capable to be continually burning in a most violent fire without consuming To be in an eternity of regret sorrow vexation rage and horrible despair It is so great a good to be exempted from these pains that according to S. Austin and S. Gregory the justice of God leaves the reprobate in those miseries that the elect may know their great happiness and felicity in being freed from them by the grace of God Vt liberatus de non liberato discat quale supplicium sibi conveniret nisi gratia subveniret And they shal not only be perfectly deliver'd from them but they shal have quite contrary favours and not the contrary only which we may possibly conceive but moreover such as cannot com into the thoughts of a mortal man When then the Scriptures tell us that the Saints possess God perfectly that this infinite Good holding the place of all things satisfies all their desires and makes their souls most happy that they shal be brought into the house of God with eternal joy and gladness and that they shal be inebriated with the plenty of his house and in the torrent of his pleasures He will make them drink all these and the like expressions give us only some obscure notions imperfect images or shadows of that ineffable Glory which hath not ascended as the Apostle says into our hearts 8. And it is not only the Vision and the Fruition of God the joy and delectation which flow from them which the Apostle speaks of in those words But also the particular joys and accidental glorys and Laurells that Saints shal have given them there according to their combats and victories here to Martyrs such an one to Confessors such a one to Doctors such a one to Virgins another as it pleases him which particular Glorys what they shal be how inestimably delightfull they shal be to us and how gracefull in the sight of others we neither know nor can know here If then the lesser things be so great what is all Heaven What is God who is the summe and substance af all reward and felicity I doubt not but all Christians believe more then any man can say of them and I doubt as little but they thinke them well worthy their study and care and of their paines and cost 9. But what is the paines and cost that belongs to them which men and women so shrink at Is it loss of life or limme Not so but in case of Martyrdom Is it to give all to the Poor No though CHRIST advised it one if he desired to be perfect Is it to suffer burning or the paines of hell for them Not so and yet S. Austin and Venerable Bead wished with all their hearts to feel hells torments a good while to be sure of them so great was their apprehension and value of heavens greatness 10. Why do they not then to obtain a happy and eternal life that which they do to preserve this unhappy and languishing life Thy deprive themselves of meats which prejudice their health they renounce all divertisments which may probably distemper them and they quit all that is most pleasing when it may be hurtfull to them Why do they not as much to obtain the happy life When they labour so much to preserve this miserable life they defend themselves not from death and all that they can pretend to by the order of their diet and by their remedies is not to live always but only to die a little later Let them do as much for the other life and testify by their actions that they have beliefe love and esteem of it and they shal live eternally 11. How much would you give says S. Augustine to be Augustine ser 64. de Verb. Dom. exempt from suffering and to be ascertain'd to live always You would think all which you possess would not suffice to buy so great a good though also you should possess the whole world Nevertheless this good and what is yet infinitely more excellent is to be sold You may buy it if you will and you need not trouble your self about the price of it for it is rated but at what you have you may purchase it by alms obtain it by good works merit it by good desires acquire it by becomming a vertuous person Contemne then not so great a happiness which depends not but of grace and your free will and if you have any love of your salvation so run as the Apostle bids you that you may obtain The chief ennemie to this vertuous cours is an idle uncertain and unsetled life Let us busie our felves then always in something which is good Let us have a certain and setled form and method of our practises which we will not without necessity omit and we shal so run as by the grace of God we may obtain a most happy end Resolve from this present moment upon this cours exclude all dalliance and delay and pronounce after the Apostles with mouth and heart this word Amen DISCOURS XVI OF FAITH HE that shal examin by the touchstone of holy Scripture the value and worth of every thing will acknowledg vithout difficulty that amongst the christian vertues one of those that honour God the most And of the most important to our salvation is Faith the first Theological vertue For if S. Paul writing to the Romans says that when we employ Rom. 12. 1. our bodys in the service of God by mortification and the practise of good works we offer to God a very acceptable Host surely when we captivate our understandings in obedience to Faith and mortify them forcing them against their inclination to receive and approve the Articles of our Faith which are obscure and incomprehensible this sacrifice cannot fail to be much more acceptable and pleasing since we offer to him our Spirit which is incomparably more excellent and noble 2. If Faith be so glorious and acceptable to God it is no less profitable and necessary to men For He that believes and is baptized shal be saved but he that belives not shal be condemn'd By Faith the Mark 16. 16. Heb. 11. Ancient obtain'd testimony that they were just and pleased God But without Faith it is impossible to please him 3. A Dissenter or libertine Catholick hearing this will say I am assured of my salvation nothing is necessary to it but Faith and Baptisme thanks be to God I belive and am baptized I shal then infallibly be saved You say true if you have true and living Faith if you have such faith as God demands of you for there is Faith and Faith there is humane faith and divine Faith habitual faith and actual faith implicit faith and explicit faith Interiour faith and exteriour faith dead faith and living faith 4. Humane faith is an assent to a proposition upon the simple testimony of men 5. Divine faith is a special gift of God by which we firmly hold for true all verities revealed upon the assured and
him for it Psallite Domino fancti ejus confitemini memoriae sanctificationis ejus psal 29. 6. This is that which many never did that of which many never thought Our devotions are often but productions of self love practises of interest and reflections vpon our selves If we pray God we demand not of him but that which concerns our spiritual or temporal profit If we thanke him 't is but for the good which He hath don us or those of our family this is to love our selves and our salvation this is good but not perfect If we are perfect Christians and loving Disciples of IESUS we will love him more than our own selves be concern'd in his interests and pray God his Father for the exaltation of his glory and the accomplishment of his designes We will thank Him often that He revived his Son and restored Him the life which our sins had taken from him that He elevated him and placed him at his right hand 7. Secondly God shews in this Mistery his Goodness also to us for as his Son was incarnated for us as He liv'd and died for us so He is raised to life again for us We are quickned with him are raised-up with him and his Resurrection is an assurance and pledg of ours If there be no resurrection of the dead neither 1. Cor. 15. Christ is risen again says S. Paul But now Christ is risen again from the dead the first fruits of them that sleep by a man death and by a man the Resurrection of the dead and as in Adam all die so also in Christ all shal be made alive We shal all indeed rise again says the same Apostle But we shal not all be changed to witt into a better and more glorious state But only such as conform themselves to IESUS-CHRIST who is their Rule mirour and modell 8. He contributed much to his glorious Resurrection He merited it and dispos'd himself to it by his sufferances humiliations patience and other most perfect and heroical acts of vertues which He practised He by dying taught us to dye to sin by rising again to rise to a new life and by dying no more to live profit and persever to the end in sanctity and holiness as his Apostle declares and urges much in his epistle to the Romans Rom. 6. 9. Let not then men deceive themselves Let them not think to be glorifyd in Heaven if they be not Sanctify'd on earth Let them not think to enter into a glorious life any other way then that of sufferances of mortifications and Christian vertues This is the only way which the Son of God prescrib'd which our Saviour beate and which the saints have followed Hear S. Paul and S. Bernahas By many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom Acts. 14. 21. of God they say not that 't is a salutary Counsel 't is a more assured way But we must that 't is necessary to pass not through two or three but through many suffetances to com to the kingdom of God There is nothing more clear more firm and certain then the words of the son of God who says He S. Luke 9. 23. that will com after me Let him renounce himself and carry his cross daily and follow me Now in good earnest will they dare to say that living as they do in the world hanting almost continually balls commedies places of lewdeness banquets other pleasures and pastimes is to renounce one self and to carry daily the cross and to follow Christ He tels his Disciples in the day of his Resurrection what way S. Luke C. 24. He went Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so to enter into his glory Note ought It was necessary that Christ should suffer and that He should enter by this means into his glory into the glory which was his own to which He had so much right and will they think without suffering any thing to tame their passions and without mortifying themselves to enter into the glory to which they have no right into the glory which they have so often demerited and which they have renounced by so many Crimes We cannot have this glory but in quality of the heires of God and coheirs of Iesus Christ and his Apostle declares that to obtain this favour we must suffer with Iesus Christ. Rom. .8 17. We shal not be more priviledged than his Parents favourits and beloved friends all the Saints suffered with him all either were Martyrized or led an austere humble and penitent life S. Iohn Apor 7. 14. in the Apocalips seeing the assembly of them one sayd to him that they came out of great tribulation they are happily arrived they tooke then a good way and we if wise will follow the same and leave the other way 10. We see in the Church two different ways two different lives of those that have any desire to save themselves one is of those who lead a holy life mortifyd devout perfect and fervent in good works The other is of them that lead a life not in the sight of men Criminal but slack negligent and imperfect they commit not great Crimes but they do not also much good and withall they will that selflove be always satisfyd they treat themselves well they pass their time in sports walks superfluous visits and other divertisments which they terme innocent they do no injury to any but they concern not themselves in the necessities of their neighbours All without exception approve and commend the first way not one or very few will have the boldness to warrant the second way this way then at least is uncertaine fallible and dangerous And S. Augustin says when Lib. 1. de Bapt. C. 3. the salvation of our soules is concern'd we fail against the love we owe to our selves if we take not the surest way 'T is a maxime of the Law that we must not leave the certaine for the uncertaine and that we must use the more precaution where there is more danger Common sense and experience shew that by how much a loss is greater we apprehend the danger of it with more fear by how much an evill is more terrible we avoyd the peril of it with more care Does it not seem to you a great loss to lose the kingdom of heaven the possession and the enioyance of a God And is it not a great evill to be burnt a live to be always burning and not consuming 'T is an infinite loss an infinite evill We must then avoyd I will not say the danger but the appearance of danger for we cannot have too much assurance in a matter of so great importance I pray our Lord to give us grace to live so holily that we may be found worthy of this immortall Resurrection and of the happy Eternity Amen DISCOURS VIII OF THE SIXTH ARTICLE He Ascended into Heaven sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty THe Apostles
detestable and unnatural to reign so long in the whole world You have so much zeal for the salvation of men how permit you that so many souls fall into perdition I confess to you that you are terribly magnifyd You will magnify you will manifest the necessity and the excellencie of the grace of JESUS your Son you will shew how Excellent and precious it is since it was to be expected desired demanded by so many prayers of the Patriarks groanes of the Prophets teares and sighs of vertuous people how necessary it is since the light of nature the exquisite precepts of Philosophers the rich discourses of Orators the sharp invectives of Prophets the terrible threats of your Scriptures the exemplar chastisements of sinners joyn'd with the interiour grace you gave to men drew so few from Sin You will make known how freely it is given since you gave it in a time in which men did demerit it by so many crimes in a time in which the world was prostituted to sins so black enormous and excessive that they provoked vengeance instead of inviting your mercy T is S. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans and to the Galatians and after him S. Austin in divers places who Aug lib. 1. de Gratiae Christi Cap. 8. inculcate to us this verity that God lest so long the Gentills in their ignorance and the Iews in the weakness of their concupiscence for to oblige us to acknowledg confess and magnify the necessity of his grace 5. When we consider this I wonder we cry not out continually at least jn the bottom of our hearts Grace Grace with out it I know nothing I can do nothing I am nothing I marvell how we can be proud in any good work whatsoever that we cast not our selves into the center of our nothing and say with S. Paul By the grace of God I am what I am We are not sufficient to think any thing of our selves as of our selves If we will be aided by this grace without which we are in disgrace with God and miserable for ever we must do our duty before it coms when it coms and after it is come 6. Before it coms we must acknowledg and confess the need we have of it That which the Wiseman sayd of a particular Wisdom 8. 21. grace we must say of all knowing that I could not have the grace of continency if God did not give it to me I went to him and demanded it of Him with my whole heart and this very thing is Wisdom to know that t is a gift of God We must do the like We know or ought to know that we cannot practise any vertous action by which we advance towards heaven without the grace of God we must then ask it of him humbly fervently and with all our heart and this not once or twice but very often for since it is wholy necessary to the practise of Vertue and also to every good and meritorious work in particular ad singulos actus as the Councells Speake what shal we do and what will becom of us if we are not continually prevented by it 7. We cannot of our selves prevent and merit it But we can demerit it and render our selves unworthy of it by many great and enormous sins as the jews did Let us not do as Ezechiel 9. 9. they let us not hinder or retard the happy comming of his grace 8. And when it coms we must carefully not its genious and motions for fear of a mistake and of following the inclinations and the instincts of nature instead of the conduct and designes of grace for though they are wholy opposite they are in appearance very like and it imports very much not to be herein deceiv'd for they that are led by nature are children of the old man and they that are guided by grace are children of the new man JESUS CHRIST or as the Apostle says they are the Sons of God 9. Nature hates all captivity will not subjection nor humiliation loves to governe and command Grace loves subjection desires Thomas a Kempis de Imitatione Christi lib. 3. cap. 54. humiliation and will not govern or command if not obligd to it 10. Nature loves praise and glory to make it self seen and known to many to employ and dissipate it self in exteriour affaires Grace loves to be hidden and unknown to the world it seeks recollection and retyrement peace and communication with God 11. Nature flys all that gives difficulty or paine either to soul or body it seeks what is proper and particular loves its own ease and commodity and referrs all to it self and to its interest Grace requires that which is laborious which mortifys and is incommodious to the flesh which is serviceable and profitable to many which conduces to the glory of God When then you have thoughts and desires of the first sort beware such thoughts mistrust such inclinations what ever faire pretence appearance and hopes you may have to do good by following them for there is danger it is to be fear'd that they are not but the inclinations of Nature and the productions of self love But when you have thoughts and affections of the other sort suspect them not for they are ordinarily the instinctâ— and motions of Grace 12. When you have receiv'd it be very carefull not to be ungratefull Ingratitude says S. Bernard is a murtherer an opposer of S. Ber ser 3. de sept panib S. Ber. contrapessimum vitium Ingrat Grace an enemy to salvation I think nothing displeases God so much as ingratitude it shuts the door against grace which hath no entrance where this Vice is found There is nothing but ingratitude that hinders your advancement the Benefactor reputing the graces lost which he gave to the ungratefull shuts his hands and gives them to him no more Happy he who returns thanks for every benefit receiv'd from God who is the Source of all grace for when we are gratefull for favours receiv'â— we deserve to receive greater 13. When Grace hath produced in you or by you any good beware to say that Our high hand and not our Lord hath don these things Beware to attribute to your selves the glory of them say always as S. Paul by the grace of God I am what I am If I have not yielded to temptation t is by the mercy of God If I have receiv'd any grace from him t is by his mercy if I have consented to it and laboured with it t is by his mercy If I am exempted from many sins which are committed in the world 1. Cor. 4. 7. 't is by his mercy Who distinguishes you from others Have you any thing that you have not receiv'd and if you have receiv'd it why glorify you your self as if you had it of your self What difference is there between me and the most execrable Criminal in the world the mercy of God what difference and distinction between my soul
and the blackest soul in hell t is the mercy of God this great sinner this unfortunate person was drawn out of nothing and I also he was in the mass of corruption and I also he inclin'd naturally to it and I also he had flesh that rebell'd against the spirit sensuality that was contrary to reason and J also If I have not been so violently tempted as he If I have not been in the immediate occasions as he if I have been more strong and firm then he 't is by the grace and mercy of God Acknowledg says S. Austin the grace of God to which you are debtours for being freed from the crimes which you have not committed for no sin is committed by a man which another might not commit if forsaken by him who made man And after this shal we be proud shal we think to be something of our selves shal we disdain others 14. S. Paul had great reason to cry-out to us Tu fide stas Rom. 11. 20. S. Ber. Ser. 54. in cant noli altum sapere sed time though you have faith and other vertues nevertheless be not proud but fear Vpon which words S. Bernard says in verity I have learnt that there is nothing so effectual to keep and recover grace as Humility and Fear you are happy if you fill your heart with a triple fear if your fear when you have receiv'd grace and more when you have lost it and yet more when you have recover'd it fear then when grace comes fear when it retyres fear when it returns when it comes fear lest you comply not well with it when it retyres fear more becaus you have lost your safeguard and doubt not but that pride is the cause of it though you know it not for God sees that which is hid from you God who gives his grace to the humble takes it not from the humble when then a man is depriv'd of grace 't is a signe that he is proud And if it returne by the mercy of God 't is then you ought to fear much more lest you fall into a more lamentable relaps fear therefore God always and withall your heart mistrust your dispositions how ever holy and good they may seem if they make you proud God left so many souls in the way of perdition before the Incarnation to make you know the necessity of Grace and to establish you in Humility will He not permit you to be lost if you are not humble fear if you commit great sins that God will not give you efficacious grace to raise you out of them Fear if you attribute it to your selves that God will draw it from you work your salvation in fear and trembling for 't is God who produces in you the good will and the work and this is the reason why Saints always fear lest being proud of their good works they be depriv'd of the help of grace and left in weakness says S. Leo S. Leo. Ser. 8. de Epiph Have you yet Baptismal Innocency fear beware to lose it avoyd all occasions that may make you suffer so great a loss 't is a most precious and inestimable treasure but a tender one if it be opened it will soon rot Are you in an ill state fear you are in the power of satan the object of the anger of God at the brink of hell there needs not but an unhappy accident a sudden death to bury you in eternal fire Are you raised out of sin fear fear to fall back again your relaps would be more dangerous your ingratitude more great the remedy more hard In whatsoever State you be acknowledg the grace of God the great need you have of it and call often and instantly for it if you acknowledg the necessity of Grace if you ask it if you receive it and improve it unto the end assuredly you will be saved for this divine grace in the seed merit and last disposition to eternal Glory Amen DISCOURS XXI Of good Works in general SOme say that Catholicks think to be saved by their good works without being beholding to JESUS-CHRIST by their own merits not by his and consequently that they are the proudest and the most ungrateful to God of all people in the world 2. 'T is a strange thing that they can be so mistaken in our Doctrine since our Church constantly and clearly â—ver taught the contrary We belive that no force of nature nor dignity of our best works can merit our justification but we are justifyd freely by grace through the Redemption that is in JESUS-CHRIST 3. We teach that our following merits or good works signisy no more than actions don by the assistance of God's grace to which it hath pleased his Goodness to promise a reward a doctrine so far from being unsuitable to the holy scriptures that nothing is so frequently repeated in them as God's gracious promises to recompence with everlasting glory the faith and obedience of his servants 4. We believe that the merit and rewardableness of these actions 1. Tim. 4. 8. Rom. 2. 8. Rom. â— 3. Heb. 6. 10. Matth. 25. 21 2. Tim. 2. 21. Matt. 25. 21. Matt. 19. 12. arises not from the value of them as they are ours but from the grace and bounty of God So we boast not in our selves but all our glorying is in CHRIST We say with S. Paul that we are naughty and unfaithfull servants of our own selves but good and faithfull as our Saviour saies by the grace of God that we are unprofitable by our own works but profitable as S. Paul says by the works of grace and if we should be absolutely unprofitable we must expect the sequel there of utter darkness that is damnation 5. Besides good workes of obligation there are other of Supererogation and at these Dissenters startle much they hold it a proud and arrogant thing to think that a man may do more than he is commanded as Catholicks do teach Yet what more plain in Scriptures Our Savior sayes there are Eunucks who have made themselves Eunucks for the Kingdom of Heaven and this is more than a man is bound to for he may marry if he will and yet go to heaven He says again If thou wilt be perfect go and sell all Matt. 19. 21. thou hast and give it to the Poor and thou shalt have a treasure in heaven No man can reasonably suppose this to to be a command he then that obeys it as the Apostles did does more than he is commanded Concerning Virgins sayes the Apostle I 1. Cor. 7. 25. have no command but I give counsell plainly distinguishing betwixt counsell and command betwixt that which we must do and what we may do betwixt weâ—l and better He that marrieth doeâ— well but he that marrieth not does better and He that does 1. Cor. 7. 38. well does not sin does not break a commandement but he that does better does more than he is commanded Wherefore Catholicks
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
the first saturday in lent says this solemn fast was holily instituted for the health both of soul and body And in the Decretalls of Gratian we read that many who had infirmities their goods being confiscated and they reduced to poverty so that they could not make good cheer were cured by this forced dyet All good Phisitians will tell you that for one hurt by fasting fifty are killed by eating and drinking And Experience shews that the more abstemious usually enjoy better health and longer life It is true that Fasting macerates and weakens bodys that are not well accustomed and hardned by it But it strengthens souls and makes them reign they are disposed by it to prayer and contemplation they please God by it satisfy his justice merit and impetrate of Him Benefits temporal and eternal The servant body then must indure theses paines and labours by which accrew so many and so great advantages to the lady soul nor does the Soul do injury to the body making it to fast but much obliges it She exempts it from punishments which it merited by rebellions for nothing appeases more the anger of God nothing averts better the thunderbolts of his justice then fasting and other macerations of the body which proceed out of true conversion and compunction of heart Witness the Ninivites It is doplorable that they who glory in the name of Christians have not so much sight and judgment as those poor Pagans the Son of God hath reason to say that they shal rise in judgment and condemn them Ionas sayd not to the Ninivites fast put on hair-cloth do pennance but only fourty days and Ninive shal be subverted and yet Pagans as they were had the light to know that to appease God it was necessary to fast and to do penance they published a fast so general and severe that all from the greatest to the least from the eldest to the youngest also bruit beasts fasted three days and nights without any meat or drink Should the Church command such a fast how would they cry-out against her but he Creatour approv'd this Edict and pardoned the sins of those that had so fasted 6. To be short if austerities be unlawfull and forbidden we must condemn all the ancient Anchorets and a great part of the primitive Christians who fasted almost daily in bread and water through the Spirit of penance and mortification we must condemn the Religious of the present Church who weaken their bodys by the exercises of penance We must condemn our Savior who fasted and spent whole nights in prayer upon mount olivet to give us example we must condemn the holy Ghost who exhorts us by the Apostle earnestly to shew that we are the Ministers or servants of God by Patience by Watchings 2. Cor. 6. 6. and fastings by longanimity and sweetness by the sincerity of our words by chastity and by cordial charity 7. These are the vertues and dispositions which ought to accompany our fasts They who have not health or strength for the one ought to addict themselves with more zeal to the practise of the other shewing that they are the faithfull servants of God and true Children of the Church By much patience You say you cannot fast because you are big with child or you are a nource And well says S. Chrysostome God excuses you from this fast But He requires another of you S. Chryâ— hom 22. ad pop which is that you abstain from anger this abstinence will do no hurt to the fruit you bear on the contrary the too ardent Passion by which you are transported may hurt it much and make it to dye without Baptisme By longanimity and sweetness If God say to you in judgment why have you not fasted if you answer I had a great weakness of stomake a continual and great giddiness of my head when I fasted And well if you say true God will admit of this excuse But what will you answer when He will reply why have you not pardoned your ennemie Why have you not thrown that hatred out of your heart which filled you with gall and betterness One sweet word sayd to salute your neighbor and to gain his heart would it have burnt your mouth or caused dizziness in your head By sincerity of words you are sick they command you to eate flesh obey your Phisitian and Confessor but eate not that flesh which is forbidden you I fear I shal see one day that many eate flesh in the Lent not boyled but raw and also humane flesh by calumny and detraction it is the Scripture that speaks so the harmfull approach upon me and eate my flesh sayd the Royal Prophet And holy Iob why do you persecute me Psal 26. 2. and are filled with my flesh They make a conscience to put their teeth into a piece of dead flesh and they make no scrupule to tear with their tongue the living flesh of their neighbor by calumnies and murmurations which is wors By Chastity fast not only with the mouth for it is not the mouth only that offends God make all the members of your body to fast Impure looks touches lacivious thoughts and delectations are carnal meats these are prohibited in all times and chiefly in the Lent he that fasts not commits but one or two sins a day but he that consents to dishonest thoughts commits sometimes more than ten By cordial Charity The holy Fathers say fasting is not only instituted to punish the body but also that we may have more means and leasure to give alms to viset sick and to practise other workes of charity fiat refectio pauperis abstinentia jejunantis Either you fast or not if you fast you should give to the poor what you would spend in a supper if you do not fast seeing you honor not God by abstinence honour him by mercy corporal or spiritual We ought to fast so in charity towards our neigbor We must fast in charity also towards God and not for terrene and temporal Ends. 8. The Son of God says to us When you fast wash your face Matt 6. 18. that is to say purify your intention Make not a fast of Gallen to be well and in good health nor the fast of the Avaricious to spare the purse but the fast of a Christian to obey the Church to have more means to give alms more leasure to practise good works the spirit more free to pray to satisfy the justice of God to make the funerall of our Saviours death to dispose our selves to communion to honor and imitate the fast of JESUS in the desert so having accompanied Him in his penance and fast on earth we may merit to be satiated by the torrent of pleasure with him in heaven Amen DISCOURS XXVI OF ALMS BLessed is the man that considers the necessities of the poor to have pity on him God will treat him sweetly and mildly in the day of judgement Psal in the day which the Royal Prophet
THE CHRISTIAN DUTY COMPOSED BY B. BERNARD FRANCIS STUDENT IN DIVINITY ISA. 30. 21. THIS IS THE WAY WALK IN IT 1. COR. 14. 38. If any man know not he shal not be known IHS PRINTED AT AIRE BY CLAUDE FRANÇOIS TULLIET M.DC.LXXXIV with Licence of Superiors TO THE READER GOd desires so cordially and seeks so earnestly our salvation that He calls it his worke and his affaire by excellence His Son Io 4. 34. sayd to his Disciples I have meat you know not T is to do the will of my Father and to accomplish his worke And to his Mother in the Temple Knew you not that I must labour in the affaires of my Father And in the Vigil of his death Father I have accomplished the worke you have given me to do Becaus 't is the worke of workes the affaire of affaires and the ayme and end of other workes He employes in it not men only but also Angells All the Angelicall Spirits that are sent Heb. 1. 14. into this world are sent for the salvation of the Elect says S Paul What say I men and Angells He employes in it his divine Perfections For if He exerciseth his Power in working miracles Wisdom in inventions to convert us Patience in expecting us to penance Goodness to allure us Iustice to frighten us Mercy in pardoning us Providence in removing occasions of sin 't is for our salvation And to the end there be nothing in Him or of Him that is not employ'd in this great work He sends the adorable Persons that proceed from him He sends his beloved Son who applyes himself to it with so great tenderness and affection that from thence He takes his name with so much fervour and Zeal that he spends in it his sweat and blood He sends the holy Ghost who shews likewise His Zeal when our salvation is in danger we being in the state of sin what does He not to draw us out of it and to convert us He excites us wakens us threatens us importunes us knocks almost incessantly at the doores of our hearts and if we open them to Him He Enters into our soules dwells in them animates them governs and conducts them workes by them our good workes in our prayers He prayes cryes groanes in us and by us in temptations He aydes us in perplexities Enlightens us in afflictions comforts us May not the Eternal Father say Quid debui facere vineae meae non feci What should I have don for the salvation of men that I have left undon He hath desired it most earnestly He hath design'd to it his creatures Employ'd in it his Servants Favourits infinite Perfections and the divine Persons of his Son and of his holy Spirit How coms it to pass then that so few are saved even amongst Christians One reason is that very many are yet ignorant of the ways ordinain'd by God to go to heaven Another is that the greater part also of the Faithfull are negligent and careless in the use of the means prescribed to be saved they will not labour and strive to enter by the narrow gate and therefore our Saviour sayes they shal not Wherefore desiring the salvation of every one with all my heart I shew the First and put before their eyes the plain and open wayes to Heaven and to correct the negligence of the other I add the most pressing and urgent motives to walke and run in those wayes Peruse this worke good Reader with the same intention and desire that I present it to you Consider not who made it nor how 't is made but what is therein sayd to you If you shal becom more knowing in the Faith and Law of Christ and in ptactise more Dutifull to Him it will abundantly recompence the labour of YOUR WELL WISHING FRIEND AND SERVANT IN CHRIST F. B. APPROBATIONS JNfrascripti testamur nos librum perlegisse tui Titulus The Christian Duty Idiomate Anglicano a V. Adm. P. Bernardo a Sancto Francisco Ordinis FF Minorum Recoll Provinciae Angliae compositum in quo nil Fidei Orthodoxae vel bonis moribus contrarium deprehendimus verum è contra salutari plenum devotione solidaque refertum doctrina Quem idcirco Communi Bono vtiâ—issimum praeloque dignum Iudicavimus Hac 29 Octobris An. Domini 1683 In Conventu nostro FF Min Recoll Anglorum Duaci F Pacificus a Sto. Albino F. Bonaventura a Sta. Anna S. Theologiae Lector S. Theologiae Lector The Licence of the Superior Ego F. Gervasius a Sto. Francisco Provinciae Angliae FF Min. Recoll Minister Provincialis facultatem concedo ut hoc opus cui Titulus The Christian Duty a V. Adm. Patre Bernardo a Sto. Francisco compositum et eiusdem Provinciae Theologorum judicio approbatum typis mandetur Datum Ariae 9. Septembris An 1683. F. Gervasius â Sto. Francisco qui Supra Imprimatur liber cui Titulus The Christian Duty a Reverendo Patre Bernardo à Sancto Francisco conscriptus Actum in Vicariatu Audomarensi die decima septima Septembris Anno 1684. De Mandato B. DE LARRE Secret DISCOURS I. OF THE FIRST ARTICLE I believe in God AMongst the noble actions which the holy Penitent David practised to appease God and satisfy his justice This is one of the most notable Docebo iniquos vias tuas impij ad te convertentur I will teach sinners thy wayes my God and the impious shal be converted to Thee These words shew me how to do well this worthy fruit of Penance I must not flatter I must not tickle eares but I must teach Docebo And whom must I teach The poor as well as the rich the little and ignorant as well as the great and learned my self also as well as others for we are all sinners and I must teach sinners iniquos And what is it that I must teach Not the conceits of Plato not the discourses of Aristotle but thy wayes ô my God! Vias tuas the ways by which we must go to Thee And why must I teach not to receive popular praise Not to be esteemed learned but that sinners be converted to thee ô my God! impij ad te convertentur The wayes by which we go to God are Faith and the Mysteries which it teaches Hope Charity Grace good Works the Commandements and the Sacraments These wayes God aiding I will open plainly teach practically and urge earnestly that sinners may be converted into them and unto God And first I will consider the material object or the Mysteries of Faith which the Apostles propose in their Creed to us and begin with these words I believe in God 2. That there is a God nature teaches us the Pagans them selves confessed it and it is a thing so manifest that the scripture tells us that none but fools deny it 3. This word God in the singular number teaches us that there is but one And if he were not the only one he would not be God He would not be
the Iews for to oblige them to be faithfull in his service and obedient to his Laws I am the Lord thy God who have brought thee out of the land of Egipt I am your Lord and Sovereign you are my Vassalls and Slaves ' not only as other people by reason of the benefit of creation but by a new right and a special obligation becaus I made wâ—â—r against Pharao for you and you are my Captives and prisoners of warr JESUS hath much more reason to make the like plea to us and to oblige us to his service for he hath fought in his own person for us He hath been wounded in the combat He hath delivered us from the deplorable servitude of Sin freed us from the most cruel tyranny of Satan and drawn us from his oppression are we not then his slaves Add to this that He hath bought us 1. Cor. 6. 20. with his blood you are bought with a great price Says the Apostle You are then no more your own your Being your soul your body and your actions are not yours if you employ them then for your selves you are usurpers of anothers goods since IESUS hath bought you you belong more to him than a slave unto is Lord than a horse unto his Master 9. Nevertheless what is most uniust and most deplorable Many acknowledge not JESUS-CHRIST to be their Lord He receives no homage from them For what honor what service and what obedience do they render him If they are in a chamber of an earthly King or Lord t is with great respect with a profound silence and with fear to commit the least incivility But if they are in a church in the house of God in his presence they commit irreverences insolences and insupportable impudences What service do they render him In the morning as soon as they are up they fall upon their employments or upon fooleries or trifles and pastimes if they go to Church they give to God their lipps and their hearts to their affaires to vanities and often to worse in the Evening they pray in bed or half a sleep or with so little respect that they would not speak in that manner to a Civil man In the rest of the day they think not of him they speak of him no more than if there were no God unless perhaps pronouncing his holy name or calling upon him irreverently and offending him 10. What Obedience do they yield to his divine laws What little King is there in the world or Lord of a Village that they would disoblige as they do this great Lord If He were a King of cards they would not transgress his commandements with greater impudence than they do If He were a God of straw they would hardly offend him with more temerity and lesse regard to Him They sweare by his holy Name transgress his Commandements commit sins which displeas him infinitely and after this they laugh play and sleep as boldly as if they had done nothing 11. No He is not their Lord they say with the Iews we will not have this man reign over us they deny by their works what they profess by these words I believe in JESUS-CHRIST Luke 19. â—4 our Lord. Who is then their Master to whom do they appertain to whom do they homage and service To the most barbarous Cruel and infamous tyrants imaginable thô they know by serving such Masters they gain but hell that they have not one day of true repose not one hour of solide content that they are tortured by the furies of their conscience by apprehension of death by fear of damnation and by the sight of the inconstancy and mortality of Creatures which they love The world cries I fail you in time of need the flesh cries I defile and cover you with ordures the Devill cries I deceive them that trust in me and many goe after these Masters JESUS our Lord cries come to me all and I will refresh you I will discharg you of the heavy burden of the world I will deliver you from the Tyrannie of your passions I Matt. 11. 28. will free you from the servitude of the Devill And yet few do go to him Ah! few of them also who cry out to him Lord Lord and do seem to honour him for many of these desire to goe but stand still they cannot abide to take paines in the way they will not labour to practise the vertues which He commands tho' He hath given so excellent and heroycal Example of obedience having made himself obedient to death and to the death of the Cross and tho' they know that since He hath redeemed us by his Obedience to the Commandements of his Father He will apply to us the fruit of his Redemption by our Obedience to his Commandements He is made says the Apo-stle the cause of eternal salvation to all them that doe obey him 12. Let us say then with S. Austin Command what you will Heb. 5. 9. give what you Command you may Command what so ever you please for you are Lord You cannot command any thing that is not just for you are a most equitable Iudge You command nothing but what is sweet profitable and facile with your grace for you are our Father Give what you Command There is much repugnance in our corrupted nature much opposition to the observance of your divine Laws But you are Omnipotent and can easily overcome it by your Grace You promised by your Prophets that you would write your Commandements in our hearts they are as hard as stones But you wrote them upon stones Engrave them then we beseech you in the center of our hearts that you comming to Judge may not find transgressions to be punished But good works which are your gifts to be rewarded in the happy Eternity Amen DISCOURS V. OF THE THIRD ARTICLE Who was conceived by the holy Ghost born of the Virgin Marie SPirituall and devout soules who meditate upon the Misteries of this Article are transported with joy and admiration at the sight of the great wonders divinely wrought in the wombe of the B. Virgin in the Conception of JESUS-CHRIST For if in this Conception there is one thing natural there are many that surpass all nature That our Redeemers Body was formed of the Blood of a woman is a natural thing But that it was formed not by mans operation but by the operation of the holy Ghost That his Body was made in an instant without the imperfections in which ours are made That in this instant it receives a reasonable soule without the ignoâ—ance where in we are conceived without the stayne of original sin which Adam put upon us But on the contrary with perfect knowledg of all things and with plenitude of Grace That this Body and soul are united to the second Person of the B. Trinity That that which arises by this Vnion is perfect God and perfect man That He was such in a womans wombe That she remaining
not been redeem'd by IESUS-CHRIST sayd to them Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy foul and with all thy forces what ought Christians to do after the Incarnation Redemption and Passion of our Saviour Ought they not to burn with love should they not if it were possible love JESUS above all their forces thoughts and activity of their hearts If I owe my self wholy to him for making me what shal I add now for repairing me and repairing me in such a manner 14. Let us love him then since He so loved us let 's not love him only in words and compliments let us not content our selves to say I honour much my Saviour I love him with all my heart But let us love him in worke and Verity in doing in giving and in suffering for him for so He loved us And since his goodness is so infinite and his love to us so excessive that He preferred us not only before Angells but also before himself it would be a horrible blindeness to preferr any other good before him it would be a strange folly to offend him to disoblige his goodness to lose his amity and his favour for honour pleasure profit or satisfaction of a Passion Do not so if you be wise Say rather with S. Austin all abundance all honour all felicity that is not you my God is but poverty vanity and misery say as S. Francis did my God You are my All Love him with all your heart since He his all your good love him with a sovereign love since He is sovereignly good love adore bless prayse glorify him now and ever Amen DISCOURS VII OF THE FIFTH ARTICLE He descended into Hell the third day He rose again from the dead IESUS appli'd himself so earnestly to our Salvation that whilst He was on earth He let not a moment pass without labouring for it And for this effect whilst his Body lay'd in grave He descended into Hell This world Hell signify's an inferiour and low place And therefore the holy Church makes use of it in divers occasions to signify divers inferiour places By this word she most often understands the place of everlasting damnation And so our Saviour called it in 1. Luke 36. S. Luk. where speaking of the unfortunate rich man says he was buried in hell Other times she uses this terme to signify Purgatory where they are who died in the grace of God but having not fully satisfyed the divine Iustice are further to be punished so in the Mass of the dead she prayes free ô Lord the souls of the faithfull departed from the paines of hell She makes use of it also to signify the place whither the souls of holy and just persons who were not subject to purgation or had duely satisfyd for their offences went before the death of the Saviour of the world expecting He should open them the gates of Heaven by his Passion 2. He descended not only by effect into these two last places making his power and goodness to appear by delivering the soules in them detained But in substance He descended into them his soul was really in those places and He honoured the soules that were in them and made them happy by his presence The third day he rose again from the dead He rose no sooner for to testify that He was truly dead and to fulfill the figure of Matt. 12. 40. him As Ionas was three days and three nights in the belly of a whale so shal be the Son of man in the bowells of the earth He would be three days subject to the law of death to teach us mystically that by his death and Passion He had satisfyd the three Persons of the B. Trinity for the sins committed in the three states of the world in the Law of nature in the Law of Moses and in the Law of grace And to shew us that his Passion was the cause of the delivery of the ancient Fathers out of hell of the Redemption of men on earth and of the reparation of the Angelical thrones in Heaven He rose again By which words the Apostles teach us that He S. Iohn 10. return'd to life by his own power He sayd also in the Gospell I have power to lay down my life and to take it up againe and in another place I will raise up my Body in three daies after death 3. I know well that S. Peter and S. Paul teach in many places that his Father raised Him up to life because this miracle S. Pater is an effâ—ct of the omnipotency of God which thô common Ast. c. 3. 26. and c. 5. 30. S. Paul in the 4. 8. and 10. to the Rom. Phil. 28. and 9. to all the 3. Persons of the B. Trinity yet is attributed commonly to the Father 'T is true then that He rose up by his own Power and 't is true also that the eternal Father raised him to the end He might shew his goodness both ro him and us 4. First to him that his Body might receive the Glory which He merited by his labors humiliations and sufferances For He humhled himself says the Apostle being obedient unto death for the which thing God hath exalted him Note exalted him for his Resurrection was not a simple return from death to life but an entrance into a glorious life That Body which He layd down passible and mortall He receives impassible and immortal that which was inglorious now is glorious which was infirm now is powerfull which was a natural Body now is becom a spiritual These are the excellent qualities which S. Paul attributes to every 1. cor 15. matt 13 43. glorifyd Body But that of Glory or clarity delights me most for the body of every saint shal shine by it as the sun fulgebunt justi sicut sol and nevertheless one shal differ from another in this Quality as much as he exceeded him here in good works or as S. Paul says as one starr differs in glory from another What glory then what admirable splendor what ravishing beauty was given to the adorable Body of JSUS in recompence of his merits And what satisfaction and felicity will it be to see it when our eyes shal be able to behold it as hereafter they shall be by their impassibility These four qualities belong to the Body of the Son of God as a body glorifyd But as a Body Deifyd as subsisting in the Divinity it hath yet a farr other Glory Jt hath a supereminent ineffable and incomprehensible Glory as we may see in the next Discours 5. Wherfore the Son of God thanks his Father for that He brought his soul out of hell and his Body out of the sepulcher and that He raised him up again Exaltabo te Domine quoniam suscepisti psal 29. me Eduxisti ab inferno animam meam And He esteems so much this favour that He exhorts us to thanke God to praise and glorify
also for venial for little lies detractions and derisions of their neighbor in things of smal importance for words or unprofitable actions good God! who would believe our judg would be so rigorous as to exact an account of his creatures for an unprofitable worde If Preachers should affirm it without the Word of God clear for it would not men cry-out against them as Impostors 9. They know they shal be damned not only for their own sins but again for those of others to which they contributed And they see now clearly that they contributed to an infinity of sins in others either before they were committed to witt by ill councel or bad example or when they were committed being the cause of them by putting the objects or the subjects or by giving assistance to commit them And after they were committed approving or not exteriourly disapproving them or not avoiding the hante of those that committed them for to give them a horrour of them 10. They know they shal not only be comdemn'd for sins of Commission but mpreover for sins of Omission they will expect to hear Go yee accursed into eternal fire for I was hungrie I was thirsty and you have not given me to eate and drink I was naked and you have not clothed me And if they are to be condemn'd for not giving corporal nourishment how much more for not giving spiritual the life of the soul being of more importance a thousand times then that of the Body if those that refuse material bread to poor strangers shal be so grieuously punished what will becom of them who give not the spiritual bread of instruction corection and good counsel to their children domesticks and strayed neigbours 11. In fine they know they shal not only be condemn'd for sins of omission and commission but shal moreover be answerable for good works which they have don with any imperfection which shal be found mixt with any impurity of intention with selflove secret vanity or any other vicious circumstance Cum accepero tempus Ego justitias judicabo when I shal hold my Psal 74 2. sopho 1. 12. great day I will judg also just works and by his Prophet Sophonias He says Scrutabor Hierusalem in lucernis I will search narrowly the devout soul and that no secret crany may escape me I will light a candle How then will He sound a reprobate soul signifyd by Babylon if He examin so rigorously a devout soul signifyd by Hierusalem 12. Sinfull souls I say know all this and much more they know also that their Iudg is not now a Lamb but is becom a Lion that the time of mercy is now past and the time of justice and reveng is com I leave now you to think in what horrible desolation they must be expecting nothing but as the Prophet Hieremy says the whirlewind of the Lords indignation Hierem. 23. 19. Matt. 25. 41. to com upon them And what whirlewind what tempest what thunderclap what Lyons roaring shal be this voice Go ye accursed into eternal fire prepar'd for the Devill and his Angells As many words so many thunderbolts and Anathemas 13. Depart hence reproved soul I banish thee for ever from my Paradise and from my Grace Get thee gon strayed sheep I will be no more thy Pastor be gon rebellious servant I will no more be thy good Master be gon unnatural child I will be no more thy Father be gon adulterous spouse I will be no more thy espouse get thee gon ungratfull creature thou shalt never have any part in my kingdom nor in my delights nor in my amity nor in my company nor in any thing that pertains to me Get thee gon thou accursed I excommunicate and anathematize thee for ever I strike thee with the sentence of eternal malediction thou shalt be accursed in thy understanding which shal never have a good thought cursed in thy will which shal always rage with spite and desperation accursed in thy eyes which shal never see any light in thy eares which shal never hear the harmonious musick of the Angells cursed in thy mouth which shal never have one only drop of water in thy feet and hands which shal be always bound in the chamber where thou shalt dwell which shal be but a furness in the company which You shal have which shal be but Devills cursed in every thing that can happen to thee Go accursed into fire where thou shalt not have for lodging but a prison for bed but coales for cloathes but flames for meat but serpents for drink but gall for musick but blasphemies and for rest but torments Get thee gon into fire which shal endure ever which shal inflame thee and not light thee burn thee and not consume thee as long as I shal be I will be thy enemy as long as this fire shal be fire it shal torture thee as long as eternity shal endure thou shalt remain in this pain Depart go into the fire prepared for the Devill and his Angells I prepared it not for thee t is against my inclination that I send thee thither But thou hast transgrest my Commandements neglected and profaned my Sacraments abused my graces and hast been ungratefull for an infinity of favours go ungratefull go accursed go unfortunate depart from my presence I will never have pity on thee My Dear Brothers and sisters behold a shadow but a very slender and imperfect one of the sentence which shal be pronounced against the Reprobate Thinke on it if you be wise think upon it in the presence of God to whom be honour praise glory benediction for ever and ever Amn. DISCOURS XI OF THE EIGHTH ARTICLE I believe in the holy Ghost IT is reported in the Acts of the Apostles that S. Paul Acts. 10. entring into the Town of Ephesus and finding there some Faithfull demanded of them if they had receiv'd the holy Ghost and they answered we know not so much as that there is a holy Ghost If we should put now the same Question to many Christians they might make the same answer or at least they might say we know not what is the holy Ghost To exclude and banish farr from Christians an ignorance so pernicious the Apostles employ this Article to instruct us concerning his adorable and amiable Person 2. They teach us that He is a Person distinct from the Father and the Son since they made us to say before I believe in God the Father I believe in Iesus Christ his Son and now I believe in the holy Ghost They teach us also that this Person is God with the Father and the Son since they make us say I belive in the holy Ghost They do not only make us to profess that there is a holy Spirit But to believe in Him to reverence Him as God and to love him as our sovereign Good 3. They call him holy Ghost or Spirit which is common to the Father and the Son For the Father is a
contrary Parties do confidently affirm that they have the true sense and understanding of the Scriptures and that consequently they make to themselves Faiths Religions and models of Government to the utter destruction of Vnity Peace and Charity it self Is it not then Necessary for the avoyding of Heresies and Divisions and for the preservation of Vnity and Peace to harken also in this part to the Church and to adhere to her sense of the holy Scripture Wherefore the Apostles oblige us to follow her and to rest in her judgements to dispute against whom S. Austin with great reason tells us is Ep. 1 insolent madness And lest we might doubt which among all the Societies of men in the Christian world is the dwelling place of Faith the spring of truth an the true Church of the living God the Apostles mark her out to us by three evident Notes which are proper to her and distinguish her from all other Churches they teach us that she is One Holy Catholick 6. First they teach us that She is One for they make us not to say I believe Churches but I believe the Church which is the kingdom of the Son of God his flock and mystical Body You never find in the Gospell that the Son of God hath many kingdoms many flocks many mystical Bodys But always one kingdom one sheepfold one mystical Body In S. Matt. 4. 23. Ch. 13. 41. Iohn 10. 16. Rom. 12. Ephes 4. v. 4 Matthew JESUS went about preaching the Gospell of the kingdom And again He says in the Same Gospell that He will send his Angells and they shal gather all scandalls out of his kingdom There shal be made one fold and one Pastor We being many are one Body in Christ One Lord one Faith One Baptisme 7. I demand now the Church of England is it the true Church if so the Protestant Church in Holland is not that in Germany is not that in France is not there is but one true Church and these are many they have nothing that unites them they depend not one of another they have not the same Superiour But among Catholicks many Bishopricks many Republicks Nations and Kingdoms are one Church becaus they are united in the same Spiritual Head or supream Pastor 8. You will say that which unites us is Faith we are one Body by the Vnity of Faith But besides that this Vnity which also excludes not Schismaticks is not enough to make one Church We need not but look into the books of Luther Calvin Zuinglius to know the war they make with one another We need not but to read the Works of their successours to see their disagreement in Points of the greatest importance There is nothing for example so important to Faith as to know which are the Canonical Books in which we ought to learn the Christian Verities and they agree not as we have seen in them And if they agree not about the prime Principle How can agreement be expected in the things which are drawn from thence Many differences might be named about most important matters their pursuit also of those differences demonstrats they do not judg them light which stretches to the condemning one another for Hereticks and Schismaticks and sometimes to breaking into open arms one against another 9. But Catholicks however divided by countrey language particular interest civil dissentions or war Yet agree exactly in all points of Faith If you go to France Spain Poland Italy or the Indies You will see that they teach the same Doctrine that they make every where the same Catechismes 10. And are not there some will say to me Thomists Scotists And other Parties who dispute continually Yes but this is not but in school difficulties in Philosophical Points in Questions grounded upon humane reason as concerning Articles of Faith All agree in them not one contradicts not one questions them 11. Secondly the Apostles teach us that the true Church is holy I believe the holy Church This is not to say that All that are therein are Saints For she is the field of the husbandman Matt. 3. 21. Matt. 13. 47. Ron. 9. 21 where the Cockle is mixt with good corn She is the net which takes and holds bad fish with the good She is the house where there are Vessells of ignominy with those of honour She is the Arke of the true Noah where there are clean and unclean animalls Gen. 7. 2 But the true Church is holy becaus she hath means to Sanctify her self and many obtain it by those means We ask it there and obtain it of God by Sacrifice It is given by Sacraments conserv'd by the observance of the commandements of God increased by the practise of good and vertuous works 12. But Reformers have forbidden all these ways they have abolished among them the only sacrifice of the Mass they have diminished the Sacraments of seven that CHRIST instituted they retain but two Baptisme and the Eucharist which also they have made almost unprofitable For they say that Baptisme is not necessary for their children and so deprive them often of this remedy to the exclusion of them out of the kingdom of Heaven according to the express words of the Son of God They have used yet wors the Eucharist instead of the real Presence Iohn 3. 5. of our Lord and Savior Source of all sanctity who sanctifys our souls and bodys in this Sacrament they have not in their supper but a morcel of bread an inefficatious and empty Sacrament which contains not what it signifiys 13. As concerning the Commandements besyds that they preach but those which Moses gave and not those which JESUS-CHRIST added to sanctify his Church they say that they are impossible also with the grace of God And what man will undertake to execute that which he judges to be impossible 14. As touching good Works they deny the worth and merit of them And who will undergo difficulty to practise good works when he believes that they have no worth or merit that faith only justifys and suffices to salvation if these principles do not usher in the neglect of all good works it is not becaus the Doctrins do not afford it but becaus they act by some other motives What Sanctity then may one expect where there is no Sacrifice to obtaine it of God No efficatious Sacraments where by to receive it No possibility to obey the Commandements of God to preserve it no good works to increase it So they say not S. Luther S Calvin S. Beza as they say S. Gregory S Bernard S. Bonaventure whom they confess to have been of the Roman Church and experience shews that there are none so holy so vertuous so perfect None so devout towards God charitable towards their neighbor so sober chast modest and humble as are innumerable Souls who live entirely according to the maxims and the instructions of the Catholick Church 15. Thirdly the Apostles teach us that the true Church
of CHRIST is Catholick that is to say Vniversall or generall and the Apostles by putting this word oblige us to follow that Church whose Faith and Religion is receiv'd and publickly profest the longest Time by the most Persons and in most Places and so the Faith of the Roman Church hath been 16. Read but the Annales of Baronius or of Gualterus or The longuest Time the works of Bellarmin or Coccius and You will see that ever-since the Apostles the Church hath had from age to age the same Articles of Faith which the Roman Church teaches at this present Reformers confess that during the first four hundred years the Roman was the true Church if this Present were new they ought to shew who was the first Authour of this novellty what was the new doctrin that was taught in what time and in what place fâ—om what Church the Roman did seperate when she embraced this new doctrin and who were they that opposed this novellty These things are noted in every little alteration of Religion and one cannot shew them in the great pretended changes of the Faith of the Roman Church 17 All those that have been converted to the Faith of CHRIST By the most persons and have embraced Christian Religion have always taken the Roman and were converted by Romanists Other Religions convert not infidells and have never extended the Empire of IESUS in any Province of the Earth 18. We must put out our Eyes and burn all Histories not In most Places to see that the Roman Church only hath been extended in all the places where IESUS CHRIST is or hath been adored and that no other Congregation of Christians has ever had publick exercise of Religion throughout the world But we may read in S. Ireneus Tertullian S. Cyprian and S. Athanasius that in their times the Catholick Church was already in all the inhabited Earth and this in accomplishment of what David had often foretold saying that the Reigne and Empire of JESUS CHRIST that is to say CHRISTS Church should be extended throughout all the earth I wil give thee Gentills for thy inheritance and thy possession the ends of the Earth He Psal 2. Psal 71. shal rule from sea to sea and from the river even to the end of the round world 19. Follow then the Faith of the Romane and Catholick Church since these Notes evidently agree to Her and to no other church Heb. 11. 6. and since with out true and entire Faith t is impossible to please God 20 Have and hold inviolable Vnity with this Church since all Faith without this Vnity will not save You There is but one Vniversall Church out of which nobody is saved sayd the great Council of Lateran consisting of a 1215. Fathers And S. Paul Gallatians 5. 20 himself does teach expressly that not Sects only but also Dissentions Divisions or Seperations shal not possess the kingdom of God Wherefore S. Cyprian in the book of Vnity says Whosoever seperats from the true Church is excluded from the promises of the Church and who hath abandoned the Church of CHRIST shal never com to receive the recompences of CHRIST He is a stranger he is prophane he is an enemie of God for He connot have God for his Father who hath not the Church for his Mother S. Chrysostom testifys that separation from the In Ep. ad Ephes. 4. p. 822. de papt cont Don. lib. 1. c. 8. lib. 2. c. 6. Church or dividing of it is no less sin then falling into heresy nay S. Austin holds that it is greater then that of infidelity and Idolatry and for proof of what he says he alleadges the example of Core Dathan and Abiron and other Schismaticks of the ancient Testament who were sent living into hell and punished more rigorously than Idolaters who doubts says he that this was committed more criminally which was revenged more severely But he says things yet more terrible for he assures us that all they that are not in the true Church though they live extraordinarily well tho they give great alms and also shed their Ep. 152. and. lib. 4. de Bap. blood for the love of IESUS CHRIST if they die out of the Church nothing will profit them but shal be damn'd eternally All those that were out of the Arke of Noah which was a figure of the Church perished by the deluge Only they that laboured in the vineyard reciv'd the recompence of the pennie that is eternal life Members that remain not united to the body cannot have life Branches cut of from the tree cannot bring-forth fruit IESUS CHRIST is the Saviour of his Body which is the Church He is the Espouse of the Church and cannot have or acknowledg other children then those of his Spouse 21. Let us then resolve to live and die in the bosome of the Catholick or Roman Church There we may avoid damnation there we shal be assisted to obtain Salvation For there is Communion af Saints that is communication of good works and of prayers There then every one may help his neighbor the Living may succour also the Dead in Purgatory and the Saints in Heaven can help by their merits and their prayers sinners upon Earth Amen DISCOURS XIII OF THE TENTH ARTICLE The Forgiveness of Sins 1. HE that should know well the monstrous nature and malice of Sin the ingratitude impudence and insolence of the sinner the infinite Greatnes Sanctity and Majesty of him against whom it is committed and should also know what the Scripture expressly tells us that a God is thereby irritated exasperated put into anger and fury against the sinner such an one I say could not by any light of reason hope for pardon it would seem to him impossible that sins committed against God should be remitted and he would need the light of Faith to believe that a sinner may obtain remission of them Who would ever think that a God who hath need of none who had not respect to the celestial Principalities and who spared not so great a number of noble Spirits but condemn'd them all without exception to eternal flames would shew favour to worms of the earth to so ungratefull and base creatures after they have so many and so many times offended Him multiplying sins upon sins and reiterating the same sins Here then we have need of Faith and therefore the Apostles make us to believe that God will pardon sins and since they except none that He will remit all sorts of them how ever great and enormous they may be by the Sacrament of Baptisme and after by Absolution as often as we shal do true penance for them 2. Here we meet with an error and one of the most great and most pernicious of some Reformers They say that it belongs not to a sinner to absolve others from their sins and that it is an injury to the Son of God to ask pardon of our sins of any other On this
account they do ill in believing that they being sinners can by Baptisme wash away the sins of others and do injury to the Son of God by going themselves or by carrying their children to their Ministers to have their sins remitted by this Sacrament since it belongs to the Son of God to wash away sins by Baptisme Heaven declar'd this Verity to S. Iohn Baptist Vpon whom thou shalt see the holy Ghost Iohn 1. 33. descending He it is that Baptizes But who is so weak that does not answer easily that they baptize on the part of God in his Name and by his Command that they go not to their Ministers as men but as God's Deputies and Vicegerents to be baptized I say the same of Absolution we absolve from sins not of our own selves but in the Name of God as his Deputies and Ministers by the Power Authority and Commission which He hath given us 3. Behold the Commissions and Patents of it Whatsoever You shal Matt. 18. unbind on earth shal he unbound in heaven and in Saint Iohn Whose sins you shal forgive they are forgiven them And whose You Iohn 20. shal retain they are retained These words of our Saviour are as clear as the Sun but let us suppose they have need of interpretation To whom shal we recurr for the interpretation of them To one that came a 100 or sixscore years ago or to the ancient Fathers of the first ages when according to Reformers themselves the Church was in her purity S. Chrysostom speaks great things vpon this subject Lib. 3 de Sacerdotio and seems to have foreseen all the evasions of Reformers First he says that the Son of God communicated to his Apostles the same power that He received from his Father and this great Saint speaks so after our Savior himself For in the same time He sayd to his Disciples whose sins you shal remit they are remitted He sayd to them I send you as my Father sent me But our Savior had not only power to declare that sins are remitted by faith but He had power also to remit them In the second place S. Chrysostom says If a king should give to a favourit power to imprison and to deliver prisoners what favour would this be Yet this would be nothing if compar'd with the power of Priests there is as much difference 'twixt these powers as between heaven and earth Thirdly he says that the Priests of the old Law had not power but to judg the leaprosie of the body and to judg of it only not to cure it ours have power to judg of sin which is the leaprosie of the soul and also to cure her of it Aug. hom 49. ex 50. S. Amb. Lib. 1. de Penit. c. 7. S. Austin says let no body flatter himself saying I confess in my heart I confess to God this is not enough and on this account in vain the Son of God would have sayd to Priests All that you shal unbind on earth And S. Ambrose speaking to the Novatians who sayd that men have not power to remit sins says Why baptize you if men have not power to remit sins for Baptisme is the remission of sins and what if Priests attribute to themselves the power that is given them either by Baptisme or by Penance Let us leave Dissenters and consider the wonders of this Power that we may with those in the Gospell glorify God who gave such power to men I confess that there are not many Misteryes in our Matt. 9. Religion which I more admire than this and you will admire it with me if you consider with me the circumstances of it 4. The first is that this Power is Divine it pertains not properly but to him who receiv'd an injury to remit and pardon it It belongs then to God to remit offences against him Wherfore the Pharisees hearing our Savior say to the Paralitick thy sins are forgiven thee and not believing that He was God thought that He blasphem'd What would they have then thought what wouâ—d they have sayd if they had known as we know that JESUS CHRIST would give to men and to sinful men this Power 5. A Power in the second place so soveraign that 't is definitive without appeal The sentences which Priests pronounce and all that they justly ordain on earth is ratifyd infallibly in heaven When you have confest with necessary dispositions if the Priest say to you I absolve thee c. fear not that God will condemn you He cannot fail in his promise and He promised to absolve you if the Priest absolve you legitimatly 6. And this is don with so much Authority and Majesty that this Power is perfectly Royal for the Priest absolves not praying If he should say over you the misereatur only or should pray God to absolve you you would not be absolv'd JESUS-CHRIST wills that he say I absolve thee and heaven and earth shal melt rather than you shal fail of absolution how ever great and enormous your sins may be 7. This is a fourth Circumstance of this Power that it is most ample absolute and general without exception restriction or modification For there is no sin which the Church cannot remit since the Son of God hath sayd absolutely and without reserve Whose sins you shal remit shal be remitted 8. But that which is to be admired most in this Power is the facility and convenience we have to vse it 'T is true that having committed a sin it is not so easy as some think to have a true repentance of it We must ask it instantly of God and indeavour to obtain it of him by good works But when we have obtain'd it what is more easy than to find a Priest who may absolve us Have we not great cause to be astonished and to cry out my God! How have you been so liberal as to give this Power to your Church and to so many Priests If you had given it but to the Pope or to Patriarks or to Bishops or for one only time of the life of each one the excess of liberality would not have seem'd so great but for always for so many times and to so many Priests What excess of love of grace and mercy ô how will a soul that considers well thiâ— Benefit melt with dilection how will she burn with the love of such a Benefactor How often will she kiss those sacred wounds How often will she bless that adorable Blood which purchased her so great a good How often will she say my soul bless thou our Lord. On the contrary What regretts shal we have in hell if we are damn'd for having neglected contemn'd or prophan'd so great a Benefit The devout Rupertus was wont to say he had no pity on Christians that were damn'd and when one sayd to him why have you not if a dog should be so afflicted we should be moved to compassion I have none sayd he for 't is
he not who is Wisdom 3. 5. worthy of God Invenit illos dignos se Blessed a thousand times his holy and vertuous life which disposes him to such a glory blessed his happy death which will be to him as a door to enter into an immortall life Blessed his understanding which shal see one day openly and face to face the divine Essence his Will that will love God and enjoy him for all Eternity Blessed a thousand times his head upon which the holy Trinity will put a Crown of Glory in the presence of the Vnivers Blessed and happie his hands which shal carry always palmes as the ensignes of his Victories Blessed his feet and his steps since he shal walk upon the celestial Glob in the company of Angells Blessed and happy a thousand times all the members of his body and the powers of his soul which shal be filled and satiated with all sorts of delights joys glory happiness and with eternall Beatitude What I say of this elect Soule I say to every one that shal do violence to himself to rise out of the state of sin to overcom his passions to keep the commandements and to live according to the maxims of the Gospell Violenti rapiunt illud the Matthew 11. 12. Violent beare heaven away they that do violence to themselves to their vices and their passions obtain Heaven God grant us the grace to whom be honour glory praise and benediction for ever Amen DISCOURS XV. OF THE TWELFTH ARTICLE Life Everlasting Amen IN this last Article is declar'd to us the End for which we were created for which we were made Christians and to which all Laws Sacraments Vertues and other things are directed we ought then to believe firmly and to ruminate often that after the Resurrection there shal be in the Vnivers two conditions the one most happy the other most miserable and that neither of them shal ever end that every one of us shal be either of the one or of the other of the right hand or of the left of the number of the good or of the bad of them that go to heaven or of those that go to hell And that 't is now the time to look to our affairs fitting our selves to be of the happy side for after this there shal be no more time for us This doubtless we shal do if we consider and ponder well What is Eternal Life and how great are the goods of it 2. S. John in the Apocalyps speaking of sinners says their Apoc. 28. 8. part shal be in the pool burning with fire and brimstone which is the second death The second or everlasting death then is when the soul and the body are depriv'd of their Beatitude and confind to the fire of hell And on the contrary eternal life is when they are freed from those and all other evills and do enjoy the eternal Goods of heaven 3. These are so great that the Apostle who was rapt up into heaven would not describe the Greatness of them he speaks not of them but with astonishment neither eye hath seen says he nor eare hath heard nor hath the heart of man conceiv'd what God â—ath prepar'd for them that love him Nevertheless for to attain to some knowledg or rather to some slender conjecture of their greatness fourt hings shal be considered 4. First the liberality of God towards all men in this life cast the eyes of your consideration with S Austin upon the extent of the Vnivers see what stately buildings there are what chambers richly furnished what beauteous gardens what pleasant medows what odoriferous and coloured Flowers what sorts of savory fruits what delicious meats what delicate wines what sweet odours what melodious voices what sumptuous garments what dogs for chase what birds of prey for recreation It is God that gives all these things to men But to what men And who are they that more usually enioy them Atheists Infidells and others that forget him and incessantly offend him Now if He do so much good to his enemies what will he reserve for his friends If He be so liberal to give how much more to recompence if He be so charitable to those that offend him how much more to those who love him if He be so magnificent to those He owes but punishments how much more to those to whome He hath made so many promises Run through in your mind all that you have ever seen heard or imagin'd all that is great rich magnificent precious pleasant and desirable all that is nothing if compar'd with that which God hath prepar'd for you if you love him for all that may be seen recounted or desired and it is impossible to see decipher or desire the great goods which God hath promiss'd and prepar'd for those that love him 5. To have a second conjecture of them you need not but weigh and consider the iourneys and toyles of Apostles the torments of Martyrs the watchings and austerities of confessors the temptations combats and Victories of Virgins the alms and charities of Widdows the heroical vertues of other Saints and that after so many toyles so many sufferances penances mortifications good works services merits the Apostle says that Rom. 8. 18. the very sufferances and afflictions themselves of this life are little in comparison with the glory of heaven And again the tribulation which at present is momentary and light works above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory in us note above measure exceedingly 2. Ior. 4. 17. 6. Nevertheless a third consideration will make this weight of glory to surpass yet much more all value and esteem of it For Heaven is not only the Salary of the Saints but also the recompence of the merits of JESUS Consider what He is in his divine Person what He is with God his Father the ardent love He had for him the Zeal which He had for his Glory the great services He did him what He suffered for his honour what his pretious Blood is worth the Glory of Heaven is the Salary of all that given by a King most liberal in his gifts and most magnificent in his recompences 7. Hell also though very low may serve us for a footstool and a step to mount up to Heaven by contemplation and to make a guesse at the felicities of it What is hell 't is an abyss a Collection a Rendevow of the most excessive sorrows bitternesses and afflictions imaginable What is it to be damn'd 'T is to be eternally in a prison most deep most obscure and most incommodious to be eternally in captivity under a Tyrant most insolent most cruell and most barbarous not to have one mite of bread in an eternal and most ravenous hunger not a drop of water in a most burning thirst not a ray of light in the greatest darkness not a moment of rest in an unsuportable and eternal weariness to be eternally afflicted with all the miseries a humane body is
ascertain'd testimony of God who cannot deceive or be deceived Habitual faith is when 't is permanent as a habit and remains in us ' til we lose it by infidelity Actual faith is when we exercise formally and expresly an act of beliefe upon a revealed Verity Implicite is when we believe not the Articles of Religion but confusedly in general and in gros as when we say I believe all that the Church believes Explicit is when we believe distinctly and in particular that there is one God in three Persons that the Son of God was made man and the like important verities Interior faith is when we believe in heart without making known by any signe whether we believe or no. Exteriour is when we make profession of our belief by words or by external and visible actions dead faith is when it is depriv'd of the love of God and of other vertues Living faith is when it is animated by charity and the practise of good works 6. Humane faith conduces not to justification nor consequently to salvation this the Apostle expressly teaches when he says By Ephes 2. 8. 2. Cor. 5. 2. grace you are saved through faith and that not of your selves for it is the gift of God And again we are not sufficient to think any thing of our selves but our sufficiency is of God 7. Habitual faith suffices not for an Adult or one that hath sufficient use of reason but he must believe actually the Mysteries of faith For he that coms to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek him says S. Paul And S. Heb. 11. Iohn .. 3. 18. Iohn He that does not believe is already judged He says not he that hath not faith but he that does not believe which expresses a formal act I sayd habitual faith suffices not one that hath sufficient use of reason for infants and such as have not the use of reason may be saved by habitual faith which they receive when they are spiritually regenerated by Baptisme For this habitual gift of faith and the other habitual and supernatural gifts of Hope and Charity which they then by the merits of CHRIST receive justify them makes them adoptive children of God heires of his kingdom and remains in them for these effects and to be the sources of correspondent acts when they shal com to the use of reason 8. Implicit faith suffices not to be saved It is not enough to say I believe all that the Church believes you are oblig'd to know and believe explicitly that there is one God in three Persons Father Son and holy Ghost Creatour Saviour Sanctifier the Incarnation of JESUS-CHRIST his Nativity Death Resurrection Ascension his comming to Judgment if any one committed to your care should be ignorant of these Misteries you would be more culpable then if you should permit them to work on Christmas day this being only against a precept of the Church that against a Commandement of God And for the same reason if others who do not particularly pertain to you should be ignorant of those mysteries you would offend against charity if you instruct them not more then if you should leave them in ignorance of their obligation to hear Mass on Easter day 9. Interior faith suffices not It is not enough to have a firm faith in our heart we must make a profession of it by our words Rom. 10. 10. and actions For with the heart we believe vnto justice but with the mouth Confession is made to sâlvation says S. Paul We receive body and soul and all from God we must acknowledg and honour him as He commands us though with the loss of all 1. Cor. 13. Galat. 5. 6. S. Iames. 2. 14. Matth. 7. 21 S. Matt. 25. 41. Aug. Lib. de Fide Oper. C. 15. Tom. 4. ◠med 10. Dead faith in fine suffices not for if a man hath all faith and have not charity he is nothing says S. Paul And in another place he assures us that the faith only which works by charity is that which profits and conduces to salvation S. Iames confutes largly dead faith and thus concludes You see then Brethren how that by works a man is justifyd and not by faith only Our Saviour himself declares it insufficient to salvation when He says Not every one that says Lord Lord which is not sayd without Faith but he that does the will of my Father shal enter into the kingdom of Heaven And in the same Gospell He blames those He sends into everlasting fire not becaus they believ'd not in him but becaus they did not good Works and this passage S. Austin also urges much against the Solifideans 11. Catholicks believe this but many among them fail in the practise of it What Christian works what supernatural works conformable to their faith and what works more perfect than those of Pagans do they Tbey labour to maintain themselves to nourish and provide for children and the Pagans did so They honor their Parents the Pagans respected also theirs they injure none and honest Pagans did not They love their Benefactors I will not say what Pagan but what Tyger does not They love their friends and such as do love them the Publicans or Pagans do they not the same and what reward shal you have sayd our Saviour You must do works conformable to your faith supernatural Matth. 5. 46. heroical and worthy of the recompence we pretend to 12. A good Christian acts not by natural inclination nor by humane reason nor by maxims of policie nor by temporal interest but hath faith for the Principle of his actions and for the Rule of his life He labours and gains money not for the love of it nor of any honour or pleasure he may get by it but for a necessary entertainment of himself in the service of God and to give Alms because faith teaches him to use it for these ends He nourishes and provides for children not because they are his but because they are Gods creatures his Images and the Members of JESUS-CHRIST He abstains from sensual delights and carnal pleasures not because a man is too noble and born to higher things than to be a slave to his body but because JESUS-CHRIST recommended it He does no injury to any not because he would have the repute of an honest man but becaus JESUS hath forbidden him He suffers injuries and affronts and pardons them not because it is the property of a great courage to contemne and look upon them as unworthy of his anger as a Lyon or an Elephant slights the cries of little dogs but because CHRIST commands us to pardon injuries to do good to those that hate and persecute us He serves faithfully his Master not becaus his Master nourishes him well and gives good wages but becaus God sayd by the mouth of S. Paul Servants render obedience to your Masters as to JESUS-CHRIST He gives alms to
a poor man not through tenderness of heart but because JESUS hath commanded him and sayd that which you shal do to the least of mine shal be don to me Who Matth. 25. 40. ever shal give a cup of cold water to one of mine in the name of a Disciple shal receive reward He promises you nothing if you give an alms to a poor man becaus he is your countreyman of the same condition of the same nature with you but if you give to him Becaus he is a Christian and a Disciple of the Son of God in the name of a Disciple Matt. 10. 42. 13. Let us hear then with respect and put in practise this Word of JESUS Habete fidem Have faith It is the extream misery of a Christian to lose Faith whilst it subsists in the soul there remains always some hopes of salvation when it is once lost all is lost there is no recovery but by a miracle 14. Have divine faith not humane only You ought to believe what I say to you not because I say it but becaus God sayd it becaus God revealed it to his Church and the Church teaches you it by my ministery Divine faith believes all the words of the Scripture without exception if you believe some and not the other it is humane faith or opinion or phansie not divine faith which believes becaus God is the soveraign and infallible Verity who cannot deceive in any point if He could in one He might in all the rest 15. Have actual faith not habitual only It is very profitable to exercise often formal and express acts of faith especially in temptation and in occasion of Sin to do as our Savior who being tempted in the desart oppos'd to each temptation a text of holy scripture And S. Paul counsells us to make use of the shield of faith in every occasion are you tempted by imprudence to defer your conversion oppose to it this shield enliven your faith by Ephes. 6. 16. Luke 12. 40. these words of our Savior the Son of man will com in what hour ye think not Death and judgment will surprize you when you think least of it Are you tempted by injustice to do any injury to your neigbour oppose this shield actuate your faith by these words of JESUS Do not to another what thou wouldst not have don to thy self Are you tempted by choler to abuse another by your words actuate your faith by these words of our Savior He that is angry with his brother he that calls him fool shal be guilty of fire Are you tempted by impurity oppose this shield quicken your faith by these words of S. Paul know that all fornicators and unclean Eph. 5. persons have no part in the kingdom of IESUS-CHRIST Are you tempted to go in an open dress and to shew your breasts Stir vp your faith by these words of IESUS Woe to him by whom a Scandal comes that is to him who gives an occasion to one only person to commit a mortal Sin 16. Have firm and perfect faith which doubts not wavers not staggers not at all You must be more convinced and perswaded of all that the Church does teach than you are of what you see S. Peter having seen the glory of IESUS vpon Luke 17. 1. mount Thabor having heard the voice of the eternal Father This is my beloved Son says that he was yet more ascertain'd of it by the testimony of holy Scripture habemus firmiorem Propheticum 2. Pet. 1. 19. sermonem And since the sacred text does say Fornicators Avaricious Robbers and other sinners shal never possess the kingdom of God if they correct not in themselves these Vices you must be more certain never to be saved if you commit these sins and have not true repentance then of what you see or hear if you doubt of it or have doubted of it voluntarily you must accuse your self thereof as of a Sin of infidelity I say voluntarily For when thoughts do rise against faith if they displeas you or if you reject them promptly as soon as you perceive them there is no Sin But to avoyd the occasions of them do what S. Paul commands you avoyd those that would seduce you they will cast always into your mind I know not what maligne and venemous disposition if your calling be to serve though they would give you great wages serve them not if you pretend to marriage beware to marry them for you put your selves in danger of being seduced and when there should be no danger yet you may die and leave children who being bredvp by them will follow their errors and lose their souls Beware also to read or to have in your house naughty books some of your people may happen to read them and be perverted or prejudiced by them 17. Have explicit faith content not your selves to say I am a good Catholick I believe all Articles of faith but learn them in particular at least the principall and most remarkable To learn them you ought to hear as often as you can sermons catechismes to read Spiritual books to frequent devout persons who can instruct you to meditate upon them for to conceive the importance of them 18. And to make a publick profession of them you should of ten explicate them and make others to admire them You must not fear to oppose those who speak unworthily of them of God or of his Church nor be asham'd to practise the observances and devotions prescribed by the Church in consequence to them But remember this word of the Son of God He that shal be asham'd Luke 9. 26. of me before men I will be asham'd of him in the presence of my Father and his Angells 19. Have living faith animated with charity and fruitfull in good works otherwise S. Paul will say Your faith is vain for 1. Cor. 15. 17. Iames 2. yet you are in your sins S. Iames will say Shal dead faith be able to save you S. Bernard will say behold a fine honor you render to your God! you offer to him a dead carkess a faith joyn'd to infamous and stincking actions The Saints did not so they practised Heb. 11. vertue by their faith they converted kingdoms by the heroical actions of their faith they obtain'd the promises which God made to the true faithfull the possession and enjoyment of the principal object of faith the intuitive and clear vision of the essence of God in the happy eternity which God granr us all Amen DISCOURS XVII Of Hope 1. THe God of Hope says the Apostle replenish you with all Rom. 15. 13. sort of joy that you may abound in hope In which words he wills not only that we hope but he demands of God for all the Faithfull an abundance of this gift and vertue by which we may hope through the merits of IESUS-CHRIST to possess God and to enjoy eternal felicity This Vertue is so necessary that
many sins exposed to so many temptations subject to so many corruptions designed to so many just punishments should confide in himself and presume to make himself happy sayd Aug. Ep. 54. ad Macedonium S. Austin This vain relyance which men have on their own selves and on the force of their free will is the cause that they rashly cast themselves into occasions of sin that they worke not their salvation with fear and trembling as the Apostle commands that they stand not upon their guard to keep themselves from falling that they pray not God fervently to hold them by the hand that they are not in a state of perpetual humiliation as the Saints advise them to be that they disdain those that humane frailty made to fall and that they glorify themselves in their good works whence it comes often that God chastises them to humble them He lets them fall into interiour aridities and desolations or into some furious temptations which cast them down to the brink of hell when they thought themselves at the gates of heaven and makes them say as David Ego dixi in abundantia mea non movebor in eternum avertisti faciem tuam factus sum conturbatus It seem'd Psal 29. 7. to me that I should never be troubled in the resolution I had to serve you ô my God You have withdrawn your grace and I find my self wholy perplex'd and in danger to be lost Hope not then in your selves nor in the force of your free will which is but weakness and misery hope in God and in his assistance but hope in him as you ought that is to say with great confidence 10. Blessed be the man who puts his confidence in God says Hieremie he is like to a tree planted by the water the leaf whereof is always green and which never fails to bring forth fruit Hierem. 17. 7. Collect of the 5. Sunday after Epiph. Wherefore the Church begging the favour of Gods protection makes a remonstrance to him that she relyes wholy upon the hope of his grace There his nothing that obliges us more to act faithfully for another then when we see that he confides in us and wholy depends upon us nor is there any thing that averts us more from succouring and assisting him than to see that he is diffident of us and can we think that our God will assist us powerfully when we confide not entirely but diffide in him Diffidence makes us un worthy of his favours it binds the hands of the Omnipotent and stops the cours of his particular graces 11. Give me a soul that hath a great confidence in God she would work miracles but if one staggers or diffides never so little in the Providence of God he will not have good success S. Peter finding the wind strong did not quite diffide since he cryd out Lord save me he had a little confidence since JESUS sayd to him ô thou of little faith But becaus he doubted he began to sink so certenly the reason why we are not powerfully assisted by God and that we do not the great works He would operate by us is becaus there is always in our hearts some grain of diffidence 12. Follow then the counsel of the holy Ghost Have confidence Prou. 3. 5. in the Lord and rely not vpon thy own prudence In all thy ways think on him and He will direct thy steps Have confidence you confide in a friend who never sayd to you trust in me who perhaps is chang'd and hath lost the love he had for you And will you not trust in God who is always the same and who says to you in his Scripture with so much tenderness and assurance I will not leave nor abandon Heb. 13. 5. thee Will you not trust in your God who can and will aide you powerfully if you cast your self into his armes In the Lord He is Master and He will shew it permitting you sometimes to be overwhelm'd by a tempest leaving you long in disgraces suits poverty infirmity and afflictions of Spirit But if you put great confidence in him though you be even past all remedy and ready to be lost He will strike the stroke of a Master will make a signal demonstration of his Providence and deliver you for his glory to the admiration of the world Rely not vpon your own prudence trust not in your ability 't is a weak support a rotten planck a reed and a foundation upon sand acknowledg in the presence of God that your light is but darkness that your Wisdom ss but folly demand his conduct invocate his mercy in the beginning in the progress and in theend of your actions In all your wayes think on him 'T is a great fault we commit and the cause of all our failings that we have not recours to God often enough nor fervently enough We are less able to do any thing that conduces to eternal life of our own selves than a child that hath never written is capable to write well if then you will do well you must not only recommend your self to JESUS in the beginning of your actions but often lift up your soul to him dart forth respectfull and affectionate aspirations and ask his grace and light If you do so He will direct your steps He will enlighten your understanding in perplexities strengthen your heart in temptations hold your hand in dangers direct your footsteps in his wayes He will make your actions succeed to acquisition of his grace in this world and to possession of his glory in the other Amen DISCOURS XVIII Of the Love of God CHarity is amongst Christian Vertues that which gold is amongst metalls ' that which the Palme is among trees that which the Lyon is amongst beasts that which a man is among all Creatures of this world that which the Seraphins are amongst Celestial creatures S. Ireneus calls it properly Eminentissimum Charismatum the most eminent and precious gift of the holy Ghost he agrees in this with the Apostle who having sayd that God hath chosen some 1. Cor. 12. 31. in his Church to be Apostles others to be Doctors others to work miracles He adds I will shew you yet a grace more excellent a gift of the holy Ghost more to be desir'd than to be an Apostle or a Prophet and this grace is charity of which he speaks immediatly One may be an Apostle and an ill man witness Judas a Prophet witness Balaam a Doctor witness Tertullian a Virgin witness the five foolish a worker of miracles witness they who will say have we not worked many miracles in your name But one cannot love God perfectly and Matth. 7. 22. have Charity without being good holy and pleasing to God 2. Here we ought to admire the Goodness and Providence of God who placed all our felicity and happiness in a thing so sweet and conformable to our nature And which poor as well as rich ignorant
is good and deserves to be loved for God is so good great holy powerfull and worthy to be loved that if He did desire it we should sacrifice our selves for his service though there were neither heaven for those that love him nor hell for those that love him not 11. We should do as the blessed Spirits do it is IESUS that gives the Counsel putting these words into our mouths Your will be don in earth as it is in heaven that is as the Angells do it they do the will of God and obey his Orders with a free pure and disinteressed love all that they pretend is to obey God to do his will all the recompence that they passionately desire is to receive new Orders to be employd again in his service purely for the love of him 12 This is not sayd that a faithfull soul may not hope and keep the commandements for reward or retribution as the Prophet says he did But that it be not the principal yet less the only aime of our love for as S. Bernard says perfect love of God intends no recompence but merits much The loving soul receives from the hands of God ineffable and incomprehensible goods but though she should not though there should be no Paradise nor reward she would not omit to love God serve him and to be pleasing to him and if she practises vertue for reward the reward which she desires is the increase of her love if she is glad to merit to be higher in heaven this is not to have there more of honor and glory but it is to have more of love if I merit much says she I shal see God more clearly and perfectly in heaven I shal glorify him more excellently I shal praise him more advantagiously I shal be united to him more strictly and intimatly I shal love him more ardently and so love is the true salary of love 13. In fine your love must not be idle and paralitick but active to render service to God and to do good works for his glory Charity works great things where it is and where it works not there it is not says S. Gregory S. Iohn 14. 23. 1. Ep. 3. 18. Psai 96. 10. He that loves me will keep my word says IESUS My little children says his beloved Disciple let us not love in word and tongue only but in work and veritie and the Royal Prophet You that love our Lord hate ye evill he says not only commit not evill but hate it He says not hate it in your self but absolutely hate it If you love God you will hate sin wheresoever it is found you will destroy it in your self and in your neighbor also if if you can if one should say I abuse not my friend but is not sorry that another does nor hinders him when he can may one truly say he loves him Let us conclude with a reflexion upon these words of JESUS I Came to cast fire upon the earth and what desire I but that it be inflam'd Luke 12. 49. And does He not move solicit and stir up our hearts to this fire and flame of love by all possible wayes 14. He prevents us with great love He lou'd us more than riches He was made poor for us more than honours He suffered a thousand infamies more than his ease and pleasure He led a life in pain and labor more than his body He depriu'd it of glory and of life more than the Angells He redeem'd them not And though we are so ungratful and unworthy as not to return love for love He tryes yet other means 15. He heaps Benefits upon us and makes us presents to engage our mercenary hearts He practises the counsel He gives us by the Wiseman and by his Apostle Give meat and drink to your enemy Prov. 25. 21. Rom. 12. 20. when he hath need and you shal heap upon him burning coales to heat his love to you so many prosperities that are sent you so many morcells of bread you eate so many creatures that serve you are so many burning coales He heaps upon you to heat your love so many presents He makes you to gain your affection so many baits he laies to catch your heart Et si parva sunt ista adiiciet majora And if it seems to you that all this is too little and that your heart is yet worth more He assures you that all the favours whiich he hath don you and which he does you yet every day are not but gages and pledges of the great Goods He hath prepar'd and promis'd you if you love him Neither eye hath seen nor eare hath heard 1. Cor 2. 9 nor the heart of man can comprehend the things which God hath prepar'd for them that love him says S. Paul 16. But since we esteem not these promises enough and are like those Israelites who contemn'd she desirable land He lifts up his hand He commands us ro love him and threatens punishments if we do not Is not this to be extremly desirous of our love to put as it were a dagger to our throats and say to us love me J will kill you if you will not He does not only say it but he does it he damnes us eternaly if we love him not 17. And when He sees that fear of future punishments doe not sufficiently move our hearts He sends us sometimes afflictions to force our love He takes away all you love in this world becaus you love not well that which ought to be loved above all things He removes from you all that may amuse and employ your heart that it may be in a manner forced for want of other object to unite it self to Him ô great God what can you do more to have this heart which you so passionately desire you besige it on all sides and it renders not neither the preventions of your love nor the attractives of your benefits nor your promises of paradise nor your strict commands nor threats of hell nor constrains of afflictions can open this lockt heart Extremis morbis extrema remedia 18. When a passionate lover hath tryed all wayes and finds them unsuccesfull he coms to the last makes use of a charm composes a love potion JESUS makes use of this artifice to gain our affection He puts himself upon our Altars and into our Tabernacles there he is the charm of love They say that in a charm of love to render it more powerfull the Lover ought to mix with it some of his own substance some drops of his blood and JESUS puts all his blood into this potion not a part of his substance only but all his substance Body Soul and Divinity 19. What think you Judg you not that God ought to have your heart after so many pursuances do they not inflame you to beg that of God which is so necessary and which you cannot have of your own selves Aske it of God fervently humbly frequently aske it of
if he gain the whole world and sustain the damage of his Soul And so if we will be good Christians we ought to love our Neighbors there is nothing that we ought not to lose pleasure riches honor and also if need be life it self for the Salvation of our neigbors And this the beloved Disciple and faithfull Interpreter of his Master teaches us in these clear words In this we know the Charity of God becaus He hath given his life for us and we ought also to give our life for our Brothers He does not say 1. Ep. 3. only that 't is expedient that it is a Salntary counsell but that we must give our lives for their salvation and to move us more He puts before our eyes the example of IESUS-CHRIST S Iohn 13. who made his love of us the rule of our love of others I give you a new commandement that you love one another as I have loved you And lest we should less note it He repeats it again in the Iohn 15. same Gospell This is my Precept that you love one another as I have loved you 7. Though this Vertue be so pleasing to God and so important to our Salvation nevertheless men fail in this the most and to say nothing of all those who live in hatred envie discord contention scandal which are the common pests of the world and the mortal ennemies of charity there are many who seem to have good intelligence who make mutuall visits complements offers of service Yet love but in word and tongue not in work and verity they will not open their purs nor use their power nor apply their pains and labor for the assistance of their neighbor in necessity 8. Others love their kindred and relations but with a natural inordinate and hurtfull love they procure them what is honourable or profitable upon earth though they put them into eminent danger of losing heaven they give them what pleases the senses and satisfys their foolish inclinations though to the prejudice of their souls and their salvation and if they see them desirous to renounce the world and to betake themselves to a vertuous cours of life they call upon them and to shew their love diswade them from it and recall them to the usuall and libertine cours of life so they seem to love but do truly hate to be good friends but are the worst of enemies and the maxim of our Savior is verefyd in them The enemies of a man are his domesticks Matt. 10 9. Others in fine extend their love beyond Relations but to those only from whom or by whose means they expect honor pleasure or profit This is an imperfect love a love of concupiscence and interest and not of charity which seeks not proper interest but loves God and in him or for him or for the love of him all others though they be our enemies becaus they are his images redem'd by the precious blood of IESUS capable to know serve and possess him and becaus it is his Will intimated to us by this general precept to love our neighbors and particularly commanded in S. Matthew I say to you love Mat. 5. 44. your enemies do good to them that hate you pray for them that persecute and calumniate you that you may be children of your Father 10. But the first and most necessary effect of this good will and love which is exacted of us for our ennemies is to pardon them for this is the first mercy and charity that we can doe them and the most necessary alms we can bestow upon them What good can we do them if first we do not pardon them but keep in our hearts odium enmity bitterness and a desire to take reveng of them Wherefore the Son of God who endeavours by all means our Salvation does not only command this charity and mercy but moreover obliges us to it by other pressing motives He promises us his greatest mercy which is the pardon of our sins if we pardon others dimittite dimittemini and he assures us that his Father will treat us most rigorously if we do not Sic Pater meus celestis faciet vobis so my heavenly Father will cast you into the prison of hell if you forgive not others from your hearts And S. Iames tells us judgement Iames 2. 13. without mercy shal be donâ— to them who shal not have don mercy S. Austin praying for the soul of his deceased Mother sayd I know that she led a holy and innocent life but woe to a laudable life if you examin it without mercy Whatsoever life you lead woe to you woe to you if you have enmitie you shal be judged without mercy and woe to a laudable life if judged without mercy What laudable thing do you You pray woe if you have bitterness woe to you notwithstanding your prayer for that he Psal 11â— remembred not to do mercy let his prayer be turn'd into sin says the Psalmist Your prayer condemns you saying our Lords prayer you demand Vengeance against your self you say I pardon such a person but I will not speak to him I will not that he com into my house and after this you say forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us God will hear you He will not speak to you favourably nor admit you into his house and if you be not admitted into heaven whether shal you go What laudable action do you you give alms woe to you if you have malice woe to you notwithstanding your alms S. Paul says if you should give all your goods to the poor if you 1. Cor. 13 have not charity you are nothing and by charity in this place he understands the love of neigbours What vertuous action do you you fast woe to you notwithstanding your fast if you have dissention In Isaiah the Iews Isay 58. 3 complain'd to God We have fasted and you have not regarded us God answers them with all your fasts you do your wills you press your poor debtours you have debates and contentions What laudable thing perform you Sacrifice woe to you if you have malice God says by Osee and twice in the Gospell I love and will rather mercy then your sacrifice And therefore many Osee 6. great Saints offering to God the most meritorious sacrifice that can be offer'd to him the sacrifice of their lives have interrupted it to obey this Commandement of mercy in the hour of their death when they had time little enough to elevate themselves to God to offer and to unite themselves to him they remembred their enemies pray'd for them and desired their good 11. These heroical vertues of the Saints were extracts and copies of those which we admire in IESUS-CHRIST the King of Martyrs and the Saint of Saints He being unjustly and most cruelly nailed to the Cross mock'd blasphem'd did not do as some do they think that they exercise great acts
of charity and patience towards their enemies when they say I will not reveng my self I leave reveng to God let God do to him according to his deserts know you well what you do says S. Austin you make your self judg of your neighbor you will not or you cannot execute your sentence but you desire that God should be the Executioner of it He that will be revenged says Ecclesiasticus shal find reveng of our Lord and keeping he will keep his sin He says not he that will reveng himself but he that will be revenged shal be the object of the divine vengeance You will not reveng your self nor hurt your neigbor but you desire that God would reveng the injury that he hath don you this ir to desire to be revenged it is to incurre the Vengeance of God The Son of God does quite otherwise upon the Cross He prayes God to pardon them He excuses them as much as he can He seeks reasons to diminish the greatness of their crimes Pardon them sayes He for they know not what they do He expects not his Resurrection to pray for them when the abundance of glory and the charms of its delight would blot out the sense of his paines He prayes for them in the midst of most bitter torments when He hath his enemies before his eeys who offend him actually his eares ringing with their blasphemies his mouth full of gall and bitterness his body all cover'd with wounds When He prays for himself He sayes my God when He prayes for his enemies He says my Father to incline Him by the sweetness of this appellation when He prays for himself in the garden it is with condition If it be possible here He prays absolutely my Father I beseech you to pardon them by these thornes which pierce my head by these teares which fall from my eyes by these wounds which are as so many mouthes that demand your pardon If so rare and prodigious an example of charity does not move us nothing in the world will move us 't is in vain to say more God have mercy on us and convert us Amen DISCOURS XX. OF THE NECESSITY OF GRACE I Treat not in this discours of natural graces not of those which Divines call gifts gratis given not of habitual grace which is a most noble and excellent quality by which we are made children of God most pleasing to his Majesty and heires of his Paradise 't is called habitual becaus it remains always in us as a habit when we have once receiv'd it ' til we lose it by consenting to a mortal sin 't is also named sanctifieng and justifieng grace becaus it sanctifys us and renders us holy and just before God But here I speak only of actual Grace which is a good motion a holy inspiration an interiour light a secret touch a supernatural aide by which the holy Ghost wakens us and excites us to rise out of sin or to the practise of some good work It is called actual becaus it makes us do acts of Vertue and it remains not always in us but passes as an act or as a flash of lightning I will shew the necessity we have of this grace becaus it imports very much to be well convinced of it and to put in practise the Documents which are drawn from it 2. God the omnipotent Creator having reposed from all Eternity and satisfyd himself in the plenitude of his divine Being in the enjoyance of his infinite Perfections in the fecundity of his adorable Emanations in the society of his divine Persons and willing by a sally of love and by a powerfull inclination of his natural Goodness to communicate himself out of himself created man in the beginning of time to his own image and resemblance that by grace and particular priviledge he might be partaker of the same felicity which the Creatour possessed in himself by the prerogative of his Nature He created him I say to his own image and resemblance to his Image in the Vnderstanding to his resemblance in the will to his image in reason to his resemblance in dilection to his image in the kâ—owledg of verity to his resemblance in the love of vertue having so created him He made him Lord of all the creatures and as a little God in this world lodged him in a garden of delights He honoured him with one only commandement very easy to be observ'd that meriting by his own acts the Beatitude prepar'd for him he might have more honor and contentment to enjoy it not as a present freely given but as a crown happily and gloriously obtain'd by conquest Satan perceived this and raging with envie desir'd to frustrate the designe feating that man whom he esteem'd much inferiour to himself should merit by his humility and obedience the glory of heaven which he had lost by his arrogancy and rebellion and seeing well that he could not vanquish him by force made use of fraud and artifice and having induced him to transgress the commandement of God gave him traiterously two mortal wounds contrary to the two prerogatives he receiv'd from God in his creation Ignorance of good against the light of his understanding Concupiscence of evill against the rectitude of his will From these two accursed sources have flown all the dismal evills which destroy our nature and principally the two more notable Delict and Crime Delict coms from ignorance Crime proceeds from concupiscence Delict is the omission of good commanded Crime is the commission of evill prohibited For such infectious wounds two remedies were necessary man had need of counsel and of aide consilio auxilio indigebat of counsel to cleare his ignorance of aide to correct his concupiscence of counsel to enlighten his understanding of aide to fortify his will of counsel to make him know verity of aide to make him love vertue This is that wherewith the divine Word incarnated for for the salvation of men hath enriched us abundantly who came as S. Iohn says full of Grace and Verity Grace there S. Iohn 1. is Aide Verity there is counsel 4. But is not this a wonder capable to ravish the highest Scraphins with admiration to see that the Son of God defer'd so long a remedy so necessary The Son of God resolv'd from all Eternity to make himself man He made promises of it from the beginning of ages and nevertheless He defers more then four thousand years the execution of a designe so worthy of himself so conformable to his goodness so conducible to his glory so advantagious to men ô my God how wonderfull are you How incomprehensible is the Abyss of your secrets You are so jealous of your honour how permit you then the evill Spirit your mortal Enemy to tyrannize so over your creatures to possess your dominion to be adored instead of you for the space of four thousand years you have so mortal and irreconcilable hatred of sin how permit you Idolatry a sin so
mercies and his favours Amen DISCOURS XXII OF NOT DEFERRING GOOD WORKES THat which learned Hypocrates sayd in a certain occasion we may apply to penance and the practise of other good Workes Life is short Art is long occasion flyes away swiftly the experience is dangerous Life is short it is but seventy or eighty years infancy and chilhood cuts off a good part of it another part is made unprofitable by extream old age sleep and other necessities of the body take up at least a third part of it all which being deducted the remainder will be found to be but short Art is long 't is a trade full of difficulty a high and hard enterprize for such as accustome themselves to the wayes of the world to do penance and satisfy an infinite Justice for many and great sins and after that to acquire vertue and perfâ—ction Occasion flyes away swiftly It slides away insensibly it is bald behind having escaped it cannot be retaken when the conveniency to do penance to acquire perfection is past we shal not recover it again The Experiment is dangerous for the dignity of a mans body sayes the Interpreter of Hypocrates and I 'le say to my purpose for the dignity of the reasonable soul It is an Experience very dangerous to try whether or no we have don true penance and practised solid vertue there is nothing less at stake than our soul than our eternal salvation if we experience in the hour of our death that our penance hath been fals that our vertues have been wanting or defective it is an irreparable fault we commit it but once but it is for all Eternity Whence comes it then that we lose so easily the fair occasions which God presents us to labor in a worke of so great consequence delaying our conversion to old age or to the time to com which perhaps will never be for us I desire to destroy utterly so penicious an abuse by three powerfull reasons First that the Conversion which you pretend to make hereafter is uncertaine Secondly harder and thirdly less fruitfull 2. It is a maxime in Divinity that God is absolute Master of his goods independent in his gifts and that He gives them as He pleases You say you will convert your self hereafter that nothing presses and you have leasure enough Know that you will never do it without a particular favour of God Know that He owes it not to any He hath refused it to many and when you delay to leave your evill and negligent life adding sin to sin you give him cause to refuse it to you also Consider the workes of God Amos 1. 2. sayes the holy Ghost by the mouth of the Wise man and see that none can correct whom He hath despised of this Predicament were those of Damascus Tyre Moab and others of whome the Creator sayes non convertam I will not Convert them of this number were the Iewes to whom the Son of God did say I go S. Iohn 8. S. Iohn 12. 33. and you will seek me and you will die in your sin and those of whom the Evangelist sayd that they could not believe bécause God had blinded them and hardned their hearts that they might not be converted It is rhen a strange folly It is to build upon quick sands it is to establish a designe of the greatest importance upon an uncertaine event to defer your conversion to old age or to future time You let the time slide away the occasions and inspirations which God gives you to do penance and advance in piety who hath ascertain'd you that He will give you them hereafter You dispose of your self and make the appointement of your life as if you were the Master of it you speak of your conversion as if it depended on you only you say I will now take my pleasure content my passion satisfy my inclination afterward I will convert myself will apply my self seriously to the affaires of my salvation Poor man you imagin that God will take your measures that He will accommodate himself to your little projects and regulate his thoughts designes and conduct according to the levell of your rash thoughts You deceive you self You imagin that you have leasure enough to convert your self But if God call you out of this world suddenly will you convert your self in old age if you dye in the flower of your age will you becom vertuous in declining years if you dye this year how will you do it The evill spirit deals with men as the Phisitian or Apothecarie with his Patient when he sees the sick cannot swallow a whole pill he devides it and makes him swallow it by piecemeal Satan to seduce our first parents and o make them fall boldly into sin sayd to them You shal not dye at present seeing it impossible to perswade you that you shal not dye because you see daily the contrary before your eyes he devides the pill to make you swallow it he says to you you shal not die so soon he makes you believe that you will not die this year afterward he perswades you that you will not dye in the following year nor in the year after that so by little and little he perswades you what you would not believe in general that you shal not dye ' til it happens to you as to our first parents that sad experience makes you see the contrary when on a sudden you will be surprized when you think least of it 3. But if you should not be surprized by sudden death and your life should be a hundred years 't is a folly to believe that you will convert your self more easily in the latter season of your age then in the present The word of God tells you so expressly Adolescens juxta viam suam etiam cum senuerit non recedet Prou. 22. 6. ab ea it rarely happens that a man withdraws himself in old age from the way he followed in his youth And by Hieremie He says if the Ethiopian can change his skin and the Leopard his spots you may Hierem. 13. 23. Iob. 20. 11. becom vertuous when you are accustomed to vice And therefore the holy Ghost sayes by the mouth of Iob of one that had not mortifyd but given himself to vices in his youth his bones shal be filled with the vices of his youth and shal accompany him to his grave for the infirmities of the soul the inclinations and vicious customs which we quit not in good time remain commonly with us until old age now old age being feeble weak impotent not able to do violence to it self and thinking of little els then of maintaining the short life that rests seldom purges it self from evill customs the old are as much inclin'd to ambition detraction anger as they were at the age of 30 years so that the first part of the maxime of the holy Ghost is verifyd in them that the infirmities of their youth have
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
objection which the Catholicks de Ieiunio C. 1. 3. 13. cont Psychicos made against him who would have had them to keep three Lents the Apostles sayd they imposed no other Lent common to all then that in the time when CHRIST was taken from the Church his spouse by his death and Passion S. Hierome in Europe speaking of the Novelty of the Montanists says they observ'd three lents as if three Saviours had suffered but we observe but one of them according to the Tradition of the Apostles And the same holy Father writing to Marcella tels her the Ember dayes as well as the Lent were instituted by the Apostles In Asia S. Gregory of Nazianzen reprehending a Perfect named Epist 74 Celusius sayd to him you dispensing with your self from fasting do injury to the Lawes how will you keep humane lawes since you contemne divine 4. You wiâ—l not thinke the precept of fasting too severe if you consider the reasons which moved the Apostles to institute the Lent It was first to commemorate and honor the retreat and the penance of our Saviour in the desert to honor it I Rom. 8. 26. say by imitation according to our power For S. Paul says his servants must follow and imitate him to be one day with him In what must they follow and imitate him Not in preaching and in working miracles but in fasting or suffering for the love of him his Apostle declares it in these express words Let us shew that we are the Ministers or servants of God by our fasts our watchings our labors and other practises of 2. Cor. 6. 6. vertue Note in Fasts not in fasting once or twice a year as many do when they form some designe but many dayes as our Saviour hath given us example In the second place the Lent was instituted for the conversion of souls to purify our consciences from the ordure of sin by the practise of penance and by this sanctification to dispose us to receive worthily the Eucharist For the Prophet Ioel says fasting conduces much to a true conversion that it is one of the parts of penance convert your selves to me in fasting Ioel. 2. 14. The Lent is moreover fasted to make the anniversary funerall of our Saviours death But sorrow and funeralls are incompatible with good cheer for the holy Ghost distinguishes and opposes them to one another It is better says He to go to the house of mourning then to the house of banqueting 4. S. Paul tels us that many have their Belly for their God for this reason they are very eloquent and zealous to plead its cause they fight for their God with many arguments With some they would shew fasting to be superfluous or superstitious with others hurtfull or pernicious If you are predestinated will you not be saved say they without your fasting do you thinke God did expect your fasting to predestinate you Answer God did not expect our fasts but He foresaw them and other good workes for which He predestinated us to glory or this He did predestinate and this He does decree that by these means we shal obtaine that end not otherwise CHRIST fasted for you to deliver uou from this labor Why do you then afflict your selves in vain by fasting as if Christs fast did not suffice for your salvation without your little fasts Answer CHRIST also would be baptised and indeed for us not for himself and yet it follows not that I ought not to be baptized so though He fasted for me yet I ought to fast by his Example He suffered for us says S. Peter leaving us an example S. Peter 1. 2. Rom. 8. 17. that we may follow his footsteps and S. Paul if we suffer with Him we shal be also glorifyd with him Since you are resolv'd to fast why do you not chose rather to fast voluntarily than necessarily Have you not read in the Psalmist I will Sacrifice to you voluntarily Answer a fast commanded by the Church is better than that we take up by our own election for this proceeds out of one vertue to wit Temperance that from two Temperance and Obedience And if a commanded fast should proceed from obedience obly yet it would be so much better and more Excellent than the other how much the vertue of obedience is better than that of Temperance Obedience is I. Kings 15. 22. better than Victimes sayd Samuel to Saul And obedient Souls fast not as you suppose unvoluntarily with regret and sorrow but voluntarily with alacrity and gladness 5. The Epicurians and the Advocats of self love urge as they imagin yet more forcibly and to justify themselves make this remonstrance We must love our bodys as well as our souls for God created both and loves both and wills that we do love them But fasting and other austerities hinder sleep punish the body and weaken it prejudice health and shorten life and consequently by fasts and other austerities we act against the will of God the law of nature and are injurious to our selves Answer a fool according to his folly lest he seem to himself wise God Would have us to love our Body True but He wills us to love it truly and to love it truly is to procure it by the means of fasting prayer and other exercises of vertue true perfect and everlasting health What does it profit the flesh that You nourish it delicately if you nourish it for hell If you feed it so that it becoms the fuel of eternal fire would you not love it better if you curb it and afflict it here a little with hunger and with thirst to have it sound and glorious for all Eternity This is that which our Saviour says Qui amat animam suam perdet eam et qui odit in hoc mundo animam suam in vitam Eternam 1. Iohn 12. custodit eam He that loves this temporal life and therefore permits not his flesh to be molested nor afflicts it with fasting watching and other vertuous labors does not keep it to everlasting life Fasting hinders sleep I believe it and it was also instituted to hinder too much sleep that so you may have more time for prayer spiritual reading and other exercises of a Christian Fasting punishes and afflicts the body I doubt not of it if well practised And do you thinke it was instituted for other purpose than to punish it you will not then go to heaven if the way be not easy and pleasing to the flesh if it be not strew'd with flowers and sweet herbs And where then is the law of christianisme which is a law of mortification and of the Cross And what will becom of these words of our Saviour Strive to enter by the narrow gate You say fasting does prejudice health and shorten life The Church the Canon law good Phisitians and experience Quicqd Etc. legimus de Consecra dist 5. say quite the contrary the Church in the Collect of
and no man doubts to set any Painter or Graver on worke notwithstanding these words of the law God then forbids them to be made to the End divine worship be given to them and to signify this He adds Thou shalt not adore nor serve thâ—m He confirms us in this sense in the 26. chapter of Leviticus You shal not make to your selves an Idol and graven thing neither shal you erect Pillars nor set an Image of stone in your land for to adore it We gather this sense also from the reason which God gives of the command I am the Lord thy God all soveraign honor all divine worship all supream adoration is due to me I am a jealous God I Suffer not any divine worship but my own I connot allow my honour to be given to another Wherefore S. Austin and other Interpreters of scripture so understand these words that we make not images against the intention of the law if we make them not S. Aug. in Quest Iosue 22 30. for to adore them so the Israelites were fatisfyd that the Tribes of Ruben and Gad erected not an Altar against the intention of the law since they made it not for sacrifice but only for a monument S. Admire here the goodness of God who seperates us from idolatry the most vile foule and cruel servitude imaginable which made the poor idolaters to serve a thousand most vile and most base Masters which urged men and women in their publick service to actions so foul and impudent that impudence it self would blush to see or hear of them which engaged them to such inhumanities and cruelties in their sacrifices that we cannot without horrour speak or thinke of them And He does not only endeavour to free men from this most hard and pernicious slavery but moreover binds them to himself not that He hath any want of us He hath no need of our goods nor of our service He was most happy from all Eternity and would be for all Eternity without us But it is becaus He desires that we be perfect He will that we be happy and He sees that our perfection consists in loving and serving him And therefore He moves and solicits us to it by most effectual means He commands strictly and threatens the transgressours of his command to punish them in their children to the third and fourth generation and to move our mercenary hearts yet more He promises to recompence our obedience in thousands and all this is but a pledg and gage of the great goods which He prepared and promised us if we love him and keep his commandements 4. After such Commands threatnings and promises can we thinke that a great Church a Church so learned so curious and carefull in other points and so addicted to good workes would give supream honour divine worship and adoration to Saints and to their Relicks which she believes to be no Gods Nay to statues and pictures which she declares to have no Divinity or vertue and this with the loss of Gods favour forfeiture of his promises labour in this world eternal punishment in the other and without gain of any honor pleasure or profit whatsoever May be believe that CHRIST having banished Idolls out of the world for ever or out of the greater part of it as it was by the Prophets foretold He should and that the Turks who adore Isaiah 2. 18. Zachar. c. 13. V. 2. him not and the jews his greatest enemies enjoy the fruit and accomplishment of this promise and Christians who honor adore and love him should not but should live and dye in Image Saint and Host Idolatry He hath not made by himself or his Apostles Idolatry to cease one only moment of time if it be Idolatry to adore the B. Sacrament to honor the Saints their Relicks and their Images so as the Romane Church does honour them since these things have been so practised in all times in both Greek and Latine Church You see then that to make Catholicks Idolaters is to tear one of the most precious and replendent jewells out of the Crown of JESVS that it is to make the Prophets of his Father Lyars and that it is to give occasion to Infidells to make him this reproach Thy Prophets see vain things and divine a ly Is it Possible that the Catholick or universall Church the Church to which God promised that the gates of Hell shal not prevail against Matt. c. 16. v. 18. Matt. c. 28. v. 19. Iohn c. 16. v. 12. Osee c. 2. v. 19. Her That He would be with her all days even to the consummation of the world That He would preserve her from falling into errors and guid her into all truth the Church which God Espoused to himself for ever The Church which He obliged all to believe and follow I believe the holy Catholick Church Is it possible I say that she breaks always notoriously the first commandement by teaching and committing Idolatry It is impossible she should adore any other thing than God alone Note that I say Adore 5. For though this word Adore is used in the Bible and in the Hebrew Greek and Latine tongues to signify all sorts of honor supream and divine honor which is given to God only Psalme 96. where it is sayd adore him all ye Angells Inferiour honour which is given to Saints Iosuah 5. 14. where it is sayd that Iosuah adoted an Angell Humane and civill honor which is given to men on earth 3. kings 1. 23. where 't is sayd the Prophet Nathan adored David and in many other places it does signify these three different sorts of honour Nevertheless since this word Adore does signify in our language divine honor and worship proper to God alone I say 6. We adore not the Saints becaus we acknowledg not soveraign and supream excellency and perfection in them But we give them an inferiour honor according to their dignity their holiness and relation to God for according to the law of God and reason a proportionable honor is due to excellency 7. Secondly we honor and Venerate the Relicks of the Saints though with an honor inferior to that we give to the Saints themselves For we find in Relicks some dignity holiness and relation to God They were the living members of CHRIST and Tempells of the holy Ghost They are the Organs and Instruments of God by which He workes many miracles and imparts divers benefits to men and they shal be one day raised up again to be the habitations of glorious souls and to live and reign with CHRIST therefore they deserve some respect and the primitive Church as the holy Fathers testify did not deny it them Thirdly we adore not Images and pictures For we know and believe that there is no divinity in them Neither do we give them any inferior honor veneration or respect absolutely or for themselves or which is terminated upon them becaus we acknowledg not any vertue or perfection in them
Geraseens to precipitate them into the lake of a thousand brutal actions and after into the pool of fire and brimstone of everlasting death It is certible to hear Isaye 1. 14. Malac. 2. 3. with what execration God speaks of holy days so Prophaned my soul hateth your Solemnityes I will cast upon your faces the dung of them 6. Let us say then with the Psalmist Turn ô my Soul into thy rest becaus our Lord hath don good to thee Psal 114. 7. Turn ô my Soul convert your self entirely to God on the sunday at least It is instituted for this end and it is called the day of our Lord becaus if we have been turned to our selves and to our affaires the other dayes we must at least turn to God and to his service this day which He hath reserv'd to himself It seems an usurpation of anothers goods and a sort of sacriledg to rob him of this day and to employ it prophanly against his will Turn ô my Soul into thy rest It is a great crime to refuse Obedience to a commandement so sweet other Masters urge their servants and cry out to them worke work ha God says to his my children I will not that you weary out your selves give some respit to your selves from labours rest in me who am the Center of your hearts and the true rest of your soules He calls this day by his Prophet The delicate or delicious Sabbath His Isaiah 58. 13. delights are to be and to convers with us why should we not then make it our delights to be and convers with Him Turne into thy rest becaus our Lord hath don well to thee The Sunday was instituted that we might have opertunity to serve God and more leasure to thanke Him for our Creation Preservation Redemption Sanctification and Vocation to his Service for all graces and good workes which He gives us for preserving us from a thousand infirmities miseries deaths and from so many occasions of sin He hath delivered says the Prophet my soul from death my eyes from teares my feet from sliding if we are grateful for benefits receiv'd we shal give him occasion to give us new if we employ weâ—l the time design'd for the service of God He will bless the time granted us to make provision for our selves and families do then the workes of God on holy dayes and He will do yours on other days and moreover make you pass from the figure to the Verity from the shadow to the light from the symbole to the reality and from the temporal rest of this life to the eternal repose of glory Amen DISCOVRS XXXII OF THE FOURTH COMMANDEMENT Honour thy Father and thy Mother AS the Commandements written in the first Table tend immediately to the honour and glory of the Creatour recommending ro us Piety and devotion towards Him So these of the second Table tend immediately to the salvation and the utility of men and recommend to us charity and justice towards all our neighbours that each one doing his duty in his state and condition the families and communites of Christians may be well ordered and disposed The most important of these dutyes is that of children towards their Parents and therefore it is exacted by the first commandement of the second Table and to move them more to it recompence is herein promised to those that shal honour their Parents with the triple honour of Reverence Obedience and Assistance 2. First with the honor of Reverence for our Parents are the images of God whose authority is a Ray of his Paternity they are Sources and Causes of our life after Him Organs and Instruments which He uses to give and preserve our Being Hence it comes that we ought to honor them be they whatsoever though your Father be vicious and deboist he is stil your Father a cause of your life an instrument of God and an image of his Paternity And becaus the chief part of this honour consists in the interiour you must esteem your Parents in your heart acknowledg them your Superiours respect and reverence their Authority And becaus they know not your interiour you are oblig'd to testify by exterior signes the honor which you have for them to speak to them humbly of them to others honourably to give them respect and reverence and to do nothing that savours of neglect or contempt The Queen Bethsabee was not of the Royal blood but of mean extraction and nevertheless the wise Salomon her Son though a great and powerfull Monark and sitting in the Throne of Iustice rose out of it to meet and reverence her and placed her in a Throne at the right hand of his Majesty This wise King was the figure of our Saviour who being King of kings and God of infinite Majesty disdained not on earth to be subject to his holy Mother and who elevated and placed her in heaven at Psal 44. his right hand Astitit Regina a dextris tuis 3. To honour your Parents you must moreover consult them before you undertake any thinge of consequence when you would marry commence a suit undertake a far journey or engage your self in any other thing of importance aske their counsell and follow it this shews you esteem their prudence and God blesses this proceeding the young Tobias had a great blessing was assisted by an Angel deliver'd from all danger replenished with riches and prosperity in his journey becaus he undertook it by the advice and direction of his Father 4 The second honour of our Parents exacted by this Commandement is that of Obedience This honor S. Paul often recommends to us and in the Epistle to the Ephesians he proves it by this commandement to be their due Obey your Parents in our Ephes. 6. Lord For this is just Honour thy Father and thy Mother He adds In our Lord For if they command you any thing against the commandements of God or of his Church or if they would avert you from Religion and his service S. Bernard tells you that Epist 104. 't is Piety to neglect them for the love of IESUS-CHRIST for He that sayd Honor your Father and your Mother says to you also He that loves his father or his mother more than me is not worthy of me But when they command just and lawfull things you must obey them they are your Superiours and the Causes of your Being they then as Superiours ought to move you and as Causes of your Being to be also the Authours of your operations And if a servant be oblig'd to obey his Master for a little nourishment and a smal salary he receives how much more a child his Mother who nourished him with her own substance and his Father who laboured so much to bring him up and endeavours to provide for him 5. I find in the holy scripture that your obedience to be perfect ought to have three conditions at the least it ought to be blind cordial and
perseverant In the first place blind to the motives of the Command It must propose no whyes no questions and no reasons All your why and all your reason ought to be the will of your Parents representing to you the will of God Be subject says S. Paul in all things pleasing not contradicting or murmuring Tit. 2. 9. Secondly your obedience ought to be amorous and to proceed out of a filial heart when you do the things commanded out of humane considerations out of servil fear or with a mercenary spirit you lose the fatte of your sacrifice the grace of your action and the merit of your good worke You must offer marrowie sacrifices you must obey your Superiours with a good will says S. Paul with a sincere and cordial affection acknowledging and honouring in them the soveraignity of God Thirdly your obedience must be perseverant it must continue to the end of your life 'T is true that Iustinian in his Institutes and after him other Lawyers have taught divers wayes by which a child may be emancipated But there is no civil Law nor humane power that can free a child from the obligation he hath by this commandement and by the Law of nature to honor and obey his Father and Mother unto the last moment of his life Wherefore Venerable Tobias thinking that Tob. 4. 4. he should die amongst other admonitions which he gave his Son sayd to him with great tendernes Thou shalt honor thy mother all the days of her life Is it not then deplorable to see children who during their minority are humble respectfull and obedient to their parents But being becom men or women married and elevated to offices when they thinke they have no more need of them forget and neglect disdain and contemn them our Saviour does not so He being elevated to the Throne of glory to the right hand of the Father adored by all the celestial Powers forgets not his mother He honors her more than ever accomplishes her desires favours and assists those who honor and invocate her and works more miracles for the honor of her than for the honor of his own Body there is no Kingdom Nation or Province in the Catholick world where there are Churches or Chappell 's consecrated to God in honor of the Virgin that God does not render famous by certaine miracles 6. In fine this Commandement obliges us to honor Parents by helping succouring and assisting them Wherefore Christ Matth. 15. S. Hierom and. S. Bede Tim. 5. 3. reprehended the Pharisees as transgressors of this Commandement for denying them this honor And the holy Fathers have truly noted that the word Honour in the Scriptures signifys not so much salutations and profers of services as giving alms and making presents Honour Widows that are truly Widows says S. Paul to his disciple Timothy that is nourish them with alms and recommending to him Priests Let them that rule well especially they Tim. 5. 17. that labor in word and doctrine be esteemed worthy of double honour that is of a greater recompence or reward than others 7. If then we will observe this Commandement we ought not to content our selves with Ceremonies we must not thinke it enough to say that we honor and respect our Parents but we must shew it them in effect We must recompence them says the holy Ghost by the mouth of Ecclesiasticus Them who brought us Ecclus. 7. 31. into the world who have loved us so long so cordially and effectually When then they are broken with old age think it not a burden to entertain them be not more voyd of reason than animals that have none you who are humane creatures and by your nature ought to have humanity you who are Christians and by this quality ought to have charity be not less charitable than storkes that nourish their parents in old age have not less piety then a pagan woman who depriv'd her child of nourishment to give it to her father say no more we have children we fear they will want we cannot nourish Parents without injuring our families For Divinity also teaches you to D. Tho. 2. 2. q. 26. ar 9. ad 3 m. Coloss 3. 21. let your children dye with famine to assist your Parents in extream necessity 8. To excite Children to acquit themselves worthily of these dutyes S. Paul proposes three motives to them The first is that by so doing they please God and we see this clearly by the benedictions which God bestows upon those that are respectfull and obedient But would you believe that God worked miracles also amongst Infidells to approve this piety of children Aristotle in the book of the wonders of the world and in the abridgment of Philosophy which he sent to Alexander the Great reports that a raging fire devided and gave passage to a young man that retarded his flight and neglected his own life to save his aged father and reunited it self upon those that ran before them 9. On the contrary the impiety of a child is so abominable in the sight of God that in the ancâ—ent Testament He condemn'd him to death not only if he killed or beat but if he cursed them or was notably rebellious or disobedient Exod 21. 17. Deut. 21. 18. Ephs 6. 10 Secondly the holy Apostle tells us that it is just to honor them Consider I pray what languishings what faintings what loathings and incommodities your poor Mother suffered for you whilst She did bear you in her womb what paines what dangers and what feares of death she had in bringing you into the world what uneasy nights what toyles what vexations she had and what ordures cryes and importunities she suffered to nurse and nourish you Consider what cares what troubles what watches what journeys what suits what labours your poor Father hath embraced to get and keep a few goods for you God willing to afflict the son of Pharao sayd by Moses to this king I will send my plagues upon thy heart becaus a father and a mother love their children as their hearts you will be never able to return the tendernesses which they had for you when you were sick they were ill when you were contented they were joyfull when you discontented they sorrowfull and after so many testimonies of affection not to love them not to rejoyce them not to comfort and content them to the utmost of your power but to be the cause of their sorrow and affliction is not this to be more cruell than Tigers and more monstrous than monsters themselves 11. But if your duty and the strict obligations that you have to them do not touch you let at least the love of your own selves and your proper interest move you through hope of the promises which God hath made you He promises you long and happy life if you honor your Father and Mother S. Thomas says he that is gratefull for a benefit merits to have it continued Ephes. 6. and
us after this not unprofitable digression return to the definition 5. Dictum vel factum a word or action In this word Action is couched Omission when you can do an action which would hinder the offence of God and you do it not IESVS being required to pay tribute declares himself not oblig'd and nevertheless he pay'd it lest He should scandalize the farmers So the Virgin circumcised her Son and submitted herself to the law of purification for fear of giving ill example So S. Paul says the Ancient Philosophers having known the true God by the light of nature and having not communicated this knowledg to the rest of men to draw them from Idolatry incurr'd the anger of God and were guilty of all sins the people committed for want of that knowledg We are then culpable when we ought to correct reprehend or punish the defects of others and do not we scandalise them for they say there is no ill in this my Parents Confessor Superior say nothing to me of it 6. Minus rectum This word teaches us that if an action be good and laudable commanded by God or his Church we ought not to omit it though our neighbor be scandalized by it if one is scandalized when you say the truth 't is better to permit scandal then to oppose Verity says S. Gregory T is a Pharisaical scandal a S. Greg. hom 7. in Ezec. passive scandal not an active a scandal taken not given 7. And if the action be good and laudable but not of obligation ought we to omit it if one will be scandalized by it S. Thomas answers learnedly with a distinction either our neighbour is scandalized maliciously and out of a spirit of contradiction 2. 2. q. 43. ar 7. or is scandalised through ignorance or infirmity if he be scandalised maliciously we ought not to omit our good worke for 't is his own fault and not ours He does as the Pharesees who were scandalized maliciously by the predications of IESUS But IESUS contemn'd their scandal and left not off his preaching If he be scandalized through ignorance or through weakness 't is better to do your good worke in private or to omit it for a time than to give an occasion to your neighbor to fall into any sin And with much more reason if the action be of it self indifferent neither good nor evill charity obliges us to omit it when it would be an occasion of sin or temptation to our neighbor If you offend your neighbor giving him occasion of sin through his weakness you offend our Lord and therefore If I know my brother is scandalized to see me eate flesh I will never eate it lest I scandalize my hrother says S. Paul 1. Cor. 8. 12. Rom. 14. 15. 20. And again do not with thy meat destroy him for whom CHRIST dyed Destroy not the worke of God for meat Though then an action be permitted if it be not commanded we must abstain from it if it be a snare or stumblingblock to infirme and weak soules 8. Prebens alicui giving occasion to our neighbor Some may imagin that 't is not to be scandalous if they do not a publick action which is manifest to many But our Saviour says if you move Matt. 18. to sin but one only you are scandalous You say they are simple and weak people that are tempted by such an action or such a word the wise and well grounded in vertue are not moved by it IESUS says you must not scandalize one of the lesser ones unum de pusillis and S. Paul tells us that in scan dalizing the weak ones we sin against IESUS-CHRIST And the Son of God adds Voe mundo a scandalis Woe to the world for scandalls He Speakes so becaus the world is full of them and becaus they destroy so many souls so dear and precious to him 9. It seems that soules are more dear to IESUS than his innocent blood He willed it should be prophan'd and trod under feet for the ransome of these beloved soules I leave you to think what punishment and what reproches we shal receive from him if by our bad exemple or by our negligence we let any one of these soules fall into sin and damnation Believe that in the houre of your death nothing will cause you more regret nor afflict you more than the sight of the soules which by your fault are lost You will acknowledg this truth and feel the weight of these dreadfull words Vae homini illi per quem scandalum venit woe to the persone by whom Matt. 18. 7. Scandal coms You will see all the graces God had given to soules through your fault lost all the merits they had gotten all that our Saviour did and suffered for their salvation and you will with sorrow and sighing say Ha! I have destroy'd soules for which JESUS CHRIST dyed how shal I restore to him the blood which He hath shed vae homini illi wo be to that person It were better for you one had tyed a milstone about your neck and thrown you into the Sea You will see the excellency and the value of the soules you have cast away and this will oppress you with griefe as if you had a milstone upon your heart You will see that those who learnt of you the vanities of the world will teach their children them these will derive them to their descendents unto the third or fourth generation all which will be imputed to you this sight will cast you even into despaire Will you avoyd this miserable condition Do not by bad examples indiscreet words or negligence destroy a soul for whom IESUS CHRIST dyed But if you have been so unhappy do judgment and justice punish your fault by true penance repair the loss as much as lies in you bring back the lost sheep to IESUS or if you cannot gain another in his stead by prayers instructions aâ—d good examples so you may be confident of pardon God hath promised it Amen DISCOVRS XXXVI OF THE SIXTH AND NINTH COMMANDEMENTS thou shalt not commit Adultery Thou shalt not couet thy neighbours Wife Amongst all the irregular motions of a man there is none more contrary to his nature nor more abominable to the Creatour than the unhappy vice of carnality It is contrary to mans nature becaus it is beastly terrestrial and unworthy of a man In anger envy pride ambition there is some kind of spirit But luxury clouds the understanding depresses the faculties of the soul renders her unable to elevate her self above the objects of sense and impaires all that is manly in us 2. This vice is abominable to God who repented to have made man and sent a deluge to drowne the earth who consuin'd by fire four of the most florishing cityes of the world and slautered 24 thousand of his people at one time and 60 thousand at another in punishment of this sin Though this vice be so contrary to a man and
with Salomon that you cannot have continence unless God gives it you demand it then of him with all your heart use the meanes of mortification to obtain make daily supplication to the Mother of Purity that by her powerfull intercession you may be drawn out of this deep myre 15. Consider in fine what the sacred Text does teach us of this vice and of the contrary vertue The holy Ghost will not Prov. 22. 11. Matt. 5. 1. Cor. 6. 15. 13. Rom. .8 dwell in a Body subject to sin He that loves purity of heart shal have the King his friend Blessed are the pure and clean of heart for they shal see God Know you not that your Bodys are the members of CHRIST Taking therefore the members of CHRIST shal I make them the members of a harlot Know you not that your members are the Temple of the holy Ghost God will destroy him who violates his Temple 2. Cor. 7. If you live according to the flesh you shal dye But if hy the Spirit you mortify the workes of the flesh you shal live Having these promises let us cleanse our selves from all inquination of the flesh and Spirit perfecting sanctification in the fear of God Amen DISCOVRS XXXVII OF THE SEUENTH AND TENTH COMMANDEMENTS Thou shal not steal Thou shalt not covet thy neigbours goods GOd having made an express Commandement to defend the life of man and another to secure him from injury in the person of his wife 't is with great reason that He gives this Commandement to secure his goods to which I joyn the tenth by which He forbids us to covet or desire them And to explain well the crime of Robbery which both forbid we must consider first what is the cause of it In the second place what is the essence and nature of it And in the third place what is the proper effect of it 1. The Ordinary cause is Avarice a vice contrary to the Gospell condemn'd by the Law of God and pernicious to the Salvation of an infinity of people For the world is full of avarice and the Poor are very often more reprehensible and more slaves to this passion than the Rich themselves When we praise poverty or inveigh against riches there are many poor who rejoyce and look upon the rich with disdain and contempt JESUS sayd not simply blessed are the poor but Blessed are the poor of Spirit by love and affection who love poverty If you Matt. 5. 3. be as poor as Lazarus and have affection to riches if you be as much wedded to your raggs and trifles as the Rich to their silk and costly furniture if you forsweare your self to gain a little money if you steal little things not daring or not being able to steal more this first Beatitude is not for you you are not poor in the sight of JESUS but richer than the Riche themselves poor by necessity by a miserable not by a laudable Will sayes S. Bernard S. Ber. ser 1. in festo omnium Sanctorum 2. The Rich also often deceive themselees grosly in this point Whatsoever affection and tye they have to riches they think themselves secure in that they would not possess the goods of their neigbour nor covet to have them by unjust wayes as if the holy scripture did condemn injustice only and not also avarice They consider not that S. Paul distinguishes avarice from robbery and that he says not only the robbers but also the 1. Cor. 5. 10. 1. Cor. 6. 9 S. Basil hom de Divite avaro S. Ambr. Ser. 81. S. Aug. Ser. 196. de Temp. S. Aug. Ser. 19. de Verb. Apost 1. Tim. 6. 17. avaricious shal not possess the kingdom of God Do not Erre neither theeves nor the covetous nor extorsiners shal possess the kingdom of God 3. Who is he whom the scripture terms covetous sayd S. Basil and after him S. Ambrose He say they who is not content with that which ought to be enough And S. Austin declares that not only he who takes the goods of another but he that keeps his own with avidity is covetous And the same Saint makes us note that all the Rich that are damn'd and declar'd such in the Gospell were not Vsurpers of other mens goods but only too greedy and tenacious of their own Wherefore the Apostle writing to his Disciple Timothy charges him to command the rich of this world not to trust in the incertainty of riches but in the living God to do well to becom rich in good workes to give easily to communicate their wealth to those that want to heap unto themselves a good foundation for the time to com that they may obtain the true life We see then that avarice is pernicious though it prevail not so far with us as to make us to commit injustice which effect avarice so frequently produces that the earth is filled with it though injustice does oblige to perfect Restitution and this be hard and very rare You will avow these verities if you consider with me the Definition which Doctors give of Robbery 4. They say that t is to take or retain or to endammage the goods of another against the will of him to whom it belongs T is to take either by your self or by others either secretly and by theft or openly by force exacting receiving or permitting others to exact or to receive what is not due to you as when you exact fourshillings for marchandise or service which is not worth three 5. To take or retain Not only to take but to retain that which is not yours is robbery If you inherit goods ill gotten by your Father or by your Ancesters if you owe any thing to others if you have found that which another lost by retaining it you commit robbery There is no great difference sayd Pope Innocent the third in the Lateran Councel as to the danger of the soul betwixt unjust detention and invasion of anothers goods 6. Or Endammage if you damnify your neighbor in his corne or other thing if you thrust your self into an office Trade or other employment of which you are uncapable and are the cause through your ignorance that any one be preiudiced in health or other good you commit robbery To good of another understand ether spiritual or corporal which is not pondered and considered enough by some If you have destroyd your neighbors house you are judg'd a Robber you are oblig'd to make Satisfaction you have made a horrible destruction in his soul you destroy'd in his heart the treasures of the grace of God soliciting him to sin and you reflect not on it you thinke not to put again into a good way this unhappy soul which you have made to stray you are a robber 8. They add in the definition against the will of him to whom it belongs that is to say without his voluntary and absolute free consent For though he consent to it if he consent unwillingly if
speaking of the future time as present according to custome of the Prophets sayd From the rising of the sun even to the going down great is my Name amongst the gentills and in every place is Sacrificed and offered to my name a clean Oblation He speaks not of the improper Sacrifice of contrition and other good works which according to Calvin and others are unclean nor of the Sacrifice of the Cross which was ofâ—er'd but in one place and but once and therefore the prophecie is not verifyd but in the Eucharist which is a true and proper Sacrifice since there is efâ—usion or oblation of blood for remission of sins This is the Chalice in my blood which is shed for you A clèan Sacrifice the Body and Blood of JESUS Offered in all times and places by vertue of these words of CHRIST Do this in commemoration of me And in effect the Apostles did so as it appeares in the Acts whilst they were ministring to our Lord Says S. Luke the holy Ghost sayd seperate me Paul and Barnabas that is whilst they were sacrificing for so the greek does signify and so Erasmus does translate The same hath been practised by their Successors ever since as Controvertists clearly shew out of the holy Fathers I will give you the words of three or four who lived during the times of the four first General Councills that you may see the beliefe and practise of those golden ages S. Ambrose upon the 38th Psalme says Though CHRIST Sc Ambr. in Psal 38. is not seen to offer now yet He himself is offered upon earth Nay He himself is manifested to offer in us whose speech does sanctify the Sacrifice which is offered S. Austin Since wee see this Sacrifice foretold by Malachias Aug lib. 18. de civit Dei c. 35 offered to God in every place by the Priesthood of CHRIST according to the order of Melchisaâ—eck and the Jews Sacrifice to cease why do they yet expect another CHRIST S. Chrysostome the Oracle of the greek and eastern Church sayd Becaus this Sacrifice is offered in many places are there many Christs No for as He who is offered every where is one body and not many bodys so the Sacrifice is but one Chrysost hom 17. in ep ad Heb. Nice 1. can 18. In fine the first most general Nicene Councill complaining that in some particular Churches Deacons gave communion to Priests made this Convincing determination Neither Rule nor Custome hath delivered that they who offer not present the Body of CHRIST to them that offer By which words 't is evident the Fathers of this great Councill believed the Eucharist was not only a Sacrament containing really the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST But moreover a true and proper Sacrifice offered by Priests 3. Would it not now grieve a Christian heart to see poor Catholicks of England so miserably harrassed pillaged emprisoned hated hanged by their own Allies and countreymen as they have been now a hundred years for the profession of that great worke of Christianity which Christ and his Apostles taught them and that they should undergoe the same disgrace and ruine by such as call themselves Christians yea the only pure ones for that very self same act of Religion for which both the Apostles themselves and all primitive Christians were so cruelly persecuted by Jew and Pagan But the God of mercies look in his good time upon our Persecutors favourably becaus they do it ignorantly and in incredulity and becaus they are the far greater Sufferers being deprived of a Sacrifice so acceptable and glorious to God and so profitable and necessary to men 4. If we consider Him who offers what He offers and the manner in which he offers we shal see that 't is a Sacrifice exceedingly glorious and pleasing to God For in this oblation the principal Offerer and Sacrificer is JESUS CHRIST the object of his Fathers complacence and the subject of his most tender loves who is equall to him in Greatness to whom He Sacrifices You are a a Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedeck Psal 109 Heb. 5. 6. Gen 14. 18. says the Royal Prophet and S. Paul speaking of our Saviour becaus He offers continually by Priests unbloody Sacrifice under the species and formes of bread and wine which were the offerings of Melchisedeck The Priest is but his instrument and Minister when he says This is my Body it is evident that the Priest Speaks not of his own body but of that of JESUS CHRIST and seeing he says not This is the body of JESUS CHRIST But this is my Body 't is clear by this that it is not properly he that speaks but t is JESUS that speaks by his mouth who of the things proposed makes his Body and Blood says S. Chriysostom Hom. de Tradit Iudae 5. That which he offers is not dead and corruptible flesh of Lambs or other things as the ancient Sacrifices which were not pleasing to God in themselves nor in their substance as too base to be the objects of his delights but only pleased Him as they were figures shadows and representations of the Victime of this Sacrifice which is the precious flesh of the man-God Deifyd flesh living and enlivening holy and Sanctifying flesh flesh united to the Divinity subsisting with the Divine nature in the Persone of the Word 6. The manner in which He offers it is admirable and gives to God the greatest Glory Jt is offered as a most perfect holocaust since in this Sacrifice God is perfectly honoured as the Soveraign Authour of all Being for the man-God losing in honor of his Father the Sacramental Being which He hath here shews that God produced Him hath right to destroy Him and suffers no loss in his destruction He honors the justice of his Father in that He avows He hath deserved death and annihilation for the sins of men for whom He made himself a Propitiatour He honors his mercy in that He transfer'd upon his innocent son the debts of criminal servants and in that He accepts the sacrifice of his precious Body and mystical effusion of his Blood instead of the true and real death that we deserve He honors Him as the last end for losing the Being which He hath here to honor Him He shews that he holds it for the greatest happiness and felicity if his Father thinks it fit to be annihilated for his service 7. This august Sacrifice being so glorious and pleasing to God cannot fail to be extreamly profitable and advantagious to men T is a magasin of Spiritual treasures which furnishes us where with to satisfy the great abligations we have to God 't is a most powerfull meanes to obtaine of him all favours necessary for our souls and bodys T is a Host of praise and an Eucharisticall Sacrifice T is an impetratory Host and propitiatory Oblation Isaiah sayd if one should make a fire with all the wood of mount Libanus Isay
and suffers those torments voluntarily she knows how disagreable she is to the Sanctity and Purity of God that she is a debtour to his justice and that she deserves those torments she desires the justice of God should have its cours and as she loves God more than her own self she is glad the injury don to his Majesty is revenged also at her own cost she will remaine in that prison untill her debt be entirely payd either by her own sufferances or by the satisfactions and suffrages of others 4. For we may ayde those poor afflicted soules they are in communion of spiritual goods with us they are members of the same mystical Body children of the same Church Citizens of the same City and there is such an union such a simpathy and communication betwixt members of the same Body children of the same family inhabitants of the same City that we cauterize a member that is well to cure that which is ill that the labour of a child of a family profits his brother who labours not that one citizen ss 25. in Decret de purg can pay debts and satisfy for another We can then help these souls especially in three manners First by Prayers as the Councel of Trent declares For a good and devout praier is not only meritorious to him that makes it but also impetratory and satisfactory for others Secondly by the Sacrifice of Mass for this is the most See Dis XLVI n. 9. Tobie 4. 18. profitable suffrage that can be offered to God for the help of the dead as not only the aforesayd Councel but also the Fathers of the primitive Church declare Thirdly by Alms. Venerable Toby sayd to his son Put your bread and wine upon the Tomb of the just becaus in that time the Poor assembled in Cemeterys or Churchyards and alms of bread and wine were given them for the souls departed He sais upon the Tomb of the just becaus alms gâ—ven for souls that are in hell avail them not but those that departed out of this world in the state of grace they profit much wherefore S. Austin reproved the avaricious who excused themselves from such alms by the great Aug. lib de decem cordis c. 12. number of their children when we sayd he reprehend you for your auarice you say that if you give not so much as you desire 't is becaus you have many children It is a fals pretence wherewith you maske your avarice For if one of your children dye are you more charitable than you were if you keep your goods for them you would send a part to him he hath now more need of it then ever But if you have not means to give alms for the poor souls succour them by other workes 5. All vertuous actions don in the state of grace and especially the painfull if Offered for the dead give them great refreshment But those confort them most of which they are the Cause either by their instructions or by their good examples For Divinity â—eaches us that if we are the cause of any good as often as 't is don after our death our accidentall glory in heaven is increased and if we are in purgatory our torments are diminished as on the contrary our paines there are augmented if any sin be committed by our bad example 6. Let us give eare then to the dolefull lamentations of those poor souls who implore our help Meseremini mei Miseremini mei Saltem vos amici mei Have pity on me have pity on me at least you who are my friends she says twice Have pity on me Have pity on me Lest you increas my paines Have pity on me to ease me in my sufferances Have pity Be touched with compassion of so great miseries For judgment without mercy shal be don to him who shal not S. Iames 2. 13. have don mercy But on what will you exercise mercy but on misery and what greater misery then that of a poor creature who owes very much and is pursued and pressed by a rigorous Iustice and hath not wherewith to pay What greater misery then that of a poor soul upon whom the revenging hand of the Omnipotent is layed then of a poor soul in torments so Excessive that if a dog should be so tormented it would move you to compassion Of me a soul created to the image of God redeemed by the precious blood of IESUS marked with his character embellished with his graces designed to his glory He will say in iudgment I have been thirsty and you have given me drink I have been Matt 25 35. in prison and you have visited me I have been naked and you have clothed me I have been a stranger and you have received me into your house You do all these good workes of charity if you deliver a poor Soul out of Purgatory you are the caus that she is satiated with a torrent of pleasute you redeem her out of a very obscure and painfull prison you cloth her with the stole of glory and you make her to be received and lodg'd in heaven At least you who are the caus or occasion that this soul is in pain have pity on her you have made her to offend God by your impure words by your bad examples or by your sollicitations having so great part in the debt will you not contribute to the satifaction At least you friends what is becom of the affection you testifyd to your friend where are the offers of service where are the protestations so often made that you would never abandon her forget you her becaus she is seperated from you and turne you your back to her when she hath the greatest need of Succour It appears now that you were a friend of fortune only and the afliction of your friend is the touchstone which shews the falness of your friendship At least you my friends your Ancestours have made themselves debtours to the justice God by the sins which they committed to leave you goods will you be so ungratefull and so cruell as to refuse them a little part of them you swimme in delights and they are in torments you rest in feathers and they lie in flames You complain not of a large refection you give to J know not whom and you refuse your afflicted mother a little dinner which you might send her by the poore In fine if you be so mercenary as to seek your interest in all your actions remember that these poot Souls are in the gtace of God must go to heaven and you must one day succeed in their present place and if you shal deliver them they will not be ungratefull Blessed are the mercifull for they shal obtaine mercy If you give an amls for a soul in Purgatory you do at once two workes of mercy corporal mercy to the poor in want and Spiritual to the soul in paines you make the poor man your friend and the poor soul your debtour when you
7. Exod. 22. 28. Them whom God himself calls Gods becaus they are his Vice-Roys Officers of his Crown His Ministers of state Secretaries of his commandements Iudges of his people Embassadors of his Majesty Mediators between God and men who announce the will of God to men and who present the desires of men to God We respect Embassadors also those of barbarous and infidell Kings with much more reason those which the king of Kings does send to us sayd S. Chrysostome 5. To create in our hearts a great respect to Priests Some alleadg the example of wise Salomon who sayd to Abiather the Priest you are guilty of death but I will not condemne you becaus you have carried the Arke Or the Example of Constantine the Great who in the Councel of Nice would not sit down but after all the Bishops and upon a little seat below them all And when one presented to him papers of complaints against some Priests he burnt them without reading them and being angry with the persone that gave them to him sayd it belongs to Priests to judg Emperours and not to Emperours to judg and condemn Priests and should I see a Priest commit a sin I would cover him with my Royal cloak for fear that any one should see him Other propose the example of S. Antony This great Saint this Patriarke of so many thousands of Anchorets that lived like Angells This great Antony of whose amity Emperours made so great account This Antony whome wild beasts obeyed at whose Name Devills trembled whose life converted so many Souls to God This great S. Antony I say honoured so much Priests that if he met the least of them he fell upon his knees and rose not up till he had received his benediction Or of the Seraphicall Father S. Francis who sayd that if he should meet an Angel and a Priest he would rather kiss the hands of the Priest than of the Angel Or of S. Catherine of Sienna who kissed the wayes and paths in which Priests had past 6. Is it not pity to see now that some Christians neglect them or contemne them under pretence that some of them are vicious If it be so does it pertain to them to speak of their vices are they judges of their Judges are they wiser than Salomon greater than Constantine more devout than S. Antony more fervent than S. Francis more innocent than S. Catherine and more zealous of the honor of God than God himself Who sayd by his Prophet Touch not my annointed Psal 104. 15. 7. Let us take heed Venerable Priests and honourable Fathers that we be not the cause or at least the occasion of this temerity that by our indevotions and immodesties by our irreverence in the Chruch and our conversations with the world we be not the cause of the little respect now given to our character and vocation How is the gold darkned and the best coulour changed says the Prophet Hieremie What 's becom of that splendour that luster Thren 4. and glory which heretofore shin'd in Clergiemen of that honor respect reverence and filial fear which they had for Ptiests in the primitive Church How is all this so decayed and obscured T is becaus then they saw not Priests but at the Altar in the Confessional or in the pulpit and now they are seen in Taverns in playhouses and in worldly companies IESUS says to us you are the light of the world we must shine so then that men may see our good workes and may be moved to glorify our Father which is in heaven But if our light be darkness if we falsify by our actions Christs Doctrine and maxims this ill example of one of us will ruine more the piety of the Faithfull than many other by their doctrine and good examples will be able to repair You are the salt of the earth salt is drawn out of water but if it be reunited to it it disolves and loses the propriety it had to prevent corruption a Priest is seperated from the people by his consecration if he rejoyn himself to them by a worldly conversation he loses the authority which he had to preserve them from the corruption of sin We are judges of others we must not be criminall God will examin us more axactly judg us more severely and punish us more rigorously SAVIOR IESUS high Priest and Pastor of our sols permit not that we give you caus to do it permit not that it may be truly sayd as the people so the Priest you are our inheritance our Lot and our Portion permit not that our inheritance pertain to others more than to us Make that our mouthes be not employed but to resound your praises that our comportment and our manners do express and represent your actions that our hearts be not enflam'd but in your love Amen DISCOVRS LI. of Matrimony 1. THe Mistery of the Incarnation is an alliance so advantagious and pleasing to the holy Humanity of IESUS that He would have not only in Churches but also in particular houses a continual image and a lively representation of it This is the legitimate alliance of man and woman of which I have three things to shew First that 't is a true and a great Sacrament secondly the Dutys to which it does oblige you Thirdly the honour you owe to it 2. If we weigh holy things not by the ballance of the opinion of Dissenters But By the weight of the sanctuary and by the judgment of the Church We shal avow that the legitimate Edhes 5. 32. S. Ambr. c. 7. S. Aug. de bono conjug c. 18. c. 24. alliance of man and woman is one of the most holy great and mysterious Sacraments of the Church 'T is a true Sacrament For besydes that the Apostle says in the Epistle to the Ephesians This is a great Sacrament the Fathers of the Church teach it S. Ambrose speaking of an Adulterer says he loses the grace of the heavenly Sacrament S. Austin tels us in the marriages of Christians the sanctity of the Sacrament is of more value than the fâ—cundity of the womb And againe amongst infidells marriage hath for its end propagation and fidelity but amongst Christians it hath moreover the sanctity of the Sacrament Not only these but other holy Fathers the Councills and the Tradition of the Vniversal Church ever taught the same hence it was that in the Instruction of the Armenians given in the Council of Florence it is numbred with the other Sacraments Trid. ss 24. can 1. hoth Grecians and Latins consenting to it And that the Councill of Trent pronounces anathema against those that shal say marriage is not a proper Sacrament instituted by IESVS CHRIST 3. Let us say then that 't is a true Sacrament nay let us say that 't is a Great one Great in its Caus Great in its Mater and Great in its Effects S. Austin very indiciously did say that as in the primitive Church the holy
is in credit or through avarice to have a rich Party If two are assembled in my name says our Saviour I will be in the midst of them He is not in the midst of those becaus they were not assembled in his name This ought to be the intention of Christians says S. Augustine to give children to IESUS and to his Church to have a posterity that may praise love and serve God in your place after your death 12 Honor marriage in the election and choise you make you must pray God much for this that He give you a convenient Party with whome you may worke youâ— Salvation it belongs to God only to know the persone and to give the same to you House and riches are given of the Parents but of our Lord properly a Proverb 19. 14. prudent Wife says the holy Ghost by the mouth of the wise man to obtain this favour you must live holily and do many good works before your marriage a good woman is a good portion she shal be given to a man for good deeds 13. Honor marriage in the treaty of it let there be no circumvention Ecclus. 26. 3. deceit nor fraud you would not be well content to be deceiv'd in a treaty of smal concerne why should you deceive another in a matter of such importance as is marriage where there is no reliefe and which is for all the life This is the câ—us of aversions complaints reproaches and horrible divisions 14. Honor marriage in the solemnization or celebration of it You must confess communicate hear Mass with great attention and beg of God an abundance of graces in this Sacrament Invocate the Sainrs that have been married especially the B. Virgin implore the intercession of those Angells that have been employ'd in making marriages as S. Gabriel that of the Son of God S. Raphael that of Tobias and another that of Isaac Banish those impudent persons who say such words especially in the brid-chamber which would make impudence it self to blush You would do better and draw down the benediction of God upon you if you would follow the counsell which the Angell Raphael gave to Tobias and his Wife to pass the three first days in continence and not to employ them in delights but prayers And he admonished them also that the Devill hath power over those that give themselves to lust as hors and mule which have not understanding 15. Honor in fine marriage in its Effects which is a perfect society of heart goods fortune and of all If husband and wife are divided and one will hot and the other cold one sower the other sweet one will negotiate in this manner the other in another the burdens of marriage are most heavy and insupportable their house is a hell a Place of sin and paine of brawling bitterness and despaire But if they live in union and ayde each other serve God and to keep his Commandements they are agreeable to Him For there are three things that please Him much the concord of bretheren the love of neighbors and Ecclus. 25. 2. a husband and wife that agree together IESUS will be in the midst of them to assist them their temporal affaires will have better issue their children will learn vertue of them and consigne it to posterity their people will serve them more faithfully Neighbors will be edifyd Parents and Friends rejoyced they will bear more easily the burdens of marriage and comfort one another their house will be like a terrestrial Paradise it will be an image a foretaste and prelude of the celestial into which they will one day enter Amen DEO GRATIAS I humbly submit these writings and my self also to the correction of the Catholick Church of which I desire to live and dye a member and a most obedient Child TABLE OF THIS BOOK A Absolution Authority to absolve from sins proved 73. The wonderfull Circumstances of it 74. Adore in the Scripture signifies all sorts of honour 170. Adultery is a very Enormous Crime 217. Alms all Christians are obliged to give them 155. To whome 157. How to be given 159. Exhor to give them 160. Anger Its Effects and Symtoms 204. It was not in our Saviour as God 204. It was in him as man but without imperfection 205. His was vertuous ours is vicious 205. Remidies for ours 207. Exhor to Patience 209. Attrition must be supernaturall 280. It leaves us in state of sin if not followed by absolution 281. Avarice is a pernicious and common vice 221. who is avarici ous 222. B Baptisme obliges to à morall and vertuous death 249. Jn what consists this death 249. It obliges to a new life 251. Excuses of worldly Souls removed 252. What life the primitive Christians lead to satisfy obligations of Baptisme 253. Exhort to imitate them 253. Beatitude See Heaven Blasphemy a detestable Vice 184. C Children are obliged to honour their Parents with the honour of Reverence 192. with the honour of Obedience which must â—e blind cordial and perseverant 193. with the honour of assistance 195. Motives to acquit themselves of these dutyes 196. Christ the true Messias Discours 3. we must live according to his Doctrine 20. What is Christ 21. Why called IESUS CHRIST only Son our Lord. Disc 4. he is not acknowledged Lord by many Christians 25. The Miracles wrought in his conception and Nativity 27. These Misteries declared by a natural Comparison 29 His Doctrine preached in the Crib contrary to that of the world 31. His Sufferances for men Disc 6. Exhor to love him 37. He Rose up againe by his own Power and his Father also raised him 39. We ought to thank the Father for it 40. How He contributed to his Resurrection and how we must to ours 41. His Ascension described 44. How He sits at the right hand of the Father 44. His Ascension very advantagious to him to the Virgin and to us 46 To follow him to heaven we must imitate his actions 48 Church 'T is necessary to submit to all the true Church proposes as an Article of faith 65 We must rely on her for true scriptures and for the sense and meaning of them 65 66 The true Church is One 67 The Romane Church only is One 67 The true Church is holy 68 The Roman Church only is holy 69 The true Church is Vniversall or general 70 The Roman Church only is so 70 'T is necessary to salvation to be united to the Roman Church 71 Commandements of God must be studied learnt and pondered 162 they may be kept 164 We must keep them with filial love 165 They are most reasonable just and amiable 165 Why called Testimonies Iudgments justifications wayes and paths 166 Catholicks divide them best 166 Confession of all mortall Sins to a Priest is necessary 281 Confirmation makes Soldiers of IESUS-CHRIST 255 'T is a true Sacrament 255 Imprints a Character and gives Special grace to fight against Tyrants and wordly souls 257 These hurt more
than Tyrants 257 they censure althings 259 Confirmation obliges us to endure their censures and derisions 259 D Detraction defined 234. T is a mortal sin in a matter of importance 234. 'T is a greater sin than Robbery 235. It kills also the hearers if they oppose it not 335. It kills the Detracted by a triple murder 236. Remedies of detraction 237. E Eucharist containes really the Body and Blood of Christ Dise 44. It is compared to milk in its Production 268. In the manner it ought to be received 269. In the manner of its Operation 271. Communion in one kind defended 271. Examples move more than words 281. F Faith necessary to believe sins may be remitted 72. The Excellency and Necessity of it 88. Divers sorts of it 88. None suffices to salvation but living Faith 89. Many practise not according to their Faith 91. How a good Christian regulates his actions by Faith 91. Exhort to true Faith 92. Fasting necessary 148. The Lent was instituted by the Apostles 149. The motives to institute it 149. Objections against fasting solved 150. It s lawfullness demonstrated 153. Vertues that must accompany it 153. The ends and intentions we ought to have in it 154. Frauds are very common and pernicious 231. G God is necessarily One only 2. He is ineffable 2. Great in Nobility 3. In Power 3. In Wisdom 4. In Goodness 4. In justice 5. In indepedence 5. Documents from these Perfections 6. He is Father for divers reasons 8. He shews an infinite Power in Creating 9. Incomprehensible Wisdom in Governing 9. Ineffable Goodness in designing the Creatures to our service 10. We are obliged to thanke him for all the good He has don to them 11. Motives to Gratitude 11. Grace divided 113. What is actuall Grace 114. In how happy a state man was created and how he fell from it 114. How necessary Grace is and how freely given 115. We must distinguish carefully its motions from those of Nature 117. How they may be distinguished 118 We must be gratefull for it 118. We must not be proud when it had produced good in us but live in feare 118 Sanctifying or Habitual Grace What and how Excellent 113 241. H Heaven How great are the Goods of it 83. Four considerations to guess at their Greatness 84 motives and meanes to obtain them 86 Hell has divers significations 38 What it is to be damned 85 Hope stands with fear 95 What we ought to hope 95 of whom we ought to hope 97 Catholicks are not touched with the malediction of those that trust in men 97 who are subject to it 97 Relyance on our selves is caus of many inconveniences 97 We must hope with great Confidence 98 Exhor to confidence in our Lord 99 Holy Ghost why so called 60 Why called Gift 6 The necessity an excellency of this gift 62 We offend the holy Ghost in divers manners 6â— I Idolatry cannot be imputed to the Romane Church 169. She adores not Saints nor Relicks nor Images 170. 171. She prayes not Saints to give things desired 172. Builds not Temples Erects not Altars nor offers Sacrifice to them 172. 173. Images are not absolutely forbidden to be made but only to the end they may be adored 167. 168. Imitatours of the world reproved and their objections answered 211 212. Iudgment Particular and General 49. Reasons for a Generall Iudgment 50. This is a great Consolation to the Elect 52 Description of the general Iugdment Disc 10. What things will be therein Examined 57. Paraphrase of the Sentence of condemnation 58 Rash Iudgment Three Circumstances necessary to make it a mortal Sin 228 Causes of râ—sh Iudgment 22â— It s bad effects 229. Remedyes for it 330. L Love of God the most Excellent Vertue 100. It s necessity 101. It s necessary qualities 102 motives to love God 10â— Love of Neighbours very necessary vertue 107. Every reasonable Creature is our Neighbor 108. How we truly love our Selves and neighbors 108. 109. How ill this command is observ'd by many 110 The first and most necessary Effect of the love of our Ennemys is to pardon them 111 Motives to love and pardon them 111 112. Lyes of three Sorts 230 We ought not to speak an officious or Idle ly to save a man 231 Mass See Sacrifice M Matrimony a true Sacrement 303. A great One 304. Dutyes to which it Obligeth 305. Honour we owe to it 307. Merit Catholick Doctrine concerning it 12â— See good Works O Oathes Sometimes lawfull 181. Division and Description of them 181. 182. Conditions requisite to make them lawfull 182 183. We cannot Swear to confirm a palliated untruth 183 Divers bad causes of Swearing 185. Order a true Sacrament 298. It Confers to Priests two singular favours 299 300. P Parents Why God has not recommended to them in the Decalogue their duty in respect of children 198. They owe them Nourishment 198 Instruction 200. good Examples 201. correction 202 Exhort to educate well children 202. Penance Necessary 134 279 Conversions it makes 137 138 Two dangerous Errours concerning Penance into which we are apt to fall 138 Fruits of true Penance 140 means to obtain true Penance 140 Exhort to do Penance in the present time 136 Prayer Very necssary 141 What things are to be asked in Prayer 141 How we ought to pray 142 143 144 Excuses of indevout removed 146 R Religion Vertue may be practised in all Occasions and Times 175 The practise of it by the Vnderstanding 176 By the Will 176 by exteriour Actions 176 177 The practise of it in respect of Gods Attributes 177 It obliges us to honour God also in his Friends and Servants in Times and Places particularly consecrated to his service 177 Irreligion indevotion and irreverence reprehended 178 Exhort to honor God c. 178. Restitution must be perfect 224. 'T is absolutely necessary 224. All that concurr to an injury are obliged to it 225. It obliges always 225. Motives to avoyd injustice 225. Resurrection proved 79. the words of the article declared 80 We shal rise in the same Bodys but without defect 81 The Resurrection of the Elect and that of the Repâ—oâ—ate very different 81. Robbery defined and its definition explicated 222. It obliges to perfect Restitution 224 S Sacraments all instituted by Christ 238 He shews therein divine Perfections 239 They represent their effects very properly 240 They conferr sanctifying grace more or less according to the disposition of the Receiver 241 They give also auxiliary graces 242 Exhort to frequent them 242 Sacrifice in the new Law 273 T is very acceptaâ—le and glorious to God 275 greatly advantagious to men 276 Very beneficial to Souls in Purgatory 277 How to be offered 278. Salvation of men earnestly desired by God and the most important worke Epist to the Reader 'T is to be procured by the securest way 43. Satisfaction third Part of Penance must be made according to the multitude Enormity and diversity of our offences 283 We may satisfy the divine Iustice by all Crosses that befall us 28â— Motives to fly sin and to returne to God by true Penance 285 Scandal What properly 210 'T is sometimes a Word 211 Often Actions 211 Othertimes Omissions 213 What Actions are not to be omitted and what are to avoyd Scandal 214 Motives to avoyd it 215 Sin the greatest evill 245 248 In Christians t is far greater than io infidells 248 By sinnlng mortally we hazard Salvation 76 Carnal sins Contrary to mans nature and abominable to God 216 Species or Kinds of them 217 218 Individuums or particulars innumerable 219 Remedies of them 219. Sunday why instituted 189 How to be observed 189 190 Exhort to observe it well 191 T Tradition necessary to excuse Christians from observance of the Iews Sabbath 187 188 189 V Vnction of the Sick a true and proper Sacrament 292. It s Saving Effects 203. 294. 295. Dispositions requisite in the Receiver 296 297. Exhort to Charity 297. W Works of supererogation proved 121 good Works necessary to Salvation 122 123 Why God requires them 123 'T is necessary to be fruitfull in them 124 We must apply our Talents in them faithfully 124 Many Christianâ— lofe or abuse them 125. Exhort to practise good workes 127 We must not defer our Conversion and the practise of good Works Discours 22. FIN