out of the strong shall issue sweetnesse The Lyon of the Tribe of Judah hath infused honey into the teeth of all these Lyons he le ts loose upon his Church and a resigned patient shall taste more the honey then he shall feele the teeth of the beast that quartereth him They therefore who will finde the suavity of persecution must suck it out of Christs Passion where it lyes ready made and not amuse themselves to work it out of the order of Gods providence wherein it rests implicated in the folds of many mysteries and our curiosity in seeking it will return us rather Sauls anxiety upon his enquiry of Samuels ghost then Sampsons sweetnesse in the Lyons jawes which he found when he looked not for it And out of S. Pauls mouth who was once a raging Lyon till he was killed by him of whom Sampson was a figure we may take this hony to dulcifie all those bitternesses of our lives 2 Cor. 4.18 Our tribulation which presently is momentanie and light worketh above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory in us Quod in praesenti est momentantum leve tribulationis nostrae supra modum in sublimitate aeternum gloriae pondus operatur in nobis HAving thus seene and considered Gods hand and manner in the figure of his dearly beloved Son upon the Crosse by which he conveyed him to his Coronation let us now consider also Christs method in ordering his Church after he professeth that all power is given him both in heaven earth so as the sufferings of the Body to such an Head must needs be by order not infirmity For after he had suffered sufficiently for more worlds then he shed drops of blood and for as many ages as worlds he might well have allowed the members of his body all joy and felicity for the rest of those few Ages this world was to subsist But he who was Wisdome it self chose another method as he told his dearest friends Ego dispone vobis sicut disposuit mihi Pater meus regnum He copyed his Fathers hand upon himselfe in his drawing and figuring his Church upon earth Lu. 22.29 I dispose to you as my Father disposed to me a kingdome so as after his glorious body was enthroned at the right hand of God he left his mysticall body hanging as it were upon the crosse in Calvary for some Ages wounded by the launces of the Gentiles and vilified by the scornes of the Jewes In this posture it hung exposed many yeers a scandall to the eyes of the one and folly to the understandings of the other insomuch as the extreme passions of this body might well have extorted out of flesh and blood a Deus meus ut quid dereliquisti me The afflictions were so intollerable as no body that had not a God for the head of it Mat. 27. My God why hast thou forsaken me could have growne and prospered in so bleeding an infancie It seemeth Gods unsearchable Wisdome designed Christs mysticall body to be formed on the face of the earth as his naturall body was in the wombe of the Virgin in the composition whereof there was onely the Spirit of God working upon the pure blood of the Virgin and in like manner the vertue of the holy Ghost came upon the blood of the Martyrs forming and animating the Primitive Church For in those times we find the vertue of the Spirit working most upon blood to forme and procreate the body of the Church And thus by the admirable vertue of Christs Passion it seemed not an effusion but rather a transfusion of all the blood was drawne conveying it into other veynes and the same spirits seemed to be carryed in it into other bodies which successively making the same use of it might make one think it had been the very same blood infused into other veyns which like channels rather then owners of it poured it out againe so freely and in this way of generation the Saints and Martyrs procreated the descent of the family of Christ for above three hundred yeeres The Apostles seemed to poure out their blood into the veynes of their Disciples and Successors and they in like manner to transfuse theirs into those discended from them and by this successive transmission the Progeny of the Church was deduced through the Primitive Persecutions This was the operation of that one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule the Apostle saith was then in the multitude of the Beleevers And indeed the records of those times may well make one reflect on the doctrine of Pythagor as in his transmigration of soules for in those times the spirit of acting and suffering which was transmitted from one to another seemed so much the same as one might fay there was a transmigration of the soules of the first Martyrs into the surviving issue of their spirit Herod is said to have suspected that the soule of S. John Baptist had passed into Christ when he said Mat. 14.1 This is John the Baptist he is risen from the dead and therefore vertues work in him Hic est Joannes Baptista ipse surrexit à mortuis ideo virtutes operantur in eo The doctrine of transition of soules from one body to another was much followed in those times But we may wel in a pious and sober sense say that the soule of S. Peter seemed transmigrated into his successors for many yeeres for the same spirit of fervour in watering with their blood the Rock whereon Christ had planted his Church possessed above thirty Popes successively after S. Peter and so all their bodies seemed to be cast as a mold of earth upon that rock whereupon the faith of the Romane Church did spring the plants whereof even all acknowledge their Churches to be who have now severed themselves from that radicall communion and forgetting the benefits of those Josephs who sed them in the famine of their Faganisme are now laying burthens on their children In this manner the Primitive Church was nourished in her cradle instead of having milk given her to make blood of she sucked blood and made milke of it by the which she hath nursed the succeeding times for in all the Churches following persecutions the faithfull have been sustained and refreshed by that milk which the blood of those times did make for them for their examples descending with their doctrines hath confirmed and strengthned as well as alimented all their future progenie It is an admirable evincement of the truth of Christian Religion to remark that as it was founded upon a supernaturall conjunction of a body that might suffer to a person that was impassible so it was propagated by the destruction of those bodies which were the organs of tradition of it to posterity for the wounds of the Apostles and the Martyrs seemed but so many more mouthes opened to speak out louder the mysteries of the Gospel and to prove those verities by daring to dye for them which were not to
sufferance out of any of which I hope in God there is not any of you would agree to be ejected even upon this contract of being raised from Josephs chaine up to his chariot and dominion in Aegypt The first is as you are men the second as you are Christians and the third as you are Catholikes A MISSIVE OF CONSOLATION CHAP. I. Of the Covenant of Suffering as Men the Sonnes of Adam TO the first Covenant of sufferance you know we all give our voice by a naturall instinct before we have scarce enjoyed so much as light for it and our eyes may be said to set their mark to it before we are able to set our hands to this article of eating in the sweat of our browes for our eyes pay their sweat which is their teares for what we taste even before we be able to receive bread for it and as we grow into a state to set our hands to the Covenant of labour we know there is scarce any thing we relish much that doth not cost us sweat and contention nay we are of such a constitution that we can have no kind of delectation the which some want and suffering must not precede to affect us with the gust of it So as we are sentenced to pay a great Fine of Pain before-hand for all those fleeting and transitory pleasures which at best doe but run over our senses and so passe away and leave them againe in their drouth and privation And most commonly the advance of all our paine and passion rendreth us nothing of what they negotiate So as a man when he looketh upon himselfe in the best reflexes his temporary wishes can make him shall find this brand and stigmate of Adam upon his forehead Gen. 3.10 Thou shalt eate in the sweat of thy brows In sudore vultûs tui vescêris pane And this is a mark which God stamped upon Adam of another kind of signification then that he set upon Cain for this directeth all things that occur to man in this life to strike him and wound his temporall estate in some kind or other insomuch as all the creatures do in their severall manners execute this sentence upon the sons of Adam not allowing themselves to be enjoyed by them without stinging them in some sort either with the anxietie of their appetite to them preceding fruition or the distaste of satiety following it or with the vexation of a deprivement of them during the ardour of their affections to them So as we may well say that every thing we finde now assaults our felicity in this life in some sort to kill it and to revive to us the memory of our Covenant of sufferance we entred into as soon as we entred into light For which reason the a Ecclesiasticus 40.1 Great travell is created to all men and a heavy yoke upon the children of Adam from the day of their coming forth of their mothers wombe untill the day of their burying in the mother of all their cogitations and fears of the heart imagination of things to come and the day of their ending from him that sitteth upon the glorious seat unto him that is humbled in earth and ashes Wiseman proclaimeth elegantly the tenour of it saying Occupatio magna creata est omnibus hominibus jugum grave super filios Adam à die exitus de ventre matris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usque in diem sepulturae in matrem omnium cogitationes corum timores cordis adinventio expectationis dies finitionis à residente super sedem gloriosam usque ad humiliatum in terrâ cinere Neither need we look back upon the defaced images of all conditions in the dead prints of story we have such living figures of them before our eyes as must needs imprint upon our thoughts a lively character of the deplorable state of all mortals Whereby out of the ruines of those houses whereof you lament the demolishments you may pick up some materials to build in your minds this frame of the instable constructure of the greatest strengths of humane happinesse Eccles 10. I have seen servants upon horses Princes walking on the ground as servants and thus your friends may in their fall some way support your vertue and your patience when you consider how incident it is to the vicissitudes of this world to expose unto us that changeable Scene whereof Solomon reporteth this to us Vidi servos in equis principes ambulantes super terram quasi servos And in such capitall Letters as these you may now read the articles of the Covenant of sufferance which man is engaged in whereof Job maketh a manifest is signed even by all the Princes of the earth for we find this under their hands in all records of them in some part of their lives Job 14.1 Man born of a woman and living a short time is replenishâ—d with many miseries Homo natus ex muliere vivens brevi tempore repletur multis miseriis In so much as after man by sinne had made misery for himselfe in this life it seemeth a mercy of God to have joyned death with it before which even the light of nature is sufficient to shew the Philosophers that none can be counted happy And in order to this proofe we may remarke that he who first abused death by imploying it to make sinne was thought worthy of no lesse a punishment then the protraction of life which he had made so afflicting by his fearing to dye and thus he was made his own torturer by the ignorance of the evill of life and of the good of death which he had so much demcrited the knowing of for his brothers goodnesse was thought worthy to be quickly relieved by death and his malice was adjudged to the paine of apprehending it and to the supplice of a long life With good cause then may this be well reflected on that the first vertuous and godly man was quickly removed out of this hedge of thornes his father had set and re-conveyed towards Paradise and the first impious murtherer was sentenced to live in the pungencie and asperity of these pricks and bryars of the earth But yet such is Gods Wisdome as he can extract medicines out of all the Brambles thistles our earth is over-run with and minister them to our infirmity for he applieth even those griefes and sorrowes which sinne introduced to the expulsion of sinne it selfe So as this is an operation worthy of Gods invention by the labour and exercising of the body to enlarge the freedome of the soule even by this unfortifying of her prison in which she is kept the closer the stronger the dolectation of our senses groweth upon us Therefore the distancing of the conveniencie of the flesh dilateth the commodities and freedome of the spirit so as it is a divine artifice which God useth by hanging weights of sufferings and pressures upon our senses to wind up rather
If any of you want wisdome let him aske it of God who giveth it to all men abundantly So as this joy is a spirit extracted out of patience not inherent in the matter of passion and patience is a virtue too celestiall to be educed as it were ex traduce by the materiall body of affliction It is infused by the holy spirit which S. Paul confirmeth when he saith Rom. 5. that Tribulation worketh patience shewing the reason of this operation in the next words after the sequence of many good productions derived from one another he setteth this for the effective cause of all because The charity of God is powred forth in our hearts by the holy Ghost Rom. 5.5 So as it is the spirit of God moving upon these Waters which divideth the light from the darknesse not the Chaos it selfe that actively produceth these two lights of patience and hope although the troubles and confusions of this world may be the elements out of which the spirit may extract them For sufferings seeme to be to patience that which matter is to the artificer for though the art be seated in the minde yet it cannot be actuated and expres'd but by some matter that supports it so patience though it be a spirituall disposition inherent in the soule cannot be exercised but upon some passion and contrariety which is the subject that renders it visible and discernable for the Theory of this virtue can no more assure us of our abilities in it then the studie of all the Geometricall rules of Sculpture can ascertain a Statuary of his sufficiency untill he hath experimented it upon either stone and brasse or waxe or clay at least some matter is requisite to reflect to him the sight of his notions formed and reduced to their last terme which is a visible exhibition of them So there must be some afflictions though not the severest yet some at least of a softer quality which must minister some matter of contrariety and vexation to be as the ground and subject exposing to our selves the worke of our patience upon it Wherefore as joy in tribulations must be derived from Patience so this vertue must be acquired by Prayer They who look lower then God for patience doe commonly look also lower then heaven for the order of their afflictions and so fall short both in the knowledge of the nature of their evils and their remedies For they who rely on nature or morall reason for their cure may well be judged to impute their malady to Fortune Whereupon S. James giveth this further advise to that of our petitioning and postulating of wisdome James 6. that We must aske in faith without any doubting or haesitation not tossing in an irresolution of referring our crosses to the eye of Providence or to the blindnesse of Fortune Such a wavering aestuation of spirit the Apostle saith must not expect to receive any thing Our prayer therefore must be as fixed in the beliefe of Gods speciall providence in all contingencies as it is in the confession of a God for the one involveth the other and then we shall finde such a joy in patience as our reason it selfe shal witnesse to be divine as being beyond her reach so much as she must avow it to be Digitus Dei Wherefore I beseech you to beware of the fluctuation of these times betweene the strength of morall reason and the rest of faith for there is nothing so injurious to reason as under the pretence of exalting it to raise it out of the owne sphere of activity exacting such effects of Reason as are not to be found lower then the orbe of grace For they who assigne themselves peace and repose in all tribulations out of the stock of Phylosophie prejudice Reason much by their over-promising for it For Morall Phylosophie at the highest is but as it were a Meteor suspended in the ayre betweene the earth of a meere sensuall 1 Cor. 15. The first man of earth earthly The second man from heaven heavenly and the firmament of a spirituall man It is not so much raised above the man who is de terrâ terrenus as it is below him who is de coelo coelestis wherefore all the sweet-sounding and harmonious tongues of the Phylosophers are but sounding brasse or tinkling cymbals when they come to be used without the charity infused by the fiery tongues of Sion We shall find the hollownesse of such tongues which raised their noise to our eares very light when we take them into our hands to weigh against the heavinesse and gravations of sad crosses and oppressions Methinks many of the Heathen Phylosophers supposed in their prescripts concerning the minds insensiblenesse in all the passions and pressures of the body that the body had but such a coexistence of place with the mind as we say those bodies of aire have with the Angels that assume them in which those spirits are onely as movers in a moveable subject not at all united or affected thâ—â— matter appeareth about them which is not informed by them but assumed by them to expose them to our sight and so is only moved by them without any connexion to them So sure their suppositions that the minde may remaine unconcerned in all the sufferances and tortures of the flesh require that our bodies should be but such ayery matter rather moved only then informed by our soules For that apathie the Stoicks propose in all the bodies distresses cannot hold in that connexion our soules and bodies have with one another and so whosoever shall relye upon their conclusions shall finde their conceits ayery and vacuous and their owne bodies too solid and too closely conjoyned to their souls not to be affected with the burthens and pressures of it Wherefore our faith teacheth us to resort to a higher Principle residing in our soule and yet is no part of it which is the Holy spirit of God infused by his grace whereby we are instructed in the incapacities and deficiencies of our owne nature and the detection of our minds inability in her own single power proveth her enforcement nay inablement to resent all the bodies grievances yet to bear them without distraction or reluctancy and this discernment of that obnoxious state the soule is exposed unto showeth her That as she can doe nothing of her selfe but suffer and complain so in virtue of that supplementall aid she can rejoyce in tribulations and professe Phil. 4.14 I can doe all things in him that strengthens me Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat Whereupon we must be possessed of this principle that peace of minde doth not spring up in affliction as the plants did in Paradise Genes 2. without either raine or culture Patience which is the dew of heaven must be drawn from thence and this as it is attracted only by the meanes Elias used to open heaven so likely it holds this analogy with his small cloude he could
order to this we see that the bleeding of the mysticall body of Christ hath alwaies offered a kinde of spirituall cement to unite and compact the parts thereof Whereupon the holy Ghost who hath this commission to produce an union in the mysticall body of Christ John 17.21 23. resembling that of the Blessed Trinity whereof he is the union as he performeth this effectively by love so he raiseth this love very often instrumentally by persecution For we know in those times when opposition to this tender body was most fierce this union was so firme and indissoluble as the holy Spirit seemeth to glory in this operation as having wrought this similitude of unity so perfectly as he pronounceth The multitude of beleevers to have had one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule so that here was that similitude accomplished in them which Christ asked thus of his Father for the beleevers in him Job 17.22 that They may be one as we also are one For this seemeth a good resemblance of that union is in the Blessed Trinity wherein there is distinction of Persons and unity of Essence since here the multitude consisting of divers persons were all one heart and one soule This simplicity and unanimity slakned even in those times by the same degrees that the pressures which lay upon this arch of the Church were lightned and removed But in all times we finde that a common persecution hath in some measure straitened and combined the minds consorted in that band of Religion which is the cause of their pressure and gravation So as we cannot doubt but these times have in a good proportion closed and compacted more your hearts in a mutuall zeal and charity towards one another which unity of spirit is very sutable with the uniformity of your Religion and no violence can suppresse a free exercise of this act thereof And as this sort of communication to one anothers necessities is a means left you still to exercise your charities so I hope in God you are very faithfull and active in this commerce with one another and that both sorts drive a greater trade of charity in your severall faculties then ever Those who have beene in the office of giving materiall almes doe now I hope endeavour to compensate the losses of the poore Pro. 19.17 He lendeth to our Lord that hath mercy on the poore and he will repay him the like who are Gods receivers by proving themselves the devouter and better beggers of God releefe for the common distresses and they who have received much from others upon Gods tickets do I hope now bring them in to God more fervently then ever showing him what they have received upon his account and so may be earnest solicitors for the payment of that Interest which they doe witnesse to be due upon this contract of the holy Spirit Faeneratur Domino quà miseretur pauperi vicissitudinem suam reddet ei and thus both parties may still commerce for their severall accommodations those who have beene Gods creditors in the sense aforesaid may seeme more sensible of the suspension of this quality then of their personall deprivements and may most zealously intercede for the supplying of that office by some other means and those who are miserably distituted now by the obstruction of this conduit of reliefe may be so gratefully zealous as to intend more the bringing into God the accounts due to such ministers of his as stand now suspended then their owne private suppeditations and both shall by this means hold their proper parts in this consort of charity the one shall forget their good works before God and the other shall remember him of them Thus spirituall good works may still multiply among you while the one part of you sorroweth most for the intermission of the practicall ministry of them and the other feeleth more their religious gratitude to their distressed benefactors then their private grievances And this kinde of weeping in your widowes and shewing the coats and garments which the Dorcases were wont to make them Act. 9.59 who are now dead to that function is one of the likelyest meanes to obtaine their resuscitation and re-instating in that condition For as the Wiseman saith It is an easie thing for God to accommodate the poore James 5.11 Facile est Dec honestare pauperem and the Apostle S. James proposeth Jobs temporall resurrection and restauration as an object of comfort to faithful expecters of Gods time and therefore these two duties faithfully performed by both your conditions may make the highest poverty amongst you abound unto the riches of simplicity the which may also intercede so powerfully for the other part as it may prove such an Angelicall mediation as is spoken of in Job Job 33.23 If there shall be an Angel speaking for him one of thousands to declare mans equity he shall have mercy on him and shall say Deliver him that he descend not into corruption I have found wherein I may be propitious to him the voyce of the poore bringing in these testimonies of their former equities for your Jobs whom their friends doe not know sitting in the ashes of their consumed fortunes these I say that have not made the eyes of the widdow expect nor have eaten their morsell alone such bills and evidences brought in to Christ as debts wherewith he hath charged his person may perhaps procure Jobs latter daies for such who have passed thorough his first estate and are now sitting in his second translation But in all cases these notes of the hands of the poore shall be sure assignments for that better and permanent substance which the Apostle saith is their inheritance Heb. 10. of those who have susteined a great fight of passions and have had compassion on them that were in bonds and have taken the spoile of their goods with joy For which reason this mutuall commerce of spirituall charity is that I now recommend unto you for the exercise of fraternall dilection that while you cannot turnish the Altar without the veyle with the fat of your flocks you may the more largely serve the table of Incense with these odours of internall charity What I have said in way of direction to these interiour acts of charity is to extenuate the paines of those Tobiasses who it may be are now reduced from being almoners to be their owne almes-men having scarce left for their support that which was heretofore their waste that ran over and fed their brothers But I doe not intend this as a dispensation to any who have yet any thing left which they may prudently deny themselves in contribution to the releife of such who have no portion of subsistance For now every one should square his mind by the new modell of these times and the same clay that the potter hath beene pleased to turn from a larger into a lesser vessell must attend to his present forme and not reflect upon his
be violated and offended nay he subjected himselfe to his greatest enemy the Divell himselfe when he suffered him to carry him up to the pinnacle of the Temple so there is no creature from the sublimest to the meanest from the best to the worst to whom Christ did not humiliate himselfe And thus you see this arche of humiliation set as it were on another bow in the clouds of his humanity for a signe of this Covenant of sufferances wherein I have suggested to you your ingagement and this bow of his Covenant is so extended as it makes a perfect circle it reacheth from the sphere of angelicall to that of inanimate substances to both which we see Christ did submit himselfe and so his subjection toucheth the highest and the lowest point of his owne creatures Which consideration of his ineffable humility must needs assure us of that admirable effect it hath produced of converting crosses into the nourishment of his body left upon earth and so to bring that which separated his soule and his body now to be the meanes of reuniting the body to the head For the Crosse is left in his Church to conjoyne and consociate the members unto their suffering head Christ Jesus and we may well adde that this Divine signe of the Crosse set in the Heaven of his Person so conspicuously remains as a sensible marke of his promise to the Church of never being drown'd in any inundation of crosses falling on her Looking up therefore to the heavenly object of Christs sufferings we may be comforted by our similitude and we may rejoyce at our security which this Covenant recapitulateth to us as often as we contemplate it insomuch as there is none of you who groan under any pressure or tremble under any oppression Heb. 12.2 that looking up upon the anthor and finisher of our faith Christ Jesus may not see him bearing the same crosse with joy despising the confusion of it Whether you sweat under your burdens or whether you bleed under the edge of these times you shall find your persecution both civill and sanguinary patternd to you in the person even of God and Man Christ Jesus who hath not left so much as your feares and terrors out of the exemplar of his passions Mar. 14.33 He began to be heavy and to feare his Caepit taedere pavere was designed purposely as a cordiall in your fits of fainting and if there were any point in your afflictions which were not exemplifide to you in Christs passions that circumstance ought to prove to you a sufficient consolation in that you had some suffering to offer to Christ of your owne besides the copye and pourtraicture of his But alas all that we can imagin in our own paines wherein there is imitation of his is that which we may better blush at then boast of for it is only the guilt of deserving more then we can endure in this life this is simply ours in our afflictions wherein we find no resemblance in the figure of Christs sufferings which part of our cases may make us offer up to Christ a thankfull alacrity in all temporall penalties inflicted on us for having taken off from us the burthen we could not remove by any sufferings and having left us only such pressures as may aleviate the weight of that intolerable gravation which is the guilt of sinne for our crosses in this life by the vertue of the Crosse of Christ whereof our heaviest are but chippes or shavings doe not only keepe our sinnes lower but also weigh against the temporall penalty of those which are in the scale It may admit a question whether it be a more precious Christian exercise to doe good or to endure evills That state is certainly the best in which both are conjoyned when suffering many grievances we act as many good as we are able yet God hath provided matter of meriting in both conditions severally let them then who have nothing left to give to God by way of actions rejoyce in the faculty of sorrowes which furnish them meritorious offerings in all their necessities When King David extols the dignity of man he raiseth it upon this ground that God had made him but a little lower then Angells Psal 8. But in this respect we may say that God hath advantaged him above them by furnishing him with more instruments of meriting then they have by having coupled a body to this spirit in which he may suffer for Christ when many other capacities of expressing his gratitude are suspended For man hath not only all the severall powers of his minde but also the senses of his body given him as organs of meriting by carrying the Crosse upon them With this corporeall furniture man is enriched above Angells so as man may even out of the greatest infirmities of his constitution extract matter of glorification This vertue hath been imparted to the vility of flesh and blood since God vouchsafed to be invested in it our flesh received this priviledge not only of being admitted into heaven but of contributing to the soule 's degrees of glory by the proportions of the bodies fufferings and as S. Paul saith Rom. 8.13 It is no wonder that God having given his owne Sonne to human nature should have given all these other prerogatives with him Out of this state of our mortality the Saints shall rise as high as they should have done from the state of innocence immortality which shews that they are equally sanctified in the brevity shortnesse of their life now to what they should have attained in many ages if they had remained immortall The multitude of sorrowes and crosses by the grace of Christ countervaileth and compensateth the numerousnesse of the yeeres of our service Our Redeemer hath left this compendious way of meriting by the necessities molestations of our flesh the which he would not expunge in it that he might present his Father the children of his most precious passions as much purified in a little time as they should have been in the efflux of many ages He who raised above the highest heaven the heavinesse of our earth upon this Engine of the Crosse hath left it us to winde up the easilyer our terrestrial qualities upon the same machine This was the means which S. Paul made use of in all his elevations up to the third heaven Christo confixus sum cruci Gal. 2.20 With Christ I am nailed to the Crosse carryed him up to that sublimity and he kept himself so close nayled to the Crosse all his life as when he was weak he was strongest and never esteemed his raptures so much as his revilings and ignominies He professeth to glory willingly in nothing but in his humiliations Libenter gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis 2 Cor. 12. Gladly wil I glory in my infirmities in contumelies in necessities in distresses for Christ c. in contumeliis in necessitatibus in angustiis pro
and at the same time seeth him to be the brightnesse of his glory and the figure of his owne substance this must needs propitiate God infinitely to that body which representeth to him such an honour he hath received from the head thereof who being equall with him did thus admirably subject himselfe for the exaltation of his glory Doth not then the suffering Church rememorate to God continually the highest point of all his glory For the holocausting or incineration of infinite worlds in honour of the Majesty of God would not have been an oblation equivalent to the least drop of blood drawne from the person of Christ and therefore Christs designe in leaving his mysticall body in a suffering posture is one of the highest straines of his divine providence both in order to the honouring of his Father Ephes 4.13 and the purifying of his Church till The body and the head meet in the perfect man in the age of the fulnesse of Christ It then we review the state of the Church even since the Empire of the world undertooke her protection and repose we shall finde her still continuing an image of the life of Christ who we know had divers intermixtures in his course through this world sometimes he was in want and hunger in the desart sometimes declared in the glory of his miracles feeding multitudes and curing all diseases and again sometimes we find him withdrawing and hiding himselfe from the fury of the people and then at other times we behold him in authority and magistracy expelling the prophaners of the Temple and casting out the evill spirits out of the images of God and converting them into the temples of the Holy Ghost These vicissitudes we finde also in the state of his Church sometimes prospering spreading and feeding those multitudes which sodainly after have risen against her and forced many of her members to fly out of their reach into desarts and more dispeopled places in some times again she hath propagated miraculously and established her doctrine and her jurisdiction among many unbeleeving nations in a wonderfull felicity and in sequence of time hath beene banished and eliminated out of these dominions These alternative mutations are evident in the progresse of her dispersion through the world and we know she shall extend her selfe at last to the ends of the world and if not cover the face yet leave some of her markes upon the whole face of the earth Wee see her now as it were shipped away almost quite from Africa where she was so firmly planted many ages before America was so much as knowne to be in the world and now shee spreads there to a good growth while her plantation in Africa lies waste and desolate and the good seed which is falne in that ground seemeth to answer for the semination of those tares which the Enemy hath cast into these territories of Christianity And we may note that all the ancient heresies which so much infested the Church in former ages are now almost eradicated according to the fate of them Sap. 4.3 Spuria vitulamina non dabunt radices altas and the new ones which are now so flowerd and full blowne will shed and fall away like Tulips which commonly vary their colours every yeare somewhat till the roote it selfe in a few yeares leaveth bearing and these varieties of vexations will successively spring up to the Church out of the ruines of some errors new wil be erected and thus she shall be exercised to the end of the world till the man of sin Antichrist shall come to purge her by a generall conflagration as it were of the whole world in the flames of his blasphemy which shal be the last perfecting fire of tribulation shall reduce the Church to the finenesse of that gold which must pave the heavenly Jerusalem This is Christs method and designation of the manner of his Churches passage through this world up to him in whom since there can be neither impotency nor severity to this his body for the Apostle tells us Ephe. 5.29 He nourisheth and cherisheth it as a man doth his owne flesh we must resolve that this order is in reference to the presenting his Father with a continuall intuition of his suffering body whereby he is the most eminently honoured Ephe. 5.27 Not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it may be holy and unspotted and to refine this body to the most perfect degree of purity which this locall separation from the head can admit of to reduce it at last to that glorious estate Non habentem maculam aut rugam aut aliquid hujusmodi sed ut sit sancta immaculata Wherefore I may properly say to you as members of this suffering body 1. Pet. 4.12 from S. Peters mouth Thinke it not strange in the fervour which is to you for tentation as though some new thing happened unto you for all that you are exposed to is in consequence of that order wherein Christ conducts his Church through this transitory world TO clucidate farther this position That God is propitiated by the sight of Christs suffering body we may make this animadversion upon the constitution of the Catholike Church That soone after the issue of bloud was stenched so as the bodies of the Martyrs did no longer afford that object of passions the Holy Ghost who had charge to preserve the Church in the most acceptable condition to God presently infused a spirit of voluntary mortifications and sufferings into the Church whereby many holy persons were divinely inspired to congregate bodies and societies of sufferers which should be united by a vow of perpetuall afflicting and exercising their bodies and making themselves lively images of Jesus Christ crucified by the rules of selfe-abnegation and exhibition of a life intirely sacrificed in the toleration of all sorts of austerities This spirit wrought upon both sexes and hath produced those admirable orders of mortified and crucified Christians which are so eminent in the Catholike Church so that the strongest powers of flesh and blood have been subdued by the weakest portions of it Virgins in the succeeding times have been as sanctified by their civill death and spirituall mortification as they were by the violent destruction of their lives consecration of their bodies in martyrdome to this ministery of the Churches sufferings which were wanting to the passions of Christ and so this order of selfe-sacrificing seemeth to have succeeded in the Church to the vacancie of the Martyrs whereby God hath this spectacle continued to him in the passions of the body of Christ in bodies and societies expresly set apart from the world for that intendment which are all the religious orders of the Catholike Church whose lives are nayled to the Crosse by many vowes of austerity penance and self-crucifixion and these make such a propitiating sacrifice of their lives to God as we may be assured he smels it as an odour of sweetnesse
patient in tribulation knowing all our hope must rise out of sufferances as they are the ligaments and connections of the body to a crucified head Wherefore I will desire you for your comfort as well as your conviction in this point to cast your thoughts upon the Crosse and consider only the last miracle which Christ was pleased his body should exhibit to us after his soule was departed from it You may note how out of that wound which Longinus the Souldier gave him after he was dead there issued the two greatest mysteries of the Church to oblige us to beleeve that much more the head himselfe never woundeth or permitteth to be offended any of the members of his living body upon earth but upon some speciall reason which alwaies resulteth to the good of that part he striketh unlesse the part it selfe prove the impediment by some miscarriage in the state of cure Wherefore that portion of his body amongst you which is now bleeding under his hand need feare nothing but their own ill diet irregularity in their hurts for they may prove so healthfull to you as they may convert even the diseases of your naturall bodies into a good constitution of your souls and the regiment of your selves in this case is prescribed by S. Paul 1. Cor. 16.13 Watch ye stand in the faith doe manfully and be strengthened upon occasion of the same infirmity in his time Vigilate state in fide viriliter agite confortamini This prescript containeth a direction to your three constitutions of Sufferers Doe manfully relateth to you as you are men Be strengthened belongeth to you as Christians Watch and stand in the faith respecteth you as Catholikes and if you apply these remedies respectively to your infirmities even every one of these your three Vae Vae Vae's upon earth shall afford you a Sanctus in heaven and so as Men Christians and Catholikes weeping here you may attain to the singing eternally of Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus in heaven CHAP. IV. Of the manner of discharging these duties of Sufferings WE may observe that Christ spake neither so frequently nor so cleerly of any one thing to his Disciples as of the sufferings and passions he was to undergoe and yet they never understood him in them They were alwayes either in such feare or such wonder concerning them as they never durst aske the question for the explication of their perplexities They quickly sought the explication of all his Parables Mar. 9.31 that seemed referred either to his power or his promises but in this point of his disparagements and his passions they seemed so little desirous of an illumination as when he was ready to be seized according to his prediction and upon the point of separation from them he is faine to reproach them that they were dejected only not desirous to be informed whither he was going John 15.5.6 whereupon depended all their reperations The apprehension of sufferance and passion seâ—meth to have such a quality as is reported of the Torpedo for it often stupifies and benummeth our nature so as it leaves not so much as even curiosity stirring in it towards an inquisition of reliefe In like manner there may be many who have heard much of our exposure to sufferings and afflictions in this life and yet remain little inlightned in the right conception of them and which is worse little inquisitive of that method whereby we must extract benefit and utility out of them Wherefore it is requisite to exhibit as faire a copy of that method as I can let forth to their comprehensions that they may not be dismaied by this Onus Domini Jer. 23. The burthen of the Lord. nor be deluded by this supposition that they are all the spirituall children of Abraham who have this marke of the Covenant of sufferances upon their bodies or their fortunes for it is not this moral circumcision or uncircumcision that intitles us to the promises but the spirituall signature of Christ upon the heart it is not the exterior infliction of misery that qualifies us for the reward proposed nor a present immunity and quiet that ejects us out of the society of Christs passions it is the interior disposition in both cases that constituteth the rightfull title to remuneration In those who are actually exercised under their crosses it is the patient and pious resignation which intitleth them to the conditions of the Covenant and in those who are in a present suspension or truce enjoying a serene conveniency it is the preparation and disposure of their hearts to accept humbly all orders of God in how sharp a stile soever they shall be issued against their persons or estates This frame of the mind is their evidence before the eyes of God of their right to the contract of suffering members of Christ Job's disposition in his quotidian sacrifices was no worse an odour to God then the suavity of his patience fuming up from that meane altar whereon he lay offering up his ashes The materiall part of affliction doth not sanctifie no more then the same part in alms or charity doth expiate they are both but Egena elementa Gal. 4.9 Barren elements of themselves the heart and the spirit wherewith they are designed animateth and enliveneth them Wherefore we may say of sufferings that which Christ said of a case not much unlike to this Mar. 7.15 That no affliction which goeth into a man doth actually sanctifie him but it is the spirit of sufferance which resideth in him that must render him holy for out of the heart only good intentions and humble conformities doe issue so as the externall crosses that fall upon the man doe not formally purifie him it is what comes out of the heart as the emissions of humility patience and charity which his heart sendeth forth to meete and imbrace all Gods pleasures which can onely hallow and sanctifie the man Therefore I may very fitly say if any man hath eares to heare let him heare that you may not prove so unhappy as to beare the weight and heat of the day and to forfeit at last your hire for though God saith He chastiseth every child he receiveth he doth not say He receiveth every one that he chastiseth S. James therefore when he proposeth to his distressed country-men The esteeming it all joy their falling into various trialls and temptations coupleth this reason with his proposition James 1.2 Knowing that the probation of your faith worketh patience So that the benefit must be derived from the effect of tribulation which is the producing of patience the which doth not naturally spring out of misery for this is but the matter or the subject whereon this virtue is exercised not the spirit or forme of this holy disposition For which reason the Apostle compleateth his advise by proceeding to direct them how to compasse this necessary adjunction to the matter of their afflictions to render them subjects of joy saying
your way that might endanger you in your following and carrying your Crosses safely and graciously in this traine I have cleered all those scruples and dissipated those temptations I conceived the most obnoxious and the most subtile the enemy could object to amuse you or excite to seduce you Against both which impediments in the way of the Crosse to wit of doubts which might keep you unresolved and of offers that might divert you I have given their precautions and defences respectively to the natures of the dangers Having thus furnished you the armes of righteousnesse on the right hand and the left with all sincerity and as much ability as God hath pleased to impart unto me I may use the termes of the beloved Apostle upon the same occasion 1 John 14. These things we write to you that you may rejoyce and your joy may be full For surely if out of these principles of Catholike Religion you doe but extract some drops of joy Psa 109.7 Of the torrent in the way shall be drink therefore shall he exalt his head now while you are drinking or the torrent in the way with him of whom the Psalmist saith De torrente in viâ bibet propterea exaltabit caput with what a torrent of joy shall you be refreshed when you come to be united to that exalted head and drink as it were with his mouth tasting the same volupty which he feedeth and liveth upon In this contemplation me thinks it should be no harder a matter for you to be pleased now in your pressures and vexations then it is for a Generall to rejoyce while his wounds are dressing though with much sensible paine which are the memorials of a glorious victory All the paines and asperities of temporall affliction unto a heart fastned to the Crosse of Christ Act. 5.41 in which posture there is an actuall triumph are but such smarts and pungencies as the body of a Conqueror may feele in his hurts while his minde is elevated with a superiour Joy and Delectation There may be such a present dolorousnesse in the senses of those victorious sufferers while their spirits are going rejoycing with the Apostles in these stripes which their persons resent for Saint Paul the great Doctor in consorting this suavity and asperity telleth us Heb. 12.11 All discipline for the present truly seemeth not to be of joy but sorrow but afterward it will render to them who are exercised by it most peaceable fruit of justice Therefore a Christian who liveth by faith more nobly then by sense rests not upon what he feeleth but passeth on to what he beleeveth and hopeth 2 Cor. 4.18 The things that are seen are temporall but these that are not seen are eternall considering that Temporalia sunt quae videntur quae autem non videntur aterna Me thinks Job upon his triumphall arch raised upon the consumption and ashes of all his temporalities prefigureth to us the estate and directeth the course of a Christian He hath set me as it were a proverb for the common people and the just shall hold his way and with clean hands shall adde strength These contrarietyes must be expected yet this rectitude in the way and this proficiency in the advance must be endeavoured and by those gaining upon our selves we attain to that joy which our Saviour hath promised none shal take from us for our King hath associated two things more incoÌ„patible in the state of our nature then the Emp. Merva was so much celebrated for in the state of civill regiment which was that he had conjoyned two things before his time insociable Empire and Liberty But our Prince of peace hath consociated even the sword and peace for he professeth he came to separate the neerest alliances of nature and yet to confederate joy and sorrow in these separations And this capacity imparted to our nature of rejoycing and suffering all together seemeth a resemblance in us of the ineffable union in him of his Divine and Human natures For these two operations Angelicall and Humane seeme now conjoyned in the faculties of man when he rejoyceth as if he were an Angel while he suffereth as a Man This concordancy hath Christ made between these two antipathies of joy and sorrow by that power which joyned himselfe to us in such a sort as no mortal shal ever conceive the manner of it And the same power giveth us this capacity of issuing as it were out of our selves in such a kind as we cannot comprehend that virtue by which we are thus enabled to joy and sorrow in the same conjuncture But though we doe not conceive fully the virtue by which we act we are cleerly informed of what we are to endeavour in all distresses never so averse to our nature for where he whom we beleeve equall to God returned him thanks and prayses for all his crosses and passions we who are but wormes and dust cannot doubt how we are to comport our selves in our chastisements and corrections under the hand of our Creator The Apostle in these instructions given to the Roman Catholikes for their behaviour in persecution compriseth and summeth up in a few words all my ratiocinations Be fervent in spirit Rom. 12. rejoycing in hope patience in tribulation instâ—nt in prayer These are the Wedges out of which I have by way of expansion drawn all the leaf-gold which I have laid upon these sheets out of which every one of you may take stuffe enough to gild over his Crosse and now I present you with the barres themselves out of which each of you may draw that fire-tryed gold which the Angel counselleth them to buy that would be made rich For as the prince of the Apostles saith of these same dispositions and in little differing terms 2 Pet. 1.8 If these things be present with you and abound they shall make you not vacant not without fruit in the knowledge of our Lord JESUS CHRIST And you will please to remember that I have marked you out the way of having this presence and abundance of these graces and endowments by fervent and indeficient prayer which openeth the eares of even the unjust judge and much more his who hath given us this expedient for all our releefs Luk. 18.2 It behoveth alwayes to pray and not to be weary 1 Thes 5.16 Oportet semper orare non deficere so that this precept of our righteous judge and mercifull master cannot be too much iterated and urged upon you in this time of your tentation And certainly Saint Pauls Rejoyce alwayes and his Pray alwayes are fitly set together for they are Correlatives prayer being the father and joy the sonne In this life our necessities require continuall supplies and in the other life where we shal know no want these two shall change their relations joy shall be the parent and prayer the issue for there the fulnesse of joy shall beget perpetuall prayer whereas here the abundance
of prayer is it that produceth a continuation of joy It is prayer then that is the anchor of our joy in this world Heb. 6.19 which may be fastned to the inner part of the vayle where Jesus the precursor is entred he hath left us this anchor to cast upwards to stay our peace in all afflictions and storms of this sea we sail up and down in for a while and if in any calm of spirit we lessen our prayer we doe but as if in faire weather a Ship should cut off her anchors confiding in the continuance of this serenity and consequently it can be no lesse then desperatenesse not to be very instant and intentive in prayer in the foule weather of persecution This prescription then of the Apostle is the most soveraign that can be ministred to your exigencies 2 Tim. 8.2 I wil therfore that men pray in every place lifting up pure hands without anger or altercation Volo ergo vires orare in omni loco levantes puras manus sine irâ disceptations When your hands are thus lifted up to Heaven the Amalekites are easilyer defeated then while they are retorting back their own darts of malices and animosities Whereupon David in his Canticle of resurrection wherein he acknowledgeth his marvailous restaurations assigneth all to the vertue of Prayer saying Psal 65.19.20 Therefore hath God heard and attended to the voice of my Petition Blessed be God who hath not removed my Prayer and his mercy from me Upon which words Saint Augustine gives us this rule That as long as we find not our Prayer removed from us we may be sure Gods mercy is not far from us for God doth often misericordiously deny our prayers that are in order to temporall reliefe as the Physitian knoweth better then the Patient what may be conveniently granted him but while he giveth us this perseverance he bestoweth his will upon us which must needs be better then our owne it may be we beg a serpent and he giveth us bread infallibly when he inspireth this indeficiency in Prayer Wherefore in resemblance of Saint Augustines excellent ejaculation of Lord give what you command and command what you please I will propose to you this adjunction in the unsuccessefulnesse of all your petitions Lord be pleased not to deny us the persistence in Prayer and deny us what you please of our prayers This is then the universall remedy I humbly offer to all your wounds or distempers exteriour or intrinsike the constant application of Prayer which is as the Spirit to the body of Religion whereof no violence can interrupt the exercise which I shall leave recommended to you with this testimony of the holy Spirit Prov 31.29 Many daughters have gathered together riches thou hast passed them all very applyable to the prerogatives of Prayer Multae filiae congregaverunt divitias tu supergressa es universas Upon the premission of all these principles of Christianity I may justly charge you with this injunction of Saint Paul to his brethren upon the same occasion Heb. 12.12 For the which cause stretch up the slacked hands and the loose knees and make straight steps to your feet that no man halting erre but rather be healed Cast off then all faintnesse and pusillanimity let not your hearts hang down as oppressed with that weight which groweth the lighter the more your hands are elevated and lifted to heaven And nothing is more opposed to the cure of your hurts then this halting the Apostle disswadeth to wit the favouring of your nature in that part it is offended by the world still leaning and swaying your thoughts towards the desires of temporall restitutions towards animosities to enemies and limping a little between repining and resignation These are the haltings in which our nature seemeth to ease her selfe but in effect this is but to favour a sore part by which tendernesse we may suffer the nerves to contract and the members may be by degrees rendred uselesse by this error of indulgence For this cause we are advised to make our steps straight to tread confidently in the vestiges and footsteps of our Saviour who Heb. 12.2 joy being proposed to him sustained the Crosse and the power of walking upon the same waters is denyed to none who have faith enough to tread confidently upon them when they are called to come to him in those his paths of many waters He who hath bid us all take up our Crosse and follow him cannot be answered John 14.5 Lord we know not whither thou goest and how can we know the way For we know he hath entred into his glory this way and hath set our glory at the end of the same passage wherein not onely his precedencie guideth us but the concomitancy of his grace and vertue supporteth and carryeth us and that the easilyer the more we leane upon them Therefore turne not your heads awry out of this narrow way to looke upon the broad flowrie passages of sinners but making straight steps in your owne track follow your glorious Crosse-bearer crying to him with the Psalmist Psal 93.12 13. Blessed is the man whom thou shalt instruct O Lord and shalt teach out of thy Law that thou mayst give him quietnesse from the evill dayes till a pit be digged for the sinner There is a Mine digging under all the rosie banks of full blowne prosperity and it is not our parts to know the times or moments of Gods springing this mine Let it be then your application to draw as many as you can by your prayers from under this hollow ground they are walking and building on and not your study to calculate or prognostike the day of their destruction This you may be assured of from the mouth of the Prophet and compassionate their sentence in comparison of your present sufferings Upon the ground of my people shall thorns and bryars come up how much more upon all the houses of the City rejoycing You may therefore rejoyce Esay 32.13 that you are but scratched a little by those thorns and bryars while others are in danger to have their roses and flowers turned into the fuell of eternall flames O then how much more are you to be accounted blessed upon whom is entayled that inheritance incorruptible and incontaminate conserved in the heavens Wherein you shall rejoyce 1 Pet. 1.6 7. a little now if you must be made heavy in divers tentations that the probation of your faith much more precious then gold which is proved by the fire may be found unto praise and glory and honour in the revelation of JESUS CHRIST Therefore in all the provocations of these times either by our personall distresses or by the contumelies and exprobrations of your religion let your spirits answer the reluctant impulses of your sensitive nature 2 Tim. 1.2 I suffer these things but I am not confounded for I know whom I have beleeved I am sure that he