worldy men playes the Tyrant in the world snatching turning all things from the true scope and intention for which they were made by God diverting them to prophane uses by turbulent and forcible wayes The world pleaseth it self to set up Idols every where to make it self adored in them as cheif Soveraign It makes use of the Sun to light his crimes of the fatnesse of the earth to fatten his pleasure of apparrell for his luxury of all metals to kindle Avarice and of the purest beauties to serve sensuality And if by chance it love any creature with a well-wishing love and as it ought to be loved that is not permanent The wind is not more inconstant nor a calm at Sea more unfaithfull then worldly friendship For sometimes it begins with Fire and ends in Ice It is made as between a pot and a glasse and is broken sooner then a glasse The ancient Almans tried their children in the Rhine but true friendship is tried in a sea of Tribulation It is only Jesus the preserver and restorer of all things who loves us from Eternity to Eternity We must follow the sacred steps of his examples to reduce our selves to the finall point of our happinesse 2. The water a first was a mild element which served the Majesty of God as a floting Charior since as the Scripture saith his Spirit was carried upon the waters from whence he drew the seeds which produced all the world But after man had sinned like a suprâ—me Judge he made use of the gentlest things to be the Instruments of our punishments The water which carried the divine mercies was chosen at the deluge to drown all â—ankind Now at this time Iesus sanctified it by his sacred touch He took the Bason which being in his hands became greater and more full of Majesty then all the Ocean Our spots which eternity could not wash clean are taken away at Baptisme by one onely drop of water sanct fied by his blessing He prevents the bath of his bloud by the bath of an element which he doth expresly before his institution of the blessed Sacrament to teach us what purity of life of heart of faith of in ention and affections we must bring to the holy Eucharist It is necessary to chase away all strange gods which are sins and passions before we receive the God of Israel we must wash our selves in the waters of repentance change our attire by a new conversation It is too much for us to give flesh for flesh the body of a miserable man for that of Iesus Christ The consideration of our sins should bring up the bloud of blushing in our cheeks since they vvere the onely cause vvhy he shed his most precious bloud upon the Crosse for us Alas the heavens are not pure before his most pure spirit vvhich purifies all nature Then hovv can we go to him vvith so many voluntary stains and deformities Is it not to cast flowers upon a dunghill and to drive Swine to a clear fountain when we will go to Jesus the Authour of innocency carrying with us the steps and spots of our hainous sins 3. Iesus would not onely take upon himself the form of man but that also of a base servant as saint paul saith It vvas the office of slaves to carry water to wash bodies which made David say that Moab should be the Bason of his hope expressing thereby that he would humble the Moabites so low that they should serve onely to bring water to wash unclean houses Alas vvho vvould have said that the Messias was come amongst us to execute the office of a Moabite What force hath conquered him vvhat arms have brought him under but onely love Hovv can vve then become proud and burn incense to that Idoll called point of honour when we see hovv our God humbled himself in this action Observe with vvhat preparation the Evangelist said that his heavenly Father had put all into his hands that he came from God and went to God and yet instead of taking the worlds Scepter he takes a Bason and humbles himself to the most servile offices And if the waters of this Bason cannot burst in us the foul imposthume of vanity we must expect no other remedy but the eternal flames of hell fire Aspirations O King of Lovers and Master of all holy Loves Thou lovest for an end and till the accomplishment of that end It appertains only to thee to teach the Art of loving well since thou hast practised it so admirably Thou art none of those delicate friends who only make love to beauties to gold and silk thou lovest our very poverty and our miseries because they serve for objects of thy charity Let proud Michol laugh while she list to see my dear David made as a water bearer I honour him as much in that posture as I would sitting upon the throne of all the world I look upon him holding this Bason as upon him that holds the vast Seas in his hands O my mercifull Jesus I beseech thee wash wash again and make clean my most sinfull soul Be it as black as hell being in thy hands it may become more white then that Dove with silver wings of which the Prophet speaks I go I run to the fountains I burn with love amongst thy purifying waters I desire affectionately to humble my self but I know not where to find so low a place as thine when thou wast humbled before Iudas to wash his traitours feet Vpon the Garden of Mount Olivet Moralities 1. JEsus enters into a Garden to expiate the sin committed in a Garden by the first man The first Adam stole the fruit and the second is ordained to make satisfaction It is a strange thing that he chose the places of our delights for suffering his pains and never lookt upon our most dainty sweets but to draw out of them most bitter sorrows Gardens are made for recreations but our Saviour finds there onely desolation The Olives which are tokens of Peace denounce War unto him The plants there do groan the flowers are but flowers of death and those fountains are but fountains of sweat and bloud He that shall study well this Garden must needs be ashamed of all his pleasant Gardens and will forsake those refined curiosities of Tulips to make his heart become another manner of Garden where Jesus should be planted as the onely tree of life which brings forth the most perfect fruits of justice 2. It was there that the greatest Champion of the world undertook so great combats which began with sweat and bloud but ended with the losse of his life There were three marvelous agonies of God Death of Ioy and Sorrow of the Soul and Flesh of Iesus God and Death were two incompatible things since God is the first and the most universal of all lives who banisheth from him all the operations of death and yet his love finds means to unite them together for our
redemption The joy of beatitude was a fruition of all celestial delights whereunto nothing which displeased could have accesse and yet Iesus suffered sorrow to give him a mortal blow even in the Sanctuary of his Divinity He afflicted himself for us because we knew not what it was to afflict our selves for him and he descended by our stâ—ps to the very anguishes of death to make us rise by his death to the greatest joyes of life To be short there was a great duel between the affectionate love and the virginal flesh of Iesus His soul did naturally love a body which was so obedient and his bodie followed wholly the inclinations of his soul There was so perfect an agreement between these two parties that their separation must needs be most dolorous Yet Iesus would have it so signe the decree by sweating bloud And as if it had been too little to weep for our sinnes with two eyes he suffered as many eyes as he had veins to be made in his body to shed for us tears of his own bloud 3. Observe here how this soul of Iesus amongst those great anguishes continued alwayes constant like the needle of a Sea-compass in a storm He prayes he exhorts be orders he reproves and he encourages he is like the heavens which amongst so many motions and agitations lose no part of their measure or proportion Nature and obedience make great convulsions in his heart but he remains constantly obedient to the will of his heavenly Father he tears himself from himself to make himself a voluntary sacrifice for death amongst all his inclinations to life to teach us that principal lesson of Christianitie which is to desire onely what God will and to execute all the decrees of his divine providence as our chiefest helps to obtain perfection Aspirations O Beauteous garden of Olives which from henceforth shalt be the most delicious objects of my heart I will lose my self in thy walks I will be lost with God that I may never be lost I will breath only thy air since it is made noble by the sighs of my dear Master I will gather thy flowers since Iesus hath marked them with his bloud I will wash my self in those fountains since they are sanctified by the sweat of my Iesus I will have no other joy but the sorrow of the Son of God nor any other will but his O my sweet Saviour Master and teacher of all humane kind wilt thou be abridged of thine own will which was so reasonable pure to give me an example of mortifying my passions and shall I before thy face retain any wicked or disordinate appetites Is it possible I should desire to be Lord of my self who am so bad a Master when I see the Author of all goodnesse separate himself from himself onely to make me and all mankind partakers of his merits Of the apprehension of Iesus IN that obscure dolorous night wherein our Saviour was apprehended three sorts of darknesses were cast upon the Iews upon Iudas upon S. Peter A darkness of obduration upon the hearts of the Iews a darknesse of ingratefull malignity upon Iudas and a darknesse of infirmity upon Saint Peter Was there ever any blindness like that of the Iews who sought for the shining sun with lighted torches without knowing him by so many beams of power which shined from him They are strucken down with the voice of the Son of God as with lightning and they rise again upon the earth to arme themselves against heaven They bind his hands to take away the use of his forces but they could not stop the course of his bounties To shew that he is totally good he is good and charitable even amongst his merciless executioners and he lost all he had savng his Godhead only to gain patience When Saint Peter stroke the high Priests servant the patience of our Lord Iesus received the blow and had no patience till he was healed If goodness did shew forth any one beam in the Garden modesty sent forth another in the house of Annas when his face was strucken by a servile hand his mouth opened it self as a Temple from whence nothing came but sweetnesse and light The God of Truth speaketh to Caiphas and they spit upon his brightnesse and cover that face which must discover heaven for us The mirrour of Angels is tarnisht with the spittle of infernal mouths wounded by most sacrilegious hands without any disturbance of his constancie That was invincible by his virtue as the wilfulness of the Iews stood unmoveable by their obduration There are souls which after they have filled the earth with crimes expect no cure of their discases but by the hell of the reprobate 2. The second darkness appeareth by the black passion of Iudas who falls down into hell with his eys open and after he had fold his soul sold Jesus and both all he had and all he was to buy an infamous halter to hang himself A soul become passionate with wanton love with ambition or avarice is banished into it self as into a direct hell and delivered to her own passion as to the Furies The Poets Hydra had but seven heads but the spirit of Avarice S. Iohn Climacus saith hath ten thousand The conversation of Iesus which was so full of infinite attractions could never win the spirit of Judas when it was once bewitched with covetousnesse The tinkling of silver kept him from rightly understanding Jesus He makes use of the most holy things to betray Holiness it self He employes the kisse of peace to begin war He carries poyson in his heart and hony in his mouth he puts on the spirit of Iesus to betray him This shews us plainly that covetous and traiterous persons are farthest from God and nearest to the Devils The third power of darknesse appeared in the infirmitie of Saint Peter who after so many protestations of fidelity for fear of death renounced the Authour of life One of the Ancients said the greatest frailty of Humanity was that the wisest men were not infallibly wise at all times And all men are astonished to see that the greatest spirits being left to themselves become barren and suffer eclipses which give example to the wisest and terrour to all the world God hath suffered the fall of St. Peter to make us have in â—orrour all presumption of our own forces to teach us that over great assurance is oft times mother of an approaching danger Besides it seemeth he would by this example consecrate the virtue of repentance in this fault of him whom he chose to be head of his Church to make us see that there is no dignitie so high nor holinesse so eminent which doth not ow Tribute to the mercie of God Aspirations Vpon Saint Peters tears IT is most true saith Saint Peter that a proud felicity hath alwaies reeling feet Thou which didst defie the gates of hell hast yielded thy self to the voice of a simple woman
that such proceedings are abominable before God there can be no better devotion in the world then to have a true and right seeling of God to live in honesty not sophisticated but such as is produced out of the pure lights of nature The conscience of hypocrites is a spiders web whereof no garment can ever be made Hypocrisie is a very subtil fault and a secret poison which kills other virtues with their own swords 2. Iesus is our great Master who hath abridged six hundred and thirteen Precepts of the old Testament within the law of love Do but love saith Saint Augustine and do what you vvill but then your love must go to the right fountain which is the heart of God It is in him you must cherish and honour your nearest friends and for him also you are bound to love even your greatest enemies Be not afraid to shew him your heart stark naked that he may pierce it vvith his arrows for the wounds of such an archer are much more precious then rubies You shall gain all by loving him and death it self vvhich comes from this love is the gate of life If you love him truly you vvilll have the three conditions of love which are to serve him to imitate him and to suffer for him You must serve him vvith all fidelitie in your prayers and all your actions you must imitate him vvhat possibly you can in all the passages of his life And you must hold it for a glory to participate vvith a valiant patience all the fruits of his Cross Aspirations O Great God vvho judgest all hearts and doest penetrate the most secret retiremēts of our consciences drive away from me all counterfeit Pharisaical devotions which are nothing but shews cannot subsist but by false apparencies O my God my Iesus make me keep the Law of thy love and nothing else It is a yoke vvhich brings vvith it more honor then burden It is a yoke which hath wings but no heavinesse Make me serve thee O my Master since thou beholdest the services of all the Angels under thy feet Make me imitate thee O my Redeemer since thou art the originall of all perfections make me suffer for thee O King of the afflicted and that I may not know what it is to suffer by knowing what it is to love The Gospel on Thursday the third week in Lent S. Luke 4. Jesus cured the Fever of Simons Mother in Lavv. ANd Iesus rising up out of the Synagogue entred into Simons house and Simons wives mother was holden with a great Fever and they besought him for her And standing over her he commanded the Fever and it lest her And incontinent rising she ministred to them And when the Sun was down all that had diseased of sundrie maladies brought them to him But he imposing hands upon every one cured them And Devils went out from many crying and saying that thou art the Son of God And rebuking them he suffered them not to speak that they knew he was Christ And when it was day going forth he went into a Desart place and the multitudes sought him and came even unto him and they held him that he should not depart from them To whom he said That to other Cities also must I Evangelize the Kingdome of God because therefore I was sent And he was preaching in the Synagogues of Galilee Moralities 1. A Soul within a sick body is a Princesse that dwels in a ruinous house Health is the best of all temporall goods without which all honors are as the beams of an eclipsed Sun Riches are unpleasing and all pleasures are languishing All joy of the heart subsists naturally in the health of the body But yet it is true that the most healthfull persons are not alwaies the most holy What profit is there in that health which serves for a provocation to sinne for an inticement to worldly pleasure and a gate to death The best souls are never better nor stronger then when their bodies are sick their diseases are too hard for their mortall bodies but their courage is invincible It is a great knovvledge to understand our own infirmities Prosperity keeps us from the view of them but adversity shews them to us We should hardly know what death is if so many diseases did not teach us every day that we are mortall Semiramis the proudest of all Queens had made a law whereby she was to be adored in stead of all the gods but being humbled by a great sicknesse she acknowledged her self to be but a woman 2. All the Apostles pray for this holy woman which was sick but she herself asked nothing nor did complain of any thing She leaves all to God who is only Master of life and death She knew that he which gives his benefits with such bounty hath the wisdome to chuse those which are most fit for us How do we know whether we desiring to be delivered from a sicknesse do not aske of God to take away a gift which is very necessary to our salvation That malady or affliction which makes us distaste worldly pleasures gives us a disposition to taste the joyes of heaven 3. How many sicke persons in the heate of a Feaver promise much and when they are well again perform nothing That body which carried all the marks of death in the face is no sooner grown strong by health which rejoyceth the heart fils the vains with bloud but it becomes a slave to sin The gifts of God being abused serve for nothing but to make it wicked and so the soul is killed by recovery of the flesh But this pious woman is no sooner on foot but she serves the Author of life and employes all those limbs which Jesus cured of the Feaver to prepare some provisions to refresh him He that will not use the treasures of heaven with acknowledge ment deserves never to keep them When a man is recovered from a great sicknesse as his body is renewed by health so on the other side he should renew his spirit by virtue The body saith Saint Maximus is the bed of the soul where it sleeps too easily in continuall health and forgets it self in many things But a good round sicknesse doth not onely move but turn over this bed which maketh the soul awake to think on her salvation and make a total conversion Aspirations O Word Incarnate all Feavers and Devils flie before the beams of thy redoubted face Must nothing but the hea◠of my passions alwayes resist thy powers and bounties To what maladies and indispositions am I subject I have more diseases in my soul then limbs in my body My weaknesse bends under thy scourges and yet my sinnes continue still unmoveable Stay O benigne Lord stay thy-self near me Cast upon my dull and heavy eyes one beam from those thine eyes which make all storms clear and all disasters happy Command that my weaknesse leave me and that I may arise to perform my
object of my present dolours that thou maist after be the fountain of my everlasting joyes Moralities for Good Friday upon the death of Iesus Christ MOunt Calvary is a marvellous Scaffold where the chiefest Monarch of all the world loseth his life to restore our salvation which was lost and where he makes the Sun to be eclipsed over his head and stones to be cloven under his feet to teach us by insensible creatures the feeling which we should have of his sufferings This is the school where Iesus teacheth that great Lesson which is the way to do well we cannot better learn it then by his examples since he was pleased to make himself passible motal to overcome our passions and to be the Author of our immortality The qualities of a good death may be reduced to three points of which the first is to have a right conformity to the will of God for the manner the hour and circumstances of our death The second is to forsake as well the affections as the presence of all creatures of this base world The third is to unite our selves to God by the practise of great virtues which will serve as steps to glory Now these three conditions are to be seen in the death of the Prince of Glory upon mount Calvry which we will take as the purest Idea's whereby to regulate our passage out of this world 1. COnsider in the first place that every man living hath a naturall inclination to life because it hath some kind of divinity in it We love it when it smileth upon us as if it were our Paradise and if it be troublesom yet we strive to retain it though it be accompanied with very great miseries And if we must needs forsake this miserable body we then desire to leave it by some gentle and easie death This make thus plainly see the generosity of our Saviour who being Master of life and death and having it in his power to chuse that manner of death which would be least hideous being of it self full enough of horrour yet neverthelesse to conform himself to the will of his heavenly Father to confound our delicacies he would needs leave his life by the most dolorous and ignominious which was to be found amongst all the deaths of the whole world The Crosse amongst the Gentiles was a punishment for slaves and the most desperate persons of the whole world The Crosse amongst the Hebrews was accursed It was the ordinary curse which the most uncapable and most malicious mouths did pronounce against their greatest enemies The death of a crucified man was the most continuall languishings and tearing of a soul from the body with most excessive violence and agony And yet the eternall wisdome chose this kind of punishment and drank all the sorrows of a cup so bitter He should have died upon some Trophee and breathed out his last amongst flowers left his soul in a moment and if he must needs have felt death to have had the least sense of it that might be But he would try the rigour of all greatest sufferings he would fall to the very bottom of dishonour and having ever spared from himself all the pleasures of this life to make his death compleat he would spare none of those infinite dolours The devout Simon of Cassia asketh oâ—r Saviour going toward mount Calvary saying O Lord whether go you with the extream weight of this dry and barten piece of wood Whether do you carry it and why Where do you mean to set it Upon mount Cavalry That place is most wild and stony Hovv vvill you plant it Who shall water it Iesus answers I bear upon my shoulders a piece of wood which must conquer him who must make a far greater conquest by the same piece of wood I carry it to mount Calvary to plant it by my death and vvater it with my bloud This wood which I bear must bear me to bear the salvation of all the world and to draw all after me And then O faithfull soul wilt not thou suffer some confusion at thine own delicaâ—ies to be so fearfull of death by an ordinary disease in a Down bed amongst such necessary services such favourable helps coÌ„solations kindnesses of friends so sensible of thy condition We bemoan and complain our selves of heat cold distaste of disquiet of grief Let us allow some of this to Nature yet must it be confest that we lament out selves very much because we have never known how we should lament a Jesus Christ crucified Let us die as it shall please the divine providence If death come when we are old it it a haven If in youth it is a direct benefit antedated If by sicknesse it is the nature of our bodies If by external violence it is yet alwaies the decree of Heaven It is no matter how many deaths there are we are sure there can be but one for us 2. Consider farther the second condition of a good death which consists in the forsaking of all creatures and you shall find it most punctually observed by our Saviour at the time of his death Ferrara a great Diâ—vine who hath written a book of the hidden Word toucheth twelve things abandoned by our Saviour 1. His apparell leaving himself naked 2. The marks of his dignity 3. The Colledge of his Apostles 4. The sweetnesse of all comfort 5. His own proper will 6. The authority of virtuos 7. The power of An Angells 8. The perfect joyes of his soul 9. The proper charity of his body 10. The honours due to him 11. His own skin 12. All his bloud Now do but consider his abandoning the principal of those things how bitter it was First the abandoning of nearest and most faithfull friends is able to afflict any heart Behold him forsaken by all his so well beloved disciples of whom he had made choice amongst all mortal men to be the depositaries of his doctrine of his life of his bloud If Iudas be at the mysterie of his passion it is to betray him If Saint Peter be there assisting it is to deny him If his sorrowfull mother stand at the foot of the cross it is to encrease the grief of her Son and after he had been so ill handled by his cruel executioners to crucifie him again by the hands of Love The couragious Mother to triumph over her self by a magnanimous constancie was present at the execution of her dear Son She fixed her eyes upon all his wounds to engrave them deep in her heart She opened her soul wide to receive that sharp piercing sword with which she was threatned by that venerable old Simeon at her purification And Iesus who saw her so afflicted for his sake felt himself doubly crucified upon the wood of the Cross and the heart of his deat Mother We know it by experience that when we love one tenderly his afflictions disgraces will trouble us more then our own because he living in
us by an affectionate life we live in him by a life of reason and election Iesus lived and reposed in the heart of his blessed Mother as upon a throne of love and as within a Paradise of his most holy delights This heart was before as a bed covered with flowers But this same heart on the day of his passion became like a scastold hanged with mourning whereupon our Saviour entred to be tormented and crucified upon the Crosse of love which was the Crosse of his Mother This admirable Merchant who descended from heaveÌ„ to acomplish the businesse of all ages who took upon him our miseries to give us felicities was plunged within a sea of bloud and this so precious shipwrak there remained one oâ—ely inestimable pearl which was his divine mother and yet he abandons her and gives her into the hands of his Disciple After he had forsaken those nearest to him see what he does with his body Iesus did so abandon it a little before his death that not being content onely to deliver it as a prey to sorrow but he suffered to be exposed naked to the view of the world And amongst his sharpest dolours after he had been refused the drink which they gave to malefactours to strengthen them in their torments he took for himself vinegar and gall O what a spectacle was it to see a body torn in pieces which rested it self upon its own wounds which was dying every moment but could not die because that life distilled by drops What Martyr did ever endure in a body so sensible and delicate having an imagination so lively in such piercing dolours mixt with so few comforts And what Martyr did suffer for all the sins of the vvhole vvorld as he did proportioning his torments according to the fruits which vvere to proceed from his cross Perhaps O faithfull soul thou lookest for a mans body in thy Iesus but thou findest nothing but the appearance of one crusted over with gore bloud Thou seekest for limbs findest nothing but vvounds Thou lookest for a Iesus which appeared glorious upon mount Thabor as upon a Throne of Majesty with all the ensigns of his glory and thou findest only a skin all bloudy fastned to a crosse betvven tvvo thieves And if the consideration of this cannot bring drops of bloud from thy heart it must be more insensible then a diâ—mond 3. To conclude observe the third quality of a good death which will declare it self by the exercise of great and heroick virtues Consider that incomparable mildnesse which hath astonished all ages hath encouraged all virtues hath condemned all revenges hath instructed all Schools and crowned all good actions He was raised upon the crosse vvhen his dolours were most sharp and piercing when his wounds did open on all sides when his precious bloud shed upon the earth and moistened it in great abundance when he saw his poor clothes torn in peices and yet bloudy in the hands of those who crucified him He considered the extreme malice of that cruell people how those which could not wound him with iron pierced him with the points of their accursed tongues He could quickly have made sire com down from heaven upon those rebellious heads And yet forgetting all his pains to remember his mercies he opened his mouth and the first worde he spake was in the favour of his enemies to negotiate their reconciliation before his soul departed The learned Cardinall Hugues admiring the excessive charity of our Saviour toward his enemies applies excellent well that which is spoken of the Sunne in Ecclesiasticus He brings news to all the world at his rising and at noon-day he burns the earth and heats those furnaces of Nature which make it produce all her fruits So Jesus the Sun of the intelligible world did manifest himself at his Nativity as in the morning But the Crosse was his bed at noon from whence came those burning streames of Love which inflames the hearts of all blessed persons who are like furnaces of that eternall fire which burns in holy Sion On the other part admire that great magnanimity which held him so long upon the Crosse as upon a Throne of honour and power when he bestowed Paradise upon a man that was his companion in suffering I cannot tell whether in this action we should more admire the good fortune of the good theif or the greatnesse of Jesus The happinesse of the good theif who is drawn for a cut throat to prison from prison to the judgement hall from thence to the Crosse and thence goes to Paradise without needing any other gate but the heart of Jesus On the other side what can be more admirable then to see a man crucified to do that act which must be performed by the living God when the world shall end To save some to make others reprobate and to judge from the height of his Crosse as if he sate upon the cheifest throne of all Monarchs But we must needs affirm that the virtue of patience in this holds a chief place and teaches very admirable lessons He endures the torments of the body and the pains of the spirit in all the faculties of his soul in all the parts of his virgin flesh and by the cruelty and multiplicity of his wounds they all become one onely wound from the sole of his foot to the top of his head His delicate body suffers most innocently and all by most ingrate and hypocriticall persons who would colour their vengeance with an apparence of holinesse He suffers without any comfort at all and which is more without bemoaning himself he suffers whatsoever they would or could lay upon him to the very last gasp of his life Heaven weares mourning upon the Cross all the Citizens of heaven weep over his torments the earth quakes the stones rend themselves sepulchres open the dead arise Onely Jesus dies unmoveable upon this throne of patience To conclude who would not be astonished at the tranquillity of his spirit amongst those great convulsions of the world which moved round about the Cross amongst such bloudy dolours insolent cries insupportable blasphemies how he remained upon the Crosse as in a Sanctuary at the foot of an Altar bleeding weeping praying to mingle his prayers with his bloud and tears I do now understand why the Wise man said He planted Isles within the Abysse since that in so great a gulph of afflictions he shewed such a serenity of spirit thereby making a Paradise for his Father amongst so great pains by the sweet perfume of his virtues After he had prayed for his enemies given a promise of Paradise to the good thief and recommended his mother to his Disciple he shut up his eyes from all humane things entertaining himself onely with prayers and sighs to his heavenly Father O that at the time of our deaths we could imitate the death of Iesus and then we should be sure to find the streams of life Aspirations
be to you And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and side The Disciples therefore were glad when they saw our Lord He said therefore to them again Peace be to you As my Father hath sent me I also do send you When he had said this he breathed upon them and he said to them Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose you shall retain they are retained But Thomas one of the twelve who is called Didymus was not with them when Iesus came the other Disciples therefore said to him We have seen our Lord. But he said to them Vnlesse I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side I will not believe And after eight dayes again his Disciples were within and Thomas with them Iesus cometh the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said Peace be to you Then he saith to Thomas Put in thy finger hither and see my hands and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side and be not incredulous but faithfull Thomas answered and said to him My Lord and my God Iesus saith to him Because thou hast seen me Thomas thou hast believed Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all blessed harmonies after so many combats makes a generall peace in all nature He pacifieth Limbo taking the holy Fathers out of darknesse to enjoy an eternall light and sending the damned to the bottom of hell He pacifies the earth making it from thenceforth to breathe the aire of his mercies He pacifieth his Apostles by delivering them from that profound sadness which they conceived by the imaginary losse of their dear Master He pacifieth Heaven by sweetning the sharpnesse of his heavenly Father quenching by his wounds the fire which was kindled of his just anger Every thing smileth upon this grear Peace-maker Nature leaveth her mourning and putteth on her robes of chearfulness to congratulate with him his great and admirable conquests It is in him that the heavenly Father by a singular delight hath poured out the fulnesse of all Graces to make us an eternal dwelling and to reconcile all in him and by him pacifying by his bloud froÌ„ the Cross all that is upon earth and in heaven This is our Iosuah of whom the Scripture speaketh that he clears all difference and appeaseth all battels No stroke of any hammer or other iron was heard at the building of Solomons Temple and behold the Church which is the Temple of the living God doth edifie souls with a marvellous tranquillity 2. The Sun is not so well set forth by his beames as our Saviour is magnificently adorned with his wounds Those are the Characters which he hath engraved upon his flesh after a hundred ingenious fashions The Ladies count their pearls and diamonds but our Saviour counts his wounds in the highest attire of his Magnificences It is from thence that the beauty of his body taketh a new state of glory and our faith in the resurrection is confirmed that the good fill themselves with hope Miscreants with terrour and Martyrs finde wherewith to enflame their courage These divine wounds open themselves as so many mouths to plead our cause before the Celestiall Father Our Saviour Jesus never spake better for us then by the voice of his precious Bloud Great enquity hath been made for those mountains of mirth franking cence which Solomon promiseth in the Canticles but now we have found them in the wounds of Jesus It is from thence that there cometh forth a million of sanctified exhalations of sweetnesse of peace and propitiation as from an eternall sanctuary A man may say they are like the Carbuncle which melteth the wax upon which it is imprinted for they melt our hears by a most profitable impression At this sight the eternall Father calmes his countenance and the sword of his justice returneth into the sheath Shall not we be worthy of all miserie if we do arme these wounds against us which are so effectuall in our behalf And if this bloud of our Abel after it hath reconciled his cruell executioners should finde just matter to condemn us for our ingratitudes Iohn the second King of Portugall had made a secret vow never to refuse any thing which should be asked of him in the virtue of our Saviours wounds which made him give all his silver vessels to a poor gentleman that had found out the word And why should not wee give our selves to God who both buyeth and requireth us by the wounds of Jesus 3. Jesus inspireth the sacred breath of his mouth upon his Apostles as upon the first fruits of Christianity to repair the first breath and respiration of lives which the Author of our â—ace did so miserably lose If we can obtain a part of this we shall be like the wheels of Ezekiels mysterious chariot which are filled with the spirit of life That great Divine called Mathias Vieâ—na said that light was the substance of colours and the Spirit of Iesus is the same of all our virtues If we live of his flesh there is great reason we should be animated by his Spirit Happy a 1000. times are they who are possessed with the Spirit of Jesus which is to their spirit as the apple of the eye Saint Thomas was deprived of this amorous communication by reason of his incredulity He would see with his eyes and feel with his hands that which should rather be coÌ„prehended by faith which is an eye blessedly blind which knoweth all within its own blindnesse is also at hand which remaining on earth goeth to find God in Heaven Aspirations GReat Peace-maker of the world who by the effusion of thy precious bloud hast pacified the wars of fourty ages which went before thy death This word of peace hath cost thee many battails many sweats and labours to ciment this agreement of Heaven and earth of sence and reason of God and man Behold thou art at this present like the Dove of Noahs Ark thou hast escaped a great deluge of passions and many torrents of dolours thrown headlong upon one another Thou bringest us the green Olive branch to be the marke of thy eternall aliances What Shall my soul be so audacious and disordered as to talk to thee of war when thou speakest to her of peace To offer thee a weapon when thou offerest her the Articles of her reconciliation signed with thy precious bloud Oh what earth could open wide enough her bosome to swallow me if I should live like a little Abiron with a hand armed against Heaven which pours out for me nothing but flowers and roses Raign O my sweet Saviour within all the conquered powers of my soul and within my heart as a conquest which thou hast gotten by so many titles I will swear upon thy wounds which after they have been the monuments of thy fidelity shall be the adored Altars of my vows sacrifices I will promise thereupon inviolable fidelity to thy service I will live no more but for thee since thou hast kild my death in thy life and makest my life flourish within thy triumphant Resurrection FINIS
of their own ruines and fear nothing so they may tumble into precipices of gold and silver 2. What great paines you take for these children as if they did not more belong to God then you you cast day and night where to place them when the providence of God which is the great Harbinger of the world hath already markt their lodgings One is settled in a good Religious course another in the grave another perhaps shall have more then is necessary to make him a good man Eve imagined that her sonne Cain having all the world would have become some great God when ambition made him a devil incarnate You shall rarely make your children great Saints by getting them great honours You desire they should possesse all that which overthrows them and pretending to make a building with one hand you destroy it with the other By all your earnest wishes and all your laborious endeavours for advancement of your children you effect nothing but thereby give them inticements to pleasure and weapons for iniquity 3. Whereupon should we build our ambitions if not upon the bloud of the holy Lamb At the foot of the Cross we behold a God covered with bloud crowned with thorns and reproaches who warns us to be humble and at the same time we egarly pursue worldly glory ambition We resemble that unhappy daughter of Miltiades who did prostitute her self under her fathers Trophees By our unmeasurable hunting after honours amongst the ignominies of Iesus Christ we abandon our selves to dishonour and make no other use of the Cross but only to be a witnesse of our infidelity Aspirations AVoid be gone you importunate cares of worldly goods and honours you little tyrants which burn the bloud within our veins and fill the most innocent pleasures of our life with bitter sorows what have I more to do with you My children shall be what God will They shall be but too rich when they have virtue for their portion and but too high when they shall see a true contempt of the world under their feet God forbid that I should go about any worldly throne upon the holy Lambs bloud or that I should talk of honours when there is mention made of the holy crosse O Jesus thou father of all true glories thou shalt from henceforth be my onely crown All greatnesse where thou art not shall to me be onely basenesse I will mount up to thee by the stairs of humility since by those thou camest down to me I will kisse the paths of mount Calvary which thou hast sprinkled with thy precious bloud and esteem the Crosse above all worldly things since thou hast consecrated it by thy cruell pains and brought us forth upon that dolours bed to the day of thy eternity The Gospel upon Thursday the second week in Lent out of S. Luke 16. Of the rich Glutton and poor Lazarus THere was a certain rich man and he was clothed with purple and silk and he fared every day magnifically And there was a certain begger called Lazarus that lay at his gate full of sores desiring to be filled of the crums that fâ—ll from the rich mans table but the dogs also came and licked his sores And it came to passe that the begger died and was carried of the Angels into Abrahams bosome And the rich man also died and he was buried in hell and lifting up his eyes when he was in torments he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosome And he crying said Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger into water for to cool my tongue because I am tormented in this flame And Abraham said to him son remember that thou didst receive good things in thy life time and Lazarus likewise evill but now he is comforted and thou tormented And beside all these things between us and you there is fixed a great Chaos that they which will passe from hence to you may not neither go from thence hither And he said then fath r I heseech thee that thou wouldest send him to my fathers house for I have five brâ—thren for to testifie unto them lest they also come into this place of torments And Abraham said to him they have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them But he said no father Abraham but if some man shall go from the dead to them they will do pennance And he said to him if they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither if one shall rise again from the dead will they believe Moralities 1. A Rich man and a poor meet in this world the one loden with treasures the other with ulcers They both meet in the other world the one in a gulf of fire the other in an Abyss of delights Their ends are as different as their lives were contrary to teach us that he which shall consider rightly the end of all worldly sins and vanities will have in horrour the desire of them And as there is nothing for which godly poor men may not hope so is there nothing which wicked rich men should not fear He that is proud of riches is proud of his burdens and chains but if he unload them upon the poor he will be eased of his pain and secured in his way 2. The life of man is a marvelous Comedy wherein the greatest part of our actions are plaid under a curtain which the divine providence draws over them to cover us It concealed poor Lazarus kept him in obscurity like the fish which we never see till it be dead But Jesus draws the curtain and makes himself the historian of this good poor man shewing us the state of his soul of his body of his life death He makes him appear in Abrahams bosome as within the temple of rest and happiness and makes him known to the rich man as to the treasurer of hells riches Are not we unworthy the name which we carry when we despise the poor and hate poverty as the greatest misery since the Sonne of God having once consecrated it upon the throne of his Manger made it serve for his spouse during life and his bride maid at the time of his death 3. This rich glutton dreamed and at the end of his dream found himself buried in hell All those pomps of his life were scattered in an instant as so many nocturnall illusions and his heart filled with eternall grief and torment His first misery is a sudden unexpected and hideous change from a huge sea of delicacies into an unsufferable gulf of fire where he doth acknowledge that one of the greatest vexations in misery is to have been happy Another disaster which afflicts him is to see Lazarus in Abrahams bosome to teach us that the damned are tormented by Paradise even to the very lowest par of Hell and that the most grievous of their torments is they can never forget their losse of God So saith Theophilact that Adam was placed
said Take away these things hence and make not the house of my Father a house of Merchandise And his Disciples remembred that it is written The zeal of thy house hath eaten me The Iews therefore answered and said to him What sign dost thou shew us that thou doest these things Iesus answered and said to them Dissolve this Temple in three dayes I will raise it The Iews therefore said in fourty and six years was this Temple built and wilt thou raise it in three dayes But he spake of the Temple of his body Therefore when he was risen again from the dead his Disciples remembred that he said this they believed the Scripture and the word that Iesus did say And when he was at Ierusalem in the Pasche upon the festivall day many believed in his name seeing his signs which he did But Iesus did not commit himself unto them for that he knew all because it was not needfull for him that any should give testimony of man for he knew what was in man Moralities 1. PIety is a silver chain hanged up aloft which ties heaven and earth spirituall and temporall God and man together Devotion is a virtue derived to us from the Father of all light who gives us thereby means to hold a traffick or commerce with Angels All which is here below sinks by its proper weight leans downward toward naturall corruption Our spirit though it be immortall would follow the weight of our bodies if it were not indued with the knowledge of God which works the same effect in it as the Adamant doth with iron for it pierceth and gives it life together with a secret and powerfull spirit from which all great actions take their beginning You shall never do any great act if the honour of God and the reverence of sacred things shall not accompany all your pretences For if you ground your piety upon any temporall respects you resemble that people which believes the highest mountains do support the skies 2. There are no sinnes which God doth punish more rigorously nor speedily then those which are committed against devotion and piety He doth not here take up the scourge against naughty Iudges usurers and unchaste persons because the Church is to find a remedy against all faults which happen in the life of man But if a man commit a sinne against Gods Altar the remedy grows desperate King Ozias felt a leprosie rise upon his face at the instant when he made the fume rise from the censor which he usurped from the high Priests Ely the chief Priest was buried in the ruins of his own house for the sacriledge of his children without any consideration of those long services with he had performed at the Tabernacle Keep your self from symonies from irreverence in Churches and from abusing Sacraments He can have no excuse which makes his Iudge a witnesse 3. Iesus was violently moved by the zeal which he bare to the house of his heavenly Father But many wicked rich men limit their zeal onely to their own families They build great Palaces upon the peoples bloud and they nothing care though all the world be in a storm so long as they and what belongs to them be well covered But there is a revenging God who doth insensibly drie up the roots of proud Nations and throws disgrace and infamy upon the faces of those who neglect the glories of Gods Altars to advance their own He who builds without God doth demolish and whosoever thinks to make any great encrease without him shall find nothing but sterility Aspirations O Most pure Spirit of Iesus which wast consummate by zeal toward the house of God wilt thou never burn my heart with those adored flames wherewith thou inspirest chaste hearts Why do we take so much care of our houses which are built upon quicksilver and roll up and down upon the inconstancies of humane fortunes while we have no love nor zeal towards Gods Church which is the Palace we should chuse here upon earth to be as the Image of heaven above I will adore thy Altars all my life with a profound humility But I wil first make an Altar of my own heart where I will offer sacrifice to which I doubt not but thou wilt put fire with thine own hand The Gospel upon Tuesday the fourth week in Lent S. Iohn 7. The Iews marvel at the learning of Iesus who was never taught ANd when the festivity was now half done Iesus went up into the Temple and taught And the Iews marvelled saying how doth this man know letters whereas he hath not learned Iesus answered them and said my doctrine is not mine but his that sent me If any man will do the will of him he shall understand of the doctrine whether it be of God or I speak of my self he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory But he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him he is true and injustice in him there is not Did not Moses give you the Law and none of you doth the Law Why seek you to kill me The Multitude answered and said thou hast a Devil who seeketh to kill thee Iesus answered and said to them One work I have done and you do all marvell Therefore Moses gave you circumcision not that is of Moses but of the Fathers and in the Sabbath ye circumcise a man If a man receive circumcision in the Sabbath that the law of Moses be not broken are you angry at me because I have healed a man wholly in the Sabbath Iudge not according to the face but judge just judgement Certain therefore of Ierusalem said Is not this he whom thy seek to kill And behold he speaks openly and they say nothing to him Have the Princes known indeed that this is Christ But this man we know whence he is But when Christ cometh no man knoweth whence he is Iesus therefore cried in the Temple teaching and saying Both me you do know and whence I am you know and of my self I am not come But he is true that sent me whom you know not I know him because I am of him and he sent me They sought therefore to apprehend him and no man laid hands upon him because his hour was not yet come But of the multitude many believed in him Moralities 1. IT appears by this Gospel that Iesus was judged according to apparences not according to truth It is one of the greatest confusions which is deeply rooted in the life of man that every thing is full of painting and instead of taking it off with a spunge we foment it and make our illusions voluntary The Prophet Isay adviseth us to use our judgement as men do leaven to season bread Al the objects presented to our imaginations which we esteem are fading if we do not adde some heavenly vigour to help our judgement 2. To judge according to apparences is agreat want both of judgement and courage The first makes us
put upon him ugly antick faces we compass him round about with terrours and illusions of all which he never so much as thought It is a profound sleep in which Nature lets it self fail insensibly when she is tired with the disquiets of this life It is a cessation of all those services which the soul renders to the flesh It is an execution of Gods will and a decree common to all the world To be disquieted and drawn by the ears o pay a debt which so many millions of men of all conditions have paid before us is to do as a frog that would swim against a sharp stream of a forcible torâ—ent We have been as it were dead to so many ages which went before us we die piece-meal every day we assay death so often in our sleep discreet men expect him fools despise him and the most disdainfull persons must entertain him Shall vve not knovv and endeavour to do that one thing vvell vvhich being once vvell performed vvill give us life for ever Me thinks it is rather a gift of God to die soon then to stay late amongst the occasions of sinne 3. It is not death but a vvicked life vve have cause to fear That onely lies heavie both troubles us and keeps us from understanding and tasting the svveets of death He that can die to so many little dead and dying things vvhich make us die every day by our unvvillingness to forsake thë shall find that death is nothing to him But vve vvould fain in death carry the vvorld vvith us upon our shoulders to the grave that is a thing vve cannot do We vvould avoid the judgement of a just God that is a thing vvhich vve should not so much as thinke Let us clear our accounts before we die let us take order for our soul by repentance a moderate care of our bodies buriall Let us order our goods by a good and charitable testament with a discreet direction for the poor for our children kindred to be executed by fit persons Let us put our selves into the protection of the divine providence with a most perfect confidence and how can we then fear death being in the arms of life Aspirations O Iesus fountain of all lives in whose bosome all things are living Iesus the fruit of the dead who hast destroyed the kingdome of death why should we fear a path which thou hast so terrified with thy steps honoured with thy bloud sanctified by thy conquests Shall we never die to so many dying things All is dead here for us we have no life if we do not seek it from thy heart What should I care for death though he come with all those grim hideous antick faces which men put upon him for when I see him through thy wounds thy bloud thy venerable death I find he hath no sting at all If I shall walk in the shadow of death and a thousand terrours shall conspire against me on every side to disturb my quiet I will fear nothing being placed in the arms of thy providence O my sweet Master do but once touch the winding sheet of my body which holds down my soul so often within the sleep of death and sin Command me to arise and speak and then the light of thy morning shall never set my discourses shall be alwayes of thy praises and my life shall be onely a contemplation of thy beautifull countenance The Gospel upon Friday the fourth week in Lent S. Iohn 11. Of the raising of Lazarus from death ANd there was a certain sickman Lazarus of bethania of the Town of Mary and Martha her sister And Mary was she that anointed our Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair whose brother Lazarus was sick his sisters therefore sent to him saying Lord behold he whom thou lovest is sick And Iesus hearing said to them This sicknesse is not to death but for the glory of God that the Son may be glorified by it And Iesus loved Martha and her sister Marie and Lazarus As he heard therefore that he was sick then he tarried in the same place two dayes Then after this he saith to his Disciples Let us go into Iewry again The Disciples say to him Rabbi now the Iewes sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again Iesus answered Are there not twelve hours of the day If a man walk in the day he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this world but if he walk in the night he stumbleth because the light is not in him These things he said and after this he saith to them Lazarus our friend sleepeth but I go that I may raise him from sleep His Disciples therefore said Lord if he sleep he shall be safe But Iesus spake of his death and they thought that he spake of the sleeping of sleep Then therefore Iesus saïd to them plainly Lazarus is dead and I am glad for your sake that you may believe because I was not there but let us go to him Thomas therefore who called Didymus said to his condisciples Let us also go to die with him Iesus therefore came and found him now having been four dayes in the grave And Bethania was nigh to Ierusalem about fifteen furlongs And many of the Iewes were come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother Martha therefore when she heard that Iesus was come went to meet him but Mary sate at home Martha therefore said to Iesus Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died But now also I know that what things soever thou shalt ask of God God will give thee Iesus saith to her Thy brother shall rise again Martha saith to him I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection in the last day Iesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me although he be dead shall live And every one that liveth and believeth in me shall not die for ever Believest thou this She said to him Yea Lord I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of God that art come into this world Moralities 1. OUr Saviour Jesus makes here a strong assault upon death to cure our infirmities at the cost of his dearest friends He suffered Lazarus whom he loved tenderly to fall into a violent sicknesse to teach us that the bodies of Gods favourites are not free from infirmities and that to make men Saints they must not enjoy too much health A soul is never more worthy to be a house for God then when she raiseth up the greatnesse of her courage the body being cast down with sicknesse A soul which suffers is a sacred thing All the world did touch our Saviour before his Passion The throng of people pressed upon him but after his death he would not be touched by S. Mary Maudlin because he was consecrated by his dolors 2. The good sisters dispatch a messenger not to a strange
God as they doe who seek for health by remedies which are a thousand times worse then the disease But they addressed themselves to the living God the God of life and death to drive away death And to recover life they were content only to shew the woūd to the faithfull friendship of the Physician Without prescribing any remedies for that is better left to his providence then committed to our passion 3. He deferres his cure to raise from death The delay of Gods favours is not alwaies a refusall but sometimes a double liberality the vows of good men are paid with usury It was expedient that Lazarus should die that he might triumph over death in the triumph of Iesus Christ It is here that we should alwayes raise high our thoughts by considering our glory in the state of resurrection he would have us believe it not onely as it is a lesson of Nature imprinted above the skies upon the plants or elements of the world and as a doctrine which many ancient Philosophers had by the light of nature but also as a belief which is fast joyned to the faith we have in the Divine providence which keeps our bodies in trust under its seal within the bosome of the earth so that no prescription of time can make laws to restrain his power having passed his word and raised up Lazarus who was but as one grain of seed in respect of all posterity 4. Iesus wept over Lazarus thereby to weep over us all Our evils were lamentable could never sufficiently be deplored without opening a fountain of tears within heaven and within the eyes of the Son of God This is justly the river which comes from that place of all pleasure to water Paradise How could those heavenly tears come from any other then the place of all delight since they issued from a brain and from eyes which were united to the divinity And how should they not water Paradise since for so many ages they have flowed over the Church for producing the fruits of justice The balme of Egypt could not grow without water of that well Which was comonly called the fountain of Jesus because the blessed Virgin had there washed the clothes of her dear Sonne And we have no Odour of virtue nor good conversation which is not directly barren except it be endued with the merit of our Saviours tears Aspirations O Eyes of my Saviour from whence the sun receives his clearest light fair eyes which onely deserve eternall joyes and delights Why should you this day be moistened with tears Thou didst give me O onely love of my heart the bloud of thy soul before thou shedst that of thy body There are so many things to make me weep and I feel them so little that if thy tears do not weep for me I shall alwayes be miserable Water then O my sweet Master the barrennesse of my soul from that fountain of blessing which I have opened within thine eyes and heart I have opened it by my sins and let it I beseech thee blesse me by thine infinite mercies The Gospel upon Saturday the fourth week in Lent S. Iohn 8. Upon our Saviours words I am the light of the world AGain therefore Iesus spake to them saying I am the light of the world he that followeth me walketh not in darknesse but shall have the light of life The Pharisees therefore said to him Thou givest testimony of thy self thy testimony is not true Iesus answered and said to them although I do give testimony of my self my testimony is true because I know whence I came and whether I go but you know not whence I came or whether I go You judge according to the flesh I do not judge any man And if I doe judge my judgement is true because I am not alone but I and he that sent me the Father And in your Law it is written that the testimony of two men is true I am he that give testimony of my self and he that sent me the Father giveth testimony of me They said therefore to him Where is thy Father Iesus answered Neither me do you know nor my Father if you did know me perhaps you might know my Father also These words Iesus spake in the Treasury teaching in the Temple and no man apprehended him because his hour was not yet come Moralities 1. THere is in the blessed Trinity a communicating light to which nothing is communicated another light which is communicative and communicated and a third light which is communicated but not communicating The first is the heavenly Father who gives but takes nothing The second is that of the Son who takes from his Father and gives to the Holy Ghost all that can be given The third is the Holy Ghost which receives equally from the Father the Son and doth produce nothing in the Trinity But Jesus illuminating from all eternity this state for ever to be adored did vouchsafe to descend into the Countrey of our darknesse to scatter it by his brightnesse It is he that hath thrown down the Crocodiles and Bars from profane Altars who hath broken so many Idols who hath overthrown so many Temples of the adulterers and murdering gods to plant the honours of his heavenly Father He hath invested the world during so many ages with the shining of his face He doth not cease to give light nor to kindle in our hearts many inspirations which are like so many stars to conduct us to the fountain of all our happinesse You are very blind if you doe not see this and much more miserable if you despise it 2. It is most dangerous to do as the Jews did to speak every day to the light and yet love their own darknesse Screech-owls find holes and nights to keep themselves from day which they cannot abide But he that flies from the face of God where can he find darknesse enough to hide himself When he shall be within the gulf of sin his own conscience will light up a thousand torches to see his punishments It is the worst of all mischiefs to pay for the contempt of the fountain of light by suffering eternall darknesse 3. Let us behold the conversation of Jesus Christ as a sea mark stickt all over with lights his life gives testimony of his Sanctity his miracles publish his power his law declares his infinite wisdome his Sanctity gives us an example to imitate his power gives the strength of Authority to make him the more readily obeyed and from his wisdome faith is given us to regulate and govern our belief Aspirations O My Lord Jesus the spirit of all beauties and the most visible of all lights what do the eyes of my soul if they be not always busied in the contemplation of thy brightnesse When I find thou art departed from me methinks I am buried within my self and that my soul is nothing else but a Sepulchre of terrours phantomes and deaths But when thou returnest by thy visits
so liberally 3. Iesus will not be known singly by his words but by his works Our words must agree with our good actions as the needle of a clock agrees with the springs When we have heard or read some good doctrine that Sermon or reading must passe into our manners It is surely a strange thing that many imploy that leisure to know much and yet will not spend some considerable time to make themselves good Christians We must be Philosophers more by imitating the example of God then by any curious enquiry of his greatnesse Our Christianity teacheth us that we should be more knowing skilfull in the practise of our life then of our tongue and that we are rather made to perform great actions then to speak them We must have a speciall care that our hands do not give our mouth the lie What can we gain in the judgement of God by being like those tres which haue a fair outside garnished with leaves yet good for nothing but to give a shadow and to make a little noise when the wind blows God requires of us fruit since he is the father of all fertility nothing is barren in the land of the living Aspirations O My God I know thee because thou was first pleased to know me Thou hast known me by thy goodnesse and I will do my best to know thee that I may obtain all happinesse O that I might know that my name is written in the book of life and also know the life which I may possesse within the heart of Iesus in which so many lives do live O how should I then find my spirit ravished in those beautifull Ideas of glory Fix thine eyes on me O Lord and thou shalt thereby bring me to the fountain of all happinesse The Father hath given me to thee I am the conquest of thy precious bloud Suffer not a soul to be taken away from the which hath cost thee so many sweats sufferings I am thine by so many titles that I will be no more mine own but only to have the right of renouncing that which I am and to establish what shall be thine in this little kingdome of my heart The Gospel upon Thursday the fifth week in Lent S. Iohn 7. Upon S. Mary Magdalens washing our Saviours feet in the Phariseâ— house ANd one of the Pharisees desired him to eat with him And he being entred into the house of the Pharisee he sate down to meat And behold a woman that was in the Citie a sinner as she knew that he set down in the Pharisees house she brought an Alabaster box of ointment and standing behinde beside his feet she began to water his feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with oyntment And the Pharisee that had bid him seeing it spake within himself saying This man if he were a Prophet would know certes who and what manner of woman she is which toucheth him that she is a sinner And Iesus answering said to him Simon I have somewhat to say unto thee But he said Master say A certain creditour had two debtors own did ow five hundred pence and the other fifty they having not wherewith to pay he forgave both whether therefore doth love him more Simon answering said I suppose that he to whom he forgave more But he said to him Thou hast judged rightly And turning to the woman he said unto Simon Doest thou see this woman I entred into thy house water to my feet thou didst not give but she with tears hath watered my feet and with her hairs hath wiped them Kisse thou gavest me not but she since I came in hath not ceased to kisse my feet With oyl thou didst not annoint my head but she with ointment hath anointed my feet For the which I say to thee many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much But to whom lesse is forgiven he loveth lesse And he said to her Thy sins are forgiven thee And they that sate together at the table began to say within themselves Who is this that also forgiveth sins And he said to the woman Thy faith hath made thee safe Go in peace Moralities 1. SAint Mary Magdalen is under the feet of Jesus Christ as is that work of Saphires mentioned in Exodus under the feet of God It is a work wrought by the right hand of the Highest the wonder of women the most happy of all lovers who made profit of sin which destroys all who sanctified that love which so little knew the way to any sanctity This is the fountain mentioned in the Book of Hester in the vision of Mardocheus A fountain which became a River and after changes it self into the Sun which gives beams and showers at one instant She is a fountain at the Pharisees table she is a â—iver in her solitary grove she is a Sun both in Paradise in that great exaltation wherein the Catholick Church now beholds her Being now in glory she doth not yet forbear to open fountains of tears by imitation of her within the souls of repentant sinners of whom incessantly she procures the conversion Happy is that heart which is pierced with the imitation of her virtues thereby to gain some part of her crowns 2. Every thing is admirable in her conversion A sinner wounded with love cures her self by love She changes the fire of Babylon into that of Ierusalem She plucks out of her wound the venomous dart of worldly love to make large room for the arrows of Iesus which pierce her heart and at an instant make a harmony of heavenly passions within the bottome of her soul She holds the wound dearer then life and goes streight to her conquerour ro desire death or increase of love 3. She appears most ingenious in her affections to provide no water wherewith to wash her Masters feet since she could draw it so fitly out of her own eyes This was the water which Iesus did thirst after when he asked of the Samaritan woman some to drink But the poor woman was so astonished that she forsook her pitcher forgot that which Iesus asked Now the holy Magdalen brings her eyes to the Pharisees table as two vessels full of christal water which was of that puâ—e stream which comes from the holy Lamb. Heaven is wont to vvater the earth but here the earth waters Heaven A soul w ich was before black and burnt up with the fi e of concupiscence provides a fountain for the King of highest Heaven She draws tears from her sins to make them become the joyes of Paradise 4. She sanctifies all that which vvas esteemed most prophane Her hairs which were the nets vvherein so many captive souls did sigh under the yoke of wanton love are now as the ensignes and standards of wicked Cupid trampled under the feet of her Conquerour Those kisses which carried the poison of a luxurious pâ—ssioÌ„
admirable in the contempt of death The heavenly Trumpet hath already sounded for thee and cheerfulnesse gives wings to carry thee to this great combat where death and life sight singly together which makes life die for a time and death live for ever I will forsake my very soul to follow thee in this Agony and find my life in thy death as thou hast extinguished death in thy life The Gospel upon Palm Sunday S. Matthew 21. Our Saviour came in triumph to Jerusalem a little before his Passion ANd when they drew nigh to Ierusalem and were come to Bethphage unto mount Olivet then Iesus sent two Disciples saying to them Go ye into the town that is against you and immediately you shall find an Asse tied and a colt with her loose them and bring them to me And if any man shall say ought unto you say ye That our Lord hath need of them and forthwith he will let them goe And this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet saying Say ye to the daughter of Sion Behold thy King cometh to thee mock and sitting upon an Asse and a Colt the foal of her that is used to the yoke And the Disciples going did as Iesus commanded them and they brought the Asse and the Colt and laid their garments upon them and made him to sit thereon And a very great multitude spred their garments in the way and others did cut boughs from the trees and strewed them in the way and the multitudes that went before and that followed cryed saying Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Moralities 1. OUr Saviour goes to his death in triumph he appears to be a King but a King of Hearts who requires nothing of us but our selves onely to make us happy and contented in him He triumphs before the victory because non but he could be sure of the future certainty of his happiness But he watered his triumphs with tears to weep for our joyes which where to proceed out of his sadness It is related by an ancient Oratour that when Constantine made his entry into great Britany where he was born the people received him with so great applause that they killed the Sails and Oars of the Vessell which brought him were ready to pave the streets with their bodies for him to tread on If they did so for a mortal man what should we not do for an eternal God who comes to buy us with his precious bloud and demands entrance into our hearts only to give us Paradise 2. He walks towards his Cross amongst the cries of favour and joy to teach us with what chearfulnesse we should conform our selves to abide our own sufferings imitating the Apostles who receiv'd their first reproches as Manna from Heaven He would have us prepared resolved alwaies to suffer death patiently whether it be a death which raiseth up our spirit to forsake sensuality ot a natural death Whatsoever it be we should embrace it as the day which must bring us to our lodging after a troublesome pilgrimage Doth it not appear plainly that those who are loth to forsake the world are like herbs put into an earthen pot amongst straw dung yet would be unwilling to come forth of it The forniture of out worldly lodging grows rotten the roof is ready to fall upon our heads the foundation shakes under our feet and we fear that day which if vve our selves vvill shall be the â—orning of our eternall happinesse It is not death but onely the opinion of it which is terrible and every man considers it according to the disposition of his own spirit 3. The Palm branches vvhich we carry in our hands require from us the renewing of a life purified and cleansed in the bloud of the holy Lambe In the beginning of lent we take upon our heads the ashes of Palm branches to teach us that we do then enter as it vvere into the Sepulchre of repentance But novv vve carry green bows to make us know that now vve come out of the tomb of Ashes to enter again into the strength of doing good vvorks in imitation of the trees vvhich having been covered vvith snovv and buried in the sharpnesse of vvinter do again begin to bud in the Spring time 4. The garments spread under the feet of Jesus declare that all our temporall goods should be employed tovvard his glory and that vve must forsake our affections to all things vvhich perish that vve may be partakers of his kingdome No man can stand firm that is delighted vvith movable things He that is subject to vvorldly affections binds himself to a vvheel vvhich turns about continually Jesus accepted this triumph onely to despise it he reserved the honour of it in his own hands to drovvn it in the floud of his tears and in the sea of his precious bloud If you be rich and wealthy do not publish it vainly but let the poor feel it You must live amongst all the greatnesse jollity of this world as a man whose onely businesse must be to go to God Aspirations O Soveraign King of hearts after whom all chaste loves do languish I am filled with joy to see tâ—ee walk amongst the cries of joy and the palms gâ—rments of thy admirers which served for carpets I am ravished wi h thy onours and the delights of thy glory and I applaud thy triumphs Alas that all the earth is not obedient to thy laws and that the tongues of aâ—l people do not make one voice to acknowledge thee sole Monarch of heaven and earth Triumph at least in the hearts of thy faithfull servants O my magnificent Master make a triumphall Ark composed of hearts Put fire to it vvith thy adored hand Send out one spark of that heat vvhich tâ—ou camest to spread upon the earth Let every thing burn for thee and consume it self in thy love I do irrevocably bind my heart to the magnificence of thy triumpâ— and I love better to be thy slave then to be saluted king of the vvhole vvorld The Gospel upon Munday in holy week S. Iohn 12. Saint Mary Magdalen anointed our Saviours feet vvith precious ointment at vvhich Iudas repined JEsus therefore six dayes before the Pasche came to Bethaenia where Lazarus was that had been dead whom Iesus raised and they made him a supper there and Martha ministred but Lazarus was one of them that sate at the table with him Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right Spikenard precious and anointed the feet of Iesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled of the odour of the Ointment One therefore of his Disciples Iudas Iscariot he that was to betray him said Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor And he said this not because he cared for the poor but because he waâ— a thiâ—fâ— and having the
purse carried the things that were put in it Iesus therefore said Let her alone that she may keep it for the day of my buriall for the poor you have alwayes with you but me you shall not have alwayes A great multitude therefore of the Iews know that he was there they come not for Iesus onely but that they might see Lazarus whom he raised from the dead Moralities 1. LAzarus being raised from his grave converseth familiarly with Iesus and to preserve the life which he had newly received he ties himself continually to the fountain of lives to teach us that since we have begun to make a strong conversion from sin to grace we must not be out of the sight of God we must live with him and of him with him by applying our spirit our prayers our fervour our passionate sighs toward him and live of him by often receiving the blessed Sacrament Happy they saith the Angel in the Apocalypse who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. But note that he who invites us to this feast stands upright amids the sun to signifie that we should be as pure as the beams of light when we come unto the most holy Sacrament Lazarus did eat bread with his Lord but to speak with St. Augustine he did not then eat the bread of our Lord. And yet this great favour is reserved for you when you are admitted to that heavenly banket where God makes himself meat to give you an Antepâ—st of his Immortality 2. God will have us acknowledge his benefits by the faithfulnesse of our services St. Peters Mother in law as soon as she was healed of her Feaver presently served her Physician And observe that Martha served the Author of life who had redeemed her brother from the power of death The faithfull Mary who had shed tears gave what she had mo t precious and observes no measure in the worth because Iesus cannot be valued Cleopatra's pearl estimated to be worth two hundred thousand crowns which she made her friend swallow at a Banquet this holy woman thought too base She melts her heart in a sacred Limbeck of love distills it out by her eyes And Iesus makes so great account of her waters and perfumes that he would suffer no body to wash his feet when he instituted the blessed Sacrament as not being willing to deface the sacred characters of his sacred Lover 3. Iudas murmures and covers his villanous passion of Avarice under the colour of Charity and mercy toward the poor And just so do many cover their vices with a specious shew of virtue The proud man would be thought Magnanimous the prodigall would passe for liberall the covetous for a good husband the brainsick rash man would be reputed couragious the glutton a hospitable good fellow Sloth puts on the face of quietnesse timorousnesse of wisdome impudence of boldnesse insolence of liberty and over confident or sawcy prating would be taken for eloquence Many men for their own particular interests borrow some colours of the publick good and very many actions both unjust and unreasonable take upon them a semblance of piety Saint Ireneus saith that many give water coloured with sleckt whitelime or plaister instead of milk * A farse is a French Iig wherein the faces of all the actours are whited over with meal And all their life is but a farse where Blackamores are whited over with meal Poor truth suffers much amongst these couesnages But you must take notice that in the end wicked dissembling Iudas did burst and shew his damned soul stark naked Yet some think fairly to cover foul intentions who must needs know well that Hypocrisie hath no vail to couzen death Aspirations I See no altars in all the world more amiable then the feet of our Saviour I will go by his steps to find his feet and by the excellencies of the best of men I will go find out the God of gods Those feet are admirable and St. Iohn hath well described them to be made of metall burning in a furnace they are feet of metal by their constancy and feet of fire by the enflamed affections of their Master Let Indâ—s murmure at it what he will but if I had a sea of sweet odours and odoriferous perfumes I would empty them all upon an object so worthy of love Give O mine eyes Give at least tears to this precious Holocaust which goes to sacrifice it self for satisfaction of your libidinous concupiscences Wash it with your waters before it wash you with its bloud O my soul seek not after excrements of thy head to dry it Thy hairs are thy thoughts which must onely think of him who thought so kindly passionately of thee on the day of his Eternity The Gospel upon Monday Thursday S. Iohn the 13. Of our Saviours washing the feet of his Apostles ANd before the festivall day of the Paschâ— Iesus knowing that his hour was come that he should passe out of this world to his Father whereas he had loved his that were in the world unto the end he loved them And when supper was done whereas the devil now had put into the heart of Iudas Iscariot the son of Simon to betray him knowing that the Father gave him all things into his hands and that he came from God and goeth to God he riseth from supper and layeth aside his garments and having taken a towell girded himself After that he put water into a bason and began to wash thee feet of his Disciples and to wipe them with the towell wherewith he was girded He cometh therefore to Simon Peter and Peter saith to him Lord doest thou wash my feet Iesus answered and said to him That which I do thou knowest not now hereafter thou shalt know Peter saith to him Thou shalt not wash my feet for ever Iesus answered him if I wash thee not thou shalt not have part with me Simon Peter saith to him Lord not onely my feet but also hands and head Iesus saith to him He that is washed needeth not but to wash his feet but is clean wholly and you are clean but not all for he knew who he was that would betray him therefore he said You are not clean all Therefore after he had washed their feet and taken his garments being set down again he said to them Know you what I have done to you You call me Master and Lord and you say well for I am so If then I have washed your feet Lord and Master you also ought to wash one anothers feet For I have given you an example that as I have done to you so you do also Moralities 1. JEsus loves his servants for an end and till the full accomplishment of that end The world loves his creatures with a love which tends to concupisence but that is not the end for which they were made or should be loved There is a very great difference between them for the love of
All those conquests which thou didst promise to thy self are become the trophees of so weak a hand Return to the combat since she hath triumphed over thee do thou at least triumph over thy self Alas I am afraid even to behold the place of my fall and the weak snares of a simple woman appear to me as boisterous chains Yet what can he fear who is resolute to die If thou find death amongst those Massacres thou shouldst rather embrace then decline it For what can it do but make thee companion of life it self Our soul is yet too foul to be a sacrifice for God let us first wash it with tears I fell down before the fire and I will rise by water I have walked upon the sea to come to Iesus and I will now return to him by the way of my tears I will speak now only by my tears since I have lately talked so wickedly with my mouth Since that which should open to speak Oracles for the Church hath been employed to commit foul treason since we have nothing left free to us but sighs and groans let us make use of the last liberty which is left us and when all is spent return to the mercy of Jesus which all the sins of the world can never evacuate I will from henceforth be a perpetuall example to the Church by my fall and rising again from death for the comfort of sinners and the fault of one night shall be lamented by me all the dayes of my life Moralities upon the Pretorian or Iudgement Hall 1. IN the passion of our Saviour all things are divine and it seemeth they go as high as they could be raised by that Soveraign power joyned with extream love Iesus the most supream and redoubted judge who will come in his great Majesty to judge the world fire and lightning streaming from his face and all things trembling under his feet was pleased at this time to be judged as a criminall person Every thing is most admirable in this judgement The accusers speak nothing of those things which they had resolved in their counsels but all spake against their consciences As soon as they are heard they are condemned justice for saketh them they are wholly possest with rage Pilate before he gave judgement upon Iesus pronounced it against himselfe for after he had so many times declared him innocent he could not give judgement without protesting himself to be unjust The silence of Iesus is more admired by this Infidell then the eloquence of all the world and truth without speaking one word triumpheth over falshood A Pagan Lady the wife of Pilate is more knowing then all the Laws more religious then the Priests more zealous then the Apostles more couragious then the men of Arms when she sleepeth Iesus is in her sleep when she talketh Iesus is upon her tongue if she write Iesus iâ— under her pen her letter defended him at the judgement Hall when all the world condemned him she calleth him holy when they used him like a theif She maketh her husband wash his hands before he touched that bloud the high price of which she proclamed She vvas a Roman Lady by Nation called Claudia Prâ—cula and it vvas very fit she should defend this Jesus who was to plant the seat of his Church in Rome All this while Jesus doth good amongst so many evils He had caused a place to be bought newly for the burial of Pilgrims at the price of his bloud he reconciles Herod and Pilate by the loss of his life He sets Barrabas at liberty by the loss of his honour he speaks not one word to him that had killed Saint Iohn the Baptist who was the voice And the other to revenge himself vvithout thinking what he did shewed him as a king He appears before Pilate as the king of dolours that he might become for us the king of glories But what a horrour is it to consider that in this judgement he was used like a slave like a sorcerer like an accursed sacrifice Slavery made him subject to be whipped the crown of thorns was given onely to Enchanters that made him appear as a Sorcerer And so many curses pronounced against him made him as the dismissive Goat mentioned in Leviticus which vvas a miserable beast upon which they cast all their execrations before they sent it to die in the desart He that bindeth the shovvers in clouds to make them vvater the earth is bound and dravvn like a criminall person He that holds the vast seas in his sist and ballanceth heaven with his fingers is strucken by servile hands He that enamels the bosome of the earth with a rare pleasing diversitie of flowers is most ignominiously crowned with a crown of thorns O hideous prodigies which took away from us the light of the Sun and covered the Moon with a sorrowfull darknesse Behold what a Garland of flowers he hath taken upon his head to expiate the sins of both Sexes It was made of briers and thorns which the earth of our flesh had sowed for us which the virtue of his Crosse took away All the pricks of death were thrust upon this prodigious patience which planted her throne upon the head of our Lord. Consider how the Son of God would be used for our sins while we live in delicacies and one little offensive word goeth to our hearts to which though he that spake it gave the swiftnesse of wings yet we keep it so shut up in our hearts that it getteth leaden heels which make it continue there fixed Aspirations ALas what do I see here a crown of thorns grafted upon a man of thorns A man of dolours who burns between two fires the one of love the other of tribulation both which do enflame and devour him equally and yet never can consume him O thou the most pure of all beauties where have my sins placed thee Thou art no more a man but a bloody skin taken from the teeth of Tygers and Leopards Alas what a spectacle is this to dispoil this silk * Ego sum vermis non hoâ—o Psalm 21. worm which at this day attires our Churches and Altars How could they make those men who looked upon thy chaste body strike and disfigure it O white Alabaster how hast thou been so changed into scarlet Every stroke hath made a wound and every wound a fountain of blood And yet so many fountains of thy so precious blood cannot draw from me one tear But O sacred Nightingale of the Cross who hath put thee within these thorns to make so great harmonies only by thy silence O holy thorns I do doe not ask you where are your roses I know well they are the blood of Jesus and I am not ignorant that all roses would be thorns if they had any feeling of that which you have Jesus carried them upon his head but I will bear them at my heart and thou O Jesus shalt be the