayes going the round about the wals of this world like a ravenous Lyon to seeke whom he may devour asleep 1 Pet. c. 5. v 8 or which is all one not standing the sentinel of a watchfull guard against him which guard is then best when we are found upon it Praying nor is there indeed any armour more of proofe against all temptations then a watchfull Prayer 8. Yet to shew the divine vertues transcend the morall ones Saint Peter in this verse sayes but above all conserve among your selves mutuall charity by which it is evident the Apostle here speakes of charity as it imports a love to our neighbor which then is in the height when we are content to dye to doe him good Saint Bernard explicates this well in saying we are all Cosins allyed in blood meaning the blood of Christ our Father equally shed for all of us that are his children and allyes and it seemes Saint Paul ad Coloss 3. v 14. Concurres with Saint Peter in this Doctrine even in the same termes in a manner saying but above all things I have recommended be sure to have charity which is the chaine or band of perfection which our Saviour sets out in life-colours saying love one another as I have loved you and to incourage us the more to this mutuall charity the Apostle tels us it covers the multitude of sins meaning all our sins whatsoever for as Christ was said to dye for many importing all and as many shall rise in the day of Judgement intending all that then rise so by the multitude of sins is here meant all sin whatsoever since an act of perfect charity taking away affection to any one sin doth even by that meanes blot all sin out of the soule yet some will have no charity able to this effect but onely the charity of God which not onely covers but takes away all sinne from those soules whom he hath predestinated to salvation others contend it is the charity of Christ which covers in his fight the sinnes of his elected Servants by applying his passion to them and his holy grace so efficaciously as they shall by this means cease to sin but certainely neither of these senses can be that of the Apostle in this place who expresseth himself to meane mutuall charity and that is properly betweene man and man declared in Acts of mercy and goodness towards one another and this charity doth not onely cover the proper sins of them that love their neighbor but even the common sins of all their neighbors whom they love our own as we cannot love man for Gods sake but wee must love God much more and who ever loves God truly not onely covers but flyes and hates all sinne our neighbors because as hatred detects so charity hides the sinns of our neighbors as we read Hatred stirreth up strifes but charity covereth all sins Proverb 10.12 it onely remaines to tell how many wayes sinne is hidden by charity first by being quite blotted out as Saint Mary Magdalenes were to whom much all were forgiven because she loved much Luk. c. 7. v. 47. Next by palliating when we out of charity excuse and make the best of mens actions Thirdly when we doe not onely excuse them but actually binde them up as Chirurgeons doe soares to cure them so we doe when besides the excuse we make for our neighbors sins we further oblige them by doing good unto them for the ill they have done to us and this is an efficacious way indeed to cure their soares of sinne as well as to cover them and by binding them to us we do as it were our selves take upon us their sins and so God looking on our good sees not their bad whom we have rendered grateful to him for our sakes as Christ did render us all grateful to his heavenly Father when he took our sins upon him and thus covered us from his wrath and fury Lastly then we perfectly cover our neighbors sinne when we doe not onely heale the wound thereof but heale it so close so perfectly that no scar remaines no memory is in us of the wrong he did us nor is suffered if we can help it to be in any other of like wrongs done to them 9. By being hospitable without murmuring he meanes we should be so loving to all as we doe not murmur that wee are oppressed with the number of the needy or poore that want our help and the Apostle here reflects particularly on the niggardly mindes of the Inhabitants of Pontus who were extreame narrow in their almes and would extend the little they gave to very few whereas he would have charity large and extended to all 10. This verse shewes how large our charity should be when we are bid to give almes or doe good to others according to the proportion of grace that we receive from God and by grace is here understood not that which justifies the single man to God but that which is gratis given to us and so must be gratis communicated to others good and profit not to our own end for it is avarice so to give as we aime at receiving more from others then we part with from our selves and the very words of the Text are against self ends while they bid us administer to one another which is quite opposite to taking for our selves againe as Gods graces to us are manifold so must our administration of them to others be else we cannot give as we receive which yet was the first rule of this verse telling us how to give 11. Here the Apostle summes up all the kindes of charity under two the one in words the other in deeds or the one preaching teaching exhorting the other giving almes visiting the sick or doing all other workes of mercy corporal and here we see the rule that preachers are tyed unto of speaking not their own but the word of God or what the holy Ghost shal dictate not what humane fansie shal suggest and we see in the primitive Church the Holy Ghost inspired some to exhort others to sing hymnes of praise others to prophecy and each one this to doe with humility and meekness not with pride and ostentation with zeale and fervour not tepidly or dully according to that of David Thy word O Lord is very hot even as fire and what by office the preacher is to doe out of charity the people are to imitate and as they heare nothing from the Priest but what belongs to God so all their conversation should be of God and of heavenly things thereby to
by him that resteth Honourable Sir Your hugely devoted thrice humble and most commanded servant F. P. APPROBATIO IN signe hoc opus cui Titulus Sodalitas Christiana c. Tribus partibus comprehensum diligenter perlegi in quo nihil Fidei aut Pietati Catholicae adversum invenio quinimo est opus doctissimum Authore dignum necnon varia Eruditione adeo refertum ut Verbi Dei Praecones Auditores Factores facile addiscent unde dies praesertim Dominicos cum Christiana devotione impendant Et ex foelici etiam Sacrorum Textuum precum Leiturgicarum mutua adaptatione harmoniam ad Coelestia allicientem abunde experientur Dignissimum proinde judico ut in publicum prodeat Dabam in Collegio nostro Sancto Bonaventurae Sacro Duaci hoc 16 die Decembris milessimo sexcentissimo quinquagessimo primo Fr. Fran. a S. Clara. S. Th. Professor Emeritus ac Provinciae Minister The Approbation HAving diligently read and considered all the three Parts of this First Tome of the Christian Sodality Composed by F. P. And finding it not onely to have nothing in it dissonant to Faith or Christian Piety but on the contrary all things so apposite for the increasing of each as speakes the Author a great Master of both I cannot but judge it worthy to see the publike light whereby many may be both inlightned and inflamed to know and acknowledge the Head of this Sodality and so bee incorporated which is as I suppose the Authors ambition Given the 5 th of January 1652. by Henry Metham Auncient Bachelour and Professor of Divinity The Approbation I Have diligently perused and read over all the Three Parts of the Christian Sodality composed by F. P. wherein I find nothing contrary to Fayth or Piety but all things speaking the Author learned and elegant The Method and Designe of the whole Work is excellent the Illustrations all though new and beaten out by the Authors meditations yet most accute and happy The Explications all most grave and solid The Applications all most Pious and Patheticall The Prayers for each respective Sunday all most propper and apposite Be it therefore Printed as exceeding profitable both to Priest and People Given at Paris this first of Januaary 1652. old stile Iohn Lancaster Professor of Divinity Theolegall of England And Censurer of Books The first Part Of the FIRST TOME Errata In the Epistle Dedicatorie PAge 3. line 1. For Sacrifice read Sacrilege In the Preface Pa 4. l. ult add so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here imports a contraposition without an opposition p. 6. l. 14. for we r. me ibid. l. 24. for we r. me p. 25. l. 5. for ought we r. we ought p. 28. l. 24. for adopt r. adapt In the Book Numb 19. l. 18. r. gave it to the Jewes n. 21. l. 9. r. he makes us n. 45. l. 28. r. is in n. 43. l. 16. r. personality n. 47. l. 18. r. respect n. 50. l. 9. r. premizing n. ib. l. 24. r. those n. 51. l. 4. r. Tetrarch n. 72. l. 35. r. appearing n. 86. l. 1. r modestly n. 105. l. 16. r. act n. 109. l. 4. r. our n. 112. l. 5. r. apostolate n. 114. l. 7. r. recalling ib. l. 16. r. infirmity n. 122. l. 24. r. least one n. 124. l. 8. r. pashing n. 142. l. 1. r. no obligation n. 145. l. 15. r. love is n. 153. l. 7. r. one another n. 161. l. 27. r. faylings are n. ib. l. 28. r. as such n. 162. l. 1. r. explication n. 170. l. 6. r. as if n. 174. l. 28. r. that is to say n. 176. l. 31. r. that to glory n. 189. l. 5. r. of the rock n. 192. l. 23. r. that dilate n. 194. l. 11. r. ought n. 199. l. 26. for of our r. our n. 201. l 2 r. others n. 225. l. 16. add To tempt Job in another kind for another end n. 226. l. 30. r. administer n. 235. l. 30. r. the Text. n. 245. l. 9. r. Arcana n. 248. l. 2. r. but. n. 250. l. 9. r. when n. 253. l. 29. r. creatures n. 256. l. 10. r. not the so much n. 262. l. 20. for an r. a. n. 266. l. 18. r. O that we n. 269. for Tome r. Part. In the Prayers On second Sund. after Advent r. rayse on third Sund. af Adv. r. grace of thy on forth Sund. af Epiph. r. grant In Post Communions In the third Sunday after Epiphany for adopt r. adapt THE Key of the work BY WAY OF PREFACE TO ALL CHRISTIAN READERS WHen I first thought of writing for the Press I was over-prest with a multitude of difficulties as well about the Subject as about the Method and I could never be perswaded to set Pen to Paper before I had armed my self against the common obstacle in all Writers wayes That Books have their Fates from the Capacities of their Readers For I concluded 't was a labour lost to Write and to be laid aside as either not understood or not pleasing to the Reader So I resolved either to Write what might call the Reader aside to make him understand himself as well as me or else to spare my own labour of writing And because I knew no Subject had power enough to command the Reader but that which was of Divine Authority therefore I made choice of Holy Writ and of the Churches Prayers to write upon And finding nothing so common over all the world as a little Book consisting of these two subjects called the Primmer as being the Prime the first or Principle office of a Lay-Christian whereby he makes a demonstration of his dayly bounden duty towards Almighty God in that little abstract of the Breviary which is the Priest his larger Office I conceived nothing so worthy of my paines as to render that little Book intelligible sweet and easie to the People which I perceived was rather said by rote than understood Not that I believe this Primmer was published at first by holy Churches Order without a better Gloss than I can hope to make upon it now but that I conceive devouring time hath eaten out a world of Pious Works that were in being in the Primitive Church and amongst the rest some exposition of the Primmer made or by word of mouth from the Preachers in their Sermons or in their private exhortations by way of Catechisme or else expounded in some book on purpose written to that end as I write this For I cannot think our Pious and our Prudent Mother holy Church would issue out a book of dayly Duty as far above the peoples reach as Heaven is from Earth unlesse the Antiphons Versicles Responsories Prayers Hymnes Lessons and Psalmes thereof were made some way or other intelligible to the common world thus bid to pray Since therefore now I found no exposition of the Primmer extant and yet encountered with the Book in every bodies Pocket in many mens Hands in most mens Mouths that understood not what
they said in saying it and thence grew bold to undervalue it to call it dry and barren Prayer in respect of other Books especially the Manuell consisting indeed of many Prayers derived from the Primmer but more abounding with a greater number made by private persons Pious enough no doubt yet not of such avowed authority as those who made the Primmer Prayers Hence it was I thought no subject fitter to be written on than that which should at once expound the holy Writ and Churches Prayers with all the other parts thereof contained in the Primmer both being so profound and so mysterious as they are Know therefore Christian Reader first The Antiphons are ever such as have report unto the present time or season of the year they are made proper to by holy Church Know secondly they ever are some part of holy Writ appointed by the like Authority or for Epistle or for Gospell of the Day Yet to know this is not enough unlesse you further know the meaning of the word it self that an Antiphon imports as much as a pre-toning of a Tune to follow not unlike the Birds recording in the winter time the tunes they chirp and sing aloud in the summer to the praise of their Creator And hence it is the Chorists or masters of the Quire where holy Office is ever sung in open Churches that allow this happy liberty come up unto the Canon who begins the Psalme and in a low Tone give the Tune to him who takes it thus then sings aloud and leads the Quire after him all singing out the Psalme in loudest voice which was Antiphonized as above pre-toned I mean recorded or pre-tuned by the Chorists first of all Now that you see these Antiphons end here with a Versicle and Responsory as they doe in every Primmer this argues all the Prayers and other parts of holy Churches Service that doe follow are exercises as well of Neighbourly as of Love Divine and that no jar ought to intercede in tempo all affaires between those who are tyed up to a harmony and concordancy in the spirituall duty of good Christians whilst we must be ever ready to answer with a Responsory him that begins with a Versicle to incite us to priase Almighty God and to give a testimony we are at peace with one another before we dare presume to make our joynt petition to the Heavenly Majesty for our own and our neighbours necessities in the following Prayer But of this more anon when we shall say who first prefixt the Antiphons before the Psalmes and Prayers Please gentle Reader onely here to know that hence it was I took the Rise of writing in the Method I observe throughout this Book For since I found the self-same Antiphons that here you have in English to be in all the Primmers of the world in all the severall languages that say this holy Office every day even in the Breviaries of the Priests I did conclude those Antiphons were as Pretonings to the tune of the Mysticall musick of the holy Church that was to follow then when such an Antiphon was read or to speak more plainly these Antiphons did seeme to point out what the Duty was that then we should be at Namely that all the Children of the Church should put in execution the practice of that Doctrine which the Preacher then delivered in the Pulpits when or that Antiphon or else some other part of holy Writ in that dayes service was the Preachers Text. And that we might doe this the better we thought the following Prayer was fitly given to petition grace to doe it Hence I inferred those Prayers must needs extend to more than yet the word Collecta or Collect did import for that betokens onely the collection of the peoples suffrages put into the mouth of the officiating Priest in his own and their behalfs and begging Grace that what the Preachers tell them is their present duty they may execute Religiously But further yet we thought this Prayer this Collect following such an Antiphon and being the open musick which every Christian was to make that day in the ears of the Heavenly Majesty while their hearts were to sing what their lips did say must also keep the Tune of that Antiphon speak I mean to God in the same sense and be as an Epitome or Abstract of the holy Text from whence that Antiphon was taken must be in fine a kind of summe or Quintessence of all the Preaching parts of that dayes Service and must from thence assume the name of Collect as if collecting up in few lines the larger Lessons of the holy Text both in the Epistle and Gospel of that day This I confesse seemed hugely consonant to reason and if it could be made appear would render sure the Prayers of holy Church extreamly proper to the Times and Dayes they were appointed for extreamly reverential extreamly gratefull to the People To see thereby the sweet connexion in all the parts of holy Churches Service This this Beloved is the hard attempt of all the following Book wherein how happy I shall be I know not yet before I hear you say you see it is in some proportion done By the Illustrations of the Prayers shewing how they allude unto how they exhaust indeed the holy Texts both of the Epistle and Gospell of the Day By the Explications of the Sacred Texts shewing how piously safe they are when rightly understood how dangerous when heretically wrested to a contrary sense than in themselves they bear And by the Applications not onely shewing us how to apply the whole Service of the day to our instructions but how to apply indeed our selves to God by a godlinesse of life made sweet and easie to us by the said Applications Now because this sweet connexion of Parts in holy Service is a Jewell rendring the Church extreamly Beautifull in the sight of her sacred Spouse even ravishing the eyes of Men and Angels therefore I shall desire the Reader not to huddle ore this Book as reading it for Recreation but purely for Devotion which yet will recreate the more by how much the lesse thereof is read at once by how much the oftner the Reader turnes to see and to compare the Parts reporting unto one another which generally they doe when in the Print you see the letter to vary the Character to change for ever then the changed letter in the Glosse is part of either Prayer or holy Text to which it doth report and whereunto the Reader shall doe well to turn before he doe proceed to further Lecture that so comparing one place to another he may see the simpathy between the parts compared and seeing this may praise Almighty God in the beauty of his beautifull Spouse the holy Church whose very daily service is a kind of picture of her lovelinesse in the sight of his Heavenly Majesty I doe not undertake to say that all the Churches Prayers are of so deep a sense as
this Book yet is it out of the true Gospell of the Day and the reason why I did presume to alter that dayes Gospell in this Tome is because I intend God willing to explicate the four long Gospels of the Passion that are read in holy Week in my third Tome as was said above in regard they will doe better altogether then apart Besides the Gospell I have here inserted though it be not directly upon the Passion as that of Palme Sunday is yet it reports unto it and is as it were the very mouth to that Red Sea so not incongruously placed here but suiting very well both with the true Epistle and Prayer of that day and is besides the very Gospell read in Blessing of the Palmes But further as to this particular of Antiphons the Reader may be pleas'd to understand that many times the words of these Antiphons are rather the sense of Holy Church than the absolute letter of the Text yet so as part if not all is ever taken according to the letter it self and again whereas I cite one verse onely for such Antiphons as many times runne through sundry verses this is done but for brevity sake since the diligent Reader will easily trace it out in his perusall of the Text it self Nor must our Adversaries presume to tax the Church with corruption of the Text in some of her Antiphons because she doth not alwayes professe to deliver the ipsissime letter but onely the sence thereof which is a priviledge no dutifull Child can deny a pious Mother who as she is the Spouse of Christ hath absolute authority to order the devotion of her Children according to her own pleasure and piety True it is I cannot retrive who set the order of the Antiphons before the Prayers but this we find in the Bull of Pius Quintus before the Breviaries that as the Councell of Trent referr'd the ordering of the Breviary to his said Holinesse so he consulting some Fathers of that Councell and other the best Antiquaries in Rome did let forth the Breviary as now we have it according to the Records in the Vatican containing all the Traditions of the Primitive Church for order of the Publick Prayers and consequently the Antiphons in the Primmer which are these we now treat of being the same with those of the Breviary were undeniably the same which now they are And what ever we may say of these Antiphons in particular at least we shall find Saint Ambrose a celebrated Father and Doctor of the Church to have been the Institutor of that Piety to sing in the Quier an Antiphon before the beginning of every Canonicall Hower in the Priest his Office grounded on the Vision which Saint Ignatius the third successour to Saint Peter in his chair of Antioch had of Angels thus Antiphonising and then alternatively singing sweetly one after another as now the Divine Office is sung in the Quier over all the Catholike Church And for this reason sure the Lay-people have their Antiphons out of the Epistles and Gospels to shew their work of Prayer which followes immediately is grounded on the charity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in whom they are to Love to Pray to doe for each other as they would doe for themselves And hence we may piously presume the Versicle and Responsory following every Antiphon is to incite the Church Militant to answer the Angels of the Church Triumphant inciting us to Pray and praise our Lord with them especially by such a Prayer as doth not onely exhaust the Epistle and Gospel of the Day but accompanies withall the Praying and the Preaching Priest amongst us the Angels and the Saints above us nay the Mediating Jesus Praying then and thus to his Heavenly Father in our behalfs as was said above Forasmuch as concernes the Epistles and Gospels themselves I have not dared to alter them in the least tittle out of a Reverentiall regard unto the Reverend and Learned Translators of the Bible into English though in many places perhaps if the same men were now alive they would themselves render the Language here and there more gratefull especially to curious Eares and yet keep as exact a sense of the Learned Languages of the Originall Tongues as now they have done which yet I dare not be so bold to doe The suiting of these Epistles and Gospels as now the Church hath ordered them was the work of Saint Hierome commanded so to doe by Saint Damasus Pope and Confessour Anno. Dom. 367. and this may suffice for a sufficient glosse upon the respective parts of this Book and why it is framed in this Methode Now the reason why I intitle it the Christian Sodality is because I would by that Name invite every Christian to be a member of it and to make profession of this Practise of Piety which is grounded on the Word of God and on the publick Prayers of Holy Church which certainly were not made without a deep design if yet that were any other than what I have guessed at who shall be glad to hear of a better for I am nothing wedded to my own conceit herein I shall not presume to give any Rules at all to our Sodality though I doe humbly suggest the saying Thrice a day the Trinity of Prayers in the end of every Part of this first Tome for the Reasons above and for this one more which I shall add because by a reverent rehearsall thereof they shall even kiss as it were in little the Picture of our Blessed Lord drawn out of the full Proportion it hath in the Epistles and Gospels of the Day as also by their weekly reading each respective Sundayes work belonging to the week they shall make themselves in a short space perfect masters of so much Scripture and be able not onely to sum it up in their daily Prayers but to season their discourse with it throughout the week throughout the year from year to year indeed throughout their lives Now that they may more zealously doe this I shall desire them to beleive the first Founder of this Sodality was Jesus Christ the Confirmer of it the Holy Ghost the first professed Member the B. Virgin Mary Keeping all the words of her sacred Son within her heart and listing with her self the twelve Apostles all the Disciples and Friends of our Lord Saint Mary Magdalene with her Sister Martha and the other two Maries celebrated for their zeale to Jesus Christ and so making up the Primitiae or first Fruits and Members of this same Sodality which every Christian is inrowl'd a happy Member of at the Holy Font nor can he be dismembred or cast out of this Sodality but by deserving excommunication unlesse he first renounce his Christianity and cast off Jesus Christ by turning Infidell Heathen Atheist Turk or Jew As for designing our Sodality into this method of Prayer abstracting all the other Parts of Holy Churches Services I am so farre from the vanity of
to us cooperating with the same what our sins retarded that is to say our own redemption was by our own sins retarded for 4000. years together the Indulgence of his propitiation may accelerate It was indeed a huge indulgence in Almighty God to make his sacred Son a propitiation for our sins and more to hasten him away for this purpose since fourty thousand years had been too short a time to have expected so much mercy as is now accelerated by the indulgence of his propitiation which would not give him leave to stay above 4000. years away And by this close of the Prayer we virtually include the whole Epistle and Gospell of the day while we beg the help of Gods Grace to accelerate unto us the benefit of the Indulgent propitiation that Christ his Birth-Day brings to every pious Christian which benefit lest our sins retard see how the Church prepares both Priest and People to a due regard against them by the counsell given to both in the Epistle and by exhorting both to be Baptistick Saints in the Gospel of the Day to be preparers of the way of Christ Angels of Men running this holy Advent before his face to sanctifie our own and our neighbours wayes unto the Crib where Christ on Christmas Day is mystically born again as often as Christians celebrate the Feast of his Nativity so saith Saint Leo in his nineth Sermon upon that Feast and the like is of all others We doe not so much recall the past as we behold the present Feast of our Saviours Birth so often as it comes about by Annuall revolution The Epistle 1 COR 4. ver 1. c. 1. SO let man esteem of us as the Ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the Mysteries of God 2. Here now is required among the dispensers that a man be found faithfull 3. But to me it is a thing of least account to be judged of you or of Mans day but I judge not my self neither 4. For I am not guilty in Conscience of any thing but I am not justified herein but he that judgeth me is our Lord. 5. Therefore judge not before the time untill our Lord doe come who also will lighten the hidden things of darkness and will manifest the counsels of the hearts and then the praise shall be to every Man of God The Explication 1. THe Apostle seemes here to bid Man esteem of him and his Associates in the Apostolate as if they were not men but Ministers of Christ for as much as they did the Offices of God by being dispensers of his Mysteries and indeed that is most true for though to be a Steward or master of a Family under any temporall Lord and to dispence and dispose of his Lords Monies and Goods be not to execute an office above man in regard all the goods and monies in the Stewards hands are temporall things and the properties of nothing above a humane creature yet to be Steward of the House of God and to have the dispensing of such goods as are Spirituall and cannot be the properties of any temporall Lord certainly this renders a man though not in nature more than Man yet by Office hugely more than an Angel for though we read of them that they are Heb. 1.14 Ministring Spirits in the House or Church of God both triumphant militant and patient yet we never read that they were stiled the dispensing spirits of Gods hidden Mysteries which yet as the Apostles were so must their suuccessours the Priests of holy Church be too and consequently are not in the execution of that Spirituall Office to be looked on or esteemed as men but as Ministers of a higher nature as persons indeed more than Angelicall since they have an Office and Power above Angels namely to forgive Sins and to dispence or dispose of Gods severall Graces by the conduit of holy Sacraments Pipes made on purpose by our Saviour Jesus Christ to convey unto our barren Souls the fertilizing waters of heavenly grace and these pipes are so put into the hands of Priests as they can turn the cock at pleasure give or retain this holy grace as they judge fit to administer a Sacrament or suspend a Sinner from the benefit thereof But we must further note the Apostle here as he speaks in generall to all Christians and bids them esteem Priests above men by reason of their office so he speaks particularly to the Corinthians in order to their main contention which was to make a difference betwixt the Dispensers of these Mysteries as if Baptism for example received from one were of more value than if they were baptized by another or as if the Ministers of Baptism were the Authors of grace and so they who received it at a more holy mans hands received more than if the conferror thereof were lesse holy to both these effects the Apostle speaks correcting the Corinthians errour in them both that is for thinking the Administrator of a Sacrament to be the Author of grace therein conferred or that grace was more abundantly conferred according as the Administrators thereof were more or lesse holy 2 This alludes to the vanity of the Corinthians who were men so curious that they judged of their Preachers as they found them more wise more grave more eloquent in their Sermons or Catechisms than others and particularly they adhered much to Apollo because they held him more eloquent than S. Paul whereas the same Apostle here tells them they must not regard in the Dispensers of Gods word the Rhetorick language or eloquence of the preachers but above all their fidelity or being faithfull that is to have them tell the true sence and meaning of Christ Jesus to have them give rather sound than flourishing doctrine least while they put too much force in words they lose the vigour of the Spirit which is and ought to be the life of a Sermon and least they seek by the Ostentation of their languages rather their own than the glory of God or preach themselves not Christ Whereas S. Paul tells them here fidelity is the principall part of a preacher that is to preach the Word of God and not the word of man to preach spirit rather than language to move the soul to Acts of love rather than the ear to delight of Eloquence 3. This Verse prosecutes the sense of the former telling them plainly he did not regard their fond judgements that esteemed men by their glib tongues rather than by their vertuous spirits for it is indeed Unction a speciall gift of the Holy Ghost that renders a Preacher most profitable to souls and so most accomplisht in his preaching whence the Apostle knowing what he said was pure spirit told them he did not regard their censures of him as if he were defective in his duty of preaching and what he sayes to them in this kinde he affirmes the like in respe of all men by his following words wherein he makes no account of
mans day that is of humane judgement in a point of Spirit for thus the day of man is often taken as by Jeremiah it was Chap. 17. v. 16. when being derided by the people who contemned his Prophecies he cryed out Thou knowest O Lord I desire not the dayes the applause of men nor regard their judgements of me Suffice it I have delivered unto them what thou hast to me revealed So in this sense S. Paul here cares not for the judgement of the Corinthians whether they like his preaching or not but is content that he tells them the genuine sense of his Lord and Master Christ Jesus and yet least he may by this speech seem arrogant See how hee takes off all suspition of vanity in himself by what follows saying Though I am not troubled O Corinthians at what you thinke or judge of me yet neither am I so vain as to presume I am without fault and so I neither will nor dare to judge my self this place might disswade Heretikes from presuming they are certain of their future salvation and of their being here in the state of grace if themselves thinke so assuredly S. Paul might better justifie himself and yet we see he does not indeed he dares not doe it 4. While in this next verse he saith though I am not guilty particularly of any infidelity vanity or ostentation in preaching for still he prosecutes that sense which yet generally may be understood of any sin neverthelesse I am not justified therein he will not justifie himself but he that judgeth me is our Lord and to him I must leave it to judge who not onely sees and knows all hearts but perfectly knows them too that is sees further and clearer into all mens hearts than any one man can see into his own 5. Here the Apostle referrs not onely his own judgement of himself and of his Ministery but even the judgements of all men whatsoever to the latter day of Doom for then and not till then Our Lord shall come and inlighten the hidden things of darkness by laying all things open and this not onely as some Hereticks will have it whether we believe right or wrong but also whether we doe good or bad deeds according to our Faith For so by the plurality of hidden things here mentioned to be revealed then is clearly meant in those words of the Apostle insomuch that Hereticks fondly pretend unto a certainty of their rectitude in Faith more than they can doe unto a rectitude in their works and therefore flatter themselves that be their works the counsels of their hearts what they will yet since it is by Faith men are justified and since they pretend to know certainly that they doe rightly beleeve they therefore scruple not to sâ—cure themselves of salvation be their lives never so bad being their Faith as they say to their certain knowledge is right For the Holy Ghost hath taught us a contrary doctrine to this presumption in Ecclesiastes Chap. 9. v. 1. A man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred So Prov. 20.9 Who can say my heart is clean So Job 9 21. If I bee simple or Innocent yet my soul knoweth it not So Jer. 17. v. 9. Wicked is the heart of man and inscrutable unlesse to God alone To conclude the sentence of Judgement shall not onely passe upon our Faith whether that be right or wrong but upon our works the Counsels of our hearts for every one shall in that day receive according to his works and Luke 20. we receive what our works deserve and in the mean time till the day of generall judgement come the Apostle forbids to judge each other since neither he nor any man can securely and rightly judge himself but then look who hath done and deserved well the praise shall be to every one of God though mistaking men have judged those perhaps worthy of blame whom God shall declare to be praise-worthy because he finds them to have been faithfull to the Ministery or trust which he reposed in them So here we see from first to last St Paul his true sense in this place is upon fidelity in the dispensers of the Mysteries of God and declares that no man but God can judge in that particular as being an office not appertaining to men but to God himself and unto him alone I must here advertise you that the Apostle in the next Verse declares that he useth his own and Apollo's name but figuratively thereby to represent to the Christians their faults in pretending to have one more light of grace than another or to be one better able than another to understand the Scriptures shewing it is a thing they ought as little to presume of in themselves as to censure whether he or Apollo did more faithfully perform the trust of God reposed in them by their ministery of dispensators of his Mysteries The Application 1. THe closing Advent season claimes a due regard in this dayes service so the prayer begins alluding unto that and ends besides with the accustomary reference to the Epistle of the day How like the out-cryes of the ancient Prophets is the stile of Holy Churches prayer to day They cryed out thus O Wisedome O Adonai O Root of Jesse O Key of David O Rising Sun O King of Nations O Emmanuel c. Come and save us thou that art our Lord God And we promising all these exclamations pray as above O Lord we beseech thee raise up thy power and with thy mighty vertue come away to our succour c. meaning all the power and all the Vertue included in those Attributes of Wisedome Adonai King and Saviour which the Prophets gave him as above 2. And least our sins do chase away the coming Jesus see this Epistle points us to the Priests of holy Church as to the Ministers of Christ and dispensers of the Mysteries of God Meaning of the Holy Sacraments that blot out sin and give us grace to bid our Saviour welcome 3. Hence we conclude the Pastors and the People are admonished to buckle to their severall Devoirs to day these in administring these in receiving of the Holy Sacraments and yet each having done his dutie neither to presume he hath done well enough but both referring of themselve to God his Judgements for the future and expecting his mercies for the present And to pray as Holy Church above appoints That our sinnes doe not retard the coming of his mercy towards us The Gospel Luke 3. ver 1. c. 1 ANd in the fifteenth year of the Empire of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being governour of Jewrie and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee and Philip his brother Thtrarch of Iturea and the Countrie of Trachonitis and Lysanias Tetrarch of Abilina 2. Vnder the High Priests Annas and Caiphas the word of our Lord was made upon John the son of Zacharie in the desart 3. And he came into all the countrie of Jordan preaching the Baptism
set at helm to steâ—r the Ship which in a calm is left to the guidance many times of the most unskillful Marriner and as in Tempests all the sayles are strucken instantly to sâ—cure the ship from being run under water by the over-swollen sails so in Temptations we seek the best advice and thereby are minded to abate of our usuall pride or over-filled fails of pleasure and counselled to strike those sailes to lessen our delighâ—s and carry lower sails Again as in storms men put to sea lest they be pails't in pieces against the rocks about the shoars so when Temptations arise we launch into the deep sea of Gods protection from the rocks that lie upon all the shoares of this worldly sea and the reasons of Christs sleeping were to shew the security God is in though all the world seem to lye at stake of immediate hazard to make the miracle appear the greater when all the ship was in a fright of being cast away to declare there could be no fear in the minde of a just man Prov 12. Whatsoever happens to a just man hee shall not be afflicted he calmeth all the stormes of her afflictions 25. Strange goodness of Almighty God! that what is here told us as a rule how to behave our selves in all our â—roubles should be literally a rebuke to the Apostles as afterwarâ—s it appears when Christ tels them they wanted faith whilest they fear theiâ— own ruine who had him for a pledge of their securitie since he being in the Boat they could not perish and indeed though the miracle had not in that case appeared yet their merit had been greater if their faith had been such as not to have awaked and raised our Saviour but to have confided in his power as well whilst he was sleeping as if he were awake 26. This Verse shews the former to be rightly understood in the sense as above for here they stand corrected meerly upon that account of diffidence or incredulity and though both S Mark and S. Luke speak of this rebuke given them after the â—empest was allayed yet S. Matthew making a more methodicall Narration of our Saviours life in all his sacred History seems with reason to premise this reprehension as preceding the calming of the winds and Sea because it was fit Christ should first quell the storm of infidelity in their souls that so whilest upon his rebuke they resumed courage and confidence they might by their Acts of Faith merit this miracle which he wrought in recompence thereof and indeed nothing moves God more powerfully towards the working a miracle than the firmness of our faith mixed with a confiding hope that he for his own honour and glory not for our ends will doe in all occasions of difficulty that which is best and most pleasing to his divine Majesty though it cannot else be done unless he work a miracle to effect it nor is there any more efficacious remedy in all disturbances than a firm hope in Almighty God for as S. Bernard sayes well Ser. 6. in Psal it is written He will help those who have hoped in him as it seems his Disciples upon his chiding did while after it the Evangelist here sayes and then Jesus rising as who should say he had chid them lying still for all their hasty calling of him up commanded the winds and Sea and presently there insued a great calm both which made the Miracle the greater for never is the water still upon a sudden though the winde doe cease but here it seems as soon as Christ had laid the one he flats the other and so takes off the danger of the boat sinking by the waves of the sea beating into it as before it did when we lead the ship was almost covered with waves but we may here note that the command which Christ is by S. Matthew said to lay upon the winds and sea is by S. Mark called a threat by S. Luke a check as who should say he spake to both these inanimate creatures as to his living servants to shew that in Gods sight no creature wants life nor can the deaf want eares to hear the least voyce of Almighty God or blind lack eyes to see the slightest cast of his sacred looks upon them and indeed the tempest was declared to be greater by the command of Christ laid upon the rebellious Elements of winds and sea rather than by the importunity of the Disciples calling for help since it argues high disorder in the servants when the masters ordinary words suffice not without the authority of his absolute command to order his family and what else is the whole world but a number of almighty Gods houshold servants 27. By the men are here understood both the saylers and others who with the Apostles had slipt into the boat when Christ went off the shoar some out of curiosity others out of zeal for certainly though the reprehension Christ gave was chiefly to the Apostles who had taken the boldness being his acquaintance to wake him yet the Evangelist must needs mean others and not them when he speaks in a stile below their dignity saying the men marvelled for as Origen observes very well the Scripture Phrase when it alludes to them useth alwayes the distinctive sign either of the Apostles or Disciples of our Lord for reverence both to the master and the servants yet S. Hierom sayes if any will have it that even they were meant by these men admiring at this miracle it must bee as a stile given them rather in punishment of their incredulity than otherwise as if that fault had deprived them of their better stile and ranked them amongst the vulgar sort of misbelieving men S. Hieromes words are these If any will contend the Apostles were meant by these men wee must say they were so called because they did not yet know the power of our Saviour and certainly if they were ignorant of it they did not believe it so they deserved not in this conjunction of things the superlative stile or dignity of the Apostolate but in very truth the following words shew by these men the Evangelist meant the marriners and strangers to Christ that were in the ship whilest he makes them say What a man is this that the winds and sea obey him This was a language not likely to come out of the Apostles mouthes even in the admiring sence of the words admit we take them not in the Interrogatory meaning thereof onely For had the Apostles made this admiration in words surely they would have been so civill as to say how happy are we that serve a master who is of such admirable power but to say What an one or What a man is this who hath such power over winds and seas is rather the language of a rude stranger than of a civill freind or dutifull servant and consequently could not probably be meant of the Apostles by the Evangelist The Application 1. AS by the
when men were asleep his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way 26. And when the blade was shot up and had brought forth fruit then appeared also the Cockle 27. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him Sir didst not thou sow good seed in the field whence then hath it Cockle 28. And he said to them The Enemy-man hath done this And the servants said to him wilt thou we goe and gather it up 29. And he said No lest perhaps gathering up the cockle you may root up the wheat also together with it 30. Suffer both to grow untill the harvest and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers Gather up first the Cockle and binde it into bundles to burn but the Wheat gather ye into my barn The Application 24 THis thirteenth Chapter is wholly parabolicall and this other is the second parable insisting wholly upon cockle by stealth sowed over the Wheat after the husbandman had sowed his field with good seed where note the whole Parable alludes to the whole thing done not to the particular doer since if so the kingdome of heaven must not have bin likened to the man sowing but to the King of heaven which Kingdom in this place seems to be the Church of Christ as if by the sanctity thereof he did reign in continuall glory and here Christ makes himself the man sowing in his field that is to say in this world which is all one field of God the seed is the word of the eternall Father to his children the Church of Christ and therefore this Word is called good seed because it fructifies both to grace in this life and to glory in the next 25. By the men being asleep are here meant the Pastours of Gods Church being out of the Pulpit or out of sight of their people and parishioners or else our own remissness in vertue which is a kinde of sleep in that school where waking is alwayâ—s necessary insomuch that even when we sleep our hearts or soules must wake lest we be surprized by the never sleeping enemy who lyes at watch perpetually to devour us And the enemy mentioned in this place is indeed the common enemy to God and man the Devill whose Cockle over-sowed amongst the wheat of Christian doctrine is either Heresie of Doctrine or errours of life The first he sows when hee makes us wrest Scriptures to our private sense contrary to the Churches exposition The second when he tempts us to doe contrary to the rule of our actions set down by the Word of God and by his Preachers of that word unto us And his going away when this is done is his leaving us corrupted both in doctrine and manners as if wee had not received our taints in both from him but were by our selves forsooth assured we were in the right Note by cockle or zizania as the Scriptures call it is understood here heresie or infidelity in respect of true Faith as also vice and sin in respect of true vertue so that under cockle is meant all impure grain or weeds that mix with corn and choak it in the growth or growing with it make it unsavoury and by the ill mixture thereof intoxicate the brain with a vertiginous dizziness as heresie and sin doe the soul of man and indeed Christ in this place alludes to the Scribes and Pharisees corrupting with their false Doctrine those to whom hee had taught the truth perswading them he was a drunkard because he went to a wedding and turned water into Wine and a blasphemer because he abrogated the Law of Moses and made himself more than Abraham namely the Son of God 26. The reason why this Cockle was not to be distinguished from the wheat till both were grown up ready to pullulate into their severall fruits was because all plants in their first blade are green alike and most grains of corn are of like blade at least if they differ in blade they are not therefore weeds but may be good corn though thus differing yet when they come to fructifie then they are discerned and seen to be good or bad according to that of our Saviour Matth. 7.16 By their fruits yee shall know them who are good men and who bad 27. This Verse alludes to the Pastours of Gods Church complaining that whilst they sow his seed of truth in the pulpits they finde more cockle than corn when they come to reap their harvest that is to say if not more Hereticks than Catholikes at least more sinners than Saints but here it may not be amiss for these Pastors to reflect whether they doe indeed sow the same seed as Christ their master sowed whether they doe preach the same holy and saving doctrine or admit they doe this yet by a further disquisition they must see whether or no they have sown the seed of example or holy manners as well as of true doctrine for if not they wiâ—l be answereâ— not to have sown good seed since exemplarity of life is equally expected to fall from the hand of the Churcheâ— seeds-man as well as solidity of doctrine 28 The enemy man here imports the devill and by this answer there is a wâ—rd of comfort given to the Pastours while our Saviour sayes there may be weeds or cockle in the field of holy Church though there were never so good seed sown both of doctrine and of life by the Husbandmen the Preachers thereof and this by the Devil alwayes ploughing up a nâ—w some parcels of this field by temptations or fluctuations in mens mindes or by scattering his â—oul seed of sin over the ground newly sown with doctrine and vertue since it is not in the Pastors powers to prevent all evill though they themselves be never so good or shall never so well comply with their duties both in doctrine and manners as also he tels them they are not presently to pluck up ill weeds as soon as they appear but 29. As in this Verse appears Let them grow up both together corn and weeds lest whilest you pluck up the weeds you loosen the root of the corn growing neer un-unto it and so make it die for want of setled rooting since there is not so much malice in bad men but there is more grace in the good or at least a little good is able to overcome a great deal of bad because it proceeds from a more pâ—werful agent grace exceeding nature in activity and this was well observed by S. Augustine saying upon the first verse of the 54. Psalm Doe not thinke that evill men are gratis permitted in this world and that God cannot work good out of them since every wicked man therefore liveth that either himself may be corrected or that by him the good man may be exercised either in patience if the sinner disturbe him or in giving him example of vertue to follow To the like purpose speaks S. Gregory Hom. 35.
the intervening persecutions that may divert them from it And look what was then said to them for perseverance both in faith and good workes is also to day by holy Church applied to us in this Prayer that beggs us grace ever to think and consequently alwaies to doe well that is reasonable things because none else can be pleasing to Almighty God It remaines onely to shew how this Prayer does also exhaust the Gospel whereunto it is the better suiting if it be as some witts will have it paradoxicall since that is wholly parabolicall yet nothing lesse rationall than is the prayer petitioning reason in all we think or doe for who can deny but the little mustard-seed of Gods holy word is hugely rationall or who can say but the deeper it falls into the earthly hearts of men the faster root it takes growes the stronger up and brings the riper fruit because as well the reason of it as the grace is hugely convincing Againe who can deny but the leaven of the same word hidden in our Soules shall with reason operate upon the whole mass of our bodies and give them a taste thereof harsh perhaps to the corrupted pallats of worldly men but delitious to the relish of God and his holy Angels who delight to taste of such leavened loaves as we call sower when they esteeme them sweet and such are Converts from the Court who are by the leaven of Gods holy word become Princes to Heaven though seeming Clownes to Earth Thus mystically have we adjusted the parabolicall Gospel to the paradoxicall Prayer of this day if wits will have it to be a paradox that men should alwaies meditate on rational things which yet when they do not they cease to be men I will not say what might follow that they become beasts The Epistle 1 THES 1. v. 2. c. 2. WE give thanks to God alwaies for all you making a memory of you in our prayers without intermission 3. Mindfull of the work of your Faith and labour and of the Charity and of the enduring of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father 4. Knowing Brethren beloved of God your Election 5. That our Gospel hath not been to you in word onely but in power and the holy Ghost and in much fullnesse as you know what manner of men we have been among you for your sakes 6. And you became followers of us and of our Lord receiving the word in much tribulation with joy of the holy Ghost 7. So that ye were made a pattern to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia 8. For from you was bruited the word of our Lord not onely in Macedonia and in Achaia but in every place your faith which is to God-ward is proceeded so that it is not necessary for us to speak any thing 9. For they themselves report of us what manner of entering we had to you and how you turned to God from Idols to serve the living and true God 10. And to expect his Sonne from heaven whom he raised up from the dead Jesus who hath delivered us from the wrath to come The Explication 2. THe Apostle speaks not here in the plurall number of himself as Princes and great Persons but in a quite contrary way derogates from himself rather by attributing his own writings joyntly to other his associates and companions as namely here he doth in the first verse of this Epiâ—â—le specifie both Sylvanus and Timothy as if he had no more share in this than they and as if what ere he writ they did suggâ—st or dictate to him as much thereof as came from his own much deeper Spirit an excellent example for all Writers to fellow and attribute their works to their helpers in them rather than to themselves alone besides Sylvanus being Bishop of the Thessalonians there was great reason for the Apostle to consult him in all his proceedings amongst his own Diocesans In their own Bishops name therefore and in his companions who went the circuite with him Saint Timothy whom he had made Bishop of Ephesus the Apostle sayes We give thanks to God for the Conversion of you Thessalonians in our incessant Prayers for your preservation in the Faith of Christ and that by your example others may receive the like Faith and be alike converted 3. Here as in almost all other places of holy Writ we are to note the Apostle joynes good Works with Faith to make it recommendable and availing lest Hereticks should as yet wilfully thâ—y doe mistake and think Faith alone without gooâ— Wâ—â—ks werâ— saving whereas it is the active and laborious Faith that brings us to Heaven The Faith which is continually working by Charity that is to doing good deeds for lest they should mistake and think he meant their Faith was onely the Work of God which as it is a gift indeed is true see how immediately he illustrates his own other meaning to the sense above of operative Faith when he addes to the works of their Faith the labor of their Charity as who should say the sole habit of Faith is not enough to those who are able to produce acts thereof and those acts of Faith are then best when accompanyed with deeds of Charity giving life to Faith which without good Works were a dead habit nothing at all availing us But the Apostle proceeds yet further and to make his sense full of perfection adds also to their Faith and Charity which he took speciall notice of their hope in God which made them endure persecution for their Faith and indeed in this Verse he hath artificially and solidly too given the three fittest Epithetes to these three Theologicall Vertues that could be whilst he takes notice of their working Faith their laborious Charity their susteinning Hope whence Saint Chrysostome and others note the Apostle commends not Faith without Workes in the acts thereof nor Charity without Paines in Almes towards the Poor and Sickly nor Hope without Patience or suffering in persecution for Justice And not without reason doth the Apostle here take notice of these three Vertues in the Thessalonians in regard Jason a Thessalonian by name was summoned to the Tribunall of publike Justice as we read Acts 17. ver 6. for having concurred to Saint Pauls escape from his persecutours as also diverse othâ—r Thessalonians were molested both by the Jewes and Gentiles for their becoming Christians and in this the Apostle commends the work of their Faith for their paines in relieving the Apostles and cherishing all the poor Christians they met with hence he commends their laborious Charity their imprisonment patiently endured for their Religion their sustaining Hope that gave them courage to endure temporall losses in expectation of eternall rewards which he calls the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ that is to say the hope of what Jesus Christ brought us news of eternall Glory For before he came most men lived and dyed like Beasts without regard to any
other life than this sordid one they enjoyed upon earth but it is worthy observation to see the Apostle speak so confidently of our sufferings here before Men as if God for whom these men did see us suffer were as visible in our eyes though we see him not as the men are whom we doe see and truly so it is For God is remarkably seen in all his creatures according to that of Saint Paul Rom 1. ver 20. The invisibles of God by those things that are visible and rightly understood are seen unto us And if we could alwayes have this truth in our minde we should alwayes have God before our eyes as the Apostle avoucheth the Thessalonians had saying they did believe love and hope in the senses above as if they had God the Father and his sacred Son perpetually standing before them and visibly incouraging them to all the good actions of their lives which indeed if every good Christian should perswade himself and square his actions accordingly we should soon see a good world here and a happy reward of our goodness in the next life 4. The knowledge he here speaks of is not that of his Belief and Faith but rather of his experience for it was an evident proof to him that God did love those whom he had Elected to the happy calling of Christianity as it was preached by Christ himself and his Apostles not as now when that terme of election is too loosely and too largely taken God knowes though in truth he alludes here to his knowledge that their Election to Glory will be the reward of their vocation to Grace if they persevere as they have begun to be good Christians so he speaks as by what followes appears literally of their present election to Grace mystically and as by consequence of that glory upon condition of their perseverance 5. For it was a signe of present Grace joyned with a hope of future Glory that he takes notice his preaching did not onely work in force of words with them but in power of Grace also both in the Preachers and in the hearers In the Preachers as confirmed in Grace by the holy Ghost descending upon them and making of poor ignorant men deep Doctors in an instant for this is it he alludes unto saying You know what men we have been among you meaning before the holy Ghost came down upon us and what now we are for your sakes that is to say men illuminated by God for your instructions and exposed to all hazards of our lives for your conversions all which argues the gift of present Grace in the Preachers and the actuall conversions of the hearers argues the same gift of Grace in them and both these give indeed hope of future Glory to them both Note that by the much fulness is here understood the like plenitude of his Doctrine confirmed by like miracles preached by the like impulse of the holy Ghost avowed by the like sufferings for the truth of his Doctrine as was the Doctrine Miracles Preaching and Sufferings of the other Apostles called before him who never had been persecutours of the Church as he was whom they had seen doe all in the same fulnesse of Grace as the other Apostles did and by the Gospel in the beginning of this Verse he means his particular preaching the Word of Christ 6. Here is a strange kind of speech wherein S. Paul puts himself Sylvanus and Timothy as examples to the Thessalonians before Christ when he sayes they were followers of them and of Christ as if he meant for their sakes they had also followed Christ and not them or Christ his sake yet if we reflect upon it this seeming immodesty is hugely modest and extreamly true indeed necessary for however Christ were the Apostles and his other Diciples immediate example and pattern which they followed yet to all the after-Ages the Apostles and their successours to their respective times were the immediate and visible rule of Faith unto the world and the examples whom they first following afterward are called Christians because Christ as he was the first rule to the Apostles so is he the last rewarder of those that believe in him for the Apostles sakes that is by meanes of the Apostles and their successours teaching and preaching the Faith of Christ in regard Christ not being now visibly amongst us gives us leave to follow him by such examples as he pleaseth to send unto us wherewith to supply his own absence namely the governours of holy Church Nor is it any way derogatory to Almighty God that man is instrumentall to his Divine Service as that we say we owe our conversion to such an Apostle to such a Priest to such a holy Man as the immediate and visible cause thereof however we finally place our Faith in Christ and our trust in God who hath given such Gifts such Graces such Powers unto Men as to prevail with their followers to joy in their Tribulation which they suffer for hearing and receiving the Word of God true it is we receive this Word from the mouthes of Men but it is the holy Ghost that moves us joyfully to suffer the Tribulation of all severest persecution rather than not imbrace this Word as Divine however delivered by men unto us because it hath in it an energy a force exceeding all humane power such as inables us to renounce all temporall happinesse in hope of the Eternall which this sacred Word doth promise us 7. See here how the Apostle courts his own Converts by making them in a manner Co-apostles with himself whilst their exemplarity of life is the means of converting others to the Faith of Christ whom the Apostles never did converse withall as here they are said to be worthy of the stile of Co-apostlate over all Macedonia and Achaia great Countries looking upon Christianity as an object of â—arest Beauty by reason of the singular Vertues shining in these Thessalonian Matrons to whom this Epistle relates 8. Nay he goes further and to their religious demeanour attributes the Conversion in a manner of all other Nations insomuch as there is no more need as he saith of the Apostles and he adds that as the Thessalonians believe so all the world beliâ—ves seeing in them such remarkable signs of sanctity verity and doctrine 9. They themselves that is to say all those amongst whom we now come have heard of your celebrated conversion from Gentilism to Christianity from plurality of gods so he meanes by Idol gods dead stocks and stones to the Adoration of one sole True and living God from all and unto all eternity And this your conversion is the more famous by reason of the persecutions raised against us and you upon this account who rather chose to die than to desert us though our entrance was persecution and your exit sufferance for the promulgation of the Gospel which teacheth us to adore one onely God 10. And to expect the second coming of his
the holy Altar not his reall body as we doe so the true sence of this place is that as they all did eat one figurative bread and had one faith in God so doe we but yet as their faith and food did not carry them all to Canaan so will not faith alone carâ—y us to heaven without good works 4. This verse is harder than the former in regard it will not be easy to shew how they drank of that rock that followed them unlesse we allow they drank of Christs bloud as well as we now doe since Christ is truely the rock that did follow them or came after them and issued out his pretious bloud for us really to drink againe Christ was a spiritual rock as here is said not a reall rock of stone for the true understanding therefore of this place we must know by spirituall rock is here understood a mysticall or typicall rock and such was the reall and naturall rock out of which Moses commanded water with a stroak of his rod and yet that reall rock was but a mystery type or figure of Christ and so in regard of that mystery is called here spirituall because it did praefigure the rock of Christ some therefore say with the Hebrewes that this rock did miraculously follow the children of Israel even to the land of Promise grounded in that text Numb 21. ver 16. Others conceive this to be verified by the water of the rock following the children of Israel at least till they came where plenty of more water was others think following them is veryfied by the obedience the rock shewed to issue out water once at Moses command so by follow they understand obey but this falls short of the gramatticall signification of the word follow so the true and genuine sence of the Apostle is that this rock as it was a type of Christ so the following of this rock is typicall and not reall Spiritual and not naturall as who should say Christ who corporally followed them many yeares after did spiritually now follow them that is in his sacred Deity or as he was God not man marched with them from the beginning to the end and so by his providence still supplyed them with water which was in effect to make the rock follow them so here Christ his divinity was the thing signified by the water out of the rock which did represent the same and to clear this sence the Apostle sayes in plaine termes the spirituall rock here meant by the material or natural rock was Christ Those are his words But the rock was Christ as who should say what we mean by this spirituall rock following them was Christ his divinity for his humanity was not then in being when spiritually he did follow them nor doth it urge against this truth what is further objected they did drink of this rock but the rock they drâ—nk of was the materiall rock therefore that material rock was not onely a type of the spirituall but was truely the spirituall rock since as the drink was materiall water so the rock must be the maâ—eriall rock for it is answered the water they drank was typicall because it was a figure of Christs Deity and so the materiality of both rock and water hinder not the spirituality of Type or Figure in them both To conclude the Allegory of this place holds thus Christ was this rock who was therefore sayd strucken by Moses because the Iewes were of the Mosaicall Synagogue who struck Christ to death by the Rod of the holy Crosse the bloud of which rock was satiating drink to the true believers and was water of contradiction to the Incredulous Iewes who will not believe in his deity and misbelieving hereticks that deny the reality of his blessed body and bloud in the Sacrament of the holy Altar by whose virtue we are carried through the desart of this world into the heavenly Land of Promise nor will it follow that therefore these words of Christ saying this is my body are to be understood as hereticks pretend This is a figure of my body as here we say this is a spiritual rock that signifies This is a figure of a spiritual rock because Christ doth not say this is a figure of my body or this is my body spiritually meant no but this is my body absolutely and really the same which shall be crucified for your sinns upon the crosse as it was indeed not onely figuratively but really besides the sixth verse of this Chapter cleares all doubt of this point saying in expresse termes These things were done as in a figure to us so here is a plaine profession of a figurative speech in the Apostle we find none such of any figurative speech of Christ when he said This is my body 5. This fifth verse confirmes what was said before That Faith alone without good works was not enough to bring the children of Israel into the Land of Promise and consequently much more are good works necessary to bring us to heaven lest as the greatest part of the Hebrew people perished in the desart so the greatest part of Christians be damned if they lead not lives answerable to their Faith and Religion The Application 1. FRom the first Sunday in Advent to the Nativity of our Saviour the Churches service represents the senility or decrepit age of Judaism weary of old expectation and longing for the coming of new hopes in Jesus Christ Yet to shew the Jews were dear to God he gave them a happy period a glorious Catastrophy in John the Baptist 2. From the Nativity to this Septuagesima Sunday the Holy Church hath fed us with the admirable doctrine of out Infantile Christianity beginning with the Infant Jesus and teaching us how to walk religiously as so many Infants and children of grace 3. From this day to the end of Lent the service runs upon another strain minding us of the forfeiture of our first Father Adam made of that Repose and Rest he was created in and of the toil and labour hee drew upon himself and his whole Posterity by his disobedience so the vicility or perfect man-hood of humane nature is the state wee are now taught to perfect And therefore this Epistle brings us into the school of vertue to day neither as decrepid men nor as new born Infants but as active youths all running of a race to win the Prize of heaven and this to verifie the curse imposed on our Father Adam of eating his bread in the sweat of his brows So that toyl and labour is wee see most justly inflicted on us for the punishment of sin and all the rest we can hope for must be by the meer mercy of our Lord who yet is ready to give us an eternall Rest in the next life for a short race here for a little labour taken to glorifie God by loving our own souls Say then beloved the Prayer above as the fittest Petition for the performance of our present
Fornication and Vncleanesse in the Epistle on the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost avarice shall be explicated anon in the fifth verse of this Epistle so we now proceed to the fourth verse as it here followes in order 4. By Filthinesse is here understood obscaenity of words for uncleannesse is properly that which is obscaenity in deeds or actions by foolish talk is understood wasting time in any impertinent discourse that doth not tend to edification of our neighbour by some report or other to Almighty God but busies the mind in idlenesse as the foolish virgins were busied who not so much for doing ill as for not doing well for fooling away their time were shut out of heaven so all the discourse may be called foolish that doth not tend to God more or lesse By Scurrility is here properly understood rusticity or rudenesse in discourse not onely where it is wanton or obscene to which onely sence some men ignorantly apply the word Scurrility but when it is redundant nauseating the hearer unproper to the Subject in hand and to the company present or indeed unmannerly and so offensive to them when too too ridiculous as procuring laughter upon any ill chosen Subject but principally and above all when it is breaking Jests out of holy Scripture or the Fathers or Councels and so making Sacred things the Subject of an idle end which is to raise laughter and mirth from that which should render us most sober and serious whence is grounded that axiome it is ill manners besides that thereof can come no good to jest and scoffe at Holy Things and of Scurrility in all these sences as above the Apostles next sentence is that it is nothing to the purpose meaning nothing at all tending to the Salvation of our Soules which is and ought to be alwayes the scope of all our words of our thoughts and actions not that by this the Apostle forbids civill mirth such as relaxeth the fixed sobriety of our minds meerly for honest recreation sake for such mirth is lawfull as offending neither God nor Man but Scurrility is ever to be avoided and instead of that unlawfull way of mirth in our discourse the Apostle exhorteth to giving God thanks that is by praising his goodnesse shewed either to our selves or others in his marvellous providence over all the world for this is a scope so ample as will ever give abundant way to discourse and so laudable as no man can be offended at it 5. In this verse the Apostle sums up what he had before forbidden and tels us that no such persons as these can hope for heaven his meaning is by being such not but that when they leave and repent they may be saved but here by the covetous person he puts us in mind of what he meant in the third verse above by Avarice namely Jdolatry of the minde for as much as covetous persons make their money their Idol God I say Jdolatry of minde or rather Spirituall Jdolatry because I would shew how impertinently Heretikes translate this place of Scripture when thereby they understand the prohibition of Images or pictures in the Churches which is very far from the sence of this Text where the Apostle forbids to make Riches our God for so he means by calling Avarice adoration of Jdols and such it might be in Catholikes if they did set up their baggs of gold in Churches and worship them but who ever heard they were so fond or how can they by worshipping pictures in memory of the God or Saints they represent be said to love the pictures as the covetous man doth his Idoll his Golden God But we are to note here by Avarice annexed to Fornication and Vncleannesse the Apostle glaunceth at a huge excesse of lust such as makes mens mindes long after carnality as covetousnesse doth fix them wholly upon hoording up of riches and as such covetous men care not to cozen others for lucre of sordid gaine so men wholly addicted to lust care not to cozen other men of their wives and engrosse them to their own adulterous ends and this kind of excesse in lust is properly called Carnall Avarice because as the covetous man is never satisfied with gaine so is this lustfull minde never satiated though the body be rendred even unable to act the desires of a bestiall minde whence the Apostle properly cals it Spirituall Jdolatry because such a man is alwayes adoring this Idoll of his lust It is a pretty art the Apostle useth in the close of this verse to put the Kingdome of Christ and of God together as one joynt thing meaning that those who with Christ here are humble obedient and holy shall in heaven be exhalted rewarded and glorified with him 6. The Apostles meaning here is that whosoever tels you it is needlesse to avoyd your swing of pleasures in this world provided you but beleeve doth seduce and cheat you and therefore be not saith he carryed away with their vaine words who would pretend to make you good Christians by Faith alone though you did not depose or renounce the Sordid Gentilisme of your former corrupted manners and lives these are indeed specious but false allurements so we must take heed we be not cheated by them because for Christians continuing their sinfull courses by relying onely upon Faith alone as sufficient to save them we often see the present effect of Gods anger upon them by the punishments inflicted either on their persons or on their Children and Family even in this life and that is meant by the anger of God here mentioned to fall upon the children of diffidence namely those who are not here confiding in God that he will accept of our renouncing ill manners for his sake as well as our infidelity for in the next life there can be no diffidence when the truth of all things shall be known to all in generall and none can doubt or distrust what they ought to doe but shall either receive reward or punishment for what they have already done 7. Here good Christians are forbidden the participation with lewd ones not in their persons but in their vices 8. And that upon no lesse penalty then of falling back into the same darknesse they were in before they were converted when Gentilisme or Infidelity did not forbid them such lewd courses but held them in the darke of beleeving there was no sin in liberty of life or rather in the licentiousnesse thereof and for this opinions sake the Apostle calls the men that hold it darknesse it selfe and contrary-wise those who depose such errors and become true beleevers he cals them light because they following the light of grace become light it selfe as therefore you are light so walk like children thereof in the light of vertue and sanctity of life 9. For the fruit of the light is that is to say consisteth in all goodnesse meaning in benignity and bounty to others and in justice giving to each his due not defrauding
Apostle sayes of it in termes namely to lye with their Mother in Law or Fathers wife which it seemes some one or more among the Corinthians did so openly practise that they even defended the fact or at least would not be reclaimed from it whence the Apostle orders them to be excommunicated and given as he saith v. 5. corporally over to Satan that so by this punishment their Soules may be reclaimed from that filthy sinne and saved Wherefore it is of this notorious vice by name and of all other whatsoever sort of sinnes the Apostle speakes here under the name of leaven which he would have the Corinthians to purge to cast out from amongst them for he had told them in the immediate Verse before how the least of Leaven would spoil a whole Batch of bread giving it a disrelishing taste and for this cause it was commanded in the old Law that when the Pascal Lamb was killed it should be eaten with bread purer and sweeter then ordinary such as was made without any leaven in it at all to give it the least disrelish to the taste and this Bread was by a special and proper name called Azymes which signifies unleavened bread and to this the Apostle alludes when he exhorts the Corinthians to purge out of their consciences all sin whatsoever as he insinuated when he wished them to cast out of their society by excommunication any one that should be scandalous in his life as it seems this both Adulterer and Fornicator was that kept his Mother in Law for his Concubine a sin the very Gentiles did abominate The literal Sence therefore of the Verse is exhorting the Corinthians and in them all us Christians that since our Pascal Lamb Christ Jesus is immolated sacrificed upon the Altar of the Cross for the sins of the people they and we also should remember as the Legal Pasche was to be eaten with pure and unleavened bread so the Spiritual Pasche Christ Iesus was at this Feast of Easter to be received with pure consciences clean Souls such as by Contrition Confession and Satisfaction had been purged from the old leaven of sin and more made a Spiritual Azyme or unleavened bread fit to be eaten with this Pascal Lamb this Blessed Sacrament that was now by special command of Holy Church to be received with a Christian Piety exceeding in all degrees that of the Ceremonial Law upon the onely Umbratil or Figurative Exhibition of this real Substance and Truth Besides it is worthy our remark in this place that all the Neophytes of the Primitive Church were brought in White Garments on the first Saturday after Easter to be Baptized and at the putting off their White Garments were to receive an Agnus Dei from the Bishop which was to hang about their necks down upon their Breasts in Testimony of an inward Purity of Conscience put upon their Souls at the casting off their outward Garments which were onely Figures of this Internal Candor of Conscience to this also alludes the Chrysome put upon the heads of those that are Baptized and the Candle given into their hands representing the Light of Grace to be their guides to Heaven whose Souls are pure and clean from sin Note that what we now call Pasche was originally called the Passover because it was a legal Lamb yearly commanded to be killed and eaten in memory of their preservations who had their Posts and Thresholds of their Doors sprinkled with the Blood of a Lamb as we read Exod. 12. v. 11. for a mark to shew the Angel whose houses he was to pass by or over without killing the First-born therein whereas else he was to spare none that had not the Blood of a Lamb upon their doors so by Allegory we now call Christ our Pascal Lamb because his Blood was shed to preserve from the Angel of darkness his Ireful Sword the First-born of Grace that is the Christians or the true Believers in Jesus Christ 8. And hence the Apostle in this next Verse exhorts the Corinthians and in them all Christians to make a Solemn Feast of Joy all this Paschal time that is all their life time for the seven Days of this Feast signifie all the days of our life and to feed now not upon old Leaven that is not upon pristin Infidelity And least hence it should be thought Faith alone were enough for a Christian to be saved by the Apostle addes we must not onely believe right which is to cast off the old Leaven of Infidelity but further we must do good Works and so cast off the Leaven of malice and wickedness also by taking in their places the Azymes the unleavened bread of good Works of Sincerity in our Actions of verity in our Words as the Badges of upright Christians that neither we dissemble with God nor with our Neighbour in thought word or deed but as we have vowed in Holy Baptism we shall make it good all the days of our life that so we renounce the World Flesh and the Devil and will be Loyal to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ loving him above all things as our heavenly Spouse and loving our Neighbour with all other Creatures but for his sake and in order to heavenly Conversation with Almighty God both in this world and in the next The Application 1. THe Expositors upon this Holy Text tell us it pointeth at our present Obligation to Celebrate the Feast of Easter by now Confessing and receiving the Blessed Sacrament that beeing purged thus from the old Leaven from the sinful Creatures we were formerly we may become the Saints we ought to be hence forward For though before our Saviour suffered for our sins he did converse with sinners yet now that he is risen from his Grave he hath not taken any sinner with him from the dead how then can living sinners hope to keep him company and how without him can we hope to live 2. O happy Christians in our Rising Christ who hath destroyed Death and given us a double Life by his once onely dying a Life of Grace to that we had of Nature so though we cannot hope to keep him company by living as to Nature which propends to sin and so to death yet we may hope by living as to Grace which leads to Vertue and so to everlasting Life to keep him company for all Eternity yes this may be our hope if with St. Paul each one of us can say I live now not I but Christ he lives in me 3. And thus no doubt it will be too if we can either keep what we have got in Lent the Magazine of Vertues requisite to Sanctifie that Fast and make us fitting for the present Feast or if we can but wish we had those Vertues and that we were able yet to make amends as yet we may for not acquiring them when they were easier to be had then now by reason of that Season more acceptable So good so gracious is Almighty God
should say we deserve true Praise if for conscience of God towards God for Religion sake we sustain that sorrow which falls upon those who are unjustly molested for commonly this breeds affliction to most men yet Christians ought to make this their comfort or their glory and grace in the sight of God and men For saith the Apostle in the next Verse What glory is it if sinning you suffer for conscience to God may be understood that God is conscious or knowing of our unjust sufferings and so in his justice will one day do us right Again for conscience to God is that by so doing we be cleer in our conscience before Almighty God or lastly and best of all if need be to dye for vertues sake rather then be beaten out of it by any threats whatsoever and to this the Apostle alludes for many slaves that in those days became Christians were by their masters beaten some of them to death and yet indured patiently the tyranny of their earthly masters rather then they would gall their consciences towards God their heavenly master by receding from that vertue which he gave them the grace to conserve even unto death The Application 1. UPon what other account then that of the Christian Faith can St. Peter hope to make us believe we that are made of the Elements of this World are Strangers and Pilgrims here and are to refrain from the Pleasures of the World is it not because we believe that Jesus Christ hath by his bitter Death and Passion purchast us a better inheritance is it not because at our Baptism we make a profession of this our Faith and renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil assuredly it is 2. Again from what other Root then that of our Christian Faith are we ty'd up to so strickt a conversation amongst Gentiles amongst the mis-believers but because we that believe rightly are bound to do uprightly and religiously when he is onely counted a just man who is a true believer as we reade Rom. 1.17 He is just who lives according to Faith he means the Christian Faith where note the word Liveâ— imports outward Actions for we do not otherwise know whether a man be dead or alive but by outward operations 3. To conclude whence is it else that the true children of God are obliged to obey even mis-believing Superiors but because all Power being from God those that are his children must obey it and are by the Principals of their Faith and of Christian Doctrine obliged thereunto for since the Ruler of our Souls St. Peter the Vicar of Christ himself doth teach us this Doctrine assuredly he had it from that spirit who teacheth all verity and since the first Light of Truth is that of Faith which brings all erring souls in to the right way to Heaven the way of Justice grounded in Faith Therefore we most fitly pray as above that all who bear the names of Christians may reject unchristian deportments and do Christian actions such as the Light of Faith leads them to The Gospel Iohn c. 16. v. 16. c. 16 A little while and now you shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me because I go to the Father 17 Some therefore of his Disciples said one to another what is this that he saith to us A little while and you shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me and because I go to the Father 18 They said therefore what is this that he saith A little while we know not what he speaketh 19 And Jesus knew that they would ask him and he said to them Of this do you question among your selves because I said to you A little while and you shall not see me and again a little while and ye shall see me 20 Amen Amen I say to you that you shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce and you shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy 21 A woman when she travaileth hath sorrow because her hour is come but when she hath brought forth the childe now she remembreth not the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world 22 And therefore you now indeed you have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce And your joy no man shall take from you The Explication 16. THis place is diversly understood by some of the day of Judgement which Christ calls a little while because to God all time is but a moment yet in regard he had immediately before comforted the Apostles that though he was to leave them he would send unto them the Holy Ghost another Comforter who should teach them all truth and that what ere he taught them he should receive it of him therefore it is most probable our Saviour here alluded to his Passion Resurrection and Ascension which being at hand when he spake these words and consequently he being by his Death to disappear a while and a little afterwards namely three days he was to rise again when they should see him a while again that was for fourty days after which he was to ascend unto his Father probably I say this was the most literal Sence of the Words a little c. 17. 18. No marvel if they understood not this Riddle and so brok out into these two Verses following full of doubt what his meaning might be 19. He knew indeed they desired to ask him being grieved and sad at the news of his departure yet were loath to be so bold so he knowing their meaning not by any outward actions of theirs but by his Deity which did see the secrets of their hearts was pleased to satisfie them and yet he did this by sweetning their sorrow with diverting them from one Riddle to another opening the first by the last as appears in the next Verse 20. Wherein he tells them as in the two Sences above Verse 16. That his Disciples and all good men should here weep while the bad men of the world did rejoyce but that as the temporal sorrow of the just should be turned into eternal joy so the temporal joy of the unjust should be turned into eternal grief or rather that you who are my friends shall weep to see me suffer and dye while my enemies the Jews shall rejoyce thereat you being sad in the mean time but as by my resurrection your sorrow shall be turned into joy so their joy shall be turned into sorrow and confusion not for love to me but for shame of themselves 21. For divers reasons the sorrow of the Disciples at Christs death was compared to the pains of a woman with childe and their joy at his Resurrection to the joy of a woman delivered of a Son after a hard labour First because both these Griefs were very Bitter Secondly both Short Thirdly both full of Danger Fourthly both converted into after Joy suitable to their Sorrows Fifthly because as
shewing him the features and deformities of his soule according as he is truly in himselfe good or bad for that is the property of a glass to represent truly the object which is set before it and the Apostle in effect here says those that run to Churches or to their ghostly Fathers to hear onely what they say and do not put in execution their Counsels are like a man note t is not said a woman too too frequently looking there seeing his native his natural countenance not then his painted face in a glaâ—s for what indeed follows of this meer sight nothing but what is said in the next Verse forgetfulness which cannot tend to perfection and such an introspection men make into their souls by reading or hearing the word of God if there they persist and do not study to perfect themselves thereby and truly the Law or Word of God is rightly called a Glass because it represents to us that image of perfect creatures which God would have us to be it tells us what reward our Vertues shall have what punishment our Vices 24. The reason why a man sooner forgets his own face then anothers is because he never sees his own but by reflected Species in a Glass which are therefore weaker and less vigorous then if they came directly to his eye as those of another mans countenance do both directly and more frequently seen by any man then his own So no wonder if a man see and consider himself never so exactly for a time that he soon forgets himself and covets to see himself again whereas he much more perfectly remembers the Face and Features of anothers person then his own Now though it be needless for a man to look much into a material Glass which can onely shew him the outward man yet it is very recommendable for him to look into the spiritual Glass of Gods Word to read or hear that often thereby to see what is wanting to that ornament of Grace or Vertue which should render him a perfect image of our Saviour Jesus Christ but besides this often looking on himself he must be doing and practising upon himself namely adding this Vertue taking away that Vice or else he onely looks and forgets what he see or what he should make himself to be Note there are three kindes of hearers of Gods word the lazy the active the contemplative the first heare onely and forget indeed contemne the next heare and obey the third heare and dye imbracing it with all the powers of their soules and never let goe their imbracement again many are the Analogies betweene a glass and the word of God for first as in a glass is seene not a picture of a thing but the thing it selfe by a reflected species though not by a direct one soe by the word is seene the wil of God nay God himself since the word of the minde is seene by the word of the mouth as in a glass Againe as flat or plaine glasses represent the species equall to the object but convex or round glasses represent them less then they are and both the further off the weaker they represent them so the word of God plainly sincerely and without any crooked intention hearkened unto or read represents truly the will of God unto us but if we make this word a convex glass one swollen up with a bulk of pride or ambition to wrest it to our crooked senses then it represents the wil of God abridged shortned or lessened not entirely and plainely as it is in it selfe whence preachers must learne to be sincere and faithfull in the exposition of holy writ Againe as concave or hollow glasses placed against the Sun are apt to cast a heat and burne whatsoever combustible matter is neere them so the word of God looked on with an humble eye a dinted heart wherein it makes the hollow of a sweet impression sets on fire all the inordinate appetites to sinne burns up all the stubble of vicious inclinations and renders a soule burning bright in flames of love to Almighty God 25. By this verse it is cleer that the word of God is the glass here alluded unto because the Law of perfect liberty is that word of God the Law and life of Jesus Christ whereby we are made children of God not slaves to empty ceremonies onely as they under the slavish Law of Moses were he that hath looked fixedly not slightly into the glass of perfect liberty and hath remained in it not made a forgetfull hearer this man shall be blessed in his deed because his deed shal deserve a blessing by being such as this glass represents it should be note by perfect liberty is not here understood liberty to doe what we list so we beleeve aright as Luther hence pretended but first by liberty is here understood that which freeth us from the servility of the Mosaical Law next that which freeth us from the slavery to sinne and the devil thirdly that which freeth us from compulsion or feare but leaves us free to doe wel out of pure love to God not for fear of hel fourthly that liberty which by resurrection we shal have from death when we arise to life everlasting further by the close of this verse saying that man shall be blessed in his deed is meant he shal have the blessing here of grace in the next world of glory and that his blessing shal be given to his doing not to his contemplating what is to be done 26. By this place Saint James alludes to what he said in the nineteenth verse of this Epistle of being quick to heare and slow to speak and not to be angry for by the laxity of the tongue the hands are as it were tyed up from action and those men seldom do wel that are alwayes talking or vaunting in many words the little good they doe in deeds so that one kinde of doing the Law is a religious silence for religion imports as much as a binding up of the Law which consisteth in observing or doing it not in talking of it by the word bridling our tongues is insinuated as if the tongue were an unruly beast alwayes running away from reason unless bridled in thereby by seducing his heart is understood making it erre for a talking man seldome deceives others but often himselfe since they see the sin of petulance in his heart and so regard as little what he saith as himself doth what he speaks who is never doing wel whilest he speaketh too much or ill and such a mans religion is truly vaine by religion is here understood either that vertue of religion which makes a man render all his actions good towards God and his neighbor and is the first of moral vertues as charity is the first of divine ones or true Christianity profession of the true faith for even that is vaine if it be not made avayling by good workes annexed thereunto though here the Apostle his genuine sense is
For as the Act of separated souls is necessarily unalterable like those of Angels so the last Act they had when they were united to their bodies remains eternally and is not unproperly said to be the same Act continued for all eternity and therefore free for ever because at first freely produced when the soul was in state of a viatour and out of that issued into the better state of an impatriated spirit nay though Purgatory intervene yet that remora alters not the nature or freedome of the Act because soules there retain their love to God wherewith they dyed however they suffer for former infirmities of their life past The Application 1. WHat may be to our special and present use in this Gospel is to observe that Holy Church culls it out as the most proper to the now flowing Feast of Pentecost though spoken by our Saviour to his Disciples before his Passion as appears ver 29. above but with intention they should then make memory and use thereof when they had received the holy Ghost as consequently we must do at the celebrating this Festivity The main scope of this Gospel is exhorting us to believe and love and telling us the sign of true love is to keep the word of God and that the effect of this love will be to draw down into our soules the Holy Trinity Father Son and holy Ghost as delighting to live in the hearts of those who love the Son of God and shew their love by keeping his holy word 2. But here is a special stile observable in this Gospel very profitable to be reflected on which is that our Saviour seems here only to relate or speak as v. 25. 26. and to leave it to the Holy Ghost to suggest and teach the true meaning of what he said as if it were a speech too profound for his Disciples to dive into without the help of the holy Ghost If then our B. Lord the wisdome of his eternal Father and consequently the best spokes-man in the world would not what ere he could speak so plain to his Apostles themselves as to be understood by them before the coming of the holy Ghost to explicate his meaning how absurdly shall it be done in those that are ignorant Lay-men to dare to understand or interpret holy writ 3. Hence we must infer that we are bound in the first place to believe the holy Ghost to be coequal God with the Father and the Son who sent him since none but God can be of Gods counsel and tell men the meaning of Gods holy word Again we must infer that it is the love of God who now must teach â—s the meaning of Gods holy word and that they are our Wills our Hearts which now must be instructed more then our understandings for these the wisdome of God our Saviour taught by the sight of Faith those the love of God the holy Ghost now teacheth by the fire of charity so that however Faith Rectifies yet it is charity must saintifie the soul how ever Christ Redeemed us yet he was pleased to send the holy Ghost to save us by his sayntifying grace and alas what had it availed us once to have been by God the Father Created once to have been by God the Son Redeemed if we were not more then once by God the holy Ghost sayntified as oft indeed as by sin we are made uncapable of the benefits of our Creation or Redemption Come therefore Holy Ghost come teaching come inamouring come comforting come sayntifying come saving Spirit into the open hearts thou hast of Christians ready to receive thee ready to be inkindled with the flames of thy most holy Love And Praying to day as above most fitly to the sense of this Holy Text. On Trinity Sunday THis Sunday is both the Octave of Pentecost and also the First Sunday after it therefore this week we have the Epistles Gospels and Prayers of two Sundayes for our entertainment and these both if I mistake not the most delightfull of any in the whole year The Antiphon Matth. 28. v. 19. THee God the Father unbegotten thee onely begotten Son thee Holy Ghost Comforter thee holy and undivided Trinity with all our heart and mouth we Confesse we Praise thee we Blesse thee to thee be Glory world without end Vers Blessed art thou O Lord in the firmament of heaven Resp Both praise-worthy and glorious for ever The 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 Majesty to adore unity we beseech thee heartily that in the firmnesse of the same Faith we may ever be defended from all adversity The Illustration NOw the mysteries of our Redemption are compleat by the contribution of all the Three divine persons of the Blessed Trinity thereunto as of the Father sending his only Son to dye for us of the Son coming and actually dying for our sins and of the holy Ghost descending and sanctifying us with his holy grace to make us sin no more it is most necessary we should close up the said mysteries with a peculiar feast of the same Blessed Trinity and so put a glorious crown upon the work of our Redemption while we begin to work out our salvation from the first root thereof which is our Faith in the most Blessed and undivided Trinity a mystery so unheard of before Christ had taught it to the world that even to this day it is the hardest thing which can be told to men and the thing which the blessed Angels that behold it do not comprehend how the Divine Nature can be personally Trine which neverthelesse is essentially but One. In admiration whereof St. Paul in this dayes Epistle breaks out into a Triple Trinity of his expressing this Triunity saying O depth of the Riches of the wisdome and of the knowledge of God! Loe the first Who ever knew the sense of our Lord or who was ever of his Counsel or who gave first unto him and it shall be restored again Loe the second For of God by God and in God are all things Loe the last of his Triple expressions alluding all of them to the Blessed Trinity as by the Expositours of this Epistle we shall find and consequently must acknowledge it to be included in the Prayer above As also the Gospel is expressing how our B. Lord sent his mission of Apostles with commission to Baptize and teach all the world the mystery of this Blessed Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost So we have this day the best of harmonies in the mystical musick of this book while we find all three parts of holy Churches service to day so neatly woven into one the Epistle Gospel and Prayer all singing forth the praises of the most Blessed and undivided Trinity Father Son and holy Ghost three Divine Persons and one onely God Hitherto the mysteries of our Redemption were all upon
Simons desired him to bring it back a little from the land and sitting he taught the multitudes out of the ship 4 And as he ceased to speak he said to Simon Launch forth into the deep and let loose your nets to make a draught 5 And Simon answering said unto him Master labouring all the night we have taken nothing but in thy word I will let loose the net 6 And when they had done this they inclosed a very great multitude of fishes and their net was broken 7 And they beckened to their fellows that were in in the other ship that they should come and help them And they came and filled both ships so that they did sink 8 VVhich when Simon Peter did see he fell down at Jesus knees saying Go forth from me for I am a sinfull man O Lord. 9 For he was wholly astonished and all that were with him at the draught of fishes which they had taken 10 In like manner also James and John the Sonnes of Zebedee who were Simons fellows And Jesus said to Simon Fear not from this time now thou shalt be taking men 11 And having brought their ships to land leaving all things they followed him The Explication 1. THis Verse shewes the power of our Saviours preaching which drew after him multitudes of people it shewes also the sweetnesse of his doctrine and exhorts us Christians to flock in like manner after the preachers of his word the Priests of holy Church to presse upon them as these did upon Christ with zeal not curiosity By the lake of Genesareth is understood the world for as that lake was ever infested with huge winds and tempests so is the world continually filled with the noises of huge distractions huge troubles huge temptations huge dangers of eternal wrack against which it is a good safeguard to run after the preachers of holy Church and by their exhortations to have these tempests layd 2. By the two Ships may be understood the two sorts of Missioners those who are such by office and those who of charity are coadjutours to the former By the Fishers being gone down to wash their nets is intimated unto us that we cannot expect to catch soules to God in the muddy and foul nets of humane Invention but in the washed and clean net of the divine word as also that those who will hope to gain others to God must have themselves pure soules this is intimated by the story that tells us here when Christ came with intention to call these Fishermen to be his Apostles he took them in the best outward preparation to make them good spirituall Fishers that is when their nets were clean 3. His going into Simons ship argues that he made S. Peters chayr his Pulpit out of which himself preached when he converted S. Peter and by him and his fellow Apostles the whole world By his desiring Simon to go off a little from the shoar when he that was Lord and master of heaven and earth might have commanded it is insinuated that he did not desire his Vicar S. Peter nor his Successours should dominear over their flocks but by sweet entreaty draw them to what is fit to be done By drawing off from the land is intimated that a preacher should be in his pulpit as in another element from the world that is not so much as near the filth of it but in the clearer element of a better state of life and manners then the people and yet the preacher must not stand at too much distance neither from the people but be near that they may hear him and that he may come upon all occasions to help them Christs sitting and the peoples standing to hear him preach argues the authority of the master and the reverence the schollar ought to bear unto the word of God Many great Princes have formerly used this piety now every ordinary lay-man looks for a chayr to sit even when the preacher stands 4. As soon as he had done preaching he sets Peter a fishing to shew that after the Word of God is delivered unto us we ought to labour the putting it in execution according as we are taught By going into the deep to fish he intimates that preachers after their Sermon ought to fall into deep meditations and praises of Almighty God and beg that he will inable them to return to the like work again after that in the deep of contemplation they have prepared themselves for it But then the end of this verse tells the preachers they must cast out their nets for fish that is they must so preach and converse with the people of the world as to gain them like Fishes into the net of Gods service and it is a huge honour for the people to be thus caught or taken drawn out of the waters of confusion and sin into the net of order discipline and grace 5. S. Peters reply argues his huge Faith which overcame his diffidence after his whole nights lost labour And this nightly vain labour argues the fruitlesse preaching of those Priests who go to that office out of self conceipt or vain glory as all do that have no true vocation But then to go when Christ not onely bids us as here but accompanies too that is to obey as S. Peter did and to have like hope as he had rather in the assistance of the commander then in the own abilities of the preacher 6. See the effect of this Faith and obedience what a multitude of Fish it brings in whereof some are permanently content to be so happily brought in to Gods Church others as Hereticks Schismaticks Apostates break the net will keep within no law of God or holy Church but give law to themselves or rather take liberty to live without all law So by this net we see is understood the bounds of the Catholike Church 7. By their beckning to their fellowes in the other ship is signified their exclamation and noise of admiration to see so huge and unexpected a draught was so great that they could not hope to be heard but by signes made means to be understood to desire help And by this their desire of help we that succeed them are taught never to presume that we alone are able to comply with the great calling of Apostolical Missionaries but shall do well to require help of any devout neighbours or fellow Missioners By these that came to help them we may piously understand that not onely our fellow Fishermen of the Clergy but also the religious orders of Gods Church were prefigured who are indeed excellent fellow-Missioners or Fishers to help to catch soules to God and come when they are called as coadjutours to those who by office have care of soules which were both hinted in the second verse of this chapter see the glosse thereon as above O that we could once see this happy this brotherly concurrence in Gods service then would the ship of Christ his holy Church almost sink
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
the vice of a persecuter which was in none but himself though more may be attributed to his doing as much in a lesse time as the rest did in longer space being he was last called With me that is laboureth with me and not as the Heretickes translate the grace which is with me or in me I not laboring my self but relying on the past labours of Christ thus vainly they but the holy Church understands the Apostle to mean his joynt labour with the grace of God The Application 1. St. Paul in this Epistle recapitulates the arguments by which he brought the Corinthians to believe the hardest point of Faith that then was agitated the resurrection of our Saviour for it was upon preaching that doctrine this Apostle was chiefly persecuted and for defence whereof he suffered martyrdome 2. But as we see this Epistle in the beginning requires that charity accompany the faith of this great mystery so in the close thereof humility attends on charity while S. Paul first calls himself an abortive and the least of the Apostles more one not worthy of that celebrated Name nor daring to ascribe unto himself the fruits of any his greatest labours but attributing all to the grace of God effectually operating in him all those things whereunto he thought himself did very poorly cooperate Thus must faith and humility accompany our charity in her now long march to Advent in all her way to Judgement it self 3. What can be the result of this mystery other then that which naturally followes the unexpected proof of the least expected and most unbelieved thing in all the world the Resurrection of our Saviour A joy no doubt ineffable in those that were his friends and had no hand in any of his sufferings and a confusion on the other side in all that had contributed unto his death a sorrow and a fear if not a deep despair indeed that their sinne of Deicide was sure enough unpardonable So should it be with us beloved who although we cannot kill our Christ again yet do attempt to crucifie him by the very least of many mortall sinnes that we commit against his heavenly Majesty notwithstanding our own conscience tells us we doe therein worse then ever did the Jewes for they pretended zeal in all they did whereas we know we sinne for want of zeal for want of love to him who died for love of us What remedy but that which holy Church to day hath found when we hear the Preachers tell us of the frights and feares the sadnesse and confusion of the Jewes in such a case that then We pray not onely as we did on Sunday last to have Gods mercy multiplyed but even powred out upon us as his precious bloud was powred upon the Jewes that by such a showre of mercy the sinnes our conscience fears may be pardoned and the favours we dare not aske may be granted for the reasons given in the preamble of the Prayer and in the end of the Illustration above The Gospel Mark c. 7. v. 31. 31 And again going out of the coasts of Tyre he came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee through the middest of the coast of Decapolis 32 And they bring to him one deaf and dumb and they besought him that he would impose his hands upon him 33 And taking him from the multitude apart he put his fingers into his eares and spitting touched his tongue 34 And looking up unto heaven he groaned and said to him Epheta which is be opened 35 And immediately his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosened and he spake right 36 And he commanded them not to tell any body but how much he commanded them so much the more a great deal did they publish it 37 And so much the more did they wonder saying He hath done all things well he hath made both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak The Explication 31. THis literall narration of Christ going from coast to coast and by the Sea side alludeth to the change which grace maketh in those who follow the calling of Almighty God that they must leave their former customes and go by new coasts even rough and dangerous seas of persecution up mountains of dangers and difficulties to enjoy the quiet of a good conscience 32. By deaf understand mystically those who will not obey the commands of God and holy Church by dumbe those who will not praise Almighty God in their actions nor in their thoughts but like mutes spend their time in silencing Gods praises They ask him to lay his hands on them because they had experience he did use to cure the diseased by that means 33. He tooke him apart because this corporall cure alludes to the conversion of the soul and the best means of conversion to God is an aversion from the world a retyring from evill company By his fingers put into the deaf mans eares understand the holy Ghost opening the infidels understanding and making him believe the word of God when he hears it Besides the holy Ghost is often intimated by the finger of God as Ex. 8.19 alibi By spitting here is meant Christ his wetting his own finger with his own spittle so notes the Greek Text not that he did spit into the dumb mans mouth And Christ his spittle is not an unfit cure of dumbnesse since by the moisture of the tongue speech is much perfected and aridity is an impediment to speech Thus even God works miracles by the aptest instruments in nature for them 34. By his looking to heaven we are minded that from thence comes all the power we have to heare the word of God and to speak his praise By his groaning he showes how God seems to lament the miseries of those souls which are infected with the contagion of sin By his saying Epheta be thou open to the deaf ear he shewes himself to be God as curing by command 35. No marvel God commanding the cure was done but by his speaking right we are told the cure was perfectly done and not palliated And indeed then it is most evident Gods operation is perfect in us when it brings us from wrong to right from sick to sound but mystically when from sinners we are brought to be right perfected Saints and surely needs must he speak right whom God had cured of his dumbnesse Though some will have it hence that this man was not quite dumb but had onely a stammering in his speech or a weaknesse in that organ not suffering him to speak plain but to babble as children do that first learn to speak Yet by right speaking may here be well understood the cured mans speaking perfectly the praises of God and rightly glorifying his Divine Majesty thereby 36. The word command here is not to be taken strictly or arguing a precept but rather a request so there was no sin in breaking it but rather as S. Augustine insinuates a virtue and that obedience too for
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
meant a servile one neither such as servants are in towards their Masters but a filial one such as Children are in towards their Parents For then we best fear Christ when we love him most so by the fear of Christ is here understood also the love of him which makes us subject our selves to those superiours whom he hath placed over us Note lastly though superiours may and must bear a commanding hand outwardly over their Subjects yet they may and must to be perfect be even subject that is think themselves inferiour to their own Subjects in the sight of God as if God were better pleased with the Subjects obedience then with the superiours commands for this latent subjection is compatible even with open superiority and in this sense the Apostles words requiring all perfection in both parties may exhort to an absolute mutual subjection unto one another in the fear of Christ The Application 1. SAint Paul in the three first Verses of this Epistle exhorts the Ephesians to a wary and wise walking because the dayes are evil And least they should not understand what he meant by this he concludes those are wary and wise steps which are made according to the will of God In the fourth Verse he dehorts from Drunkenness and Riots but allows Repletion with the spirit In the three last Verses he shews evident signes of spiritual repletion as singing forth the praises of God and giving him thanks in the Name of his sacred Son who hath set us in so sweet a way of government as that our subjection to one another is without all fear but that of offending Jesus Christ 2. What can our charity cull out of this but that she ought to day so warily so wisely to walk as if she were passing some narrow stony Lane full of Thorns so that every step she made must be with hazard of a trip or stumble if not of salling too or at least of running a thorn into her foot and crippling her self And such she may presume the passage is when either the stone of scandall lies in her way or the briar of vainglory in her own actions that are good and laudable for in such occasions she must first by prayer indeavour to understand the will of God which never allows of scandalizing others under the fairest pretext that can be made of doing good He that says Wo be to the world from scandals knew it was not onely the ruine of him that gave it but of all that took it And when we read that to God alone is due all honour and glory we are forbid to arrogate either of them to our selves for that were to set up a Pew or seat for the Devil in the Quier of Jesus Christ and to sing the Dirge of our own damnation instead of praising and glorifying God for having done that good work in us which he is ready to crown with our salvation if we shall religiously ascribe all praise to him all blame to our selves To conclude then we are rightly subject to man according to the will of God when we dare displease the first to please the last saying with the Apostle If I should yet seek to please men I were not the servant of God meaning in those things onely where man commands against the will of God 3. But holy Church is not content to point us out our way to tell us what we are to do she further is solicitous to beg of God that he will give us grace to do as we are taught and this she begs to day so artificially as if she hop'd to prevent all sin by asking pardon for it ere it were committed under pretence that God would never suffer right believers to be other then faithfull lovers too exact performers of his holy will so far as in them lay Yet because our Beings are forc'd out of the Nothing that we were before God made us Be therefore all our actions so far as they are ours tend to the Nothing that we were for which cause holy Church gives it for granted all we do must needs be Nothing for so we may well call sin and therefore without scruple she begs a pardon for mistreading even in her most wary walking she begs a peace before the war be made to shew she makes a war against her will at least while she sins of frailty not of malice and thence petitions that being by the grace of God purg'd from the guilt of all offence she may serve his divine Majesty securely with a contented soul such as freed from fear of any thing but sin and flying that can like the early Lark rise from the earth singing the praises of Almighty God Say now the Prayer above and see if it import not full as much as this The Gospel Iohn 4. v. 46. c. 46 And there was a certain Lord whose Son was sick at Capharnaam 47 And having heard that Jesus came from Jury into Galilee he went to him and desired him that he would come down and heal his Son for he began to die 48 Jesus therefore said to him unless you see signes and wonders you believe not 49 The Lord saith to him Lord come down before that my Son die 50 Jesus said to him go thy Son liveth the man believed the word that Jesus said to him and went 51 And as he was going down his servants met him and they brought word saying that his Son lived 52 He asked therefore of them the hour wherein he was amended and they said to him that yesterday at the seventh hour the Feaver left him 53 The father therefore knew that it was in the same hour wherein Jesus said to him thy Son liveth and himself believed and his whole house The Explication 46. SAint Irenaeus will have the Centurion of whom Saint Matthew speaks in his eighth Chapter to be this Lord whom here Saint John mentions but it is more probable to be another because that Centurion did believe by the motive of this precedent cure and seeing Christ ready to go to his servant stopt him and said he needed not give himself the trouble of that labour but it would suffice if he did command the cure by a word of his mouth Matth. 8.8 whereas this Lord presseth Christ to go Again that Centurion asked the cure of a Palsie this Lord of a Feaver That Christ going and almost coming near him cured this he did not go unto nor stir towards Hence this must needs be a different cure from that and was indeed precedent to it as we said above 47. Note this Lord went from Capharnaam to Cana in Galilee fourteen Leagues off out of the fame he had heard of Christ his great cures but not believing this was done by any other then humane means he asked him rather as a famous Doctour then as otherwise qualified to come unto his son and cure him or if he did believe he could cure by touching the diseased yet he did not
believe the touch of his vertue was sufficient unless he added thereunto the touch of his person so he pressed him to go personally to his son 48. Be the opinion of the Lord what it will concerning Christ his power whether as Doctour or as God that he did his cures certain it is Christ his meaning was to bring men by the fame of his works to believe in his Deity and therefore he replies to this Lord as if he must have signes and wonders done to work belief into him Note that signes and wonders thus differ the first are properly done in and by nature gently operating as curing diseases which need not any power above nature the second is commonly miraculous and is therefore done by a power exceeding natures force of this sort is raising the dead So by wonders here are understood miracles and all little enough to make the Jews believe 49. It seems by this reply the Lord shewed himself to be rather of the Jewish then of the Samaritan that is of the Gentiles race for you see he believes in no virtual but will have an actual touch to cure his son lest he die for want of such a touch and no Nation so hard of belief as the Jewish 50. O strange clemency in our Saviour he rebukes no more but by yielding to humane infirmity confirms this Lord in the belief of his Deity for the more he doubted of Christ his power to be able at a distance to cure his son the more he must admire to see it done at the same distance and the more he admires at the thing done the better he thinks of the power doing it and the stronger is his faith in him that gives testimony of such a power Lo by this art our Saviour converts this Infidel by doing at a distance what the other thought was impossible so to be done whereupon our Saviour sayes to him Go thy son liveth that is as much as to say he is cured and shall live Now though this Lord did not sufficiently believe in Christ his distantial operative virtue yet he nothing doubted of his presential veracity but firmly believed what he said or promised here would undoubtedly be verified and made good there where his son was Hence the Text sayes he believed and went to enjoy the hopes of his belief by finding him well for the words of our Saviour were not onely affirmative or enunciative but operative too that is did effect the thing they declared to be done and this effect the Lord did confidently believe So by this means Christ wrought two miracles one in curing the corporal sickness of the son the other in curing the spiritual disease of the father his infidelity and it may not be wide of the sense to say the later cure prevailed to obtein the first for it seems the child proved well just at the time the father did believe he should find him so when he came home 51. 52. These two verses seem to tell us onely for they import little else besides this remarkable sign of Gods goodnesse to prevent the father in the satisfaction he expected by ordaining his servants should meet him and give him the certainty thereof and thereby the reward of his belief soone then he did expect it which was not before he had seen his son well at home but now he finds it is true ere he gate unto his house much lesse unto his son for it seems they were come the day before from home since they told him he was yesterday recovered to meet their master with this gladsome tidings of his sons recovery Yes indeed God is so good he rather anticipates then protracts his servants rewards when they do well 53. The reason why the exact hour of the childs recovery was enquired after by the father was to satisfie his family as well as himself that this was a miraculous and not a natural cure since the child lying at the point of death was proved to recover just at the instant wherein our Saviour said he lived or which is here all one that he was well for it was proper enough to speak this later by the former words since the father had told our Saviour his son began to dye was actually agonizing or dying whereupon Christ told him he did live as who should say there was not in him any danger of death And since this danger was prevented by the virtue onely of a word out of our Saviours mouth spoken at that minute when it was doubted whether he were dead or alive so dangerous a case he was in those who heard of this prodigious alteration upon the meer and sole prolation of a word were immediately converted and became as faithful believers in our Saviours Deity as their Lord and Master was so every way is it true that God his works are absolutely perfect Deut. 32. v. 4. since here we see by the force of one onely word of God the father son and all the family became of Jewes good Christians and doubtlesse so continued and so dyed having the same their converter who was their Saviour and who questionlesse converted them to save them all To conclude if we will understand this story mystically we may conceive this Lord to be the soul of man called little King as being allied to the King of heaven his sick son to be his depraved will his servants his corporeal senses his ague his inordinate appetites or desires This soul sick as above is cured by Christ in holy baptisme and made of a petty King of an heir to the world a great King indeed an heir to the Kingdome of heaven her cure is said to be perfected at the seventh hour because the number seven is a type of the Sabbath or day of rest or of the seven-fold healing Spirit of God the Holy Ghost conveyed into our soules by the seven Sacraments while in them his holy grace is bestowed on us or of the number seven divided into three and four betokening the mystery of the sacred Trinity dispersed into and reigning over all the four corners of the world East West North and South The Application 1. SInce the story of this Gospel is all parabolical and concludes that in recompence of this Lords faith his sick son was cured and his whole family with himself was converted to the faith of Christ we that have already the happinesse to be of this faith are taught yet by this parable how to perfect it upon all occasions by producing frequent and deeper acts thereof then as yet we have done For here in this Lord we see three degrees of Faith the first that faint one when he besought our Saviour to come to his house and cure his son the second that stronger one when after Christ had bid him go for that his son was well then he believed the touch of his power was equal to that of his person and the third that strongest of all which made him go