thence retrive that sweet connexion we are at a seeming losse of and shall conclude the key we want to open this connexion lyes hidden in the preamble of this Prayer in the very courtship we use when we call upon God as moderating at once heavenly and earthly Things that is making the earthly obedient to his will when he pleaseth to have them suitable to those that are heavenly Things Thus water by the heavenly will of God became this day wine thus all the materiall parts of this dayes service became as it were immateriall that is to say spirituall Thus the Temporall gifts mentioned in the Epistle of Prophecy Ministery Teaching Exhorting Ruling Mercy Love Joy Hope Patience Prayer Almes Hospitality Vnanimity and Humility are made spirituall in being ordained to a spirituall end by conformity in us earthly creatures to the will of our Creator which is effected by vertue of that moderation God hath set between heaven and earth when he so moderates humane minds and actions as they become subservient to his heavenly will Thus carnall pleasure between man and wife is in them limited by Gods holy grace moderating the excesse and intemperance in that pleasure which indeed carnall men commit but spirituall men avoid God moderating fleshly appetites in them so as they shall not intrench upon spirituall duties but give way to serving God though with abridgement of their own delights and this is done when Saint Pauls counsell is followed Let those that have wives be as if they had none 1 Cor. c. 7. v. 29. when God Almighties service so requires as when attending first to prayer they afterwards return to the same corporall pleasure they forsook to pray and this is called a spirituall continence even in the bed of incontinency not as that term imports sin but as it argues lesse perfection than virginity or absolute containing from all corporall commixture but further and more prodigiously yet this miraculous moderation between heavenly and earthly Things is seen when married people have liberty allowed them for their due and seasonable mutuall pleasures with one another and yet withall at the same instant they have a limit set them beyond which they must not passe but like to flowing Seas must ebbe just at their own bounds and fall to the low-water of a non-temptation towards any other carnall pleasure than between themselves Here I say if ever more eminently than other it doth appear God moderates heavenly and earthly Things at once for here is a kind of continuall miracle betwâ—en man and wife when Saint Pauls counsell is followed as above and since the Story of this dayes Gospel runs upon a marriage and the Prayer concludes with begging peace here is the grant of that petition when man and wife thus moderated live happily together not defrauding one another here is further that peace granted to all sorts of Christians when they apply the Temporall gifts recited in the Epistle to spirituall to heavenly ends and when in the prayer we say Grant us thy peace in our dayes it is no lesse than the peace of that God who at once moderates heavenly and earthly things which we demand Now if any would dive further into that peace let them look back to the seventh verse in the Epistle on the Third Sunday of Advent and to the Explication thereof There they shall see how ravishing how plentifull a peace it is And having thus wrought out our design of connexion here where it was so seeming hard at first but now to flowing from every part like honey from the Combes of this dayes Epistle and Gospel upon the bread of the Prayer let us never despair of as good successe all the year along nor can there be a sweeter Prayer than this thus glossed and in this sense reiterated as often as we find reluctancy in us between nature and grace For then thus to call upon God as moderatour between heaven and earth is to quell all rebellion of nature against grace which God grant we may doe by praying as above The Epistle ROM 12. ver 6. c. 6. ANd having gifts according to the grace that is given us different either prophecy according to the rule of Faith 7. Or ministery in ministring or he that teacheth in doctrine 8. He that exhorteth in exhorting he that giveth in simplicity he that ruleth in carefulnesse he that sheweth mercy in cheerfulnesse 9. Love without simulation hating evill cleaving to good 10. Loving the charity of the Brotherhood one toward another with honour preventing one another 11. In carefulnesse not sloathfull in spirit fervent serving our Lord. 12. Rejoycing in hope patient in tribulation instant in prayer 13. Communicating to the necessities of the Saints pursuing hospitality 14. Blesse them that persecute you Blesse and Curse not 15. To rejoyce with them that rejoyce to weep with them that weep 16. Being of one mind one towards another not minding high things but consenting to the humble The Explication IN regard there was reference made to this place on Sunday last concerning the rule of Faith therefore we shall here take hold of the last part of this verse first and having premised what is peculiarly necessary upon this which is hugely controversiall we shall then proceed in our wonted manner for expounding the rest of the Text. We are therefore here to note That by the Rule of Faith is not understood onely the Apostles Creed branched into twelve Articles as we have received it from age to age but a set Form of life delivered by word of mouth unto the People by the Apostles who had first held Counsels about it amongst themselves and stood resolved all their teaching should be conformable thereunto And this Rule is not as Hereticks will have it the holy Scripture written by the Apostles for this Rule was made long before any Scripture was written and it was never delivered abroad but by word of mouth in their preaching and exhortations so it is properly called the Apostolicall Tradition which is yet even unto this very day the Rule of Faith to the whole Catholick Church to the Decrees of all Councels to the sense or exposition of the holy Scriptures and consequently Scripture cannot be as Hereticks pretend the sole Rule of Faith though true it is there must be nothing nor is there any thing at all in holy Writ contrary to this Rule or Apostolicall Tradition which was much larger than the written Word and therefore it ever was and still is even to the sacred Word a kind of Rule or Test to try it by since before the Apostles issued out their written books of Scripture those books were examined by this Rule of Faith which was framed by common consent of the whole number or Colledge of Apostles whereas all of them did not write nay two onely of the twelve were Evangelists or Writers of the Gospels for Saint Mark and Saint Luke the other two Evangelists were not dignified with the stile
no common Priviledge allowed to others that can be held too great for me in particular But lest the common Reader should be lost in this discourse that begs a School-prerogative I shall crave leave of the more learned to give unto the lesse intelligent examples of those three severall wayes how one thing is included in another As formally when the included doth denominate the includer So we say whiteness is in a wall that is white because whiteness is the form which gives the wall that denomination Virtually when effects are included in their causes as the Son in his Father as the greatest Tree or fairest fruit in the little seed thereof Eminentially when the creatures are contained in the Creator which last kind is the most excellent way of any thing being contained in another because the creature is more perfect in the Creator then any effect is in the virtuall cause thereof or any form in the subject which it denominates Or then indeed the creature is in it self where we find a world of imperfections though in God there can be none at all so to be eminentially contained in a thing is a more noble and excellent way of being included then either virtually or formally to be contained is And thus now and then wee shall find the Word of God to be as it were eminentially contained in the Churches prayers because in them the Holy Ghost seems to communicate himself most like himself most spiritually of all when by the spirit of prayer he opens the sense of the letter in the holy Writ And no marvell since our Saviour left his own sacred Word to the Exposition of the Holy Ghost who was sent on purpose to teach the world all truth upon all occasions of debate about the meaning of the Text. For as Christ is the word of his eternall Father so the Scripture is the word of Christ and so the prayers of Holy Church are the word of the Holy Ghost setting an eminentiall ground of harmonious musick unto the dayly descant of the Epistles and Gospels of the day since wee see the Antiphons commonly taken thence are still prefixt before the Prayer to shew how one reports unto the other Now if in this First Tome it happens here and there that some one Sundayes work bee longer then another yet there is not any so long which may not with much ease bee read in seven dayes and studyed diligently to thence to make the benefit of reading by a little meditation upon every Verse Nor have I suffered some of those Sundayes to passe much shorter then the rest namely those in the third Part of this Tome both because that Part alone containeth almost half the Sundayes in the year as also because I did there indeed begin this work in that brief way which afterwards I did inlarge because I was loath to lose so much sweetness of devotion as the larger Exposition of the Text affords And if any part shall prove lesse pleasant then other let me beseech the Reader to consider That as in Preachers there are three signall Faculties whereof any one renders the owner excellent Namely To teach To move To delight So it is in Books for these are all well written wherein some one at least of those three faculties throughout the Book appears either that of teaching what is true and solid Doctrine That of moving to amendment of our lives or that of delighting us with a sweet delivery of what is written whether it be by the eloquence of language or by the quaintness of conceit in which the Writer doth expresse his mind it imports not much and albeit I cannot boast of happiness in any one of these three faculties yet I will hope to have taken such advantage in the contriving of this Book that what is any where wanting in me will bee supplyed by the Authority of Texts both out of Holy Writ and out of the Expositors upon the same Thus having run over the parts of the Primmer whereunto I aim to adopt the whole work of these three Tomes intended thereupon I shall now desire the Reader to take such an account as I am able to give him of the Parts of this my present Book consisting of Antiphons Versicles Responsories Prayers Epistles and Gospels as for the Illustrations and Applications they being wholly mine the little that is already said thereof above is more then enough unlesse any thing I can doe were more considerable The Explications being all of them in substance though not in words the Fathers glosse upon the holy Text have their worth and authority in themselves more then I can add unto them Onely I desire the Reader to know I rather chose Cornelius à Lapide then any other Expositor both because he hath written largely upon all the Books of Holy Writ which do occur in the Churches Service throughout the year and because his Morals are more for my pious purpose then the other more literall Glosses would have been of more speculative Authors though withall he falls not short of the literal sense where it is requisite to follow it First therefore as to the Antiphons True it is they are now and then taken from some other Part of Holy Writ then commonly they use to be As for example That on the first Sunday of Advent is out of S. Luke Cap 1. v. 30. whereas the Epistle of that dayes service is taken from S. Paul Rom. 13. And the Gospel from S. Luke cap. 21. but the reason is that in this Antiphon the Church reports to the mystery of the Incarnation which must needs precede that of our Saviours Birth so here respect unto the Time or Season hath prevailed for omitting the usuall way of ordering the Antiphons before the Prayer and for the same reason the Anthiphon also on the Third Sunday of Advent varies in this manner to being taken out of Saint Luke cap. 1. v. 41. whereas the Gospel on that day is out of S. John cap. 1. v. 19. and so the prayer is answerable thereunto Thus for respect unto the Persons praying in those dayes as now the Church would have us do The Antiphon on the fourth Sunday of Advent alludes much to the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets manner of calling upon the Messias to come away after so long an expectation of him as four thousand years together hence that Antiphon is then taken as it were out of those ancient Patriarchs mouths rather then from the Epistle or Gospel of the day and therefore it is alwayes one of the seven great Os or exclamatory prayers of the holy Prophets groaning and crying out with an impatience of delay in the Messias our B. Saviour being born And these are the onely Three Antiphons in all the year that are not taken out of the Epistles and Gospels of the Divine Service proper to their day As for the Antiphon on Palme Sunday though it be not in that Gospell wihch I have here inserted in
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 CHRISTIAN SODALITY OR Catholick Hive of Bees Sucking The Hony of the CHURCHES Prayers from the Blossomes of the Word of God blowne out of the Epistles and Gospels of the Divine Service throughout the yeare Collected by the Puny Bee of all the Hive not worthy to be named otherwise than by these Elements of his Name F. P. Divided into three Tomes whereof this the first Tome onely upon the Sundayes And that subdivided into three Parts The First From Advent to Lent The Second From Lent to Whitsontide The Third From Whitsontide to Advent That of one mind with one mouth you may glorifie God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 15. Vers 6. Printed in the year of our Lord MDCLII To the Honourable Walter Mountague Esquire all health and happinesse SIR IT might argue I did acquiesce too much to flesh and bloud should I dedicate this book to any of my Kindred and least it seeme presumption in me to consecrate it unto you I must beseech you to believe 't is none of mine You know I have a gallant Master for this self-deniall who said His Doctrine was not His which yet none could lay claime unto besides his sacred self How justly then may I professe this book is not mine own being all of it upon the matter either Holy Churches Prayers or Holy Text or Holy Fathers Expositions on the same And as such it is rather your Defence than any waies in need of your Protection Now least you should reply I give it then unjustly as mine own to you and more unjustly begg your Patronage thereof as of a stollen Treasure I must confesse it is indeed a pious theft but such an one as the thiefe may take at noone day from the Coffers of the Church without a Sacrifice without a blush though all the world were lookers on and such as you may safely both receive and Patronize with as small remorse as men doe Hony brought unto the Hives which openly the Bees have stollen from the mellifluous flowers of other mens Gardens as I have done the sweet Connexion that I found between the Churches Prayers and Text of Holy Writ when I assay to shew the self-same Spirit annimates them all and makes them speak one sence in diverse Languages or Dialects And this sympathy between the parts of Holy Churches service is what I here present to you as my observation rather than my worke for had it not been there before I could not now have found it out if yet I may not rather feare I loose it when I look to find it by making it appeare lesse than it is for want of being able to shew it to the full But I will not tell you by how many titles I intitle this to you least I force the Lillyes of your modestie to change complexion with the Roses of your other Virtues or least I seeme to flatter you who are not to be flattered and therefore I shall rather silence my obligations to you than betray the secrets of your bounties which your left cannot accuse your right hand of although they both are stealing merrit whilst they give their Almes in ample manner unknown to one another as he well advised who knew the best way how to make benevolences meritorious nor shall I boast your more than ordinary favours showred upon me other waies as tyes to make me give you these my labours abstracting therefore from all self-relation and looking onely on the nature of this booke I find not any man more fit to Patronize it than your selfe because as it associates all the CHRISTIANS of the universe into one SODALITIE so you that are Eminent in making every man your owne will be the greatest help to this Association which I have founded on the Word of God and Prayers of Holy Church two subjects that I know not any one more versed in than you witnesse the excellent store of both which your Missive and your Misscelania doe afford wherein you shew your selfe not onely to have the Scripture lodg'd within your heart but even the genuine sense thereof ingrafted in your understanding as appears by your admirable Explications of the Texts and Applications of them to the purpose that you cite them for which as it was a motive for me to imitate you in so in justice it obligeth me to consecrate this book to you whose whole designe is either Notion or the use of the Holy Text. Againe Sir I looke upon you as a man designed to some thing more than yet the World is privie to for your Pauline Conversion makes me think you are the Vessell of Election which our Nation may one day hope to see as overflowing as I know you are now full of Eminent Perfections this I professe I doe not mind you of to puffe you up with self-conceit for of your self it is with you as with the rest of men made up of nothing but corruption and infirmity but to humble you rather to see how much of Grace doth shine upon the dunghill of Humane Nature while your Conversion from infidelity workes in you an aversion from all singularity and renders you a man partiall to none beneficiall to all that know you even unto those that are above you to who fare the better for your virtues while their Temporalls are raised from the spirituall foundations you have laid Thus from the Court unto the Cart from the Prince unto the Begger God hath adapted you to all his Holy Ends and therefore I that aime at Unanimity in this Sodality at Unity in our Community let me attest for this the Motto of my Book Saint Pauls words to the Romanes CHAP. 15. Vers 6. have made a right addresse when I petition you to Patronize my Labours in aggregating this SODALITIE who are one man most acceptable to all for your Equality or rather Equanimity to every one as if you were Omnibus omnia factus And seriously Sir I doe honour you most for the impartiality of your affections for that you are not biassed so as to runne one way but can and doe plie unto the mark of loving all in him whom all must love which way soever you are throwne upon request of this or that body Rich or Poore Clarke or Lay-man Secular or Regular Priest so much that I believe if I had failed of this my duty in choosing you for Patron of my Book I had been chidden for mistaking in my choyce of him whom all men would have voted for as well as I the design of this SODALITY and your simpathie to that design considered Please therefore I beseech you Sir to Patronize these labours of your humble Servant who am all your own and who beg your Patronage of this first Tome for one reason more than I have heer expressed or then is known as yet to any but my self which you will well approve of when you see to whom the next Tome shall bee consecrated as this is now to you
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
words of the Prophet Isaias are above explicated in the Present tense for the reasons alledged yet they were fitly spoken in the future and prophetically too by Isaias when he foretold what Iohn should say to us in the present tense at his coming or else Isaias might begin with the Baptists voice to say of him prophetically I am the voice of one crying in the Wilderness prepare the wayes of our Lord. Though if in this future tense we allow even the Baptist also to speak it will not be unproper to him for however his principle Office be that of forerunner or pointer out of our Saviour to be the long expected Messias come at last now standing in the midst of them yet he may in a secondary respect be allowed the Title and Office of a Prophet also telling us for the future what will follow if we believe in Christ and cast our cares upon him namely that all shall goe well with us both in the outward and inward man since our Saviour avowes him to be a Prophet though not onely such but more his Fore-runner his humane Angel going before the face of his Divine Humanity to tell us that this Man-Divine Christ Iesus was true God as well as Man who came to redeem and save the whole world The Application 1. AS the Epistle so the Gospel to bids us prepare the way for Iesus his Nativity alluded to all over but clearly mentioned in the close of the Gospel while the Fore-runner of our Lord is set before our eyes to day giving Instructions how to demean our selves in the Sacrament of Confession whereunto the Baptisme of Pennance unto Remission of Sins preached by the Baptist here alludes 2. How that Confession shall be rightly made is told in the penultime or last Verse but one of the Gospell doe as the Exposition of it bids and it will be rightly done at least prepare for it now that you may performe it well at Christmas 3. Now that we may doe this see if the holy Church could frame a fitter Prayer than what She sayes to day If not Then say it as above and so confess there is an admirable Harmony between the Preaching and the Praying parts of holy Churches services On Sunday within the Octaves of the Nativity The Antiphon LUKE 1. ver 25. THe Child Jesus did profit in age and wisdome before God and Man Vers The word became Flesh Allelujah Resp And dwelt in us Alleluja NOte this Antiphon above being much to the same purpose with the 40. Verse of this Chapter which is the last in this dayes Gospel I doe not change it though differing a little from that because I find it thus appointed by the Church The Prayer OMnipotent Sempiternall God direct our actions in thy good pleasure that in the Name of thy Beloved Son we may deserve to abound in Good Works The Illustration HOly Church hath hitherto taught us in our Prayers to Court down God from Heaven and now he is come unto us little in Appearance great in Power an Infant amongst men see how this day our Prayer make Infants of us too such as know not which way to turn but are glad to beg directions of Almighty God that our Actions may be done according to his will and pleasure or rather that his holy will may be our actions for so the words of the Prayer import when we beg that God will direct our actions in his good pleasure as who should say if he so please they shall be well done nor can we indeed please him in our doings if he doe not please to doe well in us For our actions are more his than our own insomuch that when we love God or please him he rather loves and pleaseth himself in us than that we of our selves can love or please his Divine Majesty by any thing we are able to doe And thus we see how with our new-born Iesus we pray like Infants unable to help our selves and for this purpose both the Epistle and Gospel of the day run upon infantile actions the former shewing us that men by Adoption of Grace became new-born Babes of God who were before ancient slaves of the Devill and telling us further how infants must be nurtured and tutoured up even by their own servants as long as they are under age The latter relating how our infant Iesus was this day presented to his Heavenly Father in the Temple as the first gratefull present humane nature durst make a tender of to his offended Majesty in hope thereby to appease his wrath and so confident we are that this will be a present appeasing as well as pleasing that we have no sooner offered him up to his Heavenly Father then we grow bold not onely in the name of this his beloved you to beg we may doe well but presume to hope that in his Name we may even deserve to abound in good workes and with good reason because we acknowledge this infant of Time to be coequal and coeternal God with his Eternal Father and consequently what we doe in his Name since it is more principally done by him than us may merrit the reputation of being abundantly well done and thus we doing it also may deserve to abound in good Works even such as shall not want the happinesse of a plentiful reward of grace in this life and of glory in the next But so that all our desert or merit must be still in his Name as the Prayer professeth inconsequence to what was said upon the close of the two first Prayers in this Book The Epistle GAL. 4. ver 1. c. 1. ANd I say as long as the Heir is a little one he differeth nothing from a Servant although he be Lord of all 2. But is under Tutors and Governours untill the time limited of the Father 3. So we also when we were little ones were serving under the elements of the World 4. But when the fulness of time came God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the Law 5. That he might redeeme them that were under the Law that they might receive the Adoption of Sons 6. And because you are Sons God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father 7. Therefore now he is not a servant but a a son and if a son an heir also by God The Explication 1. ST Paul had in the precedent Chapter told the Galathians that the old Law of the Jews was a Paedagogue or Usher rather to the new Law of Christ and so was to cease when the new Law came This doctrine he follows now here closely saying The Jewes that were the chosen people of God his first begotten as it were and so his heirs were by all the help of their Lawes but as little ones in the sight of God that is as children or infants wanting maturity of yeares and ripenesse of judgement to govern themselves and thus were nothing different from servants
at least the Blessed Virgin was not ignorant of what they now marvelled at but that the transcendency of the things they were thinking of and hearing did renew in their mindes the memory of the Miracle so often as they thought upon them yet some think even the Blessed Virgin though she did know our Saviour was to be the Redeemer of the Jewes did not perhaps know he was to be so to the Gentiles the which Simeon did here prophecy and further that he was to be a Ruine to some a Resurrection to many in Israell and a signe which should be contradicted 34. We are to note Simeons Blessing here was rather to the Parents of Jesus than to him their child because it had been too great a boldness for him to blesse whom he by Revelation knew to be his Saviour and his God The reason why Simeon addressed his speech to Mary was because shee was really and truly the naturall mother of our blessed Lord and Ioseph was but his reputed father That it is equally said Christ was set unto the ruine and unto the resurrection of many in Israel doth not argue it was equally meant for hee was the ruine of the incredulous by accident onely but he was by decree the resurrection of all that believe in him and obey his Law and their own incredulity who believed not was their direct ruine he was but indirectly the cause thereof By the sign which shall be contradicted some understand the person of Christ who was not onely the mark of their detracting tongues but even of their tormenting hands when they aimed at him by the stripes they gave him in his whipying at the Pillar and by the wounds they made in his blessed body hanging on the Crosse Others by the sign here understand the crosse of Christ whereof S. Paul sayes there were many enemies and so this crosse is the sign of their malice who by contemning it contemn the fruit of salvation that grew thereon Iâ—sus Christ himself but the best and most genuine sense seems to be that by the sign of contradiction should be here meant his prodigious generation of a mother in earth without a father and of a virgin mother which many pretend as yet to be impossible and so contradict this undoubted truth By this sign also is meant the wonderfull miracles of his life the strange effects of his doctrine converting all the world yet contradicted by those that will not be converted by them and thus as the incredulity of the Jews and Infidels is a contradiction to the Faith of Christ in like manner the wicked lives of sinfull Christians are open contradictions to his Laws and to the secret impulses of his holy graces 35 By the sword here some will understand the spirit of prophecie given to the B. Virgin whereby she knew as well the ill affections of the Jewes to her son as the good ones of Christians towards him yet this can at most be but the mysticall sense Others will have it that the B. Virgin dyed a Martyr by the sword which neverthelesse is against all History The literall therefore and genuine sense is That the sword of torment which killed Christ was to his holy mother a sword of sorrow wounding her very heart insomuch that had it not been healed with he comfort shee received by conformity to Gods will it had been her reall death and wee read often in holy Writ that the contradiction of detracting tongues is called a sword of persecution Their tongue is a sharp sword Psal 63. v. 4 They have sharpened their tongues like swords Psal 104.8 and the sword of Christ his torments was twofold One of his persecutours tongues The other of their stripes nails and spear peirciâ—â—â— his side which were so sharp a sword of sorrow to the blessed Virgin that the Doctors of the Church hold her for more than a Martyr actually dying for Christ but it is hard to know the true sense of what follows in this Verse That this sword of sorrow pierced the mothers soul That out of many hearts cogitations might be revealed in her sacred Son for so the words seem to import which yet is verified thus that while some of the Jewes did before privately machinate Christs death others among them pretended they look'd for the Messias but finding Christ come in an humble way they scorned him and so both these joyning attempted at last to be his ruine which then proved a true sword piercing his mothers soul when they revealed the persidiousnesse of their own false hearts that had the one often before wished but for fear of the Jewes durst not attempt his death the other pretended to honour him but when they found his humility suited not with their pride they plotted and actually procured his death and as in that they peirced his mothers soul so they revealed the iniquity of their own cogitations and to this sense Simeon seems here prophetically to have spoken 36. Anne was celebrated for the known guift shee also had of prophecy whereof v 38. we shall read anon so shee did foretell much of Christ She is called Anne which signifies Grace And her Father Phanuel signifying the Face of God is here named to she that her grace of prophecy as well as that of her justification came from God Her Tribe is here set downe to denotate her nature that was peaceable pleasing wealthy long-living and the like besides Aser signifies Blessed all these remarks of her are to shew the dignity of this Prophetesse who was appointed for one to give testimony of Christ her virginity is here remarked because it was three wayes very notable First her maiden next her conjugall and lastly hâ—r viduall virginitie for so her chastity is here called to shew it was in her more than ordinary by living with her husband â—â—â—en years from her virginity is understood seven years 〈◊〉 shew was marriageable which was then held at fifteen years of age for children are not properly called virgins till they arrive to the ripeness of years fitting for marriage so falling widdow at two and twenty yeers of age it was much shee lived in that Viduall virginity untill shee was as in this next Verse is said 37. Eighty four years of age as some say but of pure widdowhood as S. Ambrose will have it who makes her in all a hundred and six years old dwelling continually in the Temple that is not departing thence but spending most of her time there and seldome going home but to refresh at meales never any whither else for other diversion from her prayers yet some thinke her very abode was if not in yet at least joyning to the Temple as many Anchoresses and some Chanonesses now doe spending her time both night and day in fasting watching and prayer and perpetually serving God so we see fasting in those dayes of the Synagogue was an usuall service to God and is not as Heretikes now say held so onely in our
storm at sea we are minded of the many dangers sin hath brought upon us so by the check Christ gave to his Apostles wee are taught in dangers to recurr to Faith in him who never failes to succour firm believers in their greatest tribulations 2. As in stormes your Marrinâ—â—s cast veâ—-board their heaviest lading and commodities to save the ship from sinking so in affliction at the least we shall doe well to lighten the vessels of our soulâ— by casting over-board those heavie burdens of most grievous sins which many times in calmnesse of our mindes we dare to carry with us 3. We may piously presume our Saviour never sleeps but unto souls remiss and then doth wake again immediatly when they affrighted at the danger they are in by the least close of his all-seeing eyes I doe call upon him for his succour by their instant prayer Such as the Church to day doth use to teach us how to pray in time of Danger On the Fifth Sunday after the EPIPHANIE The Antiphon MAT. 13. ver 30. GAther first the darnell and bind it together in bundles to be burnt but the wheat gather into my barne saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer KEepe we beseech the O Lord thy family in continuall piety that resting on the onely hope of heavenly grace it may ever by thy protection be defended The Illustration SEe how this day we are taught to pray as in the Epistle and Gospel we are taught to doe to live all together as one family of God in continual piety resting on the onely hope of heavenly grace for our protection and defence Yes thus to day we pray and to this purpose holy Church doth this day preach for the whole Epistle is upon uniting us all in one affection towards another and exhorting us that whatsoever we doe in word or work all things be done in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ And the Gospel commanding in the Parable of Corne and Cockle that even under pretence of good and bad we make no separation amongst our selves but live and continue lovingly together leaving it to God the master of the family to sever what he likes not from that which pleaseth his divine majestie and this to shew how perfectly we must be all as one amongst our selves all in continuall piety all resting on the hope of heavenly grace all relying upon God to protect and defend us not squaring out our own courses but resting in that which is appointed us by the Master of our family And see while in this prayer Holy Church calleth us all one family we ought to live in peace with all the world and not to graspe from our neighbour as if he and we were of two houses but to esteem him as a domesticke with us as one that eares at the same table of Christ who feeds us commonly with heavenly grace and oftentimes with his own sacred body and bloud the fountaine of grace it self O could we once come to doe as in this prayer we beg we may what an united family of Christians should we be How of divers members should we grow into one perfect body each proportioned to the will and pleasure of our head Christ Jesus How ill doe we then fall into divisions as if our hands would cut off our armes about disputes of divers Interests whereas all our relation is to one master all our hope of preferment must come from him and that hope must be radicated in the proportion of such heavenly grace as he pleaseth to give us so if in him our hopes be rightly fixed they wil bring us all to one happy end he in whom wâ— hope protecting and defending us so much the better by how much the more our hope in him is the firmer and by how much the lesse we are solcitous who neither can do nor with so well unto our selves as God doth for us The Epistle COL 3. ver 12. c. 12. PVt ye on therefore as the Elect of God holy and beloved the bowells of mercy benignity humility modesty patience 13 Supporting one another and pardoning one another if any have a quarrell against any man as also our Lord hath pardoned us so you also 14. But above all these things have Charity which is the band of perfection 15 And let the peace of Christ exult in your hearts wherein also you are called in one body and be thankful 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly in all wisdome teaching and admonishing your own selves with psalmes hymnes and spiritual Canticles in grace singing in your hearts to God 17. All whatsoever you doe in word or work all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ giving thanks to God and the Father by him The Explication 12. THE Apostle began this Chapter with telling the Colossians that as they were dead in Christ whilst Christ dyed for them so if they meant to rise with Christ from the grave of their sin they must look upward and seek from hence forward such things as were to be found in heaven not what was common upon earth as before they had done and when he had bid them Cast off the old man Colos 3. vers 9. now in this verse he begins to tell them how to vest themselves anew with ornaments fit for the spiritual and inward man and that they may doe this with more alacrity the Apostle bids them doe it under the confidence that they are now the elect and chosen of God his holy and beloved people mâ—de so by the lavacrum or cleansing of his sacred bloud shed for them and least they might doubt of this he had in the immediate verses before told them they were now in Christ a new creature that though formerly the Jewes were the onely favourites and chosen people of God yet in Christ both Jewes and Gentiles Slave or Free-man all were alike if they did all equally believe in Jesus the Messias and Saviour of them all who had chosen them not onely to Grace but to Glory and this incouragement premised he bids them now put on the bowels of mercy benignity humility modesty patience Virtues not heard of among the Iewes who had hardned their hearts against God who had inhumanely butchered his sacred Sonne who proudly aymed at nothing but worldly pompe who immodestly reviled Iesus to his face who like furies would have stoned and at last tore in pieces their Lord and Saviour so far thâ—y were from patient hearing him tell them Truth not were the Gentiles or Barbarians men of any Vertue at all but either superstitious or savage people so these Colossians being people of no better extract by nature hee had need tell them what Bowels what affections of heart they were by Grace at least to have what inward Vertues what outward deportment 13. As for example supporting one another a thing unheard of by those who aimed at nothing more than
to supplant their neighbour and to reâ—r their own monuments upon anothers ruine As for pardoning it was esteemed folly by them who thought revenge the sweetest thing in nature and as for our Lord God they so little knew him that his pardoning nature was no motive to their vindicative dispositions which yet Christians that know God and beleeve that in his sacred Son he hath pardoned the offences of the whole world cannot pretend but must as taught by him or pardon others or not hope for pardon of their own sins 14. But above all that is to say it sufficeth not for a Christian to forgive an enemy but he must also love him too for Charity is the band of perfection not onely the life of every Vertue but the link that chaineth them together and binds them all up in one bundle to make a present of them to Almighty God as of so many particulars necessary to make one accomplisht Soul nay not only binding up all vertues together in one man but also uniting all men together as making so many members to integrate one Mysticall Body of Christ his holy Church so that no one Vertue can subsist alone without the help of another to support it For instance modesty is lost unless patience help to bear it self modestly against those who are injurious againe Patience cannot subsist without Humility inabling us to bear patiently the proud comportment of others and their provocations to impatience and the like is of all Vertues whatsoever for we shall find no one can stand alone without it lean upon another but this is singular in Charity that she is not necessary as a particular support to any single Vertue but is further the common Soul or life unto them all insomuch that without Charity there can be no Vertue at all in any Soul For as Saint Paul sayes 1 Cor. 13. If I have Faith to remove Mountaines if I speak with the tongues of Angels and have no Charity I am become as sounding Brass and a tinkling Cymbâ—ll making a noise but no Harmony nor Musick in the hearing of Almighty God and here the same Apostle calls Charity the band of all Vertues thereby to shew us we are but loose Christians unless tyed up together in the Band of Charity whereby we are made to love God above all things and our neighbour as our selves and in so doing are by this Band of perfection rendred perfect Christians Chosen holy and Beloved children of Christ Iesus 15. Out of this mutuall love followes an effect of peace which is here recommendeâ— to us in no less degree than it was in our Saviours own heart even that similitudinarily not identically which Christ had with the Jewes when on the Cross he besought his Father to be at peace with his enemies that peace and no less the Apost e desires should exult he would say abound in our hearts too his meaning is we should rather recede from our own rights than seek to recover them by losing the peace and quiet of our minde or then be at variance with any body whatsoever to which purpose Cardinall Bellarmine had an excellent axiome which he was known by saying often upon occasions of disputes or oddes between party and party One ounce of Peace is worth a whole pound of Victory and this Cardinall was not alone of this opinion for Saint Austine sure taught it him in his twelfth Sermon upon this verse of the Apostle where he speaks thus I will not have with whom to strive it is much more desireable to have no enemy than to overcome him But the Apostles sense in this place is yet deeper for he so recommends peace unto us as he leaves it for the commandant in our Hearts the ruler of them and of all our actions indeed the crown of them besides as who should say what ere you doe see it be peaceably done see you may after it is past say you have thereby made no breach of peace either in your own or your neighbours minde but that you goe towards God hand in hand with all the world rather following them who siâ— not than by breaking from them though upon your own perhaps better designe cause a disturbance amongst others And indeed if we be at any time necessitated to a war the Christian and reall end thereof being peace argues how much this Vertue is requisite to abound in every pious Soul And eace is here called Christ his Vertue because it was the speciall gift he brought from Heaven when the Angel told us his nativity brought Glory to God above and peace to men of good mindes upon earth Luke 2 ver 1â— and at his parting he left it himself as a legacy amongst us saying immediately before his ascension up to Heaven John 14. ver 27. My peace I leave with you my peace I give to you and for this reason the Apostle sayes We are all called by Christ in one Body that is made up peaceable members one with another of his own sacred and Mysticall Body the holy Church Bee therefore thankfull is the close of this Verse to shew it is a benefit infinitely obliging Christians to receive by Grace so admirable a gift as peace amongst us that are made up by nature of many contradictions not onely externall but internall also though there want not thâ—t instead of thankfull expound this place as to import being gracious or pleasing to each other for so are all peaceable men acceptable to everybody wheresoever they come and truly however the Rhemists translate it Thankfull yet the expositours especially Saint Heirome incline to think gracious to be the more genuine sense of the Apostle in this place 16. True it is by the Word of Christ is here meant as well the written as the preached Word of God but in regard ignorant persons are more apt to misconstrue than rightly to understand the written Word therefore holy Church is sparing to give leave to read the Bible and liberall to advise us to hear it Preached or explicated by the Priests But if it please God we have it once expounded unto us that we may understand it in a safe and sound sense then not to read it will be a fault whereas till then to read it may prove a danger to us and in very truth one reason why I have undertaken to set forth this book was to give the Lay-people a little liberty in reading at least all the Epistles and Gospels throughout the Sundayes of the year when they were laid open to them in a safe sense such as might nay must needs edisie and can no wayes offend or cause dangers to the reader so to read and possesse themselves of thus much Scripture as is here delivered in the flux of a year unto then must needs be highly commendable and hugely profitable unto every one that reads and makes it their study indeed their Prayer from one end of the year to the other for so shall they have
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
sacred son Christ Jesus at the day of Judgement to revenge his Fathers and his own wrongs done unto them by the sins of ungratefull and mis-believing men who notwithstanding they see Christ was raised from the dead will not yet believe him to bee the Messias and Saviour of the world from which revenge or wrath those who believe in Christ Jesus are delivered that is from the damnation due to their incredulity who believe not in him or to their evill lives who though they doe rightly believe yet live not according to the rule of Faith or doe not works answerable to their belief The Application 1. AS it is huge Reason we should fly to heaven for help in humane dangers according as wee were taught last Sunday so is it very reasonable we should practise what S. Paul exhorted the Thessalonians to whilest his Lesson to them is this day read to us Namely to be mindfull of the work of our Faith c for albeit Faith elevateth Reason to believe some things that are above Reason yet it bindeth us not to doe any thing either above or against Reason and so leaves us in all our thoughts and actions to be regulated by reason 2. Hence it is great Reason that we who now profess the same Faith with the Thessalonians doe persevere with them in the works of faith such as may render us able by our exemplar lives to convert all that we converse with as wâ— hear the Thessalonians did convert all those of Macedonia and of Achaia to the faith of Jesus Christ 3 Now because our actions commonly are such as our thoughts propend and lead us to it is fitting that to bee the better able to doe reason in all our actions we should admit of notâ—ing but reason into our thoughts and meditations since we are certain whatsoever can lay claim to Reason especially such â—s is elevated by Faith must needs be pleasing to almighty God According as we are taught in the Prayer above The Gospel MATTH 13. vers 31. 31. ANother Parable he proposed unto them saying The kingdome of heaven is like to mustard seed which a man tooke and sowed in his fiâ—ld 32. Which is the least surely of all seeds but when it is grown it is greater than all hearbs and is made a Tree so that the fowls of the aire come and dwell in the branches thereof 33. Another Parable he spake to them The kingdome of heaven is like to leaven which a a woman tooke and hid in three measures of meal untill the whole was leavened 34. All these things Jesus spake in Parables to the multitudes and without parables he did not speak to them 35. That it might be fâ—lfilled which was spoken by the Prophet saying I will open my mouth in parables I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world Psal 77. v. 2. The Explication 31. OUr Saviour it seems at this time made profession to speak nothing but Parables so after he had as we heard last Sunday told them the Parable of the cockle amongst the corn here hee likens the Church to the least of grains a mustard seed sowed in a mans field that is to say scattered over the field of this world which is truly said a mans field in regard Christ who is God and man is Lord and master of this whole Universe and all over it hath planted this mustard seed his holy Church 32. And as in very truth a mustard seed is the least of all others so the Church of Christ was when first planted or sowed the least of all communities in the word But some conceive Christ himself to bee this mustard seed on whom grew as so many birds in their nests The Apostles Popes Bishops Pastours and Saints of all sorts and of both sexes Others will have the Church to be this mustard-seed little in it self at first now spread over all the world Others contend it is the Gospel of Christ his doctrine or the word of God that at first was onely sowed like mustard seed among the Jewes but now is diffused over the whole Universe In fine it avails little which of these we take the Parable is verified in them all and indeed they are all in a manner one and the same thing for all have root in Christ and are branches of him and the Analogie holds between the mustard seed and every one of these for who lesse than Christ who was the out-cast of men What Church lesse than the Primitive Church of Christ What Doctrine avowed by weaker men than his Disciples were and so consequently what word lesse than his which was exsibilated or hissed out of the world at first when it was said to be a scandall to the Jewes and a folly to the Gentiles 1 Cor. 1.23 to preach the Gospel of his resurrection And this is speciall between the word and mustard-seed that as in this seed there is a kinde of fierie quality so is the word of God as holy David sayd Psal 119. v. 140. Thy word is exceeding fierie that is servorous and hot inflaming hearts to the love of God and whereas the Text speaks of this seed growing to a tree it is indeed so in Syria where birds really build in the boughs thereof as all the members of Christ doe upon him as was abovesaid 33. This other parable of the Church or of her doctrine being like to leaven suites exceedingly therewith for as a litle leaven gives a relish to a whole batch of bread so the least Word of God hidden in mens hearts as leaven is in meal makes them rise into professions of Christian dutie and renders all their actions savourie both to God and man By the woman is here meant the Church which is the Spouse of Christ hiding the leaven of Christian doctrine in the three measures of meal that is to say in three parts of the World whereunto Christianity was then immediately designed namely Asia Africa and Europe for America hath been discovered but an hundred years agoe and whither formerly disjoyned from some one of these other three parts of the Earth by an interjected Sea as now it is we know not But this we conceive that these other three parts seemed to have been a division of the whole Earth into all the parts thereof when Noe divided the World between his three Sons assigning Asia to Sem Afirica to Cham and Europe to Japhet and this perhaps may be the literall allusion of the three measures of meal seasoned by the leaven of the Gospel Mystically Saint Ambrose applyes this leaven to the three parts of Man his spirit his life and his body or to his three appetites rationall Irascible and concupiscible So that by vertue of Gods holy Word Saint Hierome sayes in our reason we possesse prudence in our anger we lodge a holy hatred against Sin in our desires or concupiscencies we harbour a coveting of Vertue And all this in having these naturall appetites elevated to
duties The Gospel MAT. 20. ver 1 c. 1. THe Kingdom of heaven is like to a man that is an housholder which went forth early in the morning to hire workmen into his vineyard 2. And having made covenant with the workmen for a penny a day he sent them into his vineyard 3. And going forth about the third hour hee saw others standing in the market place idle 4. And he said unto them Go you also into the vineyard and that which shall be just I will give you 5. And they went their way And again hee went forth about the sixth and the ninth hour and did likewise 6. But about the eleventh hour hee weâ— forth and found other standing and he saith to them What stand you here all the day idle 7. They say unto him because no man hath hired us He saith to them Go you also into the vineyard 8 And when evening was come the Lord of the vineyard saith to his Bailiffe Call the workmen and pay them their hire beginning from the last even to the first 9. Therefore when they were come that came about the eleventh hour they received every one a penny 10. But when the first also came they thought that they should receive more and they also received every one a penny 11. And receiving it they murmured against the good-man of the house 12. Saying These last have continued one hour and thou hast made them equall to us that have born the burden of the day and the heats 13. But he answering said to one of them Friend I doe thee no wrong didst thou not covenant with mee for a penny 14. Take that is thine and goe I will also give to this last even as to thee also 15. Or is it not lawfull for mee to doe that I will Is thine eie naught because I am good 16. So shall the last be first and the first last for many bee called but few elected The Explication 1. WHen it is said the kingdome of heaven is like a man doing as this Parable relates the meaning is that in heaven it is done as here by such a man is said to be done though true it is this alludes also to the great ones in this world Let us therefore state the Parable thus By the Vineyard is meant the Church by the market the world by those called at the first the third and sixth hour are understood the Jews signfied in their forefathers Abraham Jacob and Moses called to Gods service in that sort as hee was pleased to lay his commands upon his Church or Synagogue rather by the last called are signified the Gentiles in their primitiae or first fruits the holy Apostles who were made the Pillars and Props of the Christian Church By the evening is meant the day of Judgement when every one shall receive his hire according to his labours in the Church of Christ that is the penny which was promised unto him for his pains and this penny is eternall glory to the blessed deserving well though withall by the word penny is understood pence of severall coins or rather values that is to say monie called a penny at pleasure though worth perhaps much more Again we are to note the greater reward is not given for the the greater pains but for the greater grace or greater co-operation with equall grace and according to this sense by the first are understood the blessed or saved souls by the last the accursed or damned men and Angels but divers of the Fathers explicate this Parable thus As by the first made last to understand those who have been longest Catholikes but making lesse use of time and grace than those who are later called to the Catholike Faith and yet make more profit of their little time and more use perhaps of their lesse grace than others have done So then the penny which is heaven is equally divided to each each being saved and none damned though the last called have the greater glory which makes no essentiall difference in the Beatitude common to them all that is in their genericall or objective bliss which consists in seeing God the Beatifying object whom all shall see though there shall be a difference in their more or lesse cleerly seeing this blissefull Object or Objective blisse according to their more or lesse Merit or Co-operation with the Grace given unto them in this life So though they have an equality of a most happy eternity yet shall they not be equally happy by equality of glory in that eternity of happinesse and in this sense the parts of the parable are thus to be applyed That by the day we understand the whole course of this world by the severall houres of this day we understand the particular ages thereof by the first hour from Adam to Noe by the next from Noe to Abraham by the third from Abraham to Moses by the sixth from Moses to Christ by the eleventh or last from Christ to the day of doom Thus S. Chrysostome and others Or by the day may be meant the whole time of each mans life by the severall hours his Infancie youth virility old age and decrepicie Thus S. Hierome and others But the fullest sense and that which best exhausts the whole Parable is to joyn all these together so what falls short in one will come home and be supplyed by the other for though here S. Chrysostomes enumeration of parts in the Parable seem different from S. Hieromes yet they both agree in the sense of the equall penny given to first and la t whereas the former enumeration of these parts casteth out the last from all reward and supposeth them damned souls so there are but two senses in three Enumerations of parts to this Parable And this long Preamble in the first Verse will ease us much in the explication of all the rest and shorten what is to be said upon them 2. The covenant here made with the Workmen for a pennie is the promise God makes of heaven to those that live here in the Church of Christ which is called his Vineyard according to the Apostolicall Rule of Faith including good works and co-operation with the grace of God answerable to the proportion thereof given unto us 3. The Romans first and then the Jewes under them divided as well the day as the night into twelve parts by four equall divisions answerable to their four watches or changes of their Guards The first hour of the day when the first guard mounted was from Sun-rising The third was three hours after The sixth six hours after that which was noon-day The ninth was three hours after noon The last was at Sun-setting and to these houres allude what is here said of the severall hours of mens being called to the vineyard of Christ By those who were found standing idle are meant remiss soules who make it not their studie or labour to gain heaven but expect it should be given them gratis 4. Observe here
Corn wants no inward cause of prospering but is outwardly hindred by being choaked or kept down with over growing bryars and thorns that hinder the rising thereof Now though our Saviour best knew how to explicate his own meaning and hath declared that by these Thornes he means Riches which prick the Soules of those that possesse them in their rising up to acts of love towards God and so force them down again to the love of earthly things yet Saint Gregory found this exposition so beyond his expectation of this Text that he admiring sayes If he had thus expounded it the world would not have believed him to attinge the true sense thereof as being possessed what they handle and hugge dayly sn their armes their wealth and riches cannot prick nor gall them yet now our Saviour sayes they doe so we must believe it and truly so it is for what more ordinary than to see the high and mighty men of the world mighty I mean in wealth abject and lowe in their growth upwards to Heaven to see them still pricking down their rising Souls and under the title of riches we may here understand honours pleasures pastimes of the vain licentious and idle people of the world whose own conscience tells them they doe ill in following such courses as yet they will not leave 8. 15. By the good ground is here understood a tender Conscience which makes a Religion of each action and so hearing Gods Word first labours to understand it then puts in execution the Doctrine thereof and thereby brings forth fruits of all sorts of Vertue and good Works nay brings forth indeed an hundred fold or more according to the proportion and measure of grace received from Almighty God but we are here to observe the reduplicative speech of a good and a very good heart that is to say a heart illuminated with Faith but working by Charity or as Albertus will have it Good by being free from Sin very good by being in all things conformabled to the Will of God or as Saint Bonaventure sayes Good by verity or rectitude in the understanding very good by rectitude in the affections or as Saint Augustine will have it Good by loving our neighbour as our selves very good by loving God above all things saying and they properly retaine the Word as the Blessed Virgin did and bring forth the fruit thereof in patience that is by bearing with unperturbed minds the perturbations of this world And though S. Luke do not mention the quantities of fruits produced yet S. Matthew chap. 13 ver 23. speaks of the Thirty fold the sixty fold and the hundred fold fruit of those who hear the Word of God as they ought to doe meaning it makes some good men others better others best of all according to the respective measures of dispositions in their Souls answerable to their severall proportions of Grace and co-operations therewith or if we will have these three-fold quantities all in one Soul then say we bring forth Thirty when we think well Sixty when we speak well an hundred fold when we do well or when we begin to be vertuous profit therein and at last attain to the perfection of vertue till we arrive at the top of all Vertues or when we observe not onely Gods Commandements but his Counsells too and at last his transcendent charity being ready to die his Martyrs in requitall of his dying our Saviour and so make degrees and steps in our own hearts up to Heaven as the Royall Prophet sayes he did Psal 83. Making Ascents in his heart by rising up towards Heaven from Vertue to Vertue The Application 1. THis Parable shewes how many wayes we may labour in vain by sowing the grounds we have plowed up and be still in danger lest the Devill reap what we have sown namely that beside the way When for company sake we goe to Church not for Devotion But to see and to be seen rather than to hear the VVord of God 2. That on the Rock when out of fear of Parents anger or the punishments of Magistrates we are forced to Church and hearing there the VVord must needs with open hearts receive it in being of it self sâ— forceable as to peirce the very stones but then because we hear it by compulsion every difficulty nature frames against Grace shuts up our hearts again and will not let it in to take good rooting there 3. That on the thorny ground when rich men hear the VVord of God for custome or for curiosity to recreate and not to edifie to censure rather than conâ—orm to what they hear No marvell thâ—n if to prevent the danger of our going to the Devills Chappell even in the Church of God Our holy Mother pray to Day as above for the best seeds-mans protection against so many dangers hoping by so praying to render our hearts such as the Gospell closeth with to Day On QUINQUAGESIMA Sunday The Antiphon LUKE 18. ver 40. ANd Jesus staying commanded the blinde man to be brought unto him what wilt thou that I do to thee O Lord that I may see and Jesus said to him Look up thy Faith hath made thee safe and he forthwith did see and followed magnifying God Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O Lord we beseech thee hear clemently our Prayers and being loosened from the fetters of our sins keep us from all adversity The Illustration NO marvell if many of my friends told me here the common place of this Prayer would not easily be made particularly proper to our design of a sweet connexion between that prayer and the other parts of this days service for see in the Epistle charity in the Gospel faith insisted on whereas in the Prayer neither of these vertues are mentioned What remedy truly none but by applying mystically to our selves that now which was actually done when our Saviour lived and by remembring that as the propagation of faith amongst Infidels was the chief work of Christ so the conservation and augmentation of charity is the chief thing Christians have to doe for as Faith was the Basis or foundation of the Church whilest it was a building so charity must bee the covering and top thereof now it is built What wonder then while the Gospel tells us how Christ confirmed in his Disciples by the miracle upon the blinde the faith of his Deity That the Epistle exhorts us who need not God be praised any confirmation of our faith to an augmentation of our charity by seeing it laid to day before us in such lively colours as S. Paul hath drawn it in so that whilest holy Church tells us what Christ then did towrds the Jews by introducing faith among them with miracles we that now need no miracles should doe towards him by acts of love to the divine goodness that is to say labour to shew our loves to him as he did to beget faith in them but what
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
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
Fishermen knowing and learned Doctours Teachers in fine to all the World convincers and confounders of all humane Learning that stood in opposition to their doctrine Divine and all this in an instant without learning any other Lesson then to dilate to open the affections of their Hearts unto the Holy Ghost where by the Illustration of his holy Grace he reads unto them in a moment all Divinity by onely teaching them the Art of Divine Love by onely giving them indeed the grace to love God only and what is lovely in the eyes of his heavenly Majesty Stay beloved if this be all why may not we hope once a year at least to learn as good a lesson 'T is but renewing every year as on this blessed Day the solemn vowes we made in Holy Baptisme 't is but reiterating now those good purposes we make some times of the amendment of our lives 't is but dilating and opening our hearts to this holy Spirit and begging of him that he will there work in us what we cannot work our selves the new creation of a new Will in us by our renunciation of the old and this by the Illustration of his holy Grace which alone is able to light and lead us up to heaven which alone is able to teach us all Truth and afford us all the comfort that our Hearts can wish The Holy Church would otherwise surely pray to day for some thing else which yet she doth not in the Prayer above The Gospel JOHN 14. v. 23 c. 23 Jesus answered and said unto them If any love me he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make abode with him 24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my words And the word which you heard is not mine but his that sent me the Fathers 25 These things have I spoken to you abiding with you 26 But the Paraclete the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and suggest unto you all things whatsoever I shall say unto you 27 Peace I leave to you my peace I give to you not as the world giveth do I give to you Let not your heart be troubled nor fear 28 You have heard that I said to you I go and I come to you If you loved me you would be glad verily that I go to the Father because the Father is greater then I. 29 And now I have told you before it come to passe that when it shall come to passe you may believe 30 Now I will not speak many things to you For the Prince of this world cometh and in me he hath not any thing 31 But that the world may know that I love the Father and as the Father hath given me commandement so do I. Arise let us go hence The Explication 23. THis answer of our Saviour was to the interrogatory of the Apostle Judas Thaddaeus the brother to St. James the lesser demanding ver 22. why Christ was pleased to manifest himself to the Apostles onely and not to the whole world because he said to them The world doth not see me but ye see me which though spoken in the present tense was meant in the future alluding to what the Apostles did after see in him namely his Passion Death Resurrection and Ascension And the reason why he did manifest himself to them and not to the world was as St. Austin observes because they did love him but the world did not so and this I premise to shew that what followes here alludes to this as to the effects which the love of God procures in those that do truly love him as this Gospel begins to day with an effect of love keeping Gods commandements which taken as here it lyes in this Gospel is rather an absolute assertion then a relative answer to a question and yet in truth it was the answer that Christ gave to the question of St. Jude as above in the immediate verse before whereunto Jesus answers saying If any love me he will keep my word as who should say as I loving my Father keep his command of coming into this world to manifest his glory to you that love him and by you to all the world though not immediately to them all as I mean to do to you So do not think that after my Resurrection when the Holy Ghost shall come down and inflame the hearts of many Infidels and Gentiles with the love of God that then I shall onely manifest my self to you alone that are my Apostles and now are onely those that love me no no then I shall be so manifested to others that they will love me as you do and this shall be the testimony that I give you thereof that their love shall be such as by vertue thereof they will keep my Commands my words will be to them dear as now they are to you and as you receiving the holy Ghost receive with him both my Self and my Father for we three are all one inseparable Substance or Essence however distinct and several Persons just so shall the whole Blessed and undivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost enter into the hearts of all that love me and keep my Commandments or my word and consequently to them as well as to you shall I be then manifested And in this sense you see this verse is an exact answer to the question of S. Jude which otherwise seems a meer disparate or an incongruous reply to that interrogatory And from hence we may perceive how hard it is to understand the true sense of almost any part of holy Writ unlesse we see clearly the connexion it hath to precedent or consequent parts thereof so what S. Jude meant of his personal or visible manifestation to these few onely that were eye-witnesses of his Actions he means of his spiritual or invisible beeing made known to all the world by his Faith and doctrine received and embraced amongst them through the preaching of the Apostles and their Successours But we must note that coming or going of God who is at all times in all places by reason of his immensity is not to be understood as if he did come or go from one place to another but he therefore is said to come or go because he operates or operates not at all times or in all places alike for his operation is his coming and so every new inspiration of grace we have is as if God made a new visite unto us within the temple of our soules where he delights to be and though he be never separated from us locally since he fills all place yet he is said to come a new into our hearts every time we produce or exercise a new act of love unto him and if we continue one Act all our lives then he doth all that time operate within us and so consequently is said not only to come unto us but even to live with us to
peace And here to shew the excesse of his grief he stops and sayes not what should follow to wit thou wouldest weep thy selfe as I doe now for thee thou wouldest weep to see what pains I have taken in my three years preaching of pennance to thee what more I am to take for thee whilest I die to save thee who wilt not be saved Yes all this sense runs through our Saviours soul and is genuinely taken out of this abrupt speech which because I see and thou dost not wilt not indeed therefore I weeep for thee O wretched city 43. This was to a title verified when Titus and the Romans laying seidge to Jerusalem after our Saviours death in three dayes space as Josephus writes built not onely Trenches but walls about them so as none could stirre out at any rate for relief whence mothers were fain to eat their own children So Josephus 44. So sensibly our Saviour speaks of this cities destruction that here he seems to exaggerate for it is not credible the Romans were either so curious or so idle as not to leave a stone upon a stone since there is now in that new city the old mount Calvary where many stones lay one upon the other So the meaning of this place is that the destruction of this city should be so great as if there had not been a stone left upon a stone within it whilest those that were left should be of no use nor profit By the time of the visitation understand this very time when our Saviour came a loving Messias to save this city and she would not receive him but plotted his death in requitall 45. See whither our Saviour goes as soon as he is entered the citie Into the Temple first to rectifie that which was out of order there So he first enters into our Temples into our souls when he adopts us to be his children It was not amisse to begin visibly to reform the visible abuses in the Temple especially since he see the hearts and souls of the high Priests would not be reformed by him 46. This was so palpable an abuse of the written word that none could question it and besides it was necessary to abolish open Sacriledge where there was to be established open Sanctity 47. To shew that thus Priests were to employ their times and their talents and not in secular companies or imployments at least not in merely secular but such as were mixed with Church duties The Application 1. HOw excellently wel doth holy Church follow her design in this Gospel which we perceive she had in the Epistle above For what else is meant by Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and foretelling her destruction but because she did to him while he marcht before her eyes as we have heard her children did to God while he mercifully led them through the red Sea and many other dangers out of Egypt into the land of promise What was their buying and selling in the Temple other then Idolatry to Mammon other then robbing God of that honour which they paid even in his own house unto his greatest enemy the devill For which you see our Saviour whipt them out of the Temple as was said in the Illustration above and not unnecessarily repeated here 2. O Catholick Christians how do we act this Jewish part how do we do our best to make our Jesus weep in Heaven if it were possible to see us Catholickes degenerate into the sordid actions of the Jewes What is it else to hear us murmure against our Lord for commanding us to he meeke and humble who have nothing in us but passion and pride who are with the Jewes ashamed of holy poverty while we clad our selves in nothing but gauderies more vainly farr then those whose Religion binds them not so strictly from such braveries as ours While instead of renouncing the vanity of the world we sell even God himself for hope of onely popular applause by frequenting the Church for vain respects to see and to be seen under pretence of praying there or of hearing the word of God which is to make Gods holy House a denne of thieves to rob him of his honour in that very place appointed onely for honouring and adoring of his holy Name 3. O how rarely well doth holy Church rebuke the Priests and Lay-men too in the Prayer she makes to day as an abstract of all the doctrine on those holy Texts when what so ever we do at other times she bids us while we pray at least refrain as is our duty to commit Idolatry to Fornicate to Tempt our Lord to murmure to swell with Pride to dissemble and to Simonize in holy Church For this were but to shut those sacred eares we praying doe pretend to open This were to aske unpleasing things to God not such as we are bid petition in the Prayer above pleasing to his heavenly Majesty On the tenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 18. v. 14. THis man went down to his house justified more then he for that every one who shall exalt himself shall be humbled and he who humbleth himself shall be exalted Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who doest manifest thy omnipotency most of all by pardoning and taking pittie multiply on us thy mercy that we running unto thy promises thou maist make us partakers of thy heavenly treasures The Illustration STrange that holy Church should teach us in this Prayer the omnipotency of God is most manifested by his pardoning and pittying of us True his goodnesse and his love is thereby most of all made manifest but his power or his omnipotency seems manifested more in his creating all things out of nothing in his governing the world created so as to make contrary natures combine all in one to the fulfilling of his holy will and pleasure and in his punishing offenders who if they could resist his power would never indure eternall damnation as all the devils and accursed souls in hell are forc'd to do But if we look more narrowly into the businesse we shall find Gods power most manifested in his pardoning and pitâ—ying offenders For as by their sinnes they relapse into a far worser nothing then that they were created out of first of all so to be recreated as often as they sinne is to keep in exercise Gods omnipotency every minute in a manner since they hardly passe a minute without a sinne and if this be mortall they as often disannull themselves as they sinne mortally and since in this case they cannot be re-made again but by the omnipotency of him who can make all things out of nothing this omnipotency being manifested by the pardon and pitty God Almighty doth afford a sinner thus relapsing it followes evidently that the said omnipotency is made most manifest by such pardon and pitty as God affords to sinfull souls Which pitty being an Act of mercy we had need petition that
Ghost is made manifest who is the Authour of all supernatural gifts The profit whereunto these gifts are given is rather to the Church then to him that receives them for gratuite graces ever avail the Church but not so him who receives them as miracles may be wrought by a sinner who doth not profit by them perhaps at all yet the Church doth 8. By the word of wisdome is understood the power to explicate deep mysteries of Faith as of the B. Trinity Incarnation praedestination or the like By the word of knowledge or science is understood the power to direct mens actions or manners that they be rational at least Thus S. Augustine lib. 12. Trinit cap. 14. 15. distinguisheth between wisdome and science or knowledge 9. By Faith here is not understood that act of Theological vertue which is common to all Christians but an act of particular confidence in God whereby it is believed he will by vertue of that our confidence work a miracle being asked so to do by such a Faith as is able to remove mountains Others understand by Faith here a deep understanding inabling to contemplate and explicate the mysteries of Faith 10. By miracles here are understood those which are extraordinary and are exercised not onely upon the body but even on the soules of men such as was that of S. Peter upon Ananias and Saphyra commanding them to dye By discretion of spirits is meant when God gives one man the grace to see into the very thoughts and intentions of others to know when an action is done by a good or evil spirit by God or the devil a gift to be begged by ghostly Fathers and conducing to their conduct of soules These gifts S. Hilarion was noted to have By interpretation of languages is understood a special gift frequent in the primitive Church whereby men illuminated for that end did give the true sense of Scripture and of those who being ignorant yet had the gift of Tongues and to spake more then themselves well understood but were by Interpretâ—rs expounded 11. Namely as that Spirit as the holy Ghost pleaseth The Application 1. St. Paul in this Epistle first puts the Corinthians and â—n them all other Christians in mind of the horrid Nothing that they were before their conversion from Gentilisme to Christianity And his aym in this is that as nothing was more abominable to the Gentiles then the name of Jesus Christ so nothing ought to be more reverential to Christians then that most sacred and most saving name insomuch as S. Paul concludes it is an Apostacy from God a relapse to Gentilisme not onely to use irreverence to the name of Jesus but to conceive we have any other life or being then what is purchac'd in that sweetest name 2. Notwithstanding true it is we have life often given us by the holy Ghost the special giver indeed of holy grace which is the â—ife and being of a Christian and hence it is S. Paul had no sooner inamoured the Corinthians on the Name of Jesus then he falls instantly upon the gifts of the holy Ghost sent from his heavenly Father and from his sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to multiply on us the mercies of Almighty God as if to have been once redeemed by Christ had not satisfied his infinite goodnesse without he had also made this Redemption copious by sending his holy Spirit to re-redeem us by his graces from the relapses into sinne that render our first redemption fruitlesse unlesse it had been more copious yet by the multiplyed mercies of the holy Ghost applying the Passion of our Saviour to us by some new gift of grace bestowed upon us as often as we take religious breath into our bodies by calling on the Name of Jesus with an aweful reverence thereunto as befits all Christians to do and for this purpose it is S. Paul falls into the enumeration of the gratuite gifts of God the graces that are meerly gratis given not such as are usual and absolutely necessary for our sayntification or justification but such as rather serve to shew the multiplication of Gods holy Power and Mercies over us 3. Blessed God! how art thou perpetually out-doing thine own goodnesse by thy continual effusion of thy self upon our iniquity how art thou giving daily more and more manifestation and consequently much more admiration to the blessed Angels and Saints in heaven by multiplying thy mercies on us sinners here in earth whom all those happy spirits may give a thousand thousand times for lost when they see how we run after nothing but the sordid gain and pleasure of the world the sweets that poyson the contents that damne our soules and yet by the multiplication of thy mercies we are sweetly forc'd maugre the impulse of devil flesh and bloud to let go all our hold on the possessed shadowes of this world and to run after the promised substances of the next But how my God are we forc't to this by the manifestation of thy Power in the multiplication of thy mercies according as was said before in the Illustration Say now beloved the Prayer above and see if it be not excellently well adapted to this holy Text and to this application of the same unto our best improvement The Gospel Luke 18. v. 9. 9 And he said also to certain that trusted in themselves as just and despised others this parable 10 Two men went up into the Temple to pray the one a Pharisee and the other a Publicane 11 The Pharisee standing prayed thus with himself God I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men extortioners unjust advouterers as also this Publicane 12 I fast twice in a week I give Tythes of all that I possesse 13 And the Publicane standing afar off would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven but he knocked his breast saying God be merciful to me a sinner 14 I say to you this man went down to his house justified more then he because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted The Explication 9. 10. By a Pharisee is understood a proud by a Publicane an humble man in this place 11. By the word standing the pride of the Pharisee is insinuated With himself 't is true for he prayed neither with nor to God for his prayer is rather a vaunting of his own then a seeking of Gods glory And his insolence is great whilest he sayes he is not as other men as who should say all besides himself are sinners had he said as some other men there had been lesse arrogancy yet too much and out of this arrogancy he passeth a rash Judgement upon the Publicane whom he points out for a notorious sinner and insinuates himself to be just 12. By twice a Sabbath is understood twice a week as naming the principal day for the whole week By Tythes of all he possesseth he meanes not onely
are loving and charitable to our neighbours for the love we bear to God so the Gospel ends Do this and live Live eternally live in the happy fruition of all the vaste promises God made to those that love him thus 2. But we have yet a better pattern of our duty then what Jesus bid the Doctour of the Law take to secure him of this happinesse the charitable Samaritan We have our dearest Lord our Blessed Saviour Jesus here not onely the giver but the keeper of this his Law least we should argue our impossibility to keep the same when we see at how dear a rate he kept it how he so loved us as he laid his life down for a testimony of his love and gave us grace to do the like as the onely means of doing it Nor had the end our glory been otherwayes atchieveable then by the meanes unto it his holy grace so he that would our happy end must will us the meanes to compasse it this followes naturally and is therefore in the rule of grace undeniable nature being ever perfected by grace Hear how he sayes himself Blessed are the eyes that see the things you see c. and to the rest of those things which the Explication enumerates we may avowably here adde this for one their seeing Jesus give his life for an example to us of valuing his love at as dear a rate as he did our loves when he dy'd to gain them 3. Yes yes beloved this is the full scope of the Gospel and ought to be the aym of our actions while we read it so we may hope that he whose bounty gives us Faith to believe him charity to love him and hope to enjoy him will mercifully give us grace so to fulfill the condition of his Lawes whereunto his promises are annexed that we need not fear to obtain What to day we beg in the Prayer above the running without offence in to the possession of those promises which they that do offend cannot obtain and those that love can never loose by offending whilest they love So that onely love is the easie rule we are to be happy by for ever as was hinted before in the Illustration On the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 7.15 BVt one of them when he saw that he was made clean returned again with a loud voyce magnifying God Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer ALmighty and everlasting God give unto us the encrease of faith hope and charity and that we may deserve to obtain what thou doest promise make us love what thou doest command The Illustration HEere 's a Prayer that in one word of it richly containes all the doctrine of this day and indeed all the main point of the differential doctrine between the Roman Catholick Church and her antagonists especially the Hereticks of this time who deny good works to be necessary to mans salvation and will have no more then faith alone required on our parts pretending the work of our salvation is already finished by the passion of our Lord if we do but believe as much It is otherwise with us for here we pray not onely for other acts of virtue namely hope and charitie but even for our own increase of faith as well as for increase in other good works which as they are all rooted in these three Theologicall virtues so are they contained in them as the tree is contained in the root thereof or rather in the seed that runs to root the better to support the tree That then we may pray as well to the bettering of our understandings as to the perfecting our wills in the service of Almighty God know beloved holy Church to day instructs us in this Prayer to beg increase of all good works eminentially included in the three Theologicall virtues above mentioned and doth further declare that by this increase it is we may deserve to obtain as much as God Almightie hath pleased to promise us which is no lesse then his heavenly glory especially if we can by our increase in virtue arrive as well to love as to do what God commands that is to say in other termes if we so love God as for his sake we can also love the things commanded though never so contrary to our liking for then we Saint our selves indeed when thus we love And why because where sinne is not in man sanctitie will be undoubtedly as it was in S. Marie Magdalene who then was even canonized by our Lord himself when he declared Many sinnes were forgiven her because she loved much Luke 7.47 And by many we understand all for God never doth his works to halses but leaves them ever perfectly compleat And having thus evinced the veritie of this glosse out of the letter of the Prayer let us further see how the Canon of the Churches service is harmonious by the musicke of her Prayer to day which is therefore best because it is throughout three parts in one Nay if I said the whole Epistle Gospel and the Prayer to boot were all contained in the word increase perhaps I should not erre for if we but apply that word unto the things wherein we beg increase the work is done the cabinet of rich connection by that key is open to the view of the world But lest some dimmer sighted souls do not perceive as much it will not be amisse to show the whole Epistle of the day doth run upon the ground-work of the Prayer while from the first unto the last it beats upon the faith of Abraham joyned with the hope of a reward for his obedience performed with an act of charitie wherewith he shewed he did deserve the promise of Almighty God because he loved his commandement better then he did his onely sonne Isaack whom he was ready to sacricrifice to show how truely he did love the said command Compare this now unto the Prayer and see what can be more desired to make the harmony compleat Yet further look upon the Fathers expositions of the last verse in this Epistle as you see below and then say if the glosse I made above be other then Expositours allow As for the Gospell t is alike concording with the Prayer if we believe the Fathers of the Church expound the saving faith aright wherewith it ends when they declare this faith was saving to the cured Samaritan because it was accompanied with his good works namely with his hope of cure when in that hope he paid obedience unto Christ saying go shew your selves unto the Priest for the Text sayes after and it came to passe as they went they were made clean and lastly by his gratitude returning to give thanks for the cure which acts of other virtues obedience and gratitude made manifest his charitie since they were good works growing out of that root and since by this action of gratitude we see the Samaritan shewed an increase of Faith Hope and
time by doing homage to Almighty God So by this account all Sundayes Holy dayes require an exercise of these three virtues Theologicall and consequently all the time of private prayer is to be spent in actual exercise of these because that prayer is an addresse to God as all the time of persecution that being suffered for Gods sake all the time of troubles for those are caused by sinne against Almighty God and must have end by saintitie so by this account all our life time must be a practice of these virtues an increase of them indeed as the onely means to make us saints to make us capable of God Almighties promises by loving these his easie his sweet his saving commandements which are the continual exercise of these Theologicall virtues whereby we are made capable of his heavenly promises And least it should be with us as with these nine ungratefull Lepers cured from their Leprosy which is a type of all sinne whatsoever but especially of the foulest of all others Infidelity Therefore holy Church to day to prevent all sin in her Christian children and above all the sin of ungratefull infidelitie commends unto us the Prayer above that by often saying this Prayer we may exercise the noblest and most essentiall virtues that belong to Christianitie and by their increase make our selves worthie of our Saviours promises to all good Christians On the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 6. v. 33. SEek first the Kingdome of God and his righteousnesse and all things shall be given you besides Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer KEep we beseech thee O Lord thy Church with perpetuall propitiation and since without thee humane mortalitie faileth let it alwayes by thy helps be withdrawn from such things as are hurtfull and directed to those that are saving The Illustration HOw excellently well is the much of the Epistle and Gospel contained in the little of this Prayer wherein we confesse it is by the perpetuall propitiation of our Saviours passion without which our humane mortality would be alwaies failing as the onely help conducing to support us that we can be withdrawn from the works of the flesh and directed to walk in the Spirit that is to say taken off from those things which are hurtfull and directed to those that are saving And what else is the whole Epistle but an exhortation to leave off the works of the flesh and to pursue the fruits of the Spirit Again what are the two masters which the Gospel saies we cannot serve at once but the flesh and the spirit what the drift of all the Gospel but to dehort from one and exhort unto the other So here Epistle Prayer and Gospel speak all one thing how severall soever the language be of each and no marvell because the spirit of Almighty God is able to animate all the creatures of the world Act. 17.28 For it is he in whom we live are moved and have being Now having thus made good our main affair of this work the mutuall connexion of parts in holy Churches service it rests onely to elucidate a word or two in the Prayer above to render the same in it self perfectly understood The first is the perpetuall propitiation wherewith we beg the Church may be kept for though above we called that propitiation an effect of our Saviors passion yet here we must further give a reason why we did so call it and also why we in the Prayer affirm the same to be a perpetuall effect thereof Know therefore it is the effect of his passion because it is not onely a satisfaction for sinne but also a pacification of Gods wrath against mankind who by sinne had provoked Almightie God to a high indignation against the whole race of men And therefore we call this propitiation perpetuall because it is infinite in duration as well as in power of appeasing for though it be now above 1651. years since our Saviour did actually suffer yet the virtue of his suffering is still vigorous and shall be to the worlds end because it was the suffering of God as well as of man and therefore must needs have an eternall operation that is be able for all eternity to appease the wrath divine and in this sense we say the preservation of the world in being is the continuation of the act whereby it was created so the preservation of mens souls from the wrath of the heavenly Father is the continuation of the passion of his sacred Sonne The next phrase of this Prayer which we are to clear is that wherein we say without our perpetually propitious Lord Humane mortalitie would fail as if there were any other mortalitie then humane that were capable of the benefit of our Saviours passion of his perpetuall propitiation Truely no there is not for since it was onely Humane nature that he assumed and by assuming it was pleased to redeem the same we say rightly well no other mortalitie was capable of the benefit of this redemption not but that other natures are mortall as all terrestriall creatures are in the very rigour of death or mortalitie because they all die by way of corruption and if we say the celestiall spirits are mortall too because they may be held to die when they fell from heaven to hell from the state of grace to the state of damnation we shall not speak improperly and truly the phrase of this Prayer seems to allude to that mortality of the blessed spirits when therein we are taught to affirm that our Saviours passion was a propitiation peculiarly provided for the subsistence onely of humane mortalitie since it was a remedy provided onely to recover so often as they chance to fall mortall men and not any other mortall creature besides either terrestriall or celestiall And thus the stile of humane mortalitie is most apposite because man onely had the happinesse of mercy to be shewed him for his sins which was a favour never done to any Angel whatsoever and this mercy is just the same which this present Prayer avoucheth begging that our humane mortalitie which needs must fail without it may have the benefit of our blessed Saviours perpetuall propitiation by the application thereunto of his bitter death and passion which will afford it helps to avoid what is hurtfull and to follow what is saving The Epistle Galat. 5. v. 16. c. 16 Brethren I say walk in the spirit and the lusts of the flesh you shall not accomplish 17 For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh for they are adversaries one to another that not what things soever you will these you do 18 But if you be led by the spirit you are not under the Law 19 And the works of the flesh be manifest which are fornication uncleannesse impudicitie lecherie 20 Serving of Idols witchcrafts enmities contentions emulations anger brawles dissentions sects 21 Envies murthers
himself onely shall he have the glory not in another 5 And every one shall bear his own burthen 6 And let him that is catechized in the word communicate to him that catechizeth him in all goods 7 Be not deceived God is not mocked for what things a man shall sow those also shall he reap 8 For any that soweth in his flesh of the flesh also shall reap corruption but he that soweth in the spirit of the spirit shall reap life everlasting 9 And doing good let us not fail for in due time we shall reap not failing 10 Therefore whilst we have time let us work good to all but especially to the domesticalls of faith The Explication 26. IF we have internall life of grace and justice let us walk justly according to the conduct of that grace and by no means look back to the wayes of Judaisme being as we are Christians but let us so farre decline from being vain-glorious as the Jews were that we even forbear the desire as well as the act thereof much lesse let us vaunt our selves to be better then others provoking them thereby to anger or envying if in any gift they excell us 1. Note S. Paul means here such faults as are casually and by frailty committed not those that are habituall or accustomary besides he glanceth here specially at frail relapses to Judaisme and such he commands the Galatians to instruct that is to reprehend gently and with lenitie not rigidly or severely as obstinate offenders ought to be reprehended so besides he makes not every one a reprehender of his brethren but those onely that are spirituall meaning Priests or Churchmen and such reprehension he will have to be in spirit also not in any vain way Note he falls from the plurall to the singular number left he had else seemed to accuse a whole community of frailty and of danger to be tempted which is indeed incident to single persons and not handsomely imputed to many 2. Here he comes to the plurall number again exhorting us to bear each others burthens whether they be of naturall disposition not agreeing with our own or whether they be diseases or afflictions laid upon our neighbour or lastly and chiefly even their sinnes we must bear indeed pardon conceal excuse and if we wil perfectly obey this counsell even do penance for them by our prayers fastings or alms and in so doing we shall fulfill the Law of Christ his command of loving one another This is my precept that you love one another as I have loved you Joh. 15.12 but he so loved us as he bore all our sinnes upon his back and therefore we must be content to help bear those of our neighbours to imitate the example of our Master 3. By something is here understood good virtuous or spiritual as who should say if any man doth not follow the precept above of bearing his brothers burthen let him never think he is or can be any thing in the sight of God Observe the text is so far from esteeming him for some body who is not sweet and gentle to his brother as he is not accounted so much as any thing in the sight of God but is truly as nothing in his eye and absolutely seduceth or cheateth himself if he conceiveth otherwise 4. In this verse we are exhorted to valew our selves onely as we can deserve to be esteemed by Almighty God where we all know we merit little or nothing and not as we may seem to be compared to others For what availes it a man to see another commit greater sins then himself if he commit sinne enough to damne him or at least to render him ungrateful to Almighty God And yet nothing more common then for us to flatter our selves that all is well at home if we see any greater evil in others then in our selves To seek our glory out of others ignominy is folly We shall never arrive to eternal glory in the next world if we do not contrive to be such here within our selves as may deserve the reward of eternal glory rather for our own good works then because others have greater bad ones to answer for then we 5. Note in the second verse above the Apostle meant the burthens of the living brethren in this he reports to those of the dead and in that sense we should each one carry his own burthen before the Tribunal of Christ at the later day as if our sins were then laid in a knapsack on our own backs and each man there to answer onely for his own unlesse he had made himself also guilty of others sins too and in such case they become his also The Reformers mis-understand this place when they alleadge it against purgatory and will therefore have it needlesse to ease our brethren in purgatory of their burthens by our prayers Alas they are chiefly then objects of our compassions and may yet find ease by the communion with the Church in prayer by partaking of the suffrages which the Saints afford them but at the later day it will not be so then is a time for justice not for mercy 6. Observe here the practise of catechizing or teaching Christian doctrine to be as ancient as from the primitive Church in the Apostles dayes Note that then also they who had the happinesse to receive the benefit of being catechized were exhorted to repend the spiritual courtesie by temporal rewards of relief to the Apostles Note lastly that catechizing was by word of mouth not by writing performed for it was indeed prohibited in those times to commit to writing the mysteries of faith lest the Infidels should profane them as they came to their view and yet now what huge force the Reformers put in the Scripture as if it alone availed and tradition were nothing worth whereas both together make up one perfect Record of Christian doctrine 7. This verse may either be refer'd to that immediate before or to the fourth above as who should say deceive not your selves by pretending excuses from relieving their temporal wants who afford you the spiritual helps of Christian doctrine so S. Augustine Theophylactus and S. Hierome expound this place or as more generally others expound it delude not your selves for you cannot cousen God by shaking off your burthens upon other mens shoulders you shall bear your own for God knowes which are yours and you cannot cousen him and thus it reports to the fifth verse as above let each one bear his own burthen So the metaphor imports that this life is a husbandry a time of sowing the next is that of reaping according as we have sowed here if good works then good reward if bad then punishment 8. This verse S. Hierome and the rest above interpret as they did that of the catechized as who should say if you sow the seed of almes to those that instruct you you shall reap the reward the Spirit that is heaven if you sow penury and relieve them not
therein Just thus it is with holy Churches preaching admit a million of people be assembled to one sole Preacher in the pulpit is his Sermon ever the worse because it dynts the soul of every hearer there and moves him so as if the Preacher knew the heart of every auditour he had whom yet he never saw in all his life nor knowes him now he sees him would any man condemn this Preacher No admire him rather and in him adore Almighty God who with one speech could touch the quick of every soul alive And so it is with holy Churches prayers the commoner they are the more peculiarly they touch each pious persons soul if rightly understood they seem to reach as far as all the preachers of the Church can scrue into a soul and farther too for who so sayes them with a zeal suitable to the Spirit whence they flow he like a river runs into the sea whence all the waters have their spring and is not lost although he beâ— not found but rather swells to be a sea of spirit while he falls out of his private devotions into the Ocean of the Churches prayer and sayes to himself Matt. 23.23 These things ought to be done and those things ought not to be omitted O Christians what a sovereign cure have we to day against the worst contagion in the Church the spirit of division of faction Say but this prayer devoutly read but the lessons of the other services of holy Church to day agreeable to this prayer and I shall hope to hear no more of faction in the Church of division in the house of the Holy Ghost of dissention among Roman Catholicks much lesse amongst the Priests of holy Church for in them it were a contagion worse then diabolical who as they are all Ministers of one onely God so should they all agree in one to guide the souls they are to govern in the spirit of peace and unity of love and charity which they shall never teach better then when they give example of it to their flocks The Epistle Ephes 4.1 1 I therefore prisoner in our Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called 2 With all humilitie and mildnesse with patience supporting one another in charity 3 Carefull to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace 4 One body and one spirit as you are called in one hope of your vocation 5 One Lord one Faith one Baptisme 6 One God and Father of all which is over all and by all and in us all 7 Who is blessed world without end Amen The Explication 1. THe cause why he beseecheth them is in regard they had the happinesse to be made of Gentiles Christians and so equall with the Jewes that were the chosen people of God He calls himself prisoner in our Lord because he was in prison for our Lord for teaching the faith of Christ Walking here is understood living Note the word Vocation is of speciall regard and so imports a speciall obligation they had to comply with their said vocation which was indeed their conversion from Gentilisme to Christianitie 2. This verse specifies the eminent marks of Christians from Gentiles the one proud harsh furious quarrelsome the other therefore humble milde patient loving that so it might appeare a religious change to come from one contrary to another Supporting each other imports bearing with each others infirmities In Charitie is to say by or with Charitie repending good for evil 3. By unitie of spirit is here meant unanimitie that is though in bodies divided yet in mind they should be one and make it their studie so to be thus to comply with the care thereof commended if not commanded also This verse is hugely against all schismaticall division in the Church receding from the common Doctrine to follow the fancies of private spirits By the word bond is understood removing private sense in point of religion for a bond imports a tie between parties and so abandons singularitie when it must binde many together in the peace of unanimitie 4. This verse is exhortatorie stirring up to be all as one body and one soul that as you are called to one hope of Heaven by this your vocation to Christianitie so you goe all thither as one man since the Church is properly called one civill man while all the Members of it are regulated by one Law of Christ by one holy Spirit And indeed Saint Paul useth a huge Art telling us we have all one hope namely Heaven thereby to make us tend all one way to the attaining thereof 5. One Lord Christ Jesus one Faith that which the Apostles preached one Baptisme that which is given in due matter and forme applied with due intention water accompanying these words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost according as holy Church intendeth when this Sacrament is administred 6. In this verse the Apostle summes up all he said before As we have but one God who is our common Father so we must have but one spirit lest we degenerate from being his children who will own none but those that are one in him and one to one another all others are bastards and cannot be brothers because not begotten of him that knowes no division but consists of unitie and simplicitie No God is above all men by his Majestie and Deitie he is through all things by his power and efficacie in them penetrating and passing through them all as freely as we doe through the Aire in all things by his essence and being in us Christians by his grace which makes us be his children and by his glory which makes us be his heires Others understand by this triple division the Apostle means that God the Father is above us all by creation God the Sonne by redemption runs through us with the Sea of his passion God the Holy Ghost is in us all by his sanctifying grace The Application 1. SAint Paul being by his imprisonment separated from his Converts the Ephesians and desirous in litle to send them much counsell how they might walk worthy of the vocation in which they were called summes up here those virtues that are most necessary for new converted souls Humilitie as the foundation whereupon they must build their monuments of a blessed Eternitie in imitation of Almightie God who raised all the fabricke of humane salvation upon the Basis of his own abasement Mildnesse in testimony they were no more children of wrath and indignation but of their milde Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ A charitable Patience that is to say for love of God supporting bearing with one another as the onely means to keep themselves in favour with Almighty God whom they hourely much more exasperate then any man can do them And Unanimitie as the badge of perfect Christianitie testifying they are onely true lovers of one another who are right believers in Jesus Christ
instead of purifying our intentions of honouring as we ought to do one onely God when even under that pretence by the contagion of factious doctrine we Idolize to as many devils as mislead us in the wayes of faction and division For prevention whereof holy Church fitly prayes as above that our intentions may be purified by the unity thereof by intending Gods honour only in those services that are pretended done for Gods sake and not our own interest On the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 9. v. 7. THe sick then of the palsie took up his bed in which he lay magnifying God and all the people which beheld it gave praise to God Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt O Lord the operation of thy mercy direct our hearts because without thee wee cannot please thee The Illustration IF any man doubt what is meant by the operation of our Lords mercy mentioned in this prayer S. Paul in the first verse of this daies Epistle will tell him it is the actual grace of God which the Apostle alwayes gives thanks for as being the cause of the Corinthians conversion of their being enriched in all things appertaining to Christian religion so as to want nothing but the revelation of Christ in glory whom already they beheld in grace as also of their perseverance without crime till the day of doom in that belief unto which by this grace they had been called This is the summ of the Epistle and undoubtedly this is the sense of the prayer begging that as by the operation of Christ his mercy the Corinthians became Christians so we that are by the same meanes of the same profession may by the same help have our hearts directed by the operation of our Saviours mercy towards us by the encrease of his grace within us And indeed that encrease is also properly the operation of his mercy too for the first gift thereof was rather the exhibition then the operation of his holy grace and yet to us it seems like an operation of it too within his own bowels and so as we said above the exhibition of it in our eyes is as the effect of his mercie upon himself but the encrease thereof is the operation of it upon us to whom it is exhibited so by the exhibition of this grace we become children of God and by the encrease thereof we grow to be his champions to live his Saints and die his Martyrs rather then renounce the Faith of Christ Thus we see the first clause of this Prayer hath exhausted the whole Epistle of the day Now that the Gospel should be by the close thereof exhausted too would seem strange if already stranger mysteries had not appeared in the mysterious prayers of holy Church And certain it was for the depth of their spirit that S. Gregory the great collects them all together into a book intituled of Sacraments that is to say of Mysteries as in the preface of this book was hinted not that the stile of Churches prayers is other then plain and easie but that the depth of their meaning is prodigious We have examples in the simple stile of Thomas à Kempis authour of the following of Christ the plainest and the deepest book that ever was written next to holy Writ the fullest of common places and yet the most home to every mans particular that reads it So it is with the Churches prayers they are in words simple and facil but in sense such as the deepest understanding may not be able to sound the bottome of them For instance see how the whole story of the Gospel is wound off by the onely close of this daies prayer if yet the former clause thereof were not appropriable thereunto For what imports the pressing into Jesus presence of the paralytick and those who from the houses top did drop him down into the room where Jesus was when they found not entrance any other way but an infinite faith they had of being cured by the least touch of his sacred person and this to satisfie our selves with the letter of the story not recurring as we might to the mystery thereof What I say means this passage else then a remonstrance of this paralyticks faith in Jesus Christ And who doth not see the close of this prayer excellently well allude to faith since we read that without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Do not we Christians then implicitely beg if not the gift which we have already at least the encrease of faith when we end this prayer with confessing We cannot without God please his Divine Majestie that is to say as without the gift of faith we can be no Christians at all so without the encrease thereof through the operation of Christ his mercy in us we cannot become good Christians such as by works of charity still encrease our faith in Jesus Christ and by that encrease deserve with the paralytick as well the remission of our sins as the cure of corporal diseases since without such remission we cannot please Almighty God and without him no such remission can be had that is without his mercy operate first upon him to pardon us and then upon us when pardoned to offend no more not that this operation of Gods mercy upon himself is any new act but ever is ever was and will be one and the same act in him seeming new to us by the new effects it produceth in us So every way is it an undoubted truth that without him we can no wayes please him And thus do we still adjust the prayers of holy Church unto the other service of the day The Epistle 1 Cor. 1. v. 4. 4 I give thanks to my God alwayes for you for the grace of God that is given you in Christ Jesus 5 That in all things you may be rich in him in all utterance and in all knowledge 6 As the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you 7 So that nothing is wanting to you in any grace expecting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ 8 Who also will confirm you unto the end without crime in the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ The Explication 4. IN these words S. Paul gives thanks to God incessant for the grace of Christ which was given to the Corinthians who thereby were made Christians An excellent lesson and ought to be frequently practised by us to acknowledge that our perseverance is a continuation of our vocation to Christianity 5. In all things appertaining to your religion Rich in him rich by him that doth enrich you every hour by preserving you in the same vocation he hath called you unto In all utterance in all your words whereby is preached this faith In all knowledge in all true spiritual understanding the doctrine of Christ as who should say I thank God that hath by mine and by Apollo's preaching afforded you all understanding and true sense
honest ends not for lucre or unjust sordid gain the temptation whereof will cease if we make it the end of our labour to do works of charity to others such as is relieving them in their necessity And if to this end even Church-men labour they will not want the example of it given them by the Apostles who did practise the same as well as preach it The Application 1. St. Paul not knowing what better counsel to give his Ephesian Converts when he found some of them relapsing towards the old man then to bid them be renewed in the spirit of their minds and to put on the new man which according to God was created in Justice and Holinesse seemes in this to have left it as a rule of Christian perfection that the Ephesians should endeavour to be continually the Saints which first they were when God by holy baptisme snatcht them out of the bondage of the devil and made them free-born Citizens of the heavenly Hierusalem clad in the richest robes of Saintitie the purest Innocency 2. And surely holy Church can have no other aym by reading us this lesson to day then to mind our charity of walking in that saving path of Innocency by renewing her baptismal vow her holy covenant with Almighty God of loving him above all things and her neighbour as her self of renouncing the world the flesh and the devil with all their lying passion malice and injustice forbidden to all Christians in the holy Text above 3. Now because this is easier said by Preachers then done by the people and because it is impossible for men of themselves to do the least good at all the Royal Prophet saying there is not one that doth it therefore holy Church finding her children by S. Paul exhorted to no lesse perfection then the highest of Saintity and remembring that as when Adam was in Paradise God to ease his way to Saintity had shut out all Adversity both of mind and body from thence all disturbance and grief of soul all rebellion of sense against reason all disasters of the body in a word all mortality it self so the same God having pleased to bring us in to a Paradise of grace our prudent Mother hopes his divine goodnesse will also shut out all adversity from thence that we may not by disturbance either in mind or body be hindered from executing his commands better in this paradise of grace then Adam did in the paradise of Earth yet withall our holy Mother knowing the difficulty of this work to procure us this tranquillity useth all her best arts and for this end Prayes to God that it may be if not ours at least his own handy-work and if not feisible by his ordinary Power that yet it may be done by his Omnipotency or by that which yet to us is greater by his mercy and lest that mercy be mistaken she conjures him by the highâ—st of his mercies by his bitter death and passion by that mercy which doth not onely satisfie the rigour of his Justice but renders him Propitious also to us Say but the Prayer above and see if it be not home to all this purpose The Gospel Matt. 22. v. 1. 1 And Jesus answering spake again in parables to them saying 2 The Kingdome of heaven is likened to a man being a King which made a marriage to his son 3 And he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage and they would not come 4 And again he sent other servants saying tell them that were invited behold I have prepared my dinner my beeves and fatlings are killed and all things are ready come you to the marriage 5 But they neglected and went their wayes one to his farme and another to his merchandize 6 And the rest laid hands upon his servants and spitefully entreating them murdred them 7 And when the King did hear of it he was wroth and sending his hosts destroyed those murtherers and burnt their City 8 Then he said to his servants the marriage indeed is ready but they that were invited were not worthy 9 Go ye therefore into the high wayes and whomsoever you shall find call to the marriage 10 And his servants going forth into the wayes gathered together all that they found bad and good and the marriage was filled with guests 11 And the King went in to see the guests and saw there a man not attired in a wedding garment 12 And he said to him Friend how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment but he was dumb 13 Then the King said to the wayters binde his hands and feet and cast him into the utter darknesse there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth 14 For many are called but few elected The Explication 1. BY this way of parables Christ did often instruct and illuminate the Jewes who were very intentive to any parabolical sense and much pleased therewith 2. By the Kingdome of heaven is here understood the Church militant which is truly a Kingdome purchased by the blood of Christ and the time when this marriage was made was when Christ became man who being the second person of the blessed Trinity was espoused to his holy Church So the King here mentioned is God the Father sending down his Son to be married to his said Spouse the holy Church 3. The servants meant in this verse were the Patriarks and Prophets of the old Law who could not prevail with the Jews to come unto the wedding feast that God had by these his servants invited them unto 4. The servants in this verse were the Apostles their disciples and all missionary Priests of the new Law of Christ These were bid tell the people invited and with great reason the wedding feast was ready for so the word dinner here imports By the beeves and fatlings are understood the Sacrifices Sacraments Sermons Martyrdomes and all other spiritual food prepared for souls in holy Church 5. By these are understood men preferring the world before God and so refusing to be reconciled for fear of loosing their estates by the penal lawes of man made against the followers of the Law of Christ The farm and merchandize are here set down in lieu of all other worldly occupations withdrawing soules from the service of God 6. These are such as did not onely refuse themselves to become good but proceeded farther in their malice by opposing others in their way of vertue in a word by persecuting the people of God the true Church of Christ Such were those who put to death the Apostles such they who now execute the Priests that succeed the Apostles in the ministery of Gods holy Word 7. This verse tells us that God perceiving the wickednesse of those who persecuted his Saints as the Jewes had done his sacred Son sent in his wrath Titus and Vespasian to destroy the Jewes to sack Jerusalem and therein to pull down the Temple of Solomon the miracle in a manner of the world So
that the Princes Armies were the hostes in this verse mentioned who after they had sackt did burn the City of Jerusalem 8 This verse alludes to the turning a way Gods face from the Jews his chosen people and casting his eye upon the Gentiles which signifies the transmigration from the Jewish Synagogue to the Church of Christ from the old Law to the new And he sayes truly dinner was ready indeed because Christ was then crucified and yet after that his resurrection ascension and coming of the Holy Ghost the stiffe-necked Jewes would nor be made believe in him so then the Apostles were sent from the unworthy Jewes to the Gentiles 9. Into the high wayes into all the nooks and turnings of the whole world into all Nations with Commission to make no such distinction as formerly God made between Jew and Gentile but to preach and teach the Word of God to all in general and to every one in particular of what Nation soever to every creature of the whole world Mark 16. v. 15. 10. This verse alludes to the performance of this Commission when holy Church sayes in honour of the Apostles Rom. 10.18 The sound of their lips went into every Nation and even to the worlds end their words were heard inviting as they were commanded bad and good that is not denying as Reformists do but that true faith may consist with evill manners that bad men may be yet true Christians or which is all one that in the Church of Christ there are sinners as well as Saints who are not therefore secluded the Church because they are of evil life but are still exhorted to mend By the marriage being filled with guests understand here the Church of Christ was full of true believers of all Nations whatsoever 11. This verse points at the day of Judgement which is the last day of the nuptial feast of Jesus Christ when God coming to view his guests brought into the Church out of all Nations shall espy one wanting his wedding garment wanting his robe of innocence and sanctity of life wrought by charity in his soul and rendring his faith meritorious in the sight of God by the good works of his charity By this one is literally and eminently here meant the reprobated Jew who at the day of Judgment shall be more confounded then any other Nation whatsoever so here is not had regard to faith as distinguished from charity since the onely obstinate Jew is understood to have no faith at all how ever he come thither to receive his doom with others that are then to be judged but his reprobation shall be signal and remarkable when he shall be as it were the onely man picked out to be thrust into the pit of hell Though by one man mentioned here is also signified that at the day of Judgment there shall not one be permitted to enter into the Kingdome of heaven who hath not on him the wedding garment of sanctifying charity hence each one ought to have a great care lest he be the one singled out to eternal perdition since in that vaste multitude not one can hope to lie hid from the sight of the Judge 12. By being dumb is here understood not being able to alleadge any excuse why he should not be damned Yet even in this inexcusable delinquency the text by the word friend out of the King mouth expresseth it is purely our own faults we are not saved for God on his part is our friend and so calls us when we obstinately persist in professing enmity to his Divine Majesty 13. By the Waiters here we may not unfitly understand the divels who wait indeed to snatch away as many soules to hell as they can By the binding his hands and feet is understood the cessation of all future action and place is then onely left for passion for enduring endlesse torments The darknesse of hell is therefore called utter darknesse because there is neither light of reason nor of grace nor place left in the damned to be saved by any meanes Though S. Gregory calls it outward darknesse which is more after the Latine text because it is a darknesse added to the darknesse of the heart and soul wherein the damned creature lived which as contradistinguished to that of hell S. Gregory calls inward darknesse where no light of grace did shine within the soul 14. This is a fearful conclusion for whereas the parable speaks but of one rejected this verse intimates very few are saved that is though many are called into the lap of the Church yet but few are placed in the bosome of Christ and there rewarded with eternal glory namely those onely who by good works and godly life added to their faith have according to S. Peters counsel made certain their vocation and election too 2 Pet. 1.10 certain indeed to God but not so to their knowledge who at most can have but a certain hope thereof so long as they live The Application 1. THe Parable of this Gospel seems nothing else but a deeper inculcation to us of the doctrine delivered above in this dayes Epistle inviting us to an innocency of life in this Paradise of grace by inviting us to a saintity of a far better life in the Paradise of glory 2. For what are all these excuses pretended here against our going to heaven but that which the Epistle forbids a meer practise of lying both to God and man So the Prophet had reason to say Iniquity gave her self the lye by pretending excuses from her bounden duty which ought to be nothing else but the serving God and the saving of her soul thereby What is the laying hands on Gods servants and murdering those that invite us to heaven but the Anger and giving place to the devil both forbidden in the Epistle what our stealing away the grace of our soules by the hands of sin which was a treasure given us to work out both our own and our neighbours salvation also by but a plain practise of the prohibited Theft in the last verse of the Epistle with making the theft a sacriledge to boot by robbing God of his glory and of his Saints whilest we concur to their damnation whom Jesus sayntified by his bitter death and passion 3. What then remaines but that as these falsities passions malices thefts are meerly the devices of the devil the multiplicity of his invented adversities to disturb the quiet of our minds and bodies by that they may not be free to serve God with a prompt obedience to his commands his meer bolts indeed to shut us for ever out of our best Paradise of glory so the Church by the practise of veracity patience goodnesse and honesty bids us work counter to the devil And for this purpose prayes to day that God will by the bolt of his efficacious grace shut out the devill with all his adversities from our soules and bodies that so by a tranquillity of serving God in the Paradise of grace in
Assyrians led barefoot in shew of their slavery Isaias went three dayes barefooted Isa 20.3.4 which he needed not have done but for this propheticall end whereas the Apostle intimates here our slavery is past and our servitude also in regard we are of slaves to the devil made now children of God and so need go no longer barefooted But the truest meaning of this place is that by being shod we shew a promptitude both in hearing preaching and practising the Word of God as who should say this promptitude were the best preparation to bring in Christianitie to all parts of the world And the Gospel of Christ is rightly called a Gospel of peace because it brings tidings of humane redemption of fraternall dilection and of salvation to those that walk therein 16. In all things imports here above all things that we must take up the shield of true faith for that is it indeed which not onely shews us to be Christians but defends us against all enemies of Christ by breaking the darts and arrows of the devil which are shot against us and are born off by this buckler of faith are received confidently and shattered against it assuredly for no temptations enter the body or the soul that are received upon this buckler By the fierie darts of the most wicked one are understood the temptations of the flesh which the devil leads us into and such are those of burning lust but easily quenched by believing God's grace is sufficient to extinguish them in us as it was in S. Paul 2 Cor. 12. v. 9. 17. By the head-peice or helmet of salvation the Apostle means the hope of heaven given us by Christ his passion for as a helmet secures the head as the chief part of man so this hope of heaven settles all our thoughts rectifies our intentions and squares our actions to the right end that makes them saving and encourageth us for the hope we have of heaven to rush in upon any danger which is between vs and that blessed home as men whose heads are armed with a helmet do break into the thickest shower of their enemies darts or swords By the sword of the spirit or spirituall sword is understood the Word of God the Gospel the doctrin of Jesus Christ whether written or delivered by the oraculous mouths of his twelve Apostles and from thence brought down unto this very time we live in 2 Thessal 2.15 Isa 59.20 21. and which shall be handed over from us to all after ages by the teachers and preachers of the Holy Church With the edge of this sword Christ slew the devil tempting him in the desert as we read Matth. 4. when he said not in bread alone but in every word that falls from the mouth of God man is fed and kept spiritually alive And thus we see a Christian souldier compleatly armed by the Apostle from head to foot with spirituall armour and weapons not onely sufficient for defensive but even to secure him in an offensive warr against his greatest adversaries The Application 1. THe 2 first verses of this Epistle give us warning of the worst encounter charity hath had as yet in all her tedious march hear how they bid her fortifie arm and stand the enemy the devil But God be thank'd ther 's a friend at hand The mighty power of our Lord. The 3d verse tels us 't is not Major Generall the Flesh who rallies still a new how oft soever we beat him out of the field nor the Leivtenant Generall the World but Captain Generall himself the worst of all the Divells hell can arm against us The spirituall of wickedness in the celestialls bids the Battel now the same that never comes to field without his Rectours Princes Potentates and all the forces he can muster up The Explication above hath fitted us to the fight and taught us the use of our armes 2. Now Charity defend thy self and us put up thy Royal standard that of Heavenly Grace fixt to the Cross of Christ See how they charge thee on thy right wing first hark how their canons roar against thy Faith while it is Deity indeed they fight against with Infidelitie Atheistry Paganisme Turcisme Heresie Judaisme Sects and Schismes as many as there are fancies in mens fickle brains See at the same time how they charge thy left wing too Thy hope of everasting happinesse This they would fool thee out of by their onely facing thee with Liberty thy birth-right with honour pleasure profit treasure and command possessions better as they say then thy best of expectations ought to fright thee from But all the main charge is against thy Faith and this too given by the Captain-General the spiritual of wickedness in the celestials he that having lost himself would lose thee too he that 's asham'd thou should'st enjoy the happinesse he is deprived of because he could not love his Maker better then himself See then the Battail's at an end if charity can love God can crown her with the victory over him that lost the day for lack of love Be sure thy faith can never fail if thou be constant in thy love since all belief is rooted in charity so we are taught Ephes 3.18 Whilest we have Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith rooted and founded in charity the same is of the Deity and all the other mysteries of Faith we do believe and all of Hope So whilest our charity keeps her Body close her virtues round about her those we call the works of love her wings are safe the day the field 's her own maugre all the enemies assaults for say beloved though we should admit which yet we must not do that Invisibles are slender motives to make us relinquish all the present pleasures of the world yet of the two Invisibles those that tie us up to goodness here are safer certainly then those that let us loose to all iniquity So by force of reason charity hath woon the day while she believes hopes in and loves the unseen Deity by having seen the sayntity of his sacred Son and in that faith that hope that love defies the unseen enemy to Deity the Devil whose seen iniquities affright us from the ruine he invites us to 3. To conclude if holy Church on the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany upon the danger of the enemy man assaulting her by night but to sow poysonous seed upon her wholesome corn did Body then and draw her self into her Guards no marvell that to day upon a greater onset she Bodies too and puts her self into her Ranks and Files indeed into Battalia and now begins her prayer in the self same words as then though being yet to make a further march she variâ—s in the latter end of her petition And because she knows the divine protection will no longer continue to set her free from the worst of adversities those spiritual iniquities that would fain cut up Religion by the roots and fool us out of doing