urge and press What is it that urges and Pressess you to penance 'T is the Will of God who commands you by S. Iohn Baptist by the Apostles by the holy Doctors by the Councells of the Church and by the mouth of his own Son What is that which urges you 'T is the fear you ought to have to offend the greatness of God his infinite justice his Immensity and most adorable Presence What is that which urges you The fear of falling into new sins of dying in an ill state of losing the merit of your good Workes It is the example of the Saints who have don Penance all their life It is the charity of IESUS who incarnated himself who endured so much Who dyed upon the Cross to oblige you to it who hath expected you so long and so patiently with this intention who promises you pardon and to receive you if you do true Penance See then the changes which true penance makes that you may not so easily be deceived in a matter of so great importance The Prophet Ioöl expresses them in a few words Convert to me in all your heart in fasting and in weeping and Ioel. 2. 12. in mourning In rhe first place it makes a change in us Convert In the second it changes our heart convert to me in your heart In the third place It changes all the heart convert to me in all your heart in the fourth It rests not in the heart onâ—y but changes our exteriour Convert to me in fasting and in mourning 5. In the first place true penance changes and converts us Convert It is an admirable Chimistrie which transforms not metalls but souls ir changes not peuter into silver copper into gold but men into Angells from carnal terrestrial vitious and brutal it turns them into spiritual vertuous and divine men S. Paul calls him that is converted a new creature a new man and he says that by penance we are renew'd and reform'd becaus we devest our selves of the old Adam for to revest our selves with the new which is IESUS-CHRIST 6. This Word in your hearts notes the second change and teaches us that 't is the heart which must be first and Ephes 4. 24. chiefly changed It is the heart that God demands always when He speaks of conversion convert your selves to me in all your heart rent your hearts and â—n oâ— your garments says He by his Prophet Ioel. And by the Psalmist my God you will not despise a contrite Ioel 2. Psal 50. Ezech. 18. 31. and humbled heart and by the Prophet Ezechiel cast away all your prevarications and make your selves a new heart and a new Spirit A new spirit that is thoughts sentiments and opinions A new heart that is wills affections and desires quite other then before 7. Vpon which S. Gregory admonishes us of two Errors into part 1. Past c. 9. which we are apt to fall very dangerously we take often says he the thought of our understanding for the disposition of our heart the Idea of our imagination for the affection of our will You will find sometims Penitents whom the Confessor asking Are you well prepar'd to confession They will answer readily yes Sir we have made an act of contrition And how have they made it They have read in a book a prayer or forme of contrition my God it repents me from the bottome of my heart to have committed Sin becaus it displeases you I am sorry to have offended you becaus you are infinitely good and becaus they have sayd these or the like words in their understanding or with their mouth they thinke that they have made an Act of contrition 'T is well don to say these words provided you say true But to thinke you have made an Act of Contrition by saying them with your mouth or in your understanding is a most pernicious error For Contrition is not in the lipps nor in the imagination nor in the understanding but in the Will God requires not that you say you are sorry to have offended him but He wills that you be so in effect a man that harbours animosities in his heart or that restores not goods unjustly gotten may say a hundred times my God I am Sorry to have offended you and yet he will not have one grain of true repentance By what may one know that he has it by the effects if you make restitution if you leave off this unjust suit and repair damages if you fly this occasion of sin you shew probably that your heart is changed But if you content your self with words or imaginations one will say to you that you give to God the motion of your lipps But the affection of your heart is far from Him 8. Others change theyr lives and their hearts notwithstanding are not changed the change is made about them not in them they were heretofore frequenters of naughty houses and of ill companies Now they are ruined in their fortune health and reputation by their dissolutions Wherefore they go no more to those houses into those companies they make no more excesses they play no more becaus they have not wherewith to to defray the charges or their health will not permit them it is their purses or their bodies that are changed not perhaps their hearts I know not what confessions such do make theyr bodys and their tongues cease to commit the sin But their hearts perhaps cease not to love it and if God hath not the heart He makes little or no account of all the rest He loves so much the heart that He will have it all 9. He says by his Prophet Convert your selves to me with all Deut. 4. your heart And by Moses when you shal seek the Lord you will find him if you seek him in all your heart He demands not all your money but only a part in alms nor all your fruits but only a part in tithe but he will have all your heart without reserve restriction or division so that no affection whatsoever may remain in it to mortal sin no division permitted of your love which is as fatal to it and to your conversion as it is unto your heart He wills that you quit not one two three or four sins only but all without exception and not only for the present time but for ever for if there remain in your heart the least designe for the future your conversion is fals deceitfull and unfruitfull 10. The fourth conversion that true penance makes is of our exteriour it makes us to do exteriour workes of penance when these are in our power The Prophet sayd not only convert in your heart but moreover in fasting and weeping and in mourning And S. Iohn Baptist required exterior workes of penance when he sayd yield fruits worthy of penance And our Saviour sais not only that a good tree bears not bad fruit but he adds that it produces good and that it is by this that we must know
say that God does not require of us all the good that He enables us to do and this is the ground of works of superero gation and doing more then is commanded Now if God do not require all but only thus much to do well then the doing better then well is a stock which God gives us to offer Him liberal services beyond the band of duty And what pride is it for man to acknowledg this sweet providence of his Creatour and to pâ—aise his mercifull indulgence in not exacting so much as He might and giving him a way and meanes to shew his voluntary and unexacted love to him We give surely by this more honor and glory to God then they who say that God requires of us all that He enables us to do yea and more commanding things impossible and then punishes us for not doing them Far be such a thought of God from a Christian heart God commands nothing but what is honourable profitable and also easy with his grace That which He demands to save us is that we do good workes conformable to our supernatural Being and to the high end to which we are designed that we do them in a competent and convenient Quantity and that we do not abuse or lose the Talents which He lends us but use these well in the practise of them as shal be seen God Matt. 3. 10. aiding in this Discours 6. Now the axe is put to the root of the tree every tree therefore that brings not forth good fruit shal be cut down and cast into the Matt. 7. 19. Matt. 20. fire says S. Iohn Baptist And our Saviour himself in the Gospell confirms the Sermon of his Precursor and repeats his words Every tree that beares not good fruit shal be cut down and shal be cast into the fire It is not then enough for to be saved to have only the Psal 61. 13. Matt. 16. 27. Rom. 2. 6. 2. Cor 5. 10. Apoc. 2. 23. leaves of Saintlike words or only the flowers of holy and good desires or only the rinds and the exteriour of good fruit but we must have good and perfect fruit which are the workes of Vertues And in S. Matthew He calls the Elect not Speakers not designers not complementers but Workemen Voca operarios So in divers other places of holy Writ it is sayd God will render unto every one not according to his designes or fine discourses but according to his workes He that made you without you will not save you without you sayd S. Augustine And explicating these words of David I sought God with Aug. Ep. 21. ad Prob. c. 13. Psal 76. 2. my hands since God hath no body sayes he how can one seek him with the hands he answers that is to say with good workes And this is not that God is hard to bestow his gifts and to do good to his creatures but 't is that He would do it reasonably and decently according to the rules of his providence and infinite Wisdom He hath united his glory and our interests in procuring our Salvation He will exercise and make seen his adorable perfections his Power Wisdom and incomprehensible Goodnesse The glory of his power shin'd more when he overcame Egipt by an army of flies when he defeated Holofernes by the hand of a woman than when He made use of powerfull armies Erit memoriale nominis tui cum manus feminae dejecerit eum And this same power shines yet more gloriously when He ruines the empire of Satan beates down the reigne of sin and of the world conquers heaven and beares away the Crown of glory by feeble instruments He shews his Wisdome which demands that his goods and gifts be not undervalued that one give them not to the unworthy who contemne them 't is to have little esteem of them and dispise them if we will not labor to obtaine them He makes his goodness seen in that he vouchsafes to make use of his creatures in an employment so honourable and so glorious We hold it a great honor to be employed by a King in the regency and the government of a Kingdom how much more honor is it to be associated with a God in his more great and noble actions to conquer the kingdom of heaven to sanctify our soules and to enrich our selves with christian Vertues 7. The Scripture speaking of the glory of heaven sayes it is a salarie a harvest a crown for to teach us that if we will be saved we must necessarily labor sow fight Each one shal receave his reward according to his labor says S. Paul to the Corinthians 1. cor 3. 8. Gal. 6 7 2. Tem. 2. 5. and to the Galatians a man shal not reap but what he hath sown And to Timothy No man shal be crown'd but he that hath fought legitimatly A servant that should not have don any evill but should have held his armes closed all the day and year would he have the impudence to demand a salary a labourer that shouâ—d neither have sown nor planted would he hope to gather or reape any thing A Soldier that hath play'd whilst that others fought would he have the boldness to desire to be crown'd The Son of God who is our modell was not contented to desire our Salvation and to demand it of his Father He laboured for it and to succeed in it we must apply our selves to vertuous workes efficaciously and seriously and in the second place as good trees we must produce these good fruits plentifully 7. The Son of God saies in S. Iohn I am the Vine you the Iohn 15. 5. branches He that abides in me and I in him he brings forth much fruit He sayes not simply fruit but much fruit then He adds if any abide not in me he shal he cast forth as the branch and shal wither and shal be thrown into the fire He was so much concern'd for the fecundity of his branches that He suffered death to merit grace for them to produce an abundance of good fruit He delivered himself sayes S. Paul that He might redeem us from all iniquity and might cleanse to himself a people acceptable a pursuer of good workes Wherefore the Apostle ceased not to pray for the Collossians Ep. ad Tit. 2. 14. Colloss 1. 10. 2. Thess 2. 17. that they might walke whorthy of God in althings pleasing fructifying in all good workes And in like manner prays God to exhort comfort and confirme the Thessalonians in every good worke and word But he makes us see yet more the necessity of this fecundity or abundance of good workes in the second Epistle to S. Timothy for behold how he deciphers there an elect soule who aspires seriously to the happy life and who shal obtaine it she is sayes he a Vessel unto honor sanctifyd and profitable to our Lord ready and disposed to every good worke He sayes ready or prepared 2. Tim. 2 21. because every
one cannot practise effectually all good workes but a chosen soul is disposed to do them promptly whensoever God gives him abilitie and occasion These Words of S. Paul instruct us to employ the Talents and to cooperate with the grace that God gives us faithfully In what consists the fidelity of a servant in that he employes the goods of his Master to as much profit as he can and therefore the servant in the Gospell who had employ'd well the five talents which were given him to trafick was called faithfull servant S. Matt. 25. 26. serve bone fidelis and the other who gain'd not with his talent was term'd naughty servant This ought to admonish us Gregory hom 9 in Evang. sayes great S. Gregory to consider carefully lest we who have received more from God than others should be therefore judg'd more severely and rigorously than others for when the gifts of God are augmented in us the accompts which we must render of them also do increase every one of us ought then to be so much more humble and more diligent in the service of God how much he finds himself more oblig'd for the fovours he receiv'd from him 9. Nevertheless there are very many Christians that make not good use of them there are but few comparatively to whome one may not say as to the idle servant in the Gospell who hid his Talent serve nequam naughty servant Some have the Talent of a good wit and understanding And in what do they employ this fine wit to speak a witty word in company to jest pleasantly to study curiosities and complements to make ingenious replyes to the end they say there is a Lady that hath a great wit there is a man that knowes how to intertain company they do as that foolish Emperour who spent the day in chasing and killing flies with a golden bodkin they have golden understandings which are not employd but to catch flies the flies of vain glory of worldly praise of complacencie in them selves and at the best but in the affaires of this world God gave it them to consider his workes to contemplate his perfections to meditate upon the Mysteries of Faith to conceive acts of repentance to do good workes to assist the poore to confort the opprest to help widows and orphans and to instruct the ignorant and they do nothing less is not this to lose or abuse their Talent Others have the Talent of perfect health a body entire and well compos'd that they may bear the labours of good and vertuous workes and the austerities of penance and they let this health wâ—ste away in an idle slack and faint life Ladies if you are good Christians after you have don your devotions you ought to labor in some worke for the Poore since S. Paul does say so To others God hath given riches of this world to do good with them to buy heaven and to redeem their sins by alms if God had don this favour to one man only to be able to redeem eternal paines with temporal goods to be able to oblige his Saviour and to gaine his favour with money how happy would he be esteem'd when a rich man is upon his death-bed and dispair'd off by Phisitians we are wont to say ô if life and health could be bought with money how glad would this man be how willingly would he give the halfe of his fortune to free himself from present death Yes life and health may be purchased with money not the fragil and temporal health but the solid and eternal not this life which is full of miseries but the happy life which is a collection of all goods And instead of purchasing this life instead of redeeming their sins by alms instead of traficking with this Talent they keep it â—id and lock'd up in a Coffre or they throw it away in vanities superfluities and debaucheries Another Talent which God desires us to manage with more care is the time He gives us to do penance and other workes of holiness He desires so much that we make use of the present time that he leaves us vncertaine of the future we know not that after this year this month this week this day there will be any time for us Is it not then a great want of prudence to let it pass without making good use of it Consider well your life see in what you employ the precious time You rise at eight or nine a clock you lose two or three houres in dressing your selves you content your selves to hear a short mass the afternoon is spent in giving or receiving visites the evening in frivolous discourses in cardes or other pastimes is this the life of a Christian is this to bring forth much fruit is this to be a Pursuer of good Works But that with which we ought to cooperate most diligently is the grace of God Wherefore S. Paul cryes-out to us receive 2. Cor. 6. not the grace of God in Vaine Nevertheless holy Iob notes our abuse of it Ipsi fuerunt rebelles Lumini they have been rebells against the light Is it not true that this word is verifyd in you you Iob. 24. 23. do not sin through ignorance you know well that you live not as you ought you would not dye in the state of negligence Vanity worldliness in which you are you do many things which in the houre of death you will wish you had not don you do not many things which you will wish you had don you seek arguments and apparent reasons to flatter your selves in your imperfections and abuses of Gods graces But We need not to go out of the parable of the Gospel to confute them The Master sayd to the servant who had hid his Talent naughty servant why have you not put it out to profit He had not dissipated nor imploy'd ill the Talent but because he had not gain'd by it he sayd to him naughty servant take him and cast him into exteriour darkness Let us then apply our selves to good workes so that we may say with S. Paul the grace of God hath not been fruitless in me that 1. Cor. 15. 10. Colloss 4. 12. Apoc. 3. we may be of the number of those to whome 't is sayd You stand perfect and full in all the Will of God that we may not be subject to this reproach in the Apocalyps I find not thy workes full before God Consider what you would say to a workman that should rest two or rhree houres daily more then he ought what you would say to your farmer if he should bring you but half the rent he owes you These holy dispositions must com from God it belongs to him to give the beginning the progress and the accomplishment of our vertue Beg then these graces of him humbly fervently and frequently cooperate with them faithfully render to him all the glory of your actions and confess that when God shal crown your merits He will crown his
which S. Iohn called our Lords day We read again in the Acts that the first christians met upon the first day of the week which is our sunday to communicate But Acts. 20. 7. a Sabbatharian wil reply again what then The Text does not say they assembled always on that day or only on that day yea we read in the Acts that they communicated very frequently Acts. 2. or every day How do you then inferr from their communicating once upon that day that the Sabbath was abrogated and the Sunday was subrogated in its place Nay you find in the new Law that though the old Law was by CHRIST evacuated yet the ten Commandements were by Him confirm'd For in S. Matthew one came to our Saviour saying what good shal I do that I may have everlasting life Our Saviour Matth. 10. answered keep the commandements And when that man reply'd to know what commandements Our Lord explicated himself to mean those Commandements which that man knew very well S. Mark 10. S. Luke 18. Cor. 7. 19 as appears also in S. Mark and in S. Luke Secondly S Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians says Circumcision is nothing and prepuce is nothing but the observance of the Commandements of God this is the thing you must look too if you will have everlasting life Behold here that great Apostle tels you rhat even then when Circumcision was abolished and made nothing yet the observance of the Commandements and he excepts not one was necessary to salvation And our Saviour foretelling his Apostles the destruction of Hierusalem which was to be 40. yeares after his Resurrection when one would think the observance of the Sabbath would have been S. Matthew 24. 20. if ever it were to be abolished yet He bids them pray that their flight might not be upon the Sabbath or the 7. th day for to avoyd the prophanation of that day The seventh day then was to be observ'd long after the supposed practise of Communion upon the Sunday Acts. 20. 7. 1. Cor. 16 and long after S. Paul bids Christians to make their collections upon the first day of the week from whence you draw another argument though the Apostle does not so much as say that they did use to meet that day and seems to appoint that day only for a pious beginning of the week 2. Since then the Scriptures are not clear for us in this important point yea seem rather to be against us How do we know that the obligation of sanctifying the Sabbath or seventh day was taken away And how do we know that a new obligation of sanctifying the Sunday was put upon us we know it by the same way we know the Bible is the Word of God that the Creed was made by the Apostles that infants are to be baptized that the prohibition of the new Law to eate suffocated Acts. 15. meats and blood is repeal'd and to be short as we know other things of great importance not written or not plainly 2. Thes. 2. 15. declar'd in Scripture And this is Apostolical Tradition which S. Paul bids us hold For the Church by the instruction of the Apostles tells us plainly that the Son of God hath freed us from all obligation to sanctify the Sabbath of the Iewes and hath instituted Sunday for us Christians For on this day the principal Workes attributed to the most holy Trinity and don in favour of us were begun or accomplished It was on Sunday that God began to create the World It was on Sunday that our Saviour came into the world that He was born of the B. Virgin and that he rose again from the dead It was on Sunday that the holy Ghost descended upon the Faithfull to sanctify the world 3. These incomparable Workes should be the object of our devotion on Sundays to conforme our selves to the intentions of our Saviour and of the Church For this Commandement is both affirmative and negative as negative it forbids servil workes as affirmative it commands us to sanctify the day that is to employ the day in holy Workes as in assisting devoutly at divine service in praying in contemplating particularly those great workes of God for to admire the excellencie of them and to thank bless and praise him for them in receiving the Sacraments in reading spiritual books in hearing the word of God in visiting the Poor Sick and Prisoners which is an act af Religion says S. Iames in instructing one another in the Mysteries of Faith in the Commandements of God in S. Iames 1. 27. the practise of vertue and Religion S. Chrysostome sayd that Sunday was called the day of bread becaus all Christians then receiv'd the bread of Angells in the Eucharist the day of light becaus we ought to receive tâ—erein light and guidance for all the week by sermons catechismes spiritual reading and meditation If then we employ great part of the day in dancing playing and recreating our selves we offend not indeed against the negative Commandement which forbids servil workes but we do not accomplish perfectly the affirmative precept which commands us to sanctify the day 4. They violate the negative Commandement who employ the holy days in traficking in buying or selling or other servil and mercenary employments and are subjects of the complaynt which God makes by Ezechiel The houses of Israel provoked me and my Ezeeh. 20. 13. Sabbaths they violated exceedingly 4. You wilâ— say If I sell not another will I shal lose my custome and shal want But if this be so S. Paul would not say Piety is profitable to all things that is both to the spiritual 1. Tim. 4. 8 Matt 6. 31. and the temporal Nor would our Saviour conclude Be not therefore solicitous for the Sustenance of your bodys seek first the kingdom of God and his Providence will furnish you the rest by the meanes of moderate labour If we ever ought to seek the kingdom of God we ought to do it at least on Sundays and becaus you seek it not you are not supplyed with the rest You neglect the spiritual for the temporal and you lose both temporal and spiritual you are poor in this world and in the other 5. They have violated my Sabbaths exceedingly God says Exceedingly against those who not only serve not God on sundays but offend him more outragiously than in any other day by debaucheries impieties and dissolutions It seems the sunday is made by some the sink of all the week who having not leasure to offend God on other days transferr this to the sunday It is not now our Lords day with them but the devills their solemnities are not the festivalls of Saints but of Bacchus Ceres and Venus Heretofore the devills left the bodyes of possessed persons and withdrew themselves into the desert as unable to endure the piety and devotion of the Faithfull But now they possess the hearts of Christians as those hoggs of the