making it my Work that I can onely say it is my Observation and must give the honour of it to the Prefect of the Sodality his Holinesse for no other single Person can challenge that Priviledge of prescribing the Formes of publick Prayers unto the Universall Church though in truth we must by Name attribute the first Collection of these Prayers unto Gelasius the first Pope of that Name in the year of our Lord 482. and the stating them into the order we now have them in throughout the year unto Saint Gregory the first most worthy called the Great for his remarkable Saintity in the year 590. who in his Volâ—me intituled of Sacraments meaning of Mysteries for it seemes he found these Prayers to be most profoundly mysterious indeed as now I here endeavour to declare throughout my Book hath added some more Prayers to what Gelasius made and hath compacted them altogether as into a Magazine of the Churches Piety whereunto by Decree of two severall Councels namely the second Milevitan and the third Carthaginian held in Saint Agustines time or thereabouts it was forbid to add any more unlesse they were approved by a Generall Councell or at least some Nationall one of Bishops See the 12th Canon in the first Councell above It hath pleased us say the Fathers that the Prayers and divine Services which shall be approved of in this Councell be celebrated by all and that no other be used in the Church unlesse such as shall by the most prudent men bee made or are approved by the Synod least any thing contrary to Faith or through ignorance or lesse then due studie be composed These Authorities I cite not so much to vaunt my own design as to avouch I am not worthy to be Father of it otherwise then by Observation as above I said but thence I am bold indeed to commend the Devotion unto our Sodality as a practise of the most solid Piety imaginable And here I must crave leave to mind the Reader that it will very little availe a man to be of this Christian Sodality unless he make himself worthy of it by his saintitie which he shall soonest arive unto by making the Scripture his studie as was before desired and by taking it often in the Cordiall of Holy Churches prayers when he doth not swallow the greater parts of it all at once by reading much thereof expounded as hee hath it here for this will alwaies be to feed on heavenly food such as can never breed hereticall diseases in the body of our Sodality but must needs give saving nourishment to all our soules and make us feeding here a while on these sweet honey Combs of Grace within our holy Hive feast for all etetnity on the better fruits of glory with all the holy Company of this Sodality in Heaven To conclude I shall desire the Reader to know my aim in this Book was not to set out any thing absolvtely new but something very necessary for the Praying people and exceeding usefull for the preaching Pastor since as the one will have matter enough of Piety from hence so the other will have ground enough for ampliation and to dilate himself upon a short warning by way of exhortation to the People though he be destitute of other Books to help himself and had it not been that I held my self obliged to repair by other men my own omissions in this kind out of a multitude of diversions other wayes as also that I stand more strictly bound of late to help the people then formerly I was my superiours best know why and how truly I should have shaken off I fear the labour of this laborious work whereby I shall not yet be covetous of any other honour then to be door-keeper unto this Sodality and to subscribe my self the most unworthy member of it F. P. HEre followeth a Table directing how to apply each Psalme to the proper Key or genuine sense thereof which I take out of the proemiall Annotations to the second Tome of the holy Bible as it is translated by the Reverend Priests of the Colledge of Doway beginning with the book of Psalmes And though perhaps some Psalmes may seem as proper to other Keyes as unto those they have assigned yet I give so much to their Authority that till some greater countermand it this may be more safely relyed upon then any other and therefore I recommend this way as the best that yet is found out for rendring the book of Plalmes intelligible in some measure to the Common people and very usefull to the Pastours of the Church who may perhaps more safely rely upon these Senses than any private Judgement of their own because these men were versed in the Learned Languages and made it their study to apply each Psalme to a right Key according to such rules as are by them laid down in these Proemialls for that purpose Now these Keyes they reduce to Ten in number which are as follow 1. God in him-himself THe First is of God as he is in himself Trine in Persons and One in Essence and of his Divine Attributes 2. God Creating The Second is of Gods Works in his Creatures as of the Creation and Conservation of the whole World 3. God governing by providence The Third is of the Divine Providence especially towards Man in protecting and rewarding the Just and permitting and punishing the Evill 4. God by Moses leading the Hebrews out of Aegypt into Canaan The Fourth is of the peculiar calling of the Hebrew people their beginning in Abraham Isaack and Jacob their marvellous increase in Aegypt their diverse estates many admirable and miraculous things done amongst them with their ingratitude rejection and reprobation 5. God Redeemer of Mankind The Fifth and principall Key is of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and of his Incarnation Nativity Life and Death Resurrection Ascention and Glory all prophetically foretold 6. Christ erecting his Church The Sixth is of the Conversion of the Gentiles or of the Catholike Church of Christ ever visible in her Pastours Sacraments and Sacrifice of the holy Altar and propagated over all the world 7. Faith and good Works The Seventh is of Faith and good Works which is the true manner of Christians serving God 8. The proper acts of David The Eighth is of Davids own Works and of Gods singular benefits towards him for which he rendreth thanks and Divine Praises as also of his recounting his enemies dangers and afflictions of minde and body namely by Saul Absolon and others in which cases he humbly beseecheth Gods protection and further he expresseth himself a perfect Image and pattern of a sincere and hearty-penitent bewailing confessing and punishing his own sins 9. Death Judgment The Nineth is of Death and Judgement the End and Renovation of this World with the generall Resurrection 10. Heaven Hell The Tenth and last is of Heaven and Hell according as every one deserveth in this Life NOw in the Table following These
person 28. You have heard I say to you I go when I dye and come when I rise again and when I am so come back to take away your grief for my departure by death if then you did love me you would rejoyce at my leaving you again because I then am to go not to dye any more but to live eternally with my Father in glory and to share out part of that glory to you also But he gives another and a deeper reason why they should if they did love him rejoyce at his going to his Father namely because his Father is greater then he can protect him and his friends from all those persecutions which the Jews raised against him and them not but that he could have protected them himself from these but this he sayes as accommodating his speech to them to make it an argument which they themselves should yeeld unto as convincing to those that did love him And though from these very words the Arrian heresie took fastest root denying the Deity of Christ because he said his Father is greater then he yet without all reason for no such thing followes since his meaning was in this place that his Father as God was greater then he as man for so he was even lesse then Angels being it was onely as man that he went to his Father who as God was never from him nor could be And so Christ as God was greater then himself as man much more then was his Father greater then he in that true sense he spake this in though according to humane sense and reason the Father as God is also greater then the Son as God because he is the origin of the Son or his beginning how ever the Son be equall to him in essence and power so it is a majority in our understanding at least though not in the thing understood But the Arrian heresie was grounded on a mistake of the Analogy between divine and humane generation for though amongst men the Father is many wayes better and greater then the Son as for example because he is older then the Son and was in beeing before him again because he a tall Father begetteth at first a little son besides his Son is a thing numerically nay substantially distinct from the father lastly because the Father had liberty and could have chosen whether or no he would have begotten a Son yet in God all is quite otherwise for there is no priority nor posteriority no majority nor minority no numerical nor substantial difference in Deity between the Father and the Son though there be a numerical difference in their personalities neither is there any liberty but an absolute necessity of the Sons generation and of his being coaeval coequal and abâ—olutely one and the same essential numerical and necessary God with his eternal Father 29. The belief he here ayms to gain is that of his Deity and of his voluntary not coacted or inforced death for the sins of the people so that which he foretold here was his Death his Resurrection his Ascension and his sending the holy Ghost unto them after he was ascended that when they see all things happen as he had told them they might undoubtedly believe he was the Messias the God-man that came to redeem and save the world 30. So after he had thus prepared them for all events he told them he would not say much more unto them because the devil whom he calls the prince of this world cometh was at hand in his ministers the Jews to persecute him to death and he therefore calls him prince of the world because by sin the world inslaves it self unto him he is come to take me and yet he hath no power in me because I have no sin to give him the least right over me but I freely give my self up to his tyranny over me that I may redeem the world from his usurpation and Tyranny over them nay the very injustice he doth to me shall confiscate all the right he hath over others 31. That is to shew the world that I love my Father and do as he commanded me therefore I dye and give my self into the hands of my enemies Hence it is asked how it can be true which is said of him by Isaias 53. he was offered for sin because himself was so pleased since it was not by his choice but by his Fathers command that he did suffer insomuch that if he had not suffered he had sinned in an act of disobedience and though pure man may choose to do or not to do as he is bid and so truly doth either yet Christ who was God as well as man could not choose and so seems inforced for if man in him had sinned by reason his two Natures made but one Person and actions are of persons not of natures then God had sinned as well as man because God and man were in Christ but one person But we must conceive in one person of Christ there were two states or conditions the one of a viatour or passenger the other of a comprehensour of one impatriated or in glory that is to say the one of a traveller of a man banished from home or in his journey homewards the other of one possessed of his own restored from banishment arrived at his journies end and beeing at his rest So Christ as a viatour or traveller had liberty of choise to suffer or not to suffer though as he was by his hypostatical union to the word and by his Beatifical Vision consequent to that union rendring him in glory in the state of those who are finally blessed he had no choyce but did all things as necessarily as the Blessed do in heaven who cannot choose to do otherwise then love and obey God in all things that they do and yet even so they may be said to love God freely too because they are understanding creatures and free will is radicated in the understanding for nothing that hath not reason hath will and the root of willing is the understanding therefore though the will be necessitated upon supposition that the soul is at home or in glory and cannot choose but love God as long as she sees him yet that love is radically free because it was a free act of the soul departing from the state of a viatour and so retains the nature of freedome as being rather a continued then a new act of free-will And in this sense Christ even as in his state of blisse might be said here freely to suffer because as he was at the same time a viatour he did suffer freely and uncoacted for the necessary continuation is rather a reward of the former act then any new act at all besides this necessity is rather extrinsecal to the act as being radicated in the immutability of the object and of the glory representing to the sight that object then intrinsecal thereunto otherwise then as continuation of an act is intrinsecal unto it self
us in the B. Sacrament as we must fear him under his severer name of our Judge if we now fail of such equall love unto him O happy Christians who at the same time when they are bid to fear Christ are taught to love Jesus and consequently their love and fear must be as equal as Christ Jesus is to Jesus Christ But the reason why we beg this equality of fear and love is because Christ doth never leave destitute of his government those whom he instructs in the solidity of his love that is Christ our Judge will sweetly rule us if he find we do solidly love him and we were last Sunday taught the solidity of that love did consist in loving God above all things and not only our neighbour but also our enemies as our selves which lesson was then given as a preparative to this Feast now flowing in the Octaves thereof and alluded unto in this prayer teaching us in brief what the Epistle and Gospel tell us more at large The first that who loves not ought to stand in fear of that death which he abides in by not loving Nay more so confident must our Love be that we must rather not fear to dye for our neighbour then we must dare not to love him and to this we are incited by the example of Christ whose love made him dye for us that were his enemies Again we are told this love must be real and true not verbal onely and that it cannot be so if we relieve not our neighbour in his necessity when we are able so to do This argues indeed that we are not left destitute by our Governour Christ Jesus who instructs us in this solidity of love from one end of the Epistle to the other And since it is the general consent of all Expositours that the Supper mentioned in this dayes Gospel is a figure of the Blessed Sacrament sure that is a mystery as full of solid love as is expressed in the Prayer above teaching us never to go unto this Supper without equal fear and love and so the Prayer stands excellently well adapted both to the Sunday to the Feast to the Epistle and to the Gospel of the day For if we can by saying this prayer fervently obtain the equal fear and love which it petitioneth assuredly in recompense thereof Almighty God will so govern us as we shall not for humane ends excuse our selves from our duties to his Divine Majesty but shall come so religiously to the Supper of the Sacrament here as we need not fear being shut out at the last Supper of eternall rest in glory which again the Expositours will have the Sacramentall Supper to be a signe of And thus as well every sense as every letter of this Gospel is included in this most admirable prayer of holy Church The Epistle 1 Joh. 3.13 c. 13 Marvell not Brethren if the world hate you 14 We know that we are translated from death to life because we love the Brethren He that loveth not abideth in death 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer hath life everlasting abiding in himself 16 In this we have known the charity of God because he hath yielded his life for us and we ought to yield our lives for the Brethren 17 He that shall have the substance of the world and shall see his Brother hath need and shall shut his bowels from him how doth the charity of God abide in him 18 My little children let us not love in word nor in tongue but in deed and truth The Explication 13. THe Evangelist had in the precedent verses told us the difference between the children of God and those of the devil and how there was mortal enmity between the one and the other instancing in Cain killing his Brother Abel for no other cause then envy to him seeing the sacrifice of Abel was acceptable to God and his was not in regard Abel was a child of God and Cain a child of the devil and so no marvel if his offerings were not acceptable to God Almighty But the Apostle proceeds further and bids Christians not wonder if the world hate them because of their good deeds since for that reason Cain representing the malignancy of the world hated Abel who was a figure of a good Christian offering grateful sacrifice to God besides the Apostle here alludes to what he had said in his Gospel Chap. 15.18 If the world hate you know it hated me before it hated you and therefore here he concludes they should rather expect then wonder at it if they found the world did hate them since no Son can hope for love from him who hates his Father and the foregoing Verses of this Epistle were all upon our happy filiation with God But we may observe the causes remarkable why the wicked for those are understood by the world so called from the greater part thereof that are wicked indeed do hate those who are good The first is the dissimilitude betwixt vice and vertue which begets a hatred as similitude begets love and affection for we see all worldlings puffed up with pride and ambition contrariwise all good Christians are meek and humble The second is Envy for wicked men seeing they cannot arrive at purity and sanctity envy those who do attain thereunto The third because the good men do further reprehend the vices of the wicked as the holy Ghost doth inspire them in imitation of his example whose coming shall argue the world of sin as we heard John 15.8 The fourth because the world sees good men flye the company of the wicked The last because their affections are contrary one doating upon the world altogether the other wholly inamoured on Almighty God so they must needs be as opposite as two Contraries are as heat to cold as dry to moist and labour to overcome each other but with this difference that the good man labours the conversion of the bad the bad man indeavours the perversion of the good 14. The Apostle doth not here say we know by any divine Faith or certain knowledge as hereticks will needs interpret this place but onely by moral certitude we know that if we love one another for Gods sake we must needs love God much more and as by sin against him we dye so by love of him we detest sin and are by that meanes translated from the death of sin to the life of grace in this world and to the life of glory in the next So that all the certitude we have of this is the testimony of our own consciences telling us we are not guilty of any defect either in our love to God or to our neighbour Yet because St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. v. 4. no sooner said he was not guilty then he added yet in this I am not justified the Catholick Church teacheth our assurance of our being in the state of grace is onely moral not divine And three signes
to exhaust the Epistles and Gospels of that day whereon they are appointed to be said but this I doe infer to be avouchable of that peculiar Prayer which here is set immediately after the Antiphon Responsory and Versicle of each respective Sunday which is ever the first Prayer in the Divine Service and which the Priest doth alwayes say with an addresse unto the People turning about to them and saying Dominus vobiscum Our Lord be with you meaning in your hearts that there you may sing forth his Praises which my lips are now going to pronounce in your names and in your behalfs True it is I have at the end of every part of this first Tome set out a Trinity of Prayers appropriated each to their respective dayes which I advise all those of this Sodality to say three times a day morning noon and night whereof this Prayer we call the Collect for the Reasons above is the first The second is that Prayer which is called the Secret being the very same the Priest then sayes when he hath turned himself unto the People saying Orate Fratres c. Brethren Pray that my Sacrifice and yours may bee acceptable to God the Father Almighty And this he doth immediatly after he hath made the Oblation or Offertory of the bread and wine which he is presently to consecrate into the body and bloud of Christ as his own and the peoples Sacrifice Not that it is therefore called the Secret because the people should not be privie to it being as they are remarkably concerned therein but that it represents the nature of our offerings to God to be rather hearty than heard of rather private then publike so far forth as they are ours though 't is most true that as the Priests they are to be made in open Churches upon open Altars yet with this respect that silence shall convey them to the heavenly Majesty rather than noise and so the Prayer that offers them is for this reason among others said softly by the Priest and thence is called the secret Whereas the Collects they are said aloud And however true it be that in the old Law the Priest went out of the Peoples sight from the sanctum or Holy into the sanctum sanctorum the holy of holiest for the Reasons alledged in the Exposition of the two first Verses on the Epistle upon Passion Sunday in the second part of this First Tome yet in the new Law which did abrogate the Ceremonies of the old Holy Church hath held it sufficient to maintain the Analogie between the sacrifices of both the Laws that the Priests of the new remaining still in the sight of the People shall go at least out of their hearing by saying some Prayers secretly though still in the Peoples behalf as if they were composing the controversies between grace and nature or mediating between God and his sinfull creatures by way of sacrifice the most powerfull of all mediations imaginable And hence it is to let the People know at least this secret Prayer is said in their names by the Priest in testimony of their offering up both by and with him the present sacrifice that I advise them joyntly with the Priest to say the self-same secret to the self-same end that prayer importing over an actuall oblation or offering to God The third Prayer which is called the Post-Communion I therefore also publish here in the end of this Book because it imports the peoples thanks-giving after the Communion thereby to shew that whereas then the Priest hath received actually in his own and their behalf so they have also received in Vote in wish or desire that they were also worthy to have actually received and this being a spirituall communion at the least I desire all the devotes of our sodality in thanks thereof to say this third prayer also with the Priest because immediatly before his saying it hee turns about and makes his application to the people as above by Dominus vobiscum Our Lord be with you And thus it is evident these Prayers are very proper for the People which are never said by the Priest but with addresse to them Now if any ask the Reason why I recommend this Trinity of Prayers to be said by our Sodality three times a day truly 't is because the sacrifice being a service to the sacred Trinity wherein God is acknowledged to have the sole command of life and death in his creatures therefore in honour of the three sacred Persons of the Blessed Trinitie I recommend this triple Repetition of this Trinity of Prayers as also further that thereby our sodality may partake of all the sacrifices which are daily made throughout the world not but that the morning is the proper time of this Homage but because 't is ever day in some part of the earth when 't is night with another and so by our saying these Prayers even at night we joyn in sacrifice to God with those who say the same prayers at the self-same time by day I could animate our Sodality farther yet to this Devotion by telling them what indulgences they may gain by this not that these are purchased by money as is objected by our adversaries but given gratis namely 15. dayes Pardon from Purgatory paines for every time they say any one of the Churches Prayers those I mean that are with publick authority avowed by our holy Mother to say nothing now of fifty dayes indulgence for every time they say their Primmer office which is not granted to their Manuall Prayers but I suffice my self with this that 't is the best of all Devotions in the world to praise the Blessed Trinity and even those that love to pray to Saints must know they do it best while with their holy Patrons they adore the Universall Patron of all the Saints The sacred and undivided Trinity To conclude in saying this Trinity of Prayers they doe not onely joyntly pray with the visible but also with the invisible Priest our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who even now in Heaven dayly says the self-same Prayers as often as the Priest officiating sayes them here on Earth because our Priests are but the Instrumentall Ministers of Sacrifice the Principall is our Saviour Jesus Christ himself who in memory of his once Bloudy Sacrifice offers up dayly an unbloudy one unto his Heavenly Father and so makes that to be with God a Renovation in a Mysticall way of his bitter Death and Passion which is with us a dayly Commemoration thereof for which purpose see the Secret on the ninth Sunday after Pentecost in the book of Prayers below See further Molina in his Golden work of Priest-hood where he cites a Torrent of Fathers to avow this verity And for avowment of Jesus Christ Vocally Praying even in Heaven for us by way at least of claiming what he hath already merited in our behalfs See Cornelius a Lapide upon Saint Paul Rom. 8. ver 34. who backs himself
to them that hearing me speak they may come after me or you to know the meaning of what I said and so to increase in them their zeals by little and little opening their eyes and understandings and this may I hope suffice for a sufficient exposition of the two Verses Now to the Parable and Explication thereof as our Saviour himself delivered it to his Disciples that thereby the Faith they had in him before might be increased when they see how much solidity of clear Doctrine and true Piety was couched under his parabolicall expressions 5. 11 12. As to the fifth or eleventh and tweltfth verses for these are in sense all one as our Saviour himself declares in the very letter of the Texts we are therefore onely to give a reason why the Word of God is compared to seed of Corn sowed in the fields and we shall finde as many reasons for it as there are Analogies between the Seed and the Word the Sowing the one and Preaching the other as first because the Word of the Preacher is cast into the ears of his Auditory out of the Pulpit as the Seed is cast over all the ground by the sowing Seeds-man Secondly as the Word links from the Ear of the hearer into the Heart so the Seed descends by degrees from the surface or superficies of the earth into the bowels thereof Thirdly as Seed is the Mother of all Fruits so the Word of God is the Parent of all good Works Fourthly as the Earth without Seed brings forth nothing but weeds bryars and brambles so Man without the Word of God brings forth nothing but futility vice and vanity Fifthly as Seed requires soft manured and tilled ground to grow in so the Word of God must finde gentle rich and mortified Souls to fructifie upon Sixthly as Seed requires moisture and sun to bring it forth so the Soul requires the tears of sorrow for our Sins and the Son of Justice his heat of Grace to make the Word of God fructifie in mans heart and bring forth Acts of love to God Seventhly as the Seed in the Earth must first dissolve and die before it spring so must the Word of God be ruminated upon by meditation and procure in us a death to the world before we can find in our selves the spring of living in Gods favour Eighthly as the Seed must first take root then sprout up branch into leaves and boughs next blossome and then knit into a fruit so the Word of God must first enter deep into our hearts then rise by holy cogitations branch it self into variety of good desires blossom into Religious resolutions at last knit it self up into the knot of good Works which are the fruits of our lives Ninethly as the force and vertue of all fruits is contracted into its Seed so the force of all our good Works is lodged in the Word of God Tenthly as diverse seeds bring diverse fruits so diverse sentences of Scripture bring forth diverse Vertues in our Souls Eleventhly as to the child of fruit are required two parents the Seed as the male and the Earth as the female so to the Children of Vertues are required the Word of God and his holy Grace Lastly as from the best Seed man preparing his ground with most industry proceeds the best Crop of Corn so from the best chosen Texts delivered by the best Preachers those that use the most diligence in preparing and making soft the hearts of their penitents towards God proceed the best fruits of Vertue and good Works here as unto the best Saints to serve as fruits for a Heavenly banquet in the next World Now we see the meaning of the seed let us examine the reasons why these severall effects follow upon the severall grounds the Seed falleth on First that falling on the high-way cannot enter to take root for growth and consequently lying open to be both trodden to pieces by passengers and pecked up by birds must needs be like to so much cast away such is the Word of God as Saint Matthew sayes Heard but not understood because the hearer doth not ask his spirituall Adviser the meaning of what is told him but pretends to be satisfied therein when indeed he carries away the onely empty sound of words but is wholly ignorant of the sense through his own lazinesse in not asking the meaning thereof and consequently what is thus ignorantly received is not understood and by that means makes no entrance into the heart of the hearer so is trodden to pieces even by our own trampling over it whilst we run from Sermons as if we had never heard a word of what the Preacher said unto us which indeed is commonly their case that come to Church for curiosity to hear Humane Eloquence not Divine Preaching to see and to be seen not to hear their faults and amend them to laugh indeed at the Preacher if he please not the pallate of their fancy or curious ears as those did to whom for that very reason Christ spake Parables not clear sense and to such as these be the Preachers words never so clear never so easie they sound as Parables in his ears whose own distracted minde robs him of the faculty of understanding what he hears and though such men seeme to come to God when they appear in Churches yet in very truth their coming is to the Devill in Gods House and no marvell then he carry them and their understandings away with him lest hearing that is intelligently hearing they believe and believing plow up the high-way their hearts with acts of Love and so render the Corn the Word of God capable to sink into their Souls and take root to their emolument indeed to their Salvation as Text the speaketh 6. 13. The first reason of the Corn failing to grow was the want of sinking into the earth now it fails though sunk because it wants moisture by incountring a stony or rocky ground which is onely covered with a shallow superficies of earth and cannot receive moisture enough to carry the Corn deeper into the ground and to root it there This place alludes to schismaticks whose petrifying hearts whose cold affections to God turn all they hear of him how ever they believe it to be true into rocks and stones into sterility and barrenness of Soul and hence rather than suffer the least temporall losse for Gods sake they hazard to loose themselves eternally A clear place to covince Hereticks by that Faith alone is not sufficient without good Works to save them and that Souls though once in the Grace of God may nevertheless loose his favour and the Kingdome of Heaven too 7. 14. The second reason of failing was for want of ground to take sufficient root and to cherish the Seed in both which may seeme to be defects of intrinsecall requisites now this third reason points at what is extrinsecally necessary and rather at defects of redundance than of want because the
we lack but also whatsoever we can rationally ask of him who is no niggard of his favours and while the blind man askes his sight we may conceive he askes as much as his life too for a blind man is like a visible death to all other men and a sensible one unto himself since he can feele misery on all sides but see comfort no way to which purpose see Tobias Cap. 5. ver 12. and heare Saint Ambrose Uti tristes sunt c. As the day without Sun-shine is but sad and the nights without Moone-light not so pleasing so is the life of man deprived of the light of his body his eyes for they the Sunne and Moone are as it were the eyes of the world and without their lustre the heavens themselevs do suffer a deformity of blindnesse And S. Austine upon this place saies Tota igitur vita c. Our whole lifes exercise therefore is but to cure this eye of the heart to this end hath Almighty God instituted all the holy Mysteries to this end is the word of God preached to this end tend all Ecclesiastical exhortations c. Let us therefore all cry out O Lord give us the light of Grace to see the turpitude of sinne the vilitie of concupiscence the exilitie of pleasure the atrocity of hell fire the beauty of virtue the happinesse of Paradise the eternity of Glory Amen 42. No marvel our Saviour gave so speedy a reward to so strong a Faith the cause taken once away the effect must needs cease the cause of this corporall blindnesse was spirituall coecity the blind-mans infidelity which taken away by Faith he enjoyes immediately his corporall sight and so hath the effect gone upon surcease of the cause nor need we scruple to make this exposition when our Saviour saies in expresse termes This mans Faith was his cure for if so then Infidelity was his disease 43. We cannot read this story without being moved to imitate the gratitude of the blind man in giving thankes for the benefit received as we shall be forward enough to imitate his importunity in calling to God for help in our necessities and what was his gratitude his following our Saviour magnifying and praysing of him as also did all the people that were witnesse to the benefit received that we would our selves thus testifie our own gratitudes thus get all the world to help us expresse our thanks for such benefits as they all see we receive daily and hourly from almighty God since we have an assurance if we goe as farre with him as this blind man did to his passion to his Cross to his death to his grave he will raise us with him to a new life of grace here and to an eternall life of Glory in the next world The Application 1. AS it was this blind mans Faith that made him corporally whole so was it his love and charity that made him spiritually sound that did shake off the Fetters of his affection to sinne and kept him by that meanes from all adversitie while it fastned him to the purchaser of all prosperity our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ 2. It was indeed his Charity that made him leave all other company to follow Jesus and to magnifie his Deity by proclaiming his mercy in having delivered him from misery And whither did he follow him To Hierusalem to his Passion to his Death to his Sepulcher 3. O lively Faith that did not die in this poor man when Jesus dying for him left even his Apostles tottering in their Faith O burning Charity that like a flaming lamp hung ore the Sepulcher of Jesus dead and buried Adoring then and magnifying the Divinity which never did forsake the sacred corps of Christs Humanity though his living soul had left his dead body in the grave O admirable way to shake off the shackles of sinne and to keep us free from all adversitie thus firmely to believe thus ardently to love and so to follow Jesus from his grave into his glory O for this purpose well adapted Gospel of Faith to an Epistle of Charity O well adjusted Prayer as above to both On the first Sunday of Advent The Prayer called the Collect. ROwse up we beseech thee O Lord thy power and come away that from the emiâ—ent dangers of our sinnes thou protecting we may deserve to be freed and thou delivering us we may be saved Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen So end all Prayers The Prayer called the Secret MAy these Sacrifices O Lord by their powerfull vertue bring us cleansed and more pure unto their purifying fountain The Prayer called the Post-Communion LEt us receive O Lord thy mercy in the midst of thy Temple that we may prepare for the future solemnities of our reparation with congruous homages On the second Sunday of Advent The Prayer ROwse up our hearts O Lord towards preparing the wayes of thy onely begotten Sonne that by his coming amongst us we may deserve to serve thee with purified Souls The Secret VOuchsafe O Lord to be appeased by our humble Prayers and Offerings and whereas we have no title of merit succour us with thine own supplyes The Post-Communion BEing filled with the food of Spirituall Almes we humbly beseech thee O Lord that by the participation of this Mystery thou wilt teach us to contemn Earthly and to love Heavenly things On the Third Sunday of Advent The Prayer LEnd we beseech thee O Lord thine ear unto our Prayer and enlighten the darknesse of our minde with the Grace thy Visitation The Secret MAy the sacrifice O Lord of our Devotion be continually offered up both to perform the precepts of this sacred Mystery and admirably in us to produce thy saving work The Post-Communion VVEe implore O Lord thy clemency that these Divine helps may expiatâ— our sinnes and prepare us to the future solemnities On the fourth Sunday of Advent The Prayer O Lord we beseech thee raise up thy power and with thy mighty vertue come away to our succour that by the help of thy Grace what our sins retard the indulgence of thy propitiation may accelerate The Secret ORdain O Lord we beseech thee being by these present sacrifices appeased that they may avail to our Devotion and Salvation also The Post-Communion HAving received thy bounties we beseech thee O Lord that by frequentation of thy Mystery the effect of our salvation may increase On Sunday within the Octaves of the Nativity The Prayer OMnipotent Sempiternall God direct our actions in thy good pleasure that in the name of thy beloved Son we may deserve to abound in good Works The Secret GRant we beseech thee Omnipotent God that the offering which we have made in the eyes of thy majesty may obtain us the grace of holy Devotion and bring unto us the effect of a blessed Eternity The Post-Communion BY the operation of this Mystery may O Lord our sins be purged and our just desires be accomplished On Sunday within the
merit in them and that merit is to make us to have deserved such a master then let us confidently say this Prayer to day and all this holy week for as it is the last of the Lenten Sundayes Prayers so we may see it Steers the ships of our Bodies and Soules downe the very gulfe of our Saviours Passion where to suffer shipwracke is to be saved since the greatest mercy in this Sea is to be cast away upon the waves thereof as our Pilot Jesus was himselfe heare his own words out of the royall Prophets mouth Psal 68. v. 3. I came into the depth of the Sea and was drowned in the Tempest of it This Sea was that of his Passion which we are now all sayling on nor can we hope for greater mercy then to be used as heavenly Ionas was our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be swallowed up by the whale of death to dye to this wicked world that so we may with Ionas-Jesus be cast upon the shore of Resurrection according as the Prayer above purports But lest we forget the Edde of our Lenten Fast running by the shoares of this Red Sea see how admirably the holy Ghost hath contrived this Prayer with due regard to all circumstances of persons time and place for what more eminent effects of a religious Fast then patience and humility and to what more apparent end are these vertues recommended unto us in this dayes service then that thereby we may obtaine a propitious looke from heaven and to deserve a fellowship in the resurrection with Christ after we have learn't without book these lessons of humility and patience which God sent his Sacred Son to teach us The Epistle Philip. 2. v. 5. c. 5 For this thinke in your selves which also in Christ Iesus 6 Who when he was in the forme of God thought it no robbery himselfe to be equall to God 7 But he exinanited himselfe taking the forme of a Servant made into the similitude of men and in shape found as man 8 He humbled himselfe made obedient unto death even the death of the Crosse 9 For the which thing God also hath exalted him and hath given him a name which is above all names 10 That in the name of Jesus every knee bow of the celestials terrestrials and infernals 11 And every tongue confesse that our Lord Iesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father The Explication 5. THe Apostle had in the foregoing verses of this Chapter exhorted to humility in superiority and now in this verse he takes for a rule of our humility that of Christ who though God disdained not to fall below the repute of man and called himselfe even a worme and not a man so low he had stooped for our instruction and example And Saint Paul by this expression doth not onely wish us to thinke humbly of our selves but even to feele by a practicall humiliation the same subjection within us which Christ felt when he became the scorne of men and the out-cast or offals of the people This is the genuine sense of the Apostle though even to thinke to reflect on Christs humility and by reflecting thereon to humble our selves is not an ill exposition of this place neither and thereby to comfort our selves that as Christ his humility was the cause of his exaltation so will our humility prove to us if we embrace it for our Saviours sake 6. But to imprint this Doctrine deeper in us the Apostle amplifies how farre Christ did debase himselfe for our example saying that though he were in the forme of God c. Where we are to note this word forme is here taken perversely by the Arrians when they thence infer Christ was not really and truly God but had onely a shape or forme divine better then other men ever had yet this is a grosse corruption of the Text for Saint Paul meanes here Physicall not Artificiall naturall and not fictitious forme such forme as gives being to the thing in which it is as the forme of wood gives an essentiall distinct being to wood differing from all other substances that are not wood and so in this place the Apostle sayes Christ being in the forme of God being really God himselfe who neither is nor can be multiplyed into many Gods by the forme of God being communicated to many persons as the forme of man is multiplyed into many men though all those men have but one forme specificall one humane forme This shewes the nature or forme of God is infinitely more perfect and more simple then any other nature can be which may be numerically multiplyed though specifically it still remaine one as humane nature is when many men contract it but the divine nature is not so multiplyed though contracted by three distinct persons for we cannot say there are many Gods though it is most true there are many men so the Apostle here speaks literally and rigorously of the form of the nature divine and sayes Christ being coequall God with his Father in regard of his divine nature held it not robberie to say he was equal to God held it no prejudice to his Father to say he was truly one and the same God with him 7. And yet this notwithstanding though he were in the forme of God who is Lord and Master of all the world he would exinanite himselfe debase and lessen himselfe into the forme of a servant made into the similitude of man and in shape found as man who is by all the Titles of the world a vassall Servant and creature of Almighty God though indeed exinanire is not to be truly rendered into English for it is in effect to say Annihiâ—aâ—e not that he was in truth annihilated onely this word imports thus much that Christ who as God was all things had in a manner annihilated himselfe to become man who in the sight of God was and is as much as nothing because pure man hath no being but from God and if God could take away that gift or rather loane of Being which he affords to man instantly man would returne into his first principle which was nothing before Being was lent unto him I say if God could because as to give Being argues perfection so to take it away some Divines thinke would argue imperfection in God as if he would or could destroy himself by Annihilation of any thing since to take Being from a thing is to take his own perfection away which God cannot doe though he may punish those who use their Being to the dishonor of God by making them Be eternally miserable whom he created with power to have Bin eternally happy By the forme of Servant is here understood the humane nature which Christ assumed for that was truly a Servant even to his own Divine nature which did assume it and this for as much as that nature was a creature and so a Servant to the creator thereof but not that Christ was a Servant by
Head-City by Saints and Sinners his Apostles Jewes and Gentiles by all Sects and Ages Men women and Children that so he might give an example of his humility to all the world and unto all mankind 2. But especially to great ones Nobles Princes Monarches that these may learn Pal. 61. v. 11. If Riches slow not to set their hearts upon them Nor if honored by their subjects Psal 48. v. 13. to lose their understandings and to become like foolish Beasts by taking Pride in Popular Applause but rather with the wise to say So passeth by the Glory of the world this day cry'd up a King and in three dayes decry'd to dye an ignominious death 3. As therefore Princes you are those whom Jesus represented last of all and made the least demur upon your Pompous State so learne of him to set the world at naught by a contempt thereof and thereto fix your thoughts where true joyes are live humbly dye patiently with Jesus here that you may rise and reign gloriously with him in the world to come See how to all these purposes we fitly pray as above On Easter Sunday The Antiphon Mark 16. v. 4. ANd looking they saw the stone rowled backe for it was a very great one Alleluja Vers This is the day which our Lord hath made Resp Let us exalt and rejoyce therein The Prayer O God who this day by thine onely begotten Sonne hast opened to us the doore of eternity by the destruction of death prosecute we beseech thee in us those good desires which thou preventing hast afforded us The Illustration LOoke how the Salt Sea waters strained through the loose and Sandy grounds breake into Springs that head the greatest and the freshest Rivers thus doth the red Sea of our Saviours Passion breake from his Sepulchre into the Chrystall streames of his glorious resurrection so that all the Churches Prayers will now a while taste of those living waters that doe spring from death from the Sepulchre of our Blessed Lord in such sort as if death were content to dye that we may live For we see by this Prayer holy Church esteemes Christs resurrection to be the destruction of death since he hath no otherwise then by rising againe this day from his grave opened unto us the door of eternity of eternall and blissefull life whereupon she prayes the zeale we are now supposed to have of living eternally may be perfected by God his prosecuting in us our good desires thereof which are first afforded us by his preventing grace without which indeed wee cannot have as of our selves one good thought much lesse can we doe any the least good deed Now as there can be no tidings of any greater joy unto us who even naturally desire eternall life then for holy Church to tel us it is this day bestowed upon us by Christ his rising from his grave and by his raising us to everlasting life from the eternal death of deadly same which before had swallowed up all mankinde so we ought to rejoyce to day as a dead man would to find himselfe revived and brought from the brink of eternal damnation unto a promise of eternal life and blisse O could we say this Prayer with a lively apprehension of this to be our present condition with what fervour should we say it with what joy should we repeat it over and over again and how infinitely should we profit our selves thereby nay how home should we Preach unto our Souls by praying thus Since thereby we should exhaust not onely the whole Epistle and Gospel of the day but even the Introite of holy Mass wherein the Royal Prophet Psalme 138. speaks in the Person of Christ saying I am risen and yet I am with thee He was indeed with Ierusalem many a day after he had risen from his grave to shew her whom she had crucified her Iesus if shee pleased if not her Iudge and againe in the graduall at Masse which Holy Church makes stand to day for a versicle to the Antiphon above the same Prophet Psal 117. Speakes in our persons saying This is the day which our Lord hath made let us exult and rejoyce in it hence we see how gladsome a day our Holy Mother would have this to be unto us how cheerfully she would have us say the Prayer aforesaid and withall how suiteably to the Epistle which if observed is no other then a ground-work of our Prayer in the very sense above of our holy desires given us by Gods preventing grace and prosecuted by his grace continually helping us to enter in at the doore of a new life by going out of the old gate of sinfull death for that indeed is the true meaning of this dayes Epistle exhorting us to purge away the old leaven the sinne that makes our actions not only sowre but deadly in the esteem of God Almighty who having set his teeth on edge by the leavened bread of our sins desired now to make us unleavened loaves seasoned with vertues not with vices for though Saint Paul as the Rhemists interpret this place alludeth here to our Communion at Easter according as by precept we are bound and in that sense cals the blessed Sacrament Christ our immolated Pasch whereon he bids us Feast when by the Sacrament of pennance we have purged away the old leaven of malice and wickednesse out of our Soules yet in very truth both the beginning and ending of this Epistle tels us that while we thus Feast on Christ he feeds on us who have made our selves Azymes or unleaven'd loaves of sincerity and verity which is to say pure Manchet for his heavenly Table since thus we become the new paste and Azymes of Sanctity as the Apostle cals us under the termes of sincerity and verity as to the Gospel which is Saint Mark his story of the Resurrection it is all wide open unto us even in the first clause of the Prayer above saying Christ opened this day the door of eternity by the destruction of death though it be all abstracted too even in these closing words of the Prayer thou preventing for in every deed as Christ prevented the early Maries in his rising so doth his holy Grace prevent even the first thoughts of our rising from the lazinesse of sinne into the sedulity of serving God Almighty And thus we see the whole service of Easterday abstracted in this little Prayer and consequently we have hitherto made good our hard designe thereof The Epistle 1 Cor. 5.7 c. 7 Purge the old leaven that you may be a new paste as you are Azymes For our Pasche Christ is immolated 8 Therefore let us Feast not in the old leaven not in the leaven of malice and wickednesse but in the Azymes of sincerity and verity The Explication 7. BY the old leaven Saint Paul meanes that notorious kinde of Fornication which was practized amongst the Corinthians worse then any among Gentiles as in the first verse of this Chapter the
this day is called White or Low â—unday because in the Primitive Church those Neophytes that on Easter Eve were Baptized and Clad in white Garments did to day put them off with this admonition that they were to keep within them a perpetuall candor of Spirit signified by the Agnus Dei hung about their necks which falling downe upon their breasts put them in minde what Innocent Lambes they must be now that of sinfull high and haughty men they were by Baptisme made Low and little children of Almighty God such as ought to retaine in their manners and lives the Paschall Feasts which they had accomplished * And thus we see an ample performance of our designe taking this Prayer in the true sence it hath The Epistle Ep. 1 Joan. cap. 5 v. 4 c. 4 Because all that is borne of God overcommeth the world And this is the victory which overcommeth the world our Faith 5 Who is he that overcommeth the world but he that beleeveth that Iesus is the Sonne of God 6 This is he that came by water and bloud Iesus Christ not in water only but in water and bloud And it is the Spirit which testifieth that Christ is the Truth 7 For there be three which give Testimony in heaven the Father the word and the Holy Ghost And these Three be One. 8 And there be Three which give Testimony in earth The Spirit Water and Bloud And these Three be one 9 If we receive the Testimony of men the Testimony of God is greater because this is the Testimony of God which is greater that he hath testified of his Son 10 He that beleeveth in the Sonne of God hath the Testimony of God in himselfe The Explication 4. THe Evangelist had in this Epistle and in the immediate verse before told us The love of God consisted in keeping his commands and that his commands are not heavy and this for divers reasons because compared to the grievous weighty precepts of the old ceremoniall Law they are nothing in a manner difficult at all For there were as Rabbi Moses did reckon them in his third Book two hundred and eighteen affirmative and three hundred sixty five negative precepts of the old Law which in the Law of Grace are reduced unto ten and those no other then even any reasonable man would exact of a creature towards God and of one man towards another for a quiet civill and honest neighbourhood and though to corrupted nature mortification may seeme hard yet to sound nature it is sweet and appetible at least as medicine is unto the sick person and as grace is the balsame that renders our corrupted nature sound againe so taking grace into the consideration as a help more powerfull then any impediment it is most true the Commandements are easie to a gratious soule to any one that hath in him the fear or love of God whence the Evangelist inferres that as by grace we are borne a new to in and of God so by this regeneration our feeble nature is made able enough to overcome all the world all the enemies and obstacles man hath betweene him and heaven which is the inheritance of Gods children whence Saint Bernard saith excellently well in his first Sermon upon this day it is an argument of our heavenly regeneration or new birth when we overcome temptations as therefore we are first borne children of God by Baptisme wherein we receive the infused vertues of Faith Hope and Charity so by contrition and confession after actuall sinne we are as it were new borne to God by his holy grace conferred on us againe and bringing back with it all those vertues and graces we had lost by reiterated sinnes But we are specially to note that this Text saith every thing that is borne of God overcommeth the world not every man because it is not by any naturall thing in man that he doth overcome sinne but by that which is supernaturall to wit Grace Faith Hope Charity and whence the Apostle saith immediately and this is the victory which overcomes the world our Faith by the victory he meanes the cause of our victory or the overcommer it selfe of the world whereupon Saint Leo Saint Cyprian and others said oftentimes a faithfull soule is farre greater then the world and one who is in heaven looks upon the earth as on a contemptible point so that it was most truly said of Saint Marke cap. 9. verse 23. All things are possible to him that beleeveth nay we see a strong and lively Faith hath in it a kinde of omnipotency when it commands as it were that to be done which none but God can do And what was it that brought the Infidell world and all the Monarchs thereof to the subjection of the yoke of Christ but Faith how then every way waâ— it true that Faith is the Victory or the Victrix rather that overcomes the whole world for by Faith we captivate our stubborne wils to reason and so quell as well the inward as the outward enemies to Christ and how doe Martyrs else by dying conquer death as Christ did on the Crosse but by dying for the Faith and in the Faith of Christ 5. None else indeed can doe it for in beleeving this we are forced to oppose all other that deny it and if in that opposition we lose our lives rather then our Faith we get the Victory of all the world that persecutes us for it and of death it selfe for he that beleeves this hopes in Iesus and hoping cals upon him and calling him to aide loves him and loving him takes courage to defie all his Enemies which are the world the flesh and the devill and in scorning them gets force to resist them and in resisting obtaines grace to overcome them 6. This is the Messias that Ezechiel cap. 36. v. 25. and Zachary cap. 13. v. 1. foretold should come in water and bloud alluding to the water of holy Baptisme and to the bloud he shed upon the Crosse and to verifie this both bloud and water issued out of his pierced side as he hung upon the Crosse as also of teares and bloud in his circumcision in his Prayer in the garden and in his whipping at the Pillory in memory of all which in the sacrifice of the Masse water is mixed with the wine that is to be consecrated By the Spirit testifying Christ to be verity is understood the holy Ghost descending and confirming the Apostles in grace and in beliefe of all that Christ had said unto them as if not onely a true man but God and man had told them and consequently verity it selfe for God is no lesse then very verity So Saint John rests not content to have given us the double Testimony of bloud and water without he had added also the sumnity or height of all Testimony the pure Spirit of Almighty God Nor are they out of the way that understand this place to be meant also of the testimony of the
wherewith the Son again knows the Father as my Father knows me to be his natural Son so he desires the Pastours to know souls to be their spiritual children and the souls again to know the Priests for their spiritual Fathers Note the Similitude here shews Analogy but not Equality since the Father knows not us to be other then his adopted Children as Christ hath by his Grace regenerated us and made us the adopted Sons of his heavenly Father while he says he yields his Life he means he lays it freely down not that it was or could be by his persecutors taken from him as the lives of his Sub-Pastours his Holy Priests may be for though they may dye willingly when persecuted yet they cannot be said to lay down their lives as Christ did for he came purposely to dye and Priests may not seek death though they are not bound to flye it neither when there is just cause of standing to it for others good again he is truly said to lay down life as being Author of it so is not the Priest 16. This verse alludes to the calling of the Gentiles besides the Jewes to the Faith of Christ and indeed to the plenary conversion of all the Nations in the world to that Faith before the day of latter judgement when all Nations shall be of one religion and unite themselves to the one visible head of Christ * upon earth namely the Pope Saint Peters successor not so as to say every man of every Nation shall be converted then for certainely Antichrist will have corrupted many that shall dye in their errors but so that some of all Nations shall be converted And if we say this hath been already verified in the Apostles converting all the world of whom it is said Psal 18. v. 5. Into all the earth hath the sound of them gone forth and unto the ends of the whole world the words of them perhaps we shall speake more literally to the meaning of Christ in this place for indeed in the time of Constantine the great by his conversion who was Emperor in a manner of all Nations there might be truly said to be one sold and one Pastor namely the then Pope of Rome as by the whole second Chapter of Saint Pauls Epistle to the Ephesians may appeare where three or foure times he repeateth making you both one that iâ— you Jewes and Gentiles both one Church of Christ built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets viz. Christ Jesus The Application 1. LAst Sunday we heard our Saviour gave his Apostles Commission to pardon and detaine sinnes now he tels them what manner of men they must be who are thus impowred namely Pastors of soules such as must feed and defend their sheep with the same fatherly love as hee the head Pastor did even with the loss of life if need be which though it be an act of the highest charity in the world yet is it rooted in the unshaken Faith of the Pastor and hath for the primary end the preservation of the like Faith in the sheep according to that of our Lord unto Saint Peter Luc. 22. v. 32. That thou once converted do confirme thy brethren in Faith 2. It is further worthy our remarke that a good Pastors care ought to be as we see in the close of this Gospel as well to gaine other soules to believe in Jesus Christ as to confirme those who are already true beleevers for it is by his sub-pastors preaching and suffering that our Saviour sayes he must have one shepheard and one fold that is to say all the world at last converted from their infidelity and made right beleevers This still maintaines the Doctrine that the end of Martyrdome is the Propagation of the Christian Faith since by the death of Martyrs even Infidels are brought to the fold of Christ 3. And since in the Epistle of this day Priests are bid to follow the example and steps of Christ in suffering in this a Pastor is most like our Saviour that his humiliation for we cannot come so farre as to exinanition to a naturall death for the good of his sheep is the raising of soules from their death of Infidelity to a supernaturall life to that of Faith in Jesus Christ When therefore our Pastors are invited to dye for their sheep it is to minde us how by our Saviours temporall death which brought him to the lowest humiliation the whole world was raised to the greatest and highest hope of an eternall life And therefore Holy Church most fitly Prayes to day as above On the third Sunday after Easter The Antiphon John 16. v. 20. AMen I say unto you that you shall waile and weepe but the world shall rejoyce and you shall be made sorrowfull but your sorrow shall be turned into joy Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who unto those that goe astray to the end they may returne to the way of Justice doest shew them the light of thy verity grant unto all those who by profession are esteemed Christians that they may both eschue those things which are contrary to this name and pursue those which are agreeable to the same The Illustration IT is admirable to see how many regards the Prayers of Holy Church have at once as in this besides that of the Resurrection which transcends * all the Prayers of the Church between Easter and the Ascension and besides that which is unto the Epistle and Gospel of the day as shall appear anon we see here a speciall regard unto the faint-hearted Christians who seeing Christ was dead and buryed tottered in their Faith of his Deity and went astray into a thousand Meandrous doubts in point of Faith for whose sakes that they might returne to the way of Iustice by a right beliefe Christ was pleased for forty dayes together to dwell upon earth meerly to confirme the truth of his Resurrection not onely infinitely doubted of but even held impossible and by his dwelling here so long to shew them the light of his verity which indeed was never so brightly seen as when it was made appear by his Resurrection confirming all the Truths he had taught the world before his death now that this Prayer reflects upon those tottering Christians who lived then when Christ arose as well as upon all us that succeed them see the following words point out such when the Prayer beggs that those who by profession are esteemed Christians as many were that yet doubted of the Resurrection may both eschue those things that are contrary to this name and nothing more contrary then to doubt of Christs veracity as these men did who would not beleeve he was truly risen from death to life and pursue those which are agreeable to the same that is to say may beleeve and professe their Faith in this particular or else they must disagree from all he said and taught besides if they
did not agree to this so important a truth and article of our Christian beliefe But now to our maine designe see how this Prayer like an Invisible Soule gives life to all the body of the Churches Service on this day whilest it tels us in generall termes the duty of good Christians which more particularly is summed up in the Epistle and Gospel following For what is that which Saint Peter in the former sayes more then this Prayer containes while he bids us walk here like Strangers and Pilgrimes and refraine carnal desires then that when we remember Christ his resurrection we should follow the light of that verity to prevent our going astray after carnall desires what meanes the so much inculcated good conversation among Gentiles in rhe Epistle but that we who are Catholikes and therefore by profession esteemed the best of Christians should give example of good life to all other sorts of Christians to all Gentiles Turkes Jewes and Infidels and should by the example of Christ his obedience to his Parents and to the powers of his time learn to be subject to every humane creature 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 13. though thereby we suffer even unjust oppressions as our Saviour did this is to be the good Christians that by profession we are esteemed This is to eschue things contrary to that most honourable name and to pursue what is most agreeable thereunto according as the Epistle exhorteth us To conclude this is also to beare patiently the vicissitudes of joyes and sorrowes mentioned in the Gospel if a while we See comfort and if a while after we See it not This is to be content Christ shall depart from us so the Holy Ghost come amongst us in his roome This is to be like teeming women groaning here and in Travell with the children of persecution paine torments and death it selfe for Jesus Christ and rejoycing when we are delivered of the manly and heroick acts of vertue the babes of grace which will bring us a comfort that no man can take from us a peace of conscience here and a crowne of glory in the world to come So we see how home this Prayer comes to all the whole Service of the day besides The Epistle 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 11 c. 11 My deerest I beseech you as strangers and pilgrimes to refraine your slves from carnal desires which war against the soule 12 Having your conversation good among the Gentiles that in that wherein they misreport of you as of Malefactors by the good works considering you they may glorifie God in the day of visitation 13 Be subject therefore to every humane creature for God whether it be to King as excelling 14 Or to Rulers as sent by him to the revenge of malefactors but to the praise of the good 15 For so is the will of God that doing well you may make the ignorance of unwise men to be dumb 16 As free and not as having the freedome for a cloak of malice but as the servants of God 17 Honour all men Love the Fraternity Feare God Honour the King 18 Servants be subject in all Feare to your Masters not onely to the good and modest but also to the wayward 19 For this is thank if for conscience of God a man sustaine sorrowes suffering unjustly The Explication 11. IT seemes there were in those dayes faigned devotes of women who under a pretence of piety intruded themselves very officiously into the company of Church-men but oftentimes it appeared their pretended piety was but carnality covered under a vizard of devotion and it is with speciall regard to such singularities and dangerous conversation with women that the Apostle here speakes both to Church-men to those women and to all good Christians in generall beseeching out of his humility though he might have commanded them that they never let fall the memory of their being but strangersâ— pilgrimes meere passengers upon this earth since they are members of Christ who as a stranger came into the world when at his first birth he was stranger-like cast out of doores and not allowed a place in any house to lay his head in so he was content to be borne in a manger that by this meanes he might shew us he came to looke us out who were stragled from Paradise banished thence indeed and made like strangers wander over all the world And seriously it is a deep word if well reflected on for Christians here to call themselves strangers since they have here no dwelling place but are Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem and all their life time being as a pilgrimage through the desert of this wicked world The Apostle strongly perswades when he bids them take heed of setting their affections upon creatures here for how absurd were it if a pilgrim or passenger whose life lay at stake to be at such a place by such a time where he was promised a preferment should yet doat upon some miserable bondslave in the road and thereby not onely lose his way home but his preferment too and binde himselfe Prentice to an eternal bondage or slavery And the Apostle speakes all this very pathetically very briefely under the notion of carnall desires which are indeed the greatest enemies the soule hath and doe clap the Irons of captivity soonest and fastest upon her no vice so surely so speedily inthralling souls as carnality doth See therefore how strongly the Apostles charms under this notion of Pilgrim since the very name shews the nature of the man one that hath no right at all to any thing he sees one that even to ease his own labour makes it his study to keep his right road that longs for nothing more but to get home that for this purpose is content to toyl and moyl continually and never to take long rest that dares offend none he meets lest as a stranger all the natives rise against him to revenge the injury he did to any one of them That looks on all he meets as strangers to him since he knows himself so to them that gets ready tacklings for his tedious journey and casts off all things else as cumbersom that finding himself laught at by most he meets with especially all youth for the Exotick habit which he wears regards not their flouts nor scorn but bears them patiently Thus thus the Apostle exhorts all Christians to walk through the wilderness of this World Note by carnal desires which above all he bids them refrain he means all the works of the flesh all vice indeed gluttony as overloading venery as over-wasting anger as retarding while others in revenge stop his journey and so of all the other fleshly works as St. Paul enumerates them Gal. 5.19 which shall be explicated on the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 12. Since by Gentiles here are understood all the Nations of the World the Apostle tyes up Christians to a very good and a close guard when he allows him not to use the least miscomportment before
should say we deserve true Praise if for conscience of God towards God for Religion sake we sustain that sorrow which falls upon those who are unjustly molested for commonly this breeds affliction to most men yet Christians ought to make this their comfort or their glory and grace in the sight of God and men For saith the Apostle in the next Verse What glory is it if sinning you suffer for conscience to God may be understood that God is conscious or knowing of our unjust sufferings and so in his justice will one day do us right Again for conscience to God is that by so doing we be cleer in our conscience before Almighty God or lastly and best of all if need be to dye for vertues sake rather then be beaten out of it by any threats whatsoever and to this the Apostle alludes for many slaves that in those days became Christians were by their masters beaten some of them to death and yet indured patiently the tyranny of their earthly masters rather then they would gall their consciences towards God their heavenly master by receding from that vertue which he gave them the grace to conserve even unto death The Application 1. UPon what other account then that of the Christian Faith can St. Peter hope to make us believe we that are made of the Elements of this World are Strangers and Pilgrims here and are to refrain from the Pleasures of the World is it not because we believe that Jesus Christ hath by his bitter Death and Passion purchast us a better inheritance is it not because at our Baptism we make a profession of this our Faith and renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil assuredly it is 2. Again from what other Root then that of our Christian Faith are we ty'd up to so strickt a conversation amongst Gentiles amongst the mis-believers but because we that believe rightly are bound to do uprightly and religiously when he is onely counted a just man who is a true believer as we reade Rom. 1.17 He is just who lives according to Faith he means the Christian Faith where note the word Liveâ— imports outward Actions for we do not otherwise know whether a man be dead or alive but by outward operations 3. To conclude whence is it else that the true children of God are obliged to obey even mis-believing Superiors but because all Power being from God those that are his children must obey it and are by the Principals of their Faith and of Christian Doctrine obliged thereunto for since the Ruler of our Souls St. Peter the Vicar of Christ himself doth teach us this Doctrine assuredly he had it from that spirit who teacheth all verity and since the first Light of Truth is that of Faith which brings all erring souls in to the right way to Heaven the way of Justice grounded in Faith Therefore we most fitly pray as above that all who bear the names of Christians may reject unchristian deportments and do Christian actions such as the Light of Faith leads them to The Gospel Iohn c. 16. v. 16. c. 16 A little while and now you shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me because I go to the Father 17 Some therefore of his Disciples said one to another what is this that he saith to us A little while and you shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me and because I go to the Father 18 They said therefore what is this that he saith A little while we know not what he speaketh 19 And Jesus knew that they would ask him and he said to them Of this do you question among your selves because I said to you A little while and you shall not see me and again a little while and ye shall see me 20 Amen Amen I say to you that you shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce and you shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy 21 A woman when she travaileth hath sorrow because her hour is come but when she hath brought forth the childe now she remembreth not the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world 22 And therefore you now indeed you have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce And your joy no man shall take from you The Explication 16. THis place is diversly understood by some of the day of Judgement which Christ calls a little while because to God all time is but a moment yet in regard he had immediately before comforted the Apostles that though he was to leave them he would send unto them the Holy Ghost another Comforter who should teach them all truth and that what ere he taught them he should receive it of him therefore it is most probable our Saviour here alluded to his Passion Resurrection and Ascension which being at hand when he spake these words and consequently he being by his Death to disappear a while and a little afterwards namely three days he was to rise again when they should see him a while again that was for fourty days after which he was to ascend unto his Father probably I say this was the most literal Sence of the Words a little c. 17. 18. No marvel if they understood not this Riddle and so brok out into these two Verses following full of doubt what his meaning might be 19. He knew indeed they desired to ask him being grieved and sad at the news of his departure yet were loath to be so bold so he knowing their meaning not by any outward actions of theirs but by his Deity which did see the secrets of their hearts was pleased to satisfie them and yet he did this by sweetning their sorrow with diverting them from one Riddle to another opening the first by the last as appears in the next Verse 20. Wherein he tells them as in the two Sences above Verse 16. That his Disciples and all good men should here weep while the bad men of the world did rejoyce but that as the temporal sorrow of the just should be turned into eternal joy so the temporal joy of the unjust should be turned into eternal grief or rather that you who are my friends shall weep to see me suffer and dye while my enemies the Jews shall rejoyce thereat you being sad in the mean time but as by my resurrection your sorrow shall be turned into joy so their joy shall be turned into sorrow and confusion not for love to me but for shame of themselves 21. For divers reasons the sorrow of the Disciples at Christs death was compared to the pains of a woman with childe and their joy at his Resurrection to the joy of a woman delivered of a Son after a hard labour First because both these Griefs were very Bitter Secondly both Short Thirdly both full of Danger Fourthly both converted into after Joy suitable to their Sorrows Fifthly because as
the same childe was first cause of pain so he is cause of comfort the like of Christ dying and rising again Sixthly both joys are excessive Great whereas they take away all sense of Sorrow So here the Passion of Christ is in this Parable supposed to be the labour or travail of the Apostles dolorous as a womans in childe-bearing and his Resurrection is supposed to be as the Birth of a Son to them after so hard a labour as they were in whilest all the world jeered and scorned them for hoping after so impossible a comfort as it was thought when the Apostle calls it a scandal to the Jews and to the Gentiles a folly St. Augustine is so acute upon this place as to say Christ compared the Apostles sorrow for his Passion to the pains of a woman in labour of a Boy and not of a Girl because those are the greatest labours of women and again he makes a special remark that the Text saith here the Mother forgets her pains not because a Boy is born but a man one that is to be the Support and Prop of her house when her self can no longer live for saith St. Augustine Christ was as it were born by his Resurrection to the World not as a Childe but as a Man conquering Death winning eternal Glory to himself and to all his Posterity to all Saints of Heaven who are the Children of his Grace 22. This Verse applies all the rest by way of Repetition to the Senses as above while it tells the Apostles this shall be their Case about him this their Grief at his Death this their Joy at his Resurrection like the travail and comfort of a woman first in labour then delivered of a Son But when he adds this Close That their joy no man shall take from them he means neither in this world nor in the next for such shall be their joy to see Christ risen who was dead that even the menace of Death to themselvcs shall be comfortable out of their assurance to share with Christ in the joy of his Resurrection if they partake with him in the pains of Death by dying for his sake Whence St. Paul boasting said who shall part us from the Love of God Nakedness the Sword Persecution Rom. 8.35 No no the love of Christ and hope of Heaven are comforts above all afflictions whatsoever whence we reade of the Apostles that they went rejoycing from the bench of the Iudges because they were held worthy to suffer contumely for the name of Iesus Act. 5.41 And this to shew that no man could takâ— away that joy which God gave them as the Text above hath told us The Application 1. IT is worthy our observation that amongst so many passages as were between Christ and his Apostles after his Resurrection this days Gospel is taken out of Saint Iohn Evangelist his Story of our Saviours Actions reporting what he said to his Apostles immediately before his Death For we see the Expositors upon the first Verse of this Gospel tell us all that is here said alludes to the Death Passion and Resurrection of our Lord as well as to his Ascension and to the coming of the Holy Ghost Then certainly our Mother Church reads us this Lesson to day with intention to draw from us such like Acts of Faith as our Saviour desired the Apostles should make when he told them he was shortly to dye and shortly to rise again 2. And since this Parable aims at raising consolation in the Apostles hearts out of the disconsolate Death and Passion of their Lord and Master by vertue of the Faith they had in his future Resurrection after his Death Assuredly it is now our parts that are Christians to make the Cross of Christ our chief content the Death of our Saviour the onely hope we have to live and his Resurrection the ground of our Faith that by vertue of his Blessed and Incorrupted Body risen from his Grave our corrupted flesh and blood shall rise again and be made partakers of those heavenly Joys which he hath prepared for all that do firmly believe in him and live according to the Rules of Christian belief 3. Note that amongst those Rules a Principal one is read unto us this day of believing firmly that all the sorrows this world can afford us are not able to rob us of the future joys prepared for us in Heaven if from erring Infidels we become right believing Christians and live according to the light of Truth The Faith of Jesus Christ that is if we do such Actions in Vertue of that Faith as We pray to day we may do say then the Prayer and see how pat it is to this Doctrine of the Church On the fourth Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 16. v. 5. I Go to him that sent me but because I have spoken these things unto you sorrow hath filled your hearts Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who makest the mindes of thy faithful to be of one accord grant unto thy people that they may love what thou commandest and desire what thou doest promise that amongst worldly varieties there we may fix our hearts where are true joys The Illustration O Beloved what a Prayer is here what an elevated language doth the holy Ghost speak in to day behold hold a whole Sermon in a few lines what preacher needeth other Text then this Prayer to dilate upon even till the day of Judgement shall I speak a big word upon this Prayer be it but with us as this day we pray and we are even with God himself at our journeys end and why should we despair thereof since in vain we are bid to pray for this if it were not by Prayer to be obtained beg it then beloved on your often bended knees beg it earnestly fervently heartily and doubt not but it will be granted for God doth not feed us with fond hopes of what he will not grant if we so a k it as we ought But stay how comes it that with so much plenty of Spirit we finde to day so little seeming connexion with the Epistle and Gospel which yet I am confident will prove both as it were eminentially contained in this admirable Prayer And first observe how suitable it is for holy Church to pray thus when we are now in the time that Jesus Christ prepared his Apostles to be content to leave him or at least that he should leave them How often did he command them resignation on all occasions to the will of Almighty God was not this the very form of his Prayer Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Matth. 6.10 Hence the Church begs to day that we who believe in Christ may live all of one minde and since it is morally impossible so many men should be consenting all in one therefore we see the prayer gives that to God saying it is he
shewing him the features and deformities of his soule according as he is truly in himselfe good or bad for that is the property of a glass to represent truly the object which is set before it and the Apostle in effect here says those that run to Churches or to their ghostly Fathers to hear onely what they say and do not put in execution their Counsels are like a man note t is not said a woman too too frequently looking there seeing his native his natural countenance not then his painted face in a glaâ—s for what indeed follows of this meer sight nothing but what is said in the next Verse forgetfulness which cannot tend to perfection and such an introspection men make into their souls by reading or hearing the word of God if there they persist and do not study to perfect themselves thereby and truly the Law or Word of God is rightly called a Glass because it represents to us that image of perfect creatures which God would have us to be it tells us what reward our Vertues shall have what punishment our Vices 24. The reason why a man sooner forgets his own face then anothers is because he never sees his own but by reflected Species in a Glass which are therefore weaker and less vigorous then if they came directly to his eye as those of another mans countenance do both directly and more frequently seen by any man then his own So no wonder if a man see and consider himself never so exactly for a time that he soon forgets himself and covets to see himself again whereas he much more perfectly remembers the Face and Features of anothers person then his own Now though it be needless for a man to look much into a material Glass which can onely shew him the outward man yet it is very recommendable for him to look into the spiritual Glass of Gods Word to read or hear that often thereby to see what is wanting to that ornament of Grace or Vertue which should render him a perfect image of our Saviour Jesus Christ but besides this often looking on himself he must be doing and practising upon himself namely adding this Vertue taking away that Vice or else he onely looks and forgets what he see or what he should make himself to be Note there are three kindes of hearers of Gods word the lazy the active the contemplative the first heare onely and forget indeed contemne the next heare and obey the third heare and dye imbracing it with all the powers of their soules and never let goe their imbracement again many are the Analogies betweene a glass and the word of God for first as in a glass is seene not a picture of a thing but the thing it selfe by a reflected species though not by a direct one soe by the word is seene the wil of God nay God himself since the word of the minde is seene by the word of the mouth as in a glass Againe as flat or plaine glasses represent the species equall to the object but convex or round glasses represent them less then they are and both the further off the weaker they represent them so the word of God plainly sincerely and without any crooked intention hearkened unto or read represents truly the will of God unto us but if we make this word a convex glass one swollen up with a bulk of pride or ambition to wrest it to our crooked senses then it represents the wil of God abridged shortned or lessened not entirely and plainely as it is in it selfe whence preachers must learne to be sincere and faithfull in the exposition of holy writ Againe as concave or hollow glasses placed against the Sun are apt to cast a heat and burne whatsoever combustible matter is neere them so the word of God looked on with an humble eye a dinted heart wherein it makes the hollow of a sweet impression sets on fire all the inordinate appetites to sinne burns up all the stubble of vicious inclinations and renders a soule burning bright in flames of love to Almighty God 25. By this verse it is cleer that the word of God is the glass here alluded unto because the Law of perfect liberty is that word of God the Law and life of Jesus Christ whereby we are made children of God not slaves to empty ceremonies onely as they under the slavish Law of Moses were he that hath looked fixedly not slightly into the glass of perfect liberty and hath remained in it not made a forgetfull hearer this man shall be blessed in his deed because his deed shal deserve a blessing by being such as this glass represents it should be note by perfect liberty is not here understood liberty to doe what we list so we beleeve aright as Luther hence pretended but first by liberty is here understood that which freeth us from the servility of the Mosaical Law next that which freeth us from the slavery to sinne and the devil thirdly that which freeth us from compulsion or feare but leaves us free to doe wel out of pure love to God not for fear of hel fourthly that liberty which by resurrection we shal have from death when we arise to life everlasting further by the close of this verse saying that man shall be blessed in his deed is meant he shal have the blessing here of grace in the next world of glory and that his blessing shal be given to his doing not to his contemplating what is to be done 26. By this place Saint James alludes to what he said in the nineteenth verse of this Epistle of being quick to heare and slow to speak and not to be angry for by the laxity of the tongue the hands are as it were tyed up from action and those men seldom do wel that are alwayes talking or vaunting in many words the little good they doe in deeds so that one kinde of doing the Law is a religious silence for religion imports as much as a binding up of the Law which consisteth in observing or doing it not in talking of it by the word bridling our tongues is insinuated as if the tongue were an unruly beast alwayes running away from reason unless bridled in thereby by seducing his heart is understood making it erre for a talking man seldome deceives others but often himselfe since they see the sin of petulance in his heart and so regard as little what he saith as himself doth what he speaks who is never doing wel whilest he speaketh too much or ill and such a mans religion is truly vaine by religion is here understood either that vertue of religion which makes a man render all his actions good towards God and his neighbor and is the first of moral vertues as charity is the first of divine ones or true Christianity profession of the true faith for even that is vaine if it be not made avayling by good workes annexed thereunto though here the Apostle his genuine sense is
inflame one another to acts of Love and praise of God The rule of Ministery we see must be the same with that of preaching if we give it must be as from God not from our selves because by giving we intend to do good to others and since all goodness comes from God we must be sure to give rather in his then in our own or any other name for all gifts are originally from God the authour of them all and if we have any thing to give it is not our own but is lent us purposely to share part thereof to others be it a gift of nature or of grace That in all things which we say or doe God may be honoured and glorified not wee our selves magnified and how honoured by Jesus Christ who first taught us this perfection of referring all we say or do to Gods honour and glory for before Christ came all was vanity and pride nothing was done but for humane ends for selfe respects or the like whereas Christianity teacheth a quite contrary Doctrine to referre all to God and to arrogate nothing at all unto our selves Hence observe how besides Faith good works are necessary to salvation which yet the Libertines and Sectaries will not allow of The Application 1. LAst Sunday we were taught it was the proper duty of a Christian to exercise continuall Acts of Hope betweene the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Ghost See consequently now how the very first words of this dayes Epistle set us upon the two prime Acts of Hope Prudence and watchfull Prayer The first to shew we are not to be foolishly beaten off our Principles of Faith teaching us by practicall Prudence to worke out our salvation in Hope we shal not labour it in vaine The second to declare that Prayer without watchfulness is of small or no account at all since therefore our senses ought to be shut up in time of Prayer that the foule free from distraction of all sense may be like to her selfe in the state of separation from the body still fixt upon Almighty God as the blessed spirits of Saints and Angels are in Heaven 2. Nor is it without some Reason the method of this Booke allows but ten dayes onely for the speciall inculcation exercise of Hope First because Hope stil goes on hand in hand with Faith and Charity and cannot fail if those two be continued since it is impossible firmely to believe in God and ardently to love him without a constant Hope of enjoying him And secondly because it seemes mystically done of Holy Church to shorten the time of Hope thereby to make us see God cannot be long from those that long to be with him and are in constant expectation of his coming for we see that after onely ten dayes watchfull Prayer or exercise of Hope our Saviour sent the Holy Ghost to his Apostles not that he had promis'd it so soone but that he could not finde in his heart to defer it any longer And beloved if after the longest day of Time we enjoy a blissfull eternity how speedy a reward shall we esteeme it to be of our Hope and expectation in regard the abundance of the gain will recompence the longest delay thereof much after that sort as our Saviours first coming did recompence the four thousand years expectation of his Birth and Death for the Redemption of the World when we here the Prophet Habacuc c. 2. v. 3. say in his name I will come and I will not stay nay though I delay my coming yet I will not tarry Why because when I come I will reward beyond all expectation 3. Lastly we must not omit to mark that so soon as ere we Hope in God we ought to fasten Acts of Love unto that Hope for so the second Verse of this Epistle teacheth us hanging many links of Charity to that onely one of Hope presented to us here as we may see whilest the whole Epistle all but the first Verse thereof which is of Hope runs upon nothing else but ranking Charity into her several Acts that so the Holy Ghost now every hour expected may finde he comes where he 's as well beloved as hoped for nor can we indeed expect that he will enter into souls who love him not who have not their Wills devoted to him who have not their hearts sincerely set upon his Service according to the Rule of Christian Doctrine And for this purpose Holy Church as having our Reasons now illuminated and regulated by faith Praies as above that our Wills by the gift of Hope may be devoted and our hearts by Charity sincerely bent unto the service of his heavenly Majesty Hope and Charity residing in the Will as Faith doth in the understanding The Gospel Iohn 15. v. 26 27. Cap. 16. v. 1. c. 26 But when the Paraclete cometh whom I will send you from the Father the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father he shall give Testimony of me 27 And you shall give Testimony because you are with me from the beginning Chap. 16.1 These things have I spoken to you that you be not scandalized 2 Out of the Synagogues they will cast you but the hour cometh that every one which killeth you shall think that he doeth service to God 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor me 4 But these things I have spoken to you that when the hour shall come you may remember them that I told you The Explication 26. NOte here though the Greek Hereticks take hold from hence to say the Holy Ghost doth not proceed from the Son but onely from the Father because Christ saith the latter in express terms yet the very truth is that procession and mission in the Divine Persons import all one thing and therefore the Father is never said to be sent at all wherefore Christ saying he will send the Holy Ghost it argues his procession is equally from both as his mission was The Paraclete is as much as to say the Comforter whose coming is both to comfort all Christians and to give testimony to all the world of that Doctrine which Christ had preached he is called the Spirit of Truth First because he proceedeth from the Son who is called the wisdom of his heavenly Father as also the Way the Truth and the Life Secondly because his coming made manifest the Truth of Christ his Doctrine of his being the Messias the Son of God the Saviour of the World Thirdly because he is the truest and most excellent Spirit in respect of whom the Angels the Souls of men and the Winds are but Analogical Spirits as being such onely by participation whereas the holy Ghost is so by Essence Fourthly because for this third Reason he is worthy of all Faith and Credit Fifthly because he gives Testimony of the New Testament which was brought us by a Spirit of Liberty and Truth whereas the Old was brought by a
Fishermen knowing and learned Doctours Teachers in fine to all the World convincers and confounders of all humane Learning that stood in opposition to their doctrine Divine and all this in an instant without learning any other Lesson then to dilate to open the affections of their Hearts unto the Holy Ghost where by the Illustration of his holy Grace he reads unto them in a moment all Divinity by onely teaching them the Art of Divine Love by onely giving them indeed the grace to love God only and what is lovely in the eyes of his heavenly Majesty Stay beloved if this be all why may not we hope once a year at least to learn as good a lesson 'T is but renewing every year as on this blessed Day the solemn vowes we made in Holy Baptisme 't is but reiterating now those good purposes we make some times of the amendment of our lives 't is but dilating and opening our hearts to this holy Spirit and begging of him that he will there work in us what we cannot work our selves the new creation of a new Will in us by our renunciation of the old and this by the Illustration of his holy Grace which alone is able to light and lead us up to heaven which alone is able to teach us all Truth and afford us all the comfort that our Hearts can wish The Holy Church would otherwise surely pray to day for some thing else which yet she doth not in the Prayer above The Gospel JOHN 14. v. 23 c. 23 Jesus answered and said unto them If any love me he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make abode with him 24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my words And the word which you heard is not mine but his that sent me the Fathers 25 These things have I spoken to you abiding with you 26 But the Paraclete the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and suggest unto you all things whatsoever I shall say unto you 27 Peace I leave to you my peace I give to you not as the world giveth do I give to you Let not your heart be troubled nor fear 28 You have heard that I said to you I go and I come to you If you loved me you would be glad verily that I go to the Father because the Father is greater then I. 29 And now I have told you before it come to passe that when it shall come to passe you may believe 30 Now I will not speak many things to you For the Prince of this world cometh and in me he hath not any thing 31 But that the world may know that I love the Father and as the Father hath given me commandement so do I. Arise let us go hence The Explication 23. THis answer of our Saviour was to the interrogatory of the Apostle Judas Thaddaeus the brother to St. James the lesser demanding ver 22. why Christ was pleased to manifest himself to the Apostles onely and not to the whole world because he said to them The world doth not see me but ye see me which though spoken in the present tense was meant in the future alluding to what the Apostles did after see in him namely his Passion Death Resurrection and Ascension And the reason why he did manifest himself to them and not to the world was as St. Austin observes because they did love him but the world did not so and this I premise to shew that what followes here alludes to this as to the effects which the love of God procures in those that do truly love him as this Gospel begins to day with an effect of love keeping Gods commandements which taken as here it lyes in this Gospel is rather an absolute assertion then a relative answer to a question and yet in truth it was the answer that Christ gave to the question of St. Jude as above in the immediate verse before whereunto Jesus answers saying If any love me he will keep my word as who should say as I loving my Father keep his command of coming into this world to manifest his glory to you that love him and by you to all the world though not immediately to them all as I mean to do to you So do not think that after my Resurrection when the Holy Ghost shall come down and inflame the hearts of many Infidels and Gentiles with the love of God that then I shall onely manifest my self to you alone that are my Apostles and now are onely those that love me no no then I shall be so manifested to others that they will love me as you do and this shall be the testimony that I give you thereof that their love shall be such as by vertue thereof they will keep my Commands my words will be to them dear as now they are to you and as you receiving the holy Ghost receive with him both my Self and my Father for we three are all one inseparable Substance or Essence however distinct and several Persons just so shall the whole Blessed and undivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost enter into the hearts of all that love me and keep my Commandments or my word and consequently to them as well as to you shall I be then manifested And in this sense you see this verse is an exact answer to the question of S. Jude which otherwise seems a meer disparate or an incongruous reply to that interrogatory And from hence we may perceive how hard it is to understand the true sense of almost any part of holy Writ unlesse we see clearly the connexion it hath to precedent or consequent parts thereof so what S. Jude meant of his personal or visible manifestation to these few onely that were eye-witnesses of his Actions he means of his spiritual or invisible beeing made known to all the world by his Faith and doctrine received and embraced amongst them through the preaching of the Apostles and their Successours But we must note that coming or going of God who is at all times in all places by reason of his immensity is not to be understood as if he did come or go from one place to another but he therefore is said to come or go because he operates or operates not at all times or in all places alike for his operation is his coming and so every new inspiration of grace we have is as if God made a new visite unto us within the temple of our soules where he delights to be and though he be never separated from us locally since he fills all place yet he is said to come a new into our hearts every time we produce or exercise a new act of love unto him and if we continue one Act all our lives then he doth all that time operate within us and so consequently is said not only to come unto us but even to live with us to
shield before her against all Adversity whatsoever to be firm in her belief of the most Blessed and undivided Trinity Say then the Prayer above and see how well it suits unto this doctrine thereupon The Gospel Matth. 28. v. 18. c. 18 And Jesus coming neer spake to them saying All power is given to me in heaven and earth 19 Going therefore teach ye all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and behold I am with you all dayes even to the consummation of the world The Explication 18. THe Evangelist in this Chapter recounts the apparition of Jesus in Galilee to a great number of Disciples and friends as well as unto the Apostles amongst them who were now so far fled from Jerusalem where formerly they had seen him after he arose from his grave and so confirmed them in the truth of this mystery that though in the precedent verse St. Matthew sayes some of them doubted of this truth that Christ was risen yet the meaning is not that any of the Apostles doubted thereof but some others to whom Christ had never appeared before as now he did to confirm the truth of his resurrection And Jesus coming neer not to those doubting persons but to his Apostles saying as this dayes Gospel begins All power c. But we are to observe though S. Matthew seems in this chapter to conjoyn the power of Mission given by Christ to his Apostles unto this story of his Apparition to them and above three thousand more in Galilee since he resolved to end his Gospel in this eight and twentieth chapter and write no more yet the very truth is those words were not spoken by Christ consequently to this apparition but afterwards upon the Mount Olivet when at his Ascension he gave the Apostles Mission over all the world for his valediction or last farewell unto them and in testimony that this was an Act of high Jurisdiction he tells them at the same time All power is given unto him both in heaven and earth so they need not doubt but he that gave them this Mission to all Nations this commission to preach unto them and to Baptize them had ample authority for his so doing and would by his grace from heaven second their labours over all the earth and make them fruitful to the final salvation of all Nations which was a convincing testimony of his being plenipotentiary between God and man or having plenitude of power both in heaven and earth But we are further here to note that this plenitude of power was not now so given to Christ as if he had not had it before for the Word was no sooner Incarnate then this power was begun in him though he was not pleased to mention the accomplishment or perfection thereof untill by his death and passion he had merited the same and therefore suiting to him not onely as he was God but as he was man the Messias or Saviour of the world and to him alone for to no man else was the amplitude of this power competent nay the very participation thereof is above all merit of any pure humane creature however to Christ the fulnesse of it was but due by reason of his being one person with God who as Creatour of heaven and earth had consequently full power over them both so as he could by the Ministery of his Apostles preaching subject unto himself all the Nations of the earth as stooping to the power of his Faith and Doctrine and afterwards in heaven reward this their Faith this their subjection to Christian discipline with crowns of eternal glory to shew he was chief commandant in heaven also having purchased the same by his bitter death and passion and so being able to make eternally happy in this his glorious Kingdom whosoever he pleased 19. We are here to observe when Christ bids go it is not nay it cannot be in the power of any mortal man to forbid the Ministers of Christ from going to convert nations So this Mission is Divine not humane and gives Commission to execute Gods Lawes maugre all mens prohibitions Go saith he to shew us labour pains travel diligence are the marks of those who preach the word of God nor is this labour limited to any one time or place but extends it self to all times to all nations Go sayes our Saviour teach all nations nay he adds therefore go that is to say Go because I send you that have all power both in heaven and earth go teach ye all nations as I have taught you Whence it followes the command of learning was imposed upon the people while the precept of teaching was laid upon the Apostles and their successours for in these latter it is indeed that Christ after said he would be with them unto the end of the world that is in assisting their Successours he would be with them And very great reason it is that an obligation of hearing should fall upon the people when a command of preaching was imposed on the Priest for a Schollar is acorrelative to a Master as a Son is to a Father since no man can be an actual master unless he have an actual Schollar nor can any man be a father that hath not a child And that it was a command given with an obligation to be put in present execution see how Christ tyes himself to an actual assistance thereof even to the worlds end And as he bids them go and teach all nations the principles of Christian doctrine namely those of the Catholick Church so he bids them Baptize all those whom they instruct and teach in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost to shew them the true mark of a Christian is his belief in the Blessed Trinity which is one onely God and three Divine Persons distinct each from other called Father Son and holy Ghost Nor can there be indeed a more succinct method of this deep mystery then is here expressed when the command of Baptizing in the name and not in the names shewes the unity of God and denyes the plurality of Divine nature or essence and yet the specifying of the Father Son and Holy Ghost shewes the Blessed Trinity which is in that sacred unity Whence we see the word Trinity doth import a Triunity or an Unity of nature in a Trinity of persons whence our Saviour saying by the mouth of his Apostle 1 Epist Joh. c. 5. There are three that bear testimony in heaven the Father the Son and Holy Ghost adds immediately and these Three are all one that is to say these distinct persons are one indistinct and undivided nature essence deity so as though there be three divine persons yet is there but one onely God And no marvel if upon Trinity Sunday both the Epistle and Gospel report unto this sacred mystery for it
imperfection which is another way of verifying what St. Paul saith 2 Cor. 12.9 of vertue being perfected in infirmity then was shewed when that text was expounded 1 Cor. 12.9 upon Sexagesima Sunday St. Austin upon this text tract 7. shewes a fine progresse of Charity in perfection The fire of our charity first seizeth upon our neighbour and afterward extends it self more abroad it first helps our Brother or our kindred or friends next some stranger but at last our enemy And tract 8. Love him who is now come to dwell within you that by his more perfect possessing you he may render you also perfect 13. And this next verse shewes us a sign how to know when he is within us namely when he gives us of his Spirit of loving one another even our enemies for by this it is evident he is in us who only taught us that which onely himself could do and it followes evidently that whensoever God is in us we are in him because wheresoever God is he unites the place so to himself by his immensity as the place or subject he is in rather is said to be in him then he in it And consequently if we feel his Spirit in us that is if we love each other especially our enemies we may boldly conclude that not onely God is in us but that we also are and remain in him so long as by such dilection his Divine Spirit aboades in us 1 Cor. 6.17 he that adheres to God is one Spirit with him 14. 15. Which doctrine the Evangelist finds both so solid and so sweet that in these two verses he proves it to be as really intended by him as it is pretended taught and professed by the Catholick Church for saith he we that have seen can and do testifie that God sent his Son to save the world and by confessing Jesus to be his Son we remain in God and he in us we in him by Faith and he in us by the gift of that Divine vertue which can slow from no other source but his infinite goodnesse and bounty as St. Paul sayes Phil. 3.17 Christ by Faith dwelleth in our hearts This S. John inculcates with special regard to Ebion Cerinthus and others who at that time denyed the Divinity of Christ so for proof hereof he exposeth himself and all the Colledge of Christ his Apostles and disciples who as ear and eye-witnesses were ready to testifie the same to all the world as they all did by their glorious Martyrdomes 16. In this verse the Evangelist gives the same testimony for the charity of God being in us as he did in the fourteenth verse for Christ the Son of God being in the world that so we may be fully possessed of that Truth and inamoured on that vertue which he himself is even transported with and cannot speak but in commendations of being as it were all on fire therewith For if we mark him his words fall from him all circular like balls of fire From God he comes to Christ from Christ to charity from charity to love of our neighbours thence back to Christ again now to his charity and all to shew he moves onely in the circle or orbe of Love and cannot wheel himself out of it but windes all his speech into pleasing Meanders of that subject wherein to be lost is to be sound because who is not found in the labyrinth of charity is a lost soul and therefore St. John having gone into this Maze by the clew that leads through all the Meanders of it God himself as this Epistle began God is charity must needs come out with the same clew again which is charity both to God and man wherewith he closeth this Epistle to shew us he hath been through all the turnings and windings of love or else he could never have come out the same way he went into this re-selfing circle of charity which this verse delightfully winds us into and brings us out again for if God be charity who remains in it remains in God and God in him as a circle remains in a ring and a ring in a circle but with this difference we in him as in our increated he in us as in his created Temple where he most delights to be we rings in him as in the circle of his Immensity he circled in us as his Immensity is capable of being in a ring of creatures 17. The amorous Evangelist having told us much before how even the increated charity is perfected in our esteems by juxtaposition to our imperfections now he tells us how our created charity is perfected in us by our trust and confidence in God even when creatures may pretend most to diffide in him at the day of Judgement and he gives a strange reason for this confidence because as he is meaning as God and Christ is we also are in the world So here In this c. imports either that to this end charity was given us not to fear him our Judge who had given us the grace to love him or that really this is the perfection of charity in us that as he loved us without fear to take upon him our infirmities or imperfections and gave himself wholly into our hands to be even his Judges so we must love him by assuming as many of his perfections as we can and by freely making him our Judge without fear of receiving any hard measure at his hands if we can truly say we love him with all our hearts as he loved us when he was adjudged to death by us Or as St. Augustine sayes In this signifies it is a true signe that our charity is perfect if as the Just and Saints in heaven covet the day of Judgment so we also do that God may thereby be glorified before all the world what ere become of us because we in that case are in the world as God as Christ was in it perfectly loving and so not fearing us though he see cause enough of fear amongst so many Traytours if he had been capable of harm so if we can arrive to love God thus perfectly we may truly say we are as he was in the world without fear even of Judgment because we have no cause to fear corruption in him as he mought have had in us and therefore may come with more confidence to his tribunal then he did to ours that is may be in this world as he was without fear because we are in love for the Evangelist here proves two effects of perfect love the first is confidence in God both living and dying the second is casting away all fear 18. As in termes this verse avoucheth the second having declared the first immediately before so that as charity produceth confidence in us this confidence expelleth fear out of us and thus becomes as Aristotle sayes cause of the effect in being cause of the cause thereof But we shall do well to examine what fear it is that charity expells least by not
he admires the art of Christs command to speak here under the precept of silence these are S. Augustines words lib. de consens Evang Our Lord by prohibiting would teach and inform us with how great fervour they upon whom he imposeth his commands ought to preach him when as those that were forbidden could not hold their peace No marvel then if the more they are thus forbid the more they preach his praises His commanding them to tell no body was rather for instruction then to have any reall force of a command upon the parties healed because the intent of this commanding silence was that when by Gods peculiar grace we are enabled to do any good or laudable action we should rather suppresse then spread it abroad lest thereby we be vaingloriously moved to arrogate unto our selves the praise of the action which is due to Almighty God as the principal agent while we are onely instrumental thereunto 37. They had indeed reason to wonder at his modesty who forbad it and at their gratitude who could not forbear to speak his praises that had done all things so well which he undertook as himself could not afterwards hinder them in a manner from well doing to publish his wondrous works It is a sign Christ did not effectively command them to silence since the more he bade them hold their peace the more they published his praises For indeed had it been his pleasure they should have been silent they would as little have spoken against his will even after the tongue was by him untyed as they could speak before he had untyed the same but to shew us even Gods temporal blessings have spiritual influences upon us therefore after their corporal cures these men became advanced in spirit in faith in hope in love of Almighty God as appeared by their frank uttering of his praises unto all the world and shewing in their doing well towards God that God had done all things well in them as this text expresseth when he had cured their infidelity of soules together with the diseases of their bodies The Application 1. SInce the Expositours upon this holy Text conclude the literal story of it mystically doth report to us and that the natural deafnesse in this man signifies the unnaturall deafnesse in us Christians to the Word of God to the whispers of the holy Ghost into our understandings to the knocks he gives of holy inspirations at our hearts whilest we deny to let him in we may very well fear it is worse with us Christians then it was with this deaf and dumb Infidel or Jew for he no sooner received his natural speech and hearing then he and all that did behold the miracle broke out into the praising God into the commending of our Saviour saying He hath done all things well he hath made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak 2. O beloved how often is it for want if not of Faith at least of active charity quite otherwise with too too many Christians who instead of praising and glorifying God become like stocks and stones of whom the Royal Prophet sayes They have mouthes and speak not they have cares and hear not Such indeed are those who in confession will pretend sincerity and commit a sacriledge by revealing many sins and yet concealing one or other which renders all the rest unpardoned as well as that concealed how ere they seem to go away with absolution Such again they are who hearing the Name of God revil'd by some blaspheming miscreant will either seem not to have heard the blasphemy or else not dare to reprehend it as they should for every Christian is a champion of our blessed Lord and ought to bid defiance unto all that dare abuse his holy name 3. Since therefore it is by the abundance of pity on us that God hath called us to be not onely Christians but Catholicks which was an act of highest Grace we have reason so long as we are in this his high esteem to beseech him to pour out his farther mercy on us and to forgive us this our wilfull deafnesse this our stubborn dumbnesse which our conscience hath cause indeed to be afraid of and that he will adde besides more favour to us then we dare presume to ask considering how often and how grievously we have offended his heavenly Majesty Yes beloved sure enough it was for some at least thus deaf thus dumb amongst us that holy Church to teach us the practise of charity makes all her children Pray to day as above in consequence to what the Preachers are to say upon this holy Text by way of application to us all On the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 10.30 A Certain man went down from Hierusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who also spoyled him and giving him wounds went away leaving him half dead Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer OMnipotent and most merciful God from whose bounty it proceedeth that of thy faithful people thou art worthily and laudably served grant unto us we beseech thee that we may run unto thy promises without offence The Illustration WHo doth not feel this Prayer to ravish with delight when we therein are minded that it is a far greater preferment to serve Almighty God then it can be to have the title of the best and greatest Masters in the world If for no other respect at least for this alone that whomsoever God doth entertain into his service himself indeed becomes a servant unto him and payes him so bountiful wages as if he were rather ambitious to purchase then to accept of his service and further seems even to contract with him to do the work himself in case the servant be not able to perform it although besides the bounty of this present stipend that he gives he also adds vast promises of further indeed of eternal and infinite reward Nor do I say this gratis here for every title of it is avouched in the prayer above when we acknowledge it proceedeth from the bounty of our most merciful God that he is worthily and laudably served of his faithful people and when in lieu thereof we beg that we may run unto his further promises besides his bounteous wages here without offence by so worthily so laudably serving of him in this world as not to loose the future promises of an infinite reward in heaven And what is that to be no more his servants but his heires O gallant servitude indeed O Princely Master Stay here a while beloved do not overslip this advantageous pause I shall beseech you make ere you go on Be it on this That it proceedeth from the bounty of our heavenly Master we earthly creatures do worthily and laudably serve him and are faithful to his service What bounty else is this but his abundant grace first to enable us to endeavour next if we fail of performance to make the service worthy though and
once would let us know the dead child being a Jew represents the expiration of the Jewish Synagogue by the plantation of the Church of Christ For as this diseased Gentile fell sick when Jairus his child was born so the Gentiles fell to their brutish Idolatry figured by the Bloudy Flux when the Jewes were born to right belief in Abraham and therefore as Christ went to raise this child from death to life and by the way first healed the diseased woman so he came first to the Jewes yet the Gentiles received and believed in him before the Jewes whose conversion or being raised from the death of infidelity to the life of Faith is not to be till after all Gentiles are first reduced and then at last even the Jewes shall generally be converted This is the mystical sense of the present story prosecuted in these three verses onely we are to observe by this womans Faith that the Gentiles are of much more easie and entire belief then the Jewes besides this place gives a great ground for the Catholick doctrine of revering reliques since here the woman was cured by the onely touch of our Saviours garments hemm and Eusebius writes that she in memory of this favour shewed unto her made a coat like that of our Saviours and kept it religiously in her house and that diverse who were diseased went away from her perfectly cured upon the sole touch of this garments hemm also 23. 24. The musick our Saviour found here was onely such as usually in those dayes did accompany all burials Our Saviours saying the child is not dead did not deny but she was so for all that onely his meaning was she should live again and therefore he accounted her death but a sleep in the sight of God because her soul was not summoned to the barre of Judgement being to return and lead a longer life in this world though this saying of Christ might also import his modesty in not making difficult his works to get thereby popular applause However they knew and so did Christ the child was really dead to all humane power of recovery but that they might see death to God was but as sleep to nature since he that could out of nothing make all things could much more easily out of a dead body make a living creature and so as to God death and sleep are much alike in respect of privation of life whence it is frequent for Christ to call death obdormition or sleeping onely thus he did in Lazarus his case after he was four dayes buried Joh. 11.44 and thus you see here he doth in this present case of the dead child But as commonly men judge of all things by outward appearances and of other mens powers by comparing them to their own so here these mourners laugh at Christ for saying the dead child was onely asleep as who should say they held it impossible for him to revive her which argues they were sufficiently satisfied she was truly dead to all this world 25. 26. Note his bidding them depart when he sayes she is not dead argues that their diffidence in his power did not deserve the honour to be eye-witnesses of the miracle how it was done though afterwards they had proof enough it was most true and again it argues he was not seeking popular applause when he went in alone leaving the company without taking onely the child's parents and his disciples with him S. Mark sayes Peter James and John to shew it was not ultroneous fasting that conferred sanctity of which you heard before but a lively Faith and an ardent love to God wherewith his Apostles were endowed and so fit to be now witnesses of his and after workers of as great miracles themselves though they did not run the vain-glorious wayes of Pharisaical fasting or the like Note the Scripture phrase is here pathetical saying Christ held the childs hand in such sort probably as officers take hold of such as they arrest to carry away with them and so shew their power over them for thus our Saviour seemed to snatch the body of this child from death and to command her soul from entring into hell but to animate again the body thereby to shew he had perfect dominion over life and death And it seems the manner of this was extraordinary when the story of it ends by saying it was divulged all the countrey over for a famous miracle though St. Mark sayes Christ gave the girle to her parents bidding them say nothing Mar. 5.43 to shew his modesty and that he sought not the worlds applause but onely Gods honour and glory Yet their disobedience in this was not unseemly The Application 1. THis Gospel of the Jewes and Gentiles Infidelity is as we heard in the Explication made a whole Type of all Iniquity whatsoever and yet is most peculiarly proper to the Epistle inculcating so sincere a sayntity as above because as to that sayntity pardon of iniquity is necessary and this pardon is mystically represented in the raising Jairus his daughter from the brink of death which is the natural punishment of sinne so to the said sayntity there is also necessary a detestation of all affection to sin which detestation is also represented by the cure upon the woman sick of the Issue of bloud not unfitly likened to reiterated or accustomary sinne which argues a huge affection thereunto 2. What then more proper for Christians at the reading of this holy Text then first to procure an act of contrition for all guilt of sinne upon their soules and next to detest all affection to any sinne whatsoever especially to those which have been formerly to them accustomary for those are properly bonds which we have sealed to the devil while we hamper our selves with giving them up as our well advised acts of our yet most abominable wicked deeds 3. Say now beloved if our holy Mother have not fram'd a fitting Prayer when to this purpose she brings charity to day upon her knees preparing her self for the grand account she is next Sunday put in mind to make By petitioning as above an acquittance of her sinful debts by absolution from the guilt thereof and a cancelling of all her bonds to the devil by teating her affections to sin in pieces and planting her love from hence upon Almighty God above On the four and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 24.34 AMen I say to you this Generation shall not passe untill all be done Heaven and Earth shall passe but my word shall not passe saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer STirre up we beseech thee O Lord the wills of thy Faithful that they more diligently preparing the fruit of thy divine work may receive the greater remedies of thy mercy The Illustration WE are this day closing up the Ring of our devotion which we desire all the devotes of our sodality to wear in testimony they are of