prosperities he invites them to penance by summons and inspirations which would reclaim tygers and if they return to him he receives them he pardons them he embraces them with inconceivable Clemency and sweetness 14. Nevertheless He is so great and terrible in Iusticè that though the death and Passion of JESUS-CHRIST is capable to redeem a hundred thousand worlds He sees notwithstanding an infinity of Iews of Pagans of Turcks Hereticks of bad Catholicks in the mass of corruption in the way of perdition He draws them not powerfully out of it through a most profound and incomprehensible but most just judgement and he accomplisheth the verity of this word of this tunder-clap many are Mat. 20. 16 called but few elect 15. He is great and admirable in his independence and in the plenitude of his Being He is naturally sufficient to himself most content with himself most happy in himself and has no need of any thing without himself He had from all eternity power to produce creatures heaven earth and all that is in them and he hath not created them but in time for to shew that he had no need of them for to make known that since he hath been perfectly happy without them from eternity he created them not for any S. Austin◠12. de Civit. c. 17. sub fin want he had of them but by a free goodness and by a pure and disinteressed charity Let us make an end of speaking of Him whose greatness has no end who is infinite in his Essence and infinite in Perfections for 't is to mafle as infants 't is to obscure his perfections to speak of them so imperfectly and if He were not infinitely mercifull and condescendent it would be a punishable temerity to speak so lowly so grossly and so unworthily of Him Yet this is enough to make us see what a Majesty we offend and whom we make our enemy when we commit a mortal sin And after this shal we not endeavour to conceive a lively repentance of our sins shal we content our selves with a little sorrow and which regards nothing but our own interests if we detest our sins because they rob us of our merits subject us to the tyranny of the devill engage us to Eternal damnation if we have no other motive 't is to feel and resent a scratch of a pin which we have received and not a great stroake of a sword which we have given The injuries that sin does to the Creatour are without comparison greater then those which it does to the Creature 16. For to avoyd them then Let us remember that God is infinitely noble If a Prince tho' a stranger that appertains not at all to us were in this Country we would not abuse or injure him but would honor him and treat him with respect and shal we dare to offend our God our Sovereign the King of Kings This King who is so great that all the Kings of the earth in respect of Him are but slaves and wormes of the earth Let us consider that He is infinitely powerfull We fear to offend the Powers of this world because they can punish us deprive us of our liberty estates or temporal life and shal we dare to offend the omnipotent God who by one word one act of his Will can reduce us to dust who after He has killed the body will cast our soules into Eternal flames Let us consider that He is infinitely Wise that all things ly open to his sight that he can not forget any thing that whatsoever excuse we forge for to flatter our conscience and to diminish the greatness of our offenses He sees the greatness of them He knows all the circumstances of them and pierceth the bottome of our hearts He knows that 't is neither violence nor poverty nor necessity that makes us to commit sin but that 't is because we have not the fear of God nor the due love of him Let us consider that He is good and that He has always been so to us T is a great injustice a very unnatural malice to offend a person that has never given us any cause who has never disoblig'd us all his life We know that 't is God who created us who conserves us at present and hath preserved us from a thousand dangers He who hath given us more than we have desir'd more than we should dare to desire and what is above all desire who has given his own life and died upon the Cross by pure charity towards us After all these graces shal wee have the malice to commit a mortal sin which infinitely displeases Him Let us remember that He is infinitely just and that his justice ought to have its cours His Prophet sayd I feared all my Iob. 9. 82. works knowing that thou wouldest not spare the offender He leaves not unpunished the least failings what will he do then to mortal sins to great Crimes We must hold it then as most certaine that if we commit these sins we shal suffer soon or late most bitter and grievous torments in this world or in the other Let us in fine consider that He is independent that He depends not of any one in his Being nor in his designs nor in his operations that if He associate sometimes his creatures in the Execution of his designs 't is by an Excess of goodness and not out of indigence If He could have need of us we might thinke that He would be obliged to pardon us and to seek our amitie But he needs us not He has been well without us from all Eternity he will be well without us for all Eternity and if we honour not his mercy in heaven we shal honor his justice by our sufferances in hell from which I pray God to keep us by his mercy Amen DISCOURS II. OF THE FIRST ARTICLE The Father Almighty Creatour Of Heaven and Earth THe first verity expressed in these words requires as much vertue and strength of Faith as any other Verity revealed It obliges us to believe and adore a pluralitie of divine Persons in a most perfect Unitie of nature and to Confess that in the Diety there is a Person who intellectually produces a coeternal and consubstantial Son Hence the Apostles truly call Him Father and his Paternity or fatherhood is so proper to Him that 't is not an Attribute or Quality but that which enters the intrinsecal and individual constitution of Him Father also of us because he created us conserveth us at present and nourisheth us Father again because he redeemed us by his own Son makes us his Children by adoption governs and directs us and conducts us to the inheritance of eternal life 2. Almighty or Omnipotent This signifies a perfection not so proper to him as is that of Fathêr Omnipotence also is not his particular Attribute or Quality but to him appropriated and attributed You know that the faith of the church adores three Persons subsisting in the
Divinity You know that Divinity acknowledgeth and reverenceth in God three principal Perfections Power Wisdom Goodness You know that the Scriptures and the Fathers doe attribute to each one of these Divine Persons one of these Perfections tho' all three be common to them all Omnipotence to the Father because He is the source and origin of Divinity Wisdom to the Son because He is begotten by the way of understanding and of knowledg Goodness to the Holy Ghost because He is produced by the way of Will and Love These are three Divine Persons which inseperably and indivisibly applyd themselves to the Creation to the Conservation and to the Government of the Univers These are the three fingers of God as the Prophet I say calls them who sustaine conserve and govern the world Those are their three infinite Perfections which are apply'd unto this worke For if we consider the matter out of which the World was drawn we shal admire an infinite Power If we consider the manner in which the World is governed we shal acknowledge an incomprehensible Wisdom If we consider the End to which this World is designed we shal see and love an ineffable Goodness 4. First we shal admire an infinite Power For if there were so Excellent a workman that could make a Cup of gold of a lumpe of silver he would be admired but if he should make a golden Cup of a mass of lead he would be a workman far more Excellent and yet more if he should make it of a barre of Iron and yet more if he made it of a piece of wood but if he made it of a grain of sand he would pass for a demy God and we would say that his power is almost infinite Ought he not than to be God indeed and to have a power entirely infinite for to make not a Cup of gold but Heaven and Earth Angells and men and all the other Creatures and to make them of nothing as our God did whom we confess in this Article to be the Creatour of Heaven and Earth 5. If his Divinity and his infinite Omnipotencie appeare so Clearly in the matter of which he made the world his Divinity and his incomprehensible Wisdom appears yet more in the manner by which he governs it This Wisdom say I shines so brightly in the conduct of the Univers that we need not but to open our Eyes for to see it as clear as the day For we see that the Heavens turne about us in so regular so constant and so unvariable an order that the seasons of the year serve us by quarters and that they succeed one another with a vicissitude so proportioned to our life We see that the animalls that have not judgement and also that the plants which have not sense performe all their functions with so much industry and perfection and commodity for our service as if they had judgment All this makes us to conclude that there must be in the Univers a Sovereign Wisdome a divine Spirit most intelligent and most provident who rules governs and directs all these things and who by an ineffable Goodness obliges them to serve us 6. For God created all these things for us He governs them all for us and to shew us this his admirable Goodness He created man the last of all as the End to which He referred his works For the end is always the first and the principall in the intention of the Workman and the last in the Execution of the worke And we experience to our great profit that they all tend unto this End and that they conspire to serve and intertaine us some to beare us others to nourish cloath cure and reioyce us T is then for you ô man that the heavens move that starrs glitter that fire warms that air refreshes that rivers run that the earth produces fruits that animalls live and labor and it is for you in fine that God conserves and employs all these Creatures when you thinke least of it when you recreate when you sleep when you injure and offend him He then thinkes on you He acts for you and makes all Nature to labor and sweat for you He says to you not by word but by work you disoblige me extremely you commit sin which displeaseth me infinitely But nevertheless take the presents which I make you taste and see that I am a sweet Lord. For is it not to be very sweet to give you so many sweetnesses and dainties in return to so many bitternesses which you present me daily Ha! we cease not to offend him and He ceases not to caress us what admirable Goodness should we not be monsters of ingratitude and abortives of nature if our hearts be not softened and gained by so many favours 7. Moreover we must note that we are obliged to God for all the good He hath don to other creatures When a Father employes a Tayler nourishes him payes him for his labor gives him stuff to make a robe for his daughter 't is not the robe that is obliged to him and if also the robe should have sense and understanding it would not be much obligd to thanke him since he hath not don all this to the robe for love of the robe but for love of his daughter 't is the daughter then that hath the obligation and who ought to thank her father for it so we are oblig'd to God for all the beauty goodness qualities and proprieties that He hath distributed among his creatures becaus 't is not for them but for us that He hath given them all these qualities and perfections to the end we may thank him prayse him love him serve him and keep his commandements He gave them the Countries of Nations Says the Royal Prophet and Psal 104. 44. they possêssed the labours of people that they might keep his justifications and seek his law Ô how ill does he that serves not God! ô what injustice does he commit against his Creatour T is an insupportable ingratitude not to acknowledg honor and love such a Benefactor 8. If you lett a poor Cottage to your neighbor you will that he pay you rent for it and if he should fail you would cry out against him How comes it then says S. Chrisostome that you pay not the tribute of thanks to your great God that you hom 12. ad Rom. serve him not cordially who hath placed you in this world in this glorious Pallace which He built and which wholy appertains to him If you have a Vineyard which you neither made nor planted nor cultivated but have received it by inheritance letting it to a farmer you will have the half or the thirds of the fruits of it though that the farmer be poor and hath many Children God hath lett you a Vineyard or field to farme and how vouchsafe you not to pay him not only not the fourth part of the revenew of it not also the tythe perhaps not the twentieth part
holy SACRAMENT Who is the Father of this coloured Ray 'T is the Sun But the Sun produced not the colour But it produced the Ray which is joyned with the colour and who is the mother of this coloured Ray 't is the glass but it made not the ray but it produced the radiant colour it cloathed the ray with this Robe of colour Who is the Father of IESUS MAN-GOD It is the eternal Father He begot not of his substance the Humanity of JESUS But He begot of his Substance the Person of his Son who is Man Who is the Mother of this MAN-GOD It is Mary she begot not the Divinity But she conceived the Man who is God the cloathed the Person of the Son of God with our humanity Which is the more ancient this coloured Ray or the glass The Ray as a Ray as the offspring of the Sun is a long time before the glass it is from the beginning of the world it is as ancient as the Sun But the Ray as coloured is younger than the Sun Who is the more ancient IESUS or Mary IESUS as God or as Son of God is long before Mary He is from eternity as the Father and the holy Ghost But JESUS as man is younger than his Mother This Ray being in the sun is so bright and resplendent that i◠dazells the eyes of them that look upon it but the same ray being descended here below and cloathed with a red colour is easily beheld so the son of God in the bosome of his Father is invisible ineffable inaccessible and incomprehensible But the same Son of God being cloathed with our humanity is made visible palpable and sensible to the end He might illuminate and instruct us that He might be the Director of souls and the Doctor of justice as He is called by the Prophets And He begins betimes to perform the charge He exercices the office from the beginning of his life 4. This insant newly born does preach his pulpit is the cradle his Auditory the univers his Doctrine is the contempt of the world He preaches not by word for He cannot speak but by example He preaches not to the eares But to the eyes He says that voluntary poverty is better than riches And the world on the contrary says that money is to be procured in the first place that a man must have it tho' he hazard his soul for it This divine infant says the humble simple innocent and mortifyd life is that which pleases God The World says a man must greaten himself appear glorious Machevalize subtily Circumvent and diceive craftily and live in delights and pleasures 5. Behold two Masters quite contrary two doctrines diametrically opposite It is necessary the one or the other be deceiv'd To say this infant is deceiv'd is horrible blasphemy He is the eternal Wisdom the increated Wisdom the Angel of the great Council It must then be confest that the Avaricious Ambitions Voluptuous and Machiavilians are grossly deceived 6. Let us then Conforme our selves to IESUS who is established by the eternal Father as our modell Let our life resemble his as an Image the Prototipe or original Let it be a copie an expression and a representation of his that we paticipating his vertues Spirit and graces in this life may be partakers of his glory in the other Amen DISCOURS VI. OF THE FOVRTH ARTICLE Suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried THe Apostles who made in their Creed an abridgement of the principall Mysteries of our Faith having spoken of the Conception and of the Nativity of our Saviour pass his Life in silence and treat immediatly of His death to teach us the chiefe reason of his comming was to suffer and to redeem us by his Passion 2. He saw by the light of glory the abyss of sin and the Eternal damnation to which men were doom'd for the fault of their first Parents and for their own sins He had pity on them and prayed his Father to pardon them for the Love of Him What man on earth What Angel in Heaven knowing that the only Son of God a Son so amiable and so beloved demands pardon of his Father for men to whom He is like in nature What man or Angel say I knowing this would not have sayd surely surely the eternal Father will pardon mankind for the love of his Son who is a man and that also freely without any satisfaction No the Father does it not But He says Isaiah 53. 10. my Justice must have its cours my Son I will pardon men if you will answer for them and undergoe death for them The Son hath a great apprehension and horror of a death so cruell and ignominious we see it in the Prayer He made in the Garden which was an expression of that which He acted in the womb of his Mother after the instant of his Conception 3. Nevertheless He accepted not only with patience and resignation but also with pleasure and satisfaction the decrees of Gods Justice concerning him He offered himself most willingly and with an ineffable love not only to be nayled to the Cross but also to remaine and languish thereupon ' til the end of the world if it should so please his Father Ecce venio ut faciam voluntatem Heb. 10. 9. tuam He that should have seen this submission might with probability have sayd the eternal Father will content himself with his good will as He was satisfyd with the good will of Abraham and of Isaac at least the Justice of God will be contented that he suffer but one prick of a thorn or one stroke of a whip that He shed one drop of his Blood which is sufficient to sanctify the whole world No He wills that He suffer actually all the punishments humiliations and afflictions we sinners did deserve 4. A Sinner deserves to be depriv'd of the use of creatures since he abused them to be humbled and confounded becaus he would not be subject to the laws and will of God To be punished both in body and soul becaus he offended the infinitely high Majesty of the Creator And JESUS hath taken upon himself to satisfy for all these pains and punishments 5. He was depriv'd of the use of Creatures for what privation more rigorous than to be spoiled of his very cloathes to be as naked as a worme of the earth not to have so much as a poor shift to cover him not a drop of water to refresh his tongue in the agony of death One of his Apostles betrays him another denys him all forsake him and thô some holy Women followed him yet they were not permitted to assist him 6. He was humbled and confounded What greater humiliation than to be exposed to derision and rudeness of the rable and to insolence of soldiers Who treat him as the very scum of men who salute him in mocherie blindfold him buffet him pull off his beard who put a reed in his hand
Ghost descended visibly upon those that were confirm'd so JESUS assisted visibly in the marriage in Cana to make kown that He is always invisibly in the marriage of the Faithfull 'T is He that gives your wife to you 'T is He that gives your husband to you 'T is He that ioyns and associates you together This is not an airy conceit 't is a certen Verity since the Scripture teaches it in saying That which God hath ioyn'd let not man seperate Matt. 19. 6. 4. The Matter of this Sacrament is not a little water oyle balme or other inanimâ—te creature 'T is your Bodies sanctifyd by Baptisme and consecrated in Confirmation your Bodys the Members of JESUS CHRIST Temples of the holy Ghost are employd to make this Great Sacrament 5. In fine 't is Great in its Effects It conferrs very great graces and in great number if it be received worthily with the dipositions and sentiment of piety that it deserves The ancient Israelites had the liberty to repudiate their wives if they did not please them Poligamy was permitted them they had sacrifice and the water of Iealosy to try the fidelity of their wives All these things having not been tollerated but by condescendence to that rude people IESUS CHRIST abrogated them and in this rendred marriage much more burdensome and aggravated the yoke Now since his Law is a Law of grace and sweetness since He says his yoke is sweet and his burden light it concern'd Him to recompence and ease married Christians by the abundant graces which He gives them in this Sacrament Yes in vertue of this Sacrament God gives you in the rest of your daies in divers occasions most great and powerfull graces if you put no obstacle to resist temptations to conduct well your family to bring up your children in the fear of God to endure patiently each others imperfections and to support the other burdens and inconveniences of marriage and they depriue themselves of all these graces who marry in an ill state in the state of mortal sin 6. This Sacrament being a symbole and a representation of the marriage of Iesus with his Church must imitate and express it In consequence to the alliance of JESVS with his Church there is betwixt them mutual tradition and communication of Bodys of Spirit and of Fortune IESUS as the Espouse of the Church gives her his precious Body and takes ours He ioyns them to His and makes of them his Members The Calvinists say that IESUS CHRIST is not in the Eucharist they say true He is not in their Eucharist He gives not his body to their pretended Church He delivers not his precious flesh to any other but his Spouse 'T is only the Romane Church 't is this true and legitimate Spouse 't is this only one and well beloved that enioys this Priviledg infallibly only and perpetually 7. The Lawyer sayd and it is true that a wife ought to lege adversus Cod. de crimine explicatae hered enter into society with her husband not only in humane things but moreover in divine socia rei humanae divinae And IESUS contents not himself to give his humane body to the Church but gives his divine Spirit the holy Ghost and you know that the holy Ghost is love and charity by the propriety of his Persone and by the condition of his emanation S. Paul then hath reason to say Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the Church and delivered himself for it that He might Sanctify it A husband then must love his wife as JESUS loves his Church with a sincere and cordial love speaking to her with an open heart communicating to her his designes associating her in his enterprizes as IESUS hath revealed to his Church all that Ho received from his Father and associated her to all his operations also to the production of grace A wife must love and also reverence or honor as the Apostle says her husband as the Church loves and honours IESUS CHRIST she must love and Ephes. 25 honor the parents and friends of her husband as the Church loves and honours the Virgin Mother of her Espouse S. Iames and other Saints his friends Husband and Wife must love mutually one another with a true and pure love not with an inordinate sensuall or worldly love as they do who procure each other what is honourable or profitable upon earth though with eminent danger of losing heaven who espouse the passions reveng the quarrells please the senses and satisfy the foolish and inordinate inclinations of each other to the great prejudice of their souls and their Salvation 8. Christ loved not so his Church He loved not so his Mother his Apostles Martyrs Confessors and other friends but loved them in order to everlasting life Wherefore if you will love well love as Christ hath loved us love in order to everlasting life cut off occasions of sin seek occasions to do each other good to make one another vertuous and procure by prayers exhortations and good examples the salvation of each other 9. S. Paul desires that the man be so holy and give so good example to his wife that he convert her if she be an infidell and that the wife in like manner by her holy conversation do sanctify her husband though he should be a pagan and idolater 1. Cor. 7. 14. This will never be don by dunning him with complaints reproaches invectives or with other outcryes but as S. Monica converted her husband enduring patiently his injuries supporting his inperfections never answering him when he was in anger speaking to him of God more by her good example than by her words shewing him to the end a sincere faithfull and constant love 10. IESUS CHRIST sayd to the persecutors of his Church why do you persecute me so much He participates in the afflictions of his Church The Church partakes also in the sufferances of IESUS she is sorrowfull afflicted mortifyd when she considers Him in his Death and Passion so all ought to be common amongst married persons good things and bad joy and sorrow pleasure and displeasure and this will much conduce to the honor of so great a Sacrament which S. Paul says is worthy of all respect 11. Honorabile Connubium in omnibus Marriage honourable in all This is not to say among all men as Dissenters translate Els Heb. 13. 4. the marriage of a Brother with his Sister would be honourable and that of those who have vowed continence to whom the same Apostle says 't is damnable But in all things that is in all its Parts Circumstances and Appurtenances Honor it in the intention you have to marry for if it be bad and vicious all the sequel will be corrupted will you know why God is not in the marriage of many T is becaus they married not for the love of him they married for carnal or fond love for sensuall pleasure through ambition to have this man who
a Virgin was a Mother Mother of a Man-God Morher of God and Mother of Man these I say are things which surpass Nature and are the subjects of our admiration I admire not sayd S. Cyprian the stabylity of the earth which stands by its own weight in the midst of the Vnivers I admire not the volubility of the firmament which moves day and night and hath no Center in which it may end its motion I admire not the inconstancie of the Moon which never remains in the same state but increases or decreases every moment I admire not the Sun which shews it self always full which is infatigable in its cours and marches as a Gyant to communicate its light and heat to all the quarters of the world But I admire God made man I admire a God in the womb of a Virgin I admire the Omnipotent an impotent infant And we may add I admire the Creator made a Creature the Lord and Soverign a subject and a slave and the Iudg a criminal in appearance In all the other wonders of nature I finde some reasons that do satisfy me But in this Mistery I have nothing els but that which the prophet Abacuc did say I have considered your works and am astonished 2. Born of the Virgin Marie This is the second Birth of the Son of God In his first He issued forth of the Vnderstanding of the Father from all eternity In this He came forth of his mothers womb in time The eternal birth is admirable the temporal is amiable I honor and reverence the eternal I embrace and love the temporal I rejoyce in that and I enjoy this I glorify God for the first and I thanke him for the second the eternal created me and the temporal repaired me It would have nothing profited me to have been created if I had not been redeemed by IESUS begotten of the Father I was created by IESUS born of the Virgin I was redeemed I have then more obligation to IESUS born of the Virgin than to IESUS begotten of the Father And I find many marvells in this second birth as well as in the first I will explicate the marvells of these his births and of his Conception by a comparison so proper and so natural so clear and so intelligible that the most indocible may come by it to a competent knowledg of these misteries 3. Amongst all the creatures purely corporal there is not one that expresses God so naturally as the Sun You see the Sun produces a Ray which is its offspring There is nothing more visible than the Sun producing its Ray nothing also is more clear bright and visible than the Ray and nevertheless there is nothing that we have so much difficulty to eye we cannot fix our eyes upon it not through want of light but through excessive clearness and through the weakness of our sight So the Son of God is begotten by his Father in the light of his Divinity by the way of understanding and of knowledg there is nothing then more intelligible than this Generation and nevertheless there is nothing that we are so unable to understand 't is darkness to us by reason of the weakness of our understanding Thô the Ray be the offspring of the Sun it is nevertheless as ancient as the Sun and if the sun had been from all Eternity its Ray would have also been eternal So though IESUS CHRIST according to his Divinity be the Son of God thc Father He is nevertheless as ancient as his Father He is from all Eternity even as his Father The Sun by its Ray warms the air makes the earth fruitful and produces gold and silver metalls and mineralls in the heart of it So the eternal Father by his Son Created Heaven and earth men Iohn ◠and Angells and does by him his works omnia per ipsum facta sunt The Sun loses nothing by giving Being to its Ray on the contrary the ray is the glory beauty and ornament of the Sun So the Son of God is the splendor of the Father and the figure of his substance 't is the Father's great perfection to begett a Son who is God as He and the same God with him The Ray coms forth of the Sun and is sent down to us but it coms forth of it without comming from it you see it in the Sun thô it be upon the earth So when faith teaches us that the Son of God descended from heaven and came into this world this is not to say he left the bosome of his Father He always remain'd there thô He appeared here The Sunbeam coms into this Church and passes through red glass How did it enter into it how did it go out of ir I know not It went into it without opening it it went out of it without breaking it so the Son of God came into this world and passed through the blessed womb of the Virgin How was He there conceiv'd I know not How was He brought forth I know not He was conceiv'd there He was brought forth without opening without breaking and without prejudicing the Virginal wombe The ray passing through the glass beautifies it renders it more clear and resplendent So JESUS passing through the womb of Mary rendred her Virginity more pure more holy and more sacred Matris integritatem non minuit sed sacravit What hath the Ray don in this glass it hath borrowed a little redness it is becom coloured the glass hath cloathed it with a red colour And what did JESUS in the womb of Mary He borrowed humane nature which is made if a little red earth Adam that is to say red earth He made himself man there the Virgin cloathed him with our humanity The ray borrowing of the glass this red colour deprived not the glass of it JESUS borrowing of Mary our humane nature did not any hurt or prejudice to Mary The sunbeam before it entred into the glass was a Ray but it was not colour nor coloured But since 't is entred into this glass and is com into this Church 't is a coloured Ray 't is a radiant colour 't is a colour which is a Ray So IESUS before the incarnation was God from all eternity But He was not man Now since He is entred into Mary He is a humanised God He is a Deified man is a God who is man and a man that is God The support and the subsistance of this red colour that appears here is the Ray for this colour subsists not but by this Ray So what is the support and the subsistance of the holy Humanity T is the Son of God it hath no subsistance besydes him This Sunbeam as a Ray or light of the Sun is in all the world But as a coloured Ray it is not every where it is only here and in some other places IESUS as God and Son of God is in every place But as man He is not every where He is but in Heaven and in the
for a scepter and thorns upon his head for a crown as if He were a king of the Theater To be decry'd and condemn'd as a blasphemer as a seducer as ambitious as sedicious as an Imposter What confusion greater then to be dragd through the streets of Hierusalem with hues and cries as a fool and as an extravagant person from Caiphas to Pilate from Pilate to Herod from Herod to the Pretory To be less esteem'd then Barrabbas a seditious person and a murtherer to be esteem'd more wicked more unworthy to live and more worthy of the cross then he What indignity more intollerable than to receive foule and fiâ—thy matters in token of vility and baseness not upon his garments or hands only but upon his most venerable and adorable face this indignity was so ignominious in Israel that if a child receiv'd it from his father he was to bear the confusion Numb 12. 14. of it at least seven daies To be short What greater contempt than to die not the death of Nobles nor with honourable persons not in private and in prison not in the night by torch light but the death of slaves with infamous persons in a high and publick place at mid-day in the sight of more than two hundred thousand persons 7. What shal I say of the punishments receiv'd in his sacred Body He suffered more horrible harsh and bitter torments than were ever suffer'd by any creature upon earth The Prophet Isaiah calls him by excellence the man of Paines Abel was murthered c. 33. 3. Zachary was stoned Isaiah sawed Lazarus covered with ulcers and not one of them is called the man of Paines We have heard of men to whom their vertues or their vices their birth or their condition have given honourable or shamefull Names But we have not heard but of IESUS-CHRIST only to whom Paine hath given a name He is the Man of Pains because He did bear all our paines He is the man of Paines becaus He suffered in all his members and He is the man of Pains becaus He was pierced through with Pains exposed Sacrificed and given wholy over to sufferances and Pains 8. But the sufferances in his soul will make appear yet better the Greatness of his Paine He sayd in the Garden my soul is sorrowfull to death It would seperate my soul and Body if I shoul not hinder it for to endure yet more To whatsoever part He casts his sight He sees objects of the greatest sorrow His soul is nail'd to a most hard Cross before his Body is Crucifyd and the Cross of his Soul is much more harsh and insupportable then that of his Body The three nails of this interiour cross are the injuries don to his Father the Commpassion of his Mother and the damnation of his brothers Philosophy teaches us that a paine is more sharp and bitter when 't is received in a power more pure and immaterial IESUS was pierced with paine not only in the inferior part of his soul but also in the superior which is wholy spiritual in the part in which He was blessed and his Beatitude also contributed to the increas of paine says S. Laurence Justinian He de tryumphali Christi Agone saw by the light of glory God face to face He knew clearly the Greatness of his Majesty the outrage and the injury that sin does him he loved him with a most ardent and excessive love and therefore He could not be but excessively afflicted seeing the Ocean of sins committed against that most high adorable and amiable Majesty The wounds of his Body were made by hands of Torterers hands indeed most cruell and inhumane Yet their activity had stil limits But the wounds of his heart were inflicted by the hand of love by the love which He had for his Father a love ineffable and incomprehensible If a soule that loved God well could have as much contrition as she would desire ô how would she pierce herself with sorow How willingly would she bathe herself in her tears ô how would she calcinate her poor heart JESUS had as much of sorrow as He desired and He desired as much of it as He had love for his Father his sorrow was equal with his love If He had seen but one only mortal sin committed against him whom He so loved He would have grieved infinitely ô how then was He afflicted when He saw so many so different and so enormous 9. The love which he had for his Mother was another nail that pierced his heart and which fastned him to this interior Cross He sees her present at all the Misteries of his bitter Passion He sees all the wonds of his Body united in her heart and we may say that his compassion was another Passion 10. He looks below His soul is sorrowfull He sees the torments of hell wherein so many shal be plunged notwithstanding his sufferances for them He sees that their wounds are incurable that they abuse his Blood death and merits and that after so many remedies they damne themselves for trifles and what He indured for them would serve but as oyle and sulphur to inflame the divine Justice to punish their ingratitude more rigorously 11. S. Austin wholy astonished at the sight of CHRISTS sufferance cry's out ô Son of God whither hath your humility descended whither hath your charity been inflamed whither hath your piety extended it self The Wiseman sayd that you have don every thing in number weight and measure But in this work of your Love You have observ'd neither number nor weight nor measure You have exceeded all hopes and desires You have made an excess that could not be imagined The Angells were astonished considering this wonder a God whipt a God cover'd with spittle the King of kings crown'd with thorns a God crucifyed for slaves a God pierced with sorrows for worms of the earth of whom He had no need and knowing that they would be ungratfull for so great a Benefit What transport what excess and if He were not God I might say with Pagans what folly of Love Gentibus stultitia 12. After a love so cordial undeserv'd and so excessive shal we not love him If the least slave had don the same for us He would be Master of our hearts and seeing a God hath don it shal He not be Qui non diligit Dominum Iesum Anathema sit 1. cor 16. 22. says S. Paul since JESUS suffer'd for us if any one love him not let him be Anathema Curs'd excommunicated and abhorred of all creatures But if any one should not love him and moreover be so ungratfull as to offend him what punishment would You wish him holy Apostle He adds it not nor can one wish him a pain so great as he deserves there should be a new hell to revenge an ingratitude so monstrous and enormous 13. For as S. Bernard sayd if Moses speaking to the Iews who had but a gross and imperfect Law who had
not been redeem'd by IESUS-CHRIST sayd to them Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy foul and with all thy forces what ought Christians to do after the Incarnation Redemption and Passion of our Saviour Ought they not to burn with love should they not if it were possible love JESUS above all their forces thoughts and activity of their hearts If I owe my self wholy to him for making me what shal I add now for repairing me and repairing me in such a manner 14. Let us love him then since He so loved us let 's not love him only in words and compliments let us not content our selves to say I honour much my Saviour I love him with all my heart But let us love him in worke and Verity in doing in giving and in suffering for him for so He loved us And since his goodness is so infinite and his love to us so excessive that He preferred us not only before Angells but also before himself it would be a horrible blindeness to preferr any other good before him it would be a strange folly to offend him to disoblige his goodness to lose his amity and his favour for honour pleasure profit or satisfaction of a Passion Do not so if you be wise Say rather with S. Austin all abundance all honour all felicity that is not you my God is but poverty vanity and misery say as S. Francis did my God You are my All Love him with all your heart since He his all your good love him with a sovereign love since He is sovereignly good love adore bless prayse glorify him now and ever Amen DISCOURS VII OF THE FIFTH ARTICLE He descended into Hell the third day He rose again from the dead IESUS appli'd himself so earnestly to our Salvation that whilst He was on earth He let not a moment pass without labouring for it And for this effect whilst his Body lay'd in grave He descended into Hell This world Hell signify's an inferiour and low place And therefore the holy Church makes use of it in divers occasions to signify divers inferiour places By this word she most often understands the place of everlasting damnation And so our Saviour called it in 1. Luke 36. S. Luk. where speaking of the unfortunate rich man says he was buried in hell Other times she uses this terme to signify Purgatory where they are who died in the grace of God but having not fully satisfyed the divine Iustice are further to be punished so in the Mass of the dead she prayes free ô Lord the souls of the faithfull departed from the paines of hell She makes use of it also to signify the place whither the souls of holy and just persons who were not subject to purgation or had duely satisfyd for their offences went before the death of the Saviour of the world expecting He should open them the gates of Heaven by his Passion 2. He descended not only by effect into these two last places making his power and goodness to appear by delivering the soules in them detained But in substance He descended into them his soul was really in those places and He honoured the soules that were in them and made them happy by his presence The third day he rose again from the dead He rose no sooner for to testify that He was truly dead and to fulfill the figure of Matt. 12. 40. him As Ionas was three days and three nights in the belly of a whale so shal be the Son of man in the bowells of the earth He would be three days subject to the law of death to teach us mystically that by his death and Passion He had satisfyd the three Persons of the B. Trinity for the sins committed in the three states of the world in the Law of nature in the Law of Moses and in the Law of grace And to shew us that his Passion was the cause of the delivery of the ancient Fathers out of hell of the Redemption of men on earth and of the reparation of the Angelical thrones in Heaven He rose again By which words the Apostles teach us that He S. Iohn 10. return'd to life by his own power He sayd also in the Gospell I have power to lay down my life and to take it up againe and in another place I will raise up my Body in three daies after death 3. I know well that S. Peter and S. Paul teach in many places that his Father raised Him up to life because this miracle S. Pater is an effâ—ct of the omnipotency of God which thô common Ast. c. 3. 26. and c. 5. 30. S. Paul in the 4. 8. and 10. to the Rom. Phil. 28. and 9. to all the 3. Persons of the B. Trinity yet is attributed commonly to the Father 'T is true then that He rose up by his own Power and 't is true also that the eternal Father raised him to the end He might shew his goodness both ro him and us 4. First to him that his Body might receive the Glory which He merited by his labors humiliations and sufferances For He humhled himself says the Apostle being obedient unto death for the which thing God hath exalted him Note exalted him for his Resurrection was not a simple return from death to life but an entrance into a glorious life That Body which He layd down passible and mortall He receives impassible and immortal that which was inglorious now is glorious which was infirm now is powerfull which was a natural Body now is becom a spiritual These are the excellent qualities which S. Paul attributes to every 1. cor 15. matt 13 43. glorifyd Body But that of Glory or clarity delights me most for the body of every saint shal shine by it as the sun fulgebunt justi sicut sol and nevertheless one shal differ from another in this Quality as much as he exceeded him here in good works or as S. Paul says as one starr differs in glory from another What glory then what admirable splendor what ravishing beauty was given to the adorable Body of JSUS in recompence of his merits And what satisfaction and felicity will it be to see it when our eyes shal be able to behold it as hereafter they shall be by their impassibility These four qualities belong to the Body of the Son of God as a body glorifyd But as a Body Deifyd as subsisting in the Divinity it hath yet a farr other Glory Jt hath a supereminent ineffable and incomprehensible Glory as we may see in the next Discours 5. Wherfore the Son of God thanks his Father for that He brought his soul out of hell and his Body out of the sepulcher and that He raised him up again Exaltabo te Domine quoniam suscepisti psal 29. me Eduxisti ab inferno animam meam And He esteems so much this favour that He exhorts us to thanke God to praise and glorify
having taught Christs Victorious Resurrection teach us in this Article his tryumphant Ascension By his Nativity He went forth into the field to fight by his Passion and death He fought the battle By his Resurrection He overcame his enemies and by his Ascension He tryumphs His tryumphant chariot was a thousand thousand of celestial spirits Psal 67. 18. and according to the translation of S. Hierom innumerable thousands He tryumphed not only over enemies of flesh and blood but also over devills sin and death The spoils He carried with him were not flocks of sheep and troops of other beasts but innumerable multitudes of souls which He redeem'd out of Prison and rescued out of the jawes of Hell Thou art ascended high thou hast taken Captivity says the Rayal Prophet to him Psal 67. 10. With all this glorious traine He ascended not carried in a chariot as Elias nor by Angells as Abacuc the Prophet and S. Philip nor did He ascend only by the force and agility He recived in his resurrection but moreover by the power and vertue He had as God 2. He Ascended into heaven There are three Heavens according to the scripture Airy Statry and Emperial and He mounted above all heavens as his Apostle says so passing the Air Sun and all â—phes 4. the heavens He mounted to the most high and sublime place of the world 3. He sits at the right hand of God the Father God is a spirit a pure and incorporeal Being who hath neither side nor hand noâ— part How does He sit then at his right hand And if He sits in a seat or Throne of what matter is it made is it of wood marble gold silver or Diamant I know well 't is answered the Apostles accommodate themselves to our low manner of understanding and of speaking and that by this session at the right hand of the Father they express the equality and consubstantiality of the Father and the Son When we see one speak to the king on knee we conclude he is a Vassall But if we see one sit upon a throne neer the king and at his right hand we say he is a Prince or Sovereign The Apostles say JESUS sits at the right hand of the Father this is to say He is Sovereign Omnipotent and infinite as the Father equal coessential and coeternal with the Father 4. Yes But JESUS as man is not consubstantial nor coeternal with the Father and yet He is at the right hand of the Father not only as God but also as man as S. Leo expresly teaches in his first sermon of the Ascension You will say the humane nature of JESUS is in the Throne of God and at the right hand of the Father becaus being as it were ingraffted and inserted in the Being of God in the subsistance of the Word and making but one Person with him 't is served and reverenced as God 5. You say true but this solues not the difficulty For this holy Humanity is united to the Word and subsisting in his Personality from the first instant of Christs Conception and nevertheless to speak properly it is not but since the day of his Ascension that the Humanity is elevated to the glory of the Father and seated at his right hand as the church says in the Canon of the Mass that day 6. For to clear then these difficulties we must remember that in the Mistery of the incarnation the Son of God communicating his subsistance to the holy Humanity should have made it at the same time participant of all the perfections and Attributes of which a created Nature may be capable For if in a perfect marriage the Woman espouses not only the Person of her husband but also his nobility prerogatives and Honours shal not the sacred Humanity which is married much more perfectly and inseparebly to the Word receive from him the Perfections that are communicable to It A Vegetative soul penetrating the stock of a little tree makes it live with a Vegetative life A sensitive soul informing the body of a Lamb makes it live with a sensitive life An intellectual soul animating the body of a man makes it live with a reasonable life and the divine Word actuating filling and possessing the holy Humanity shal He not make it live with a divine life Ought He not to communicate to it his proprieties and his Attributes since He is united to it more strictly perfectly and nobly than any soul is to her Body or form to its matter 7. Nevettheless the divine Word to procure our salvation and to accomplish the work of our Redempion suspended in his Incarnation the communication of divers of his perfections For if JESUS had been immortall how should he have dyed for us If He had been impassible how would He have suffered for us If He had been independent and sovereign how would have he given us an example of obedience subjecting himself to his holy Mother But in the day of his Ascension He made an entire effusion of himself and of all his excellencies and perfections that were communicable to Humanity 8 This is that which He asked of his Father in the Vigil of his death when He sayd Now glorify me o Father with thy self with the glory which I had with thee before all ages Vpon which S. Iohn 17. 5. Lib. 11. in Io. C. 17. Colloss 2. 9. S. Cyrill of Alexandria says The Saviour asks to be glorifyd not with an accidental glory but with a natural glory and a little after The glory which He always had as God He asks now as man This is moreover that which S. Paul teaches us when he says the plenitude or fullness of the Divinity inhabits corporally in him that is in his Humanity says the same S. Cyrill And this is that wich ought to rejoyce us in this Mistery This is that which renders this Mistery dear and precious to JESUS to the Virgin and to all the Church 'T is in the Ascension properly that JESUS Man God sits at the right hand of the Omnipotent 't is in the Ascension that He was receiv'd into the Throne of God and that He entred into the Glory of his Father 9. He sits that is to say He is no more subject to labours tributary to wearines lyable to humane miseries and infirmities 10. He is at the right hand of the Omnipotent that is He hath the superintendence and the administration of Heaven and earth of men and Angells of spiritualls and temporalls What honor what happiness for us to know and to be assured that a persone of the same nature with us hath the keyes of life and death of Heaven and hell that He governs all and does whatsoever He sees good 11. He is in the Throne of God that is He entred into the real actual and eternal enjoyance of his Empire 12. He is in Glory of the Father that is He is received into a full entire and perfect possession of all the
horrible to fall into the hands of the living God says S. Paul becaus He is always living Heb. 10. â—1 and as long as He shal be living the damned shal be in torments Wherfore the Son of God threatens a long time before He striks He speaks much of judgment before He does justice He never hurls a thunderbolt without making the thunder sound the lightning flash and without covering the air with clouds He sent from time to time Prophets as Heraulds of his justice forerunners of his judgment who always endeavoured to express the terrour of it by the most proper and significant epithets imaginable they call it the day of anguish and tribulation the day of affliction and misery the day of obscurity and darkness the day of outrage and tempest of anger and vengeance the day of the fury of the Lord the day of horror and of slaughter you may see this in Isaiah in Hieremiah in Ezechiel and in Joel Isay 13. and 34. Hiere 16. Ezec. 7. and 27. Ioel. 2. 2. And becaus usually the faithfull only believe the Prophets and as S. Paul says infidells have need of signs and prodiges To the end none may doubt of it God will proclaim it to all the world by most remarkable signs which He will shew in Heaven earth sea and other parts of nature and as at present according to the saying of the Prophet the heavens and the starrs declare the Omnipotence Wisdom and Goodness of God who produced such glorious creatures governs them in so constant and regular an order and designs them for an end so noble so before the judgment the sun moon and starrs shal foretell the justice of God they shal preach it to all people and that in so lowd and intelligible a language that none not the most stupid incredulous and insensible shal doubt the least of it In which we ought to admire and adore the goodness of God who exercising his patience so long time and towards so many persons will exercise his justice as late and against as few as He can He exercises his patience from the beginning of the world He employs in it not one day month or year but many ages He exercised it above six thousand Years and He will exercise it to the end of ages towards all sinners but He will not execute the last judgment the act of his great wrath but at the end of time as late as possible and that He may find but few upon whome to exercise the same He forewarns them of it He frightens threatens and sends Prophets He gives signes in heaven and in earth shewing by this that He desires not to strike that he wills not the death of a sinner but that he be converted and do live and this shews also the great and enormous malice of sin which provoks and irritats so much a God so mild and mercifull 3. The Prophetes Apostles Evangelists and the Apocalyps foretels us many terrible signs which shal be as messengers Matt 24. 30. 2. Pet. 3. Psal 76. 19. and forerunners of the Iudg see here some of them The sun shal be turned into darkness and the moon into blood Starrs shal fall from Heaven and the Powers of it shal be moved The Heavens burning shal be resolved There shal be no light but that of lightning which shal always flash The thunderclaps shal be so great that the Heavens will seem to teare thunderbolts shal be darted Wisdom 5. 22. Wisdom 5. 22 forth as from a bow full bent and shal fall directly contrary to their custome The Water of the sea shal rage against men and the rivers shal run togeather roughly The earth agitated with convulsions and tremblings will open as if threatning to swallow them God will send devouring fire which shal burn the 2. Pet. 3. elements consume Towns and reduce to ashes all the works of men What horrible spectacle to see and feel the air changed into flames stones into burning coals rivers into boiling water houses into furnaces of fire 4. If one only of these prodigies should happen now in what a condition should we be If we should see the sun and moon to lose their light or the earth to tremble a whole week in what a trance should we be how should we cry-out mercy what â—ill it be then to see all the aforesayd things togeather And yet they shal be but signs and presages of what shal follow after they shal be but the commencement of the sorrows says JESUS in the Gospel And if the beginnings are so sorrowfull what shal the progress be if the shadows and the figures are so terrible what will the reality be if it be so tirrible to see the Sergeants and the Apparitors that precede the Judg what will it be to see the Iudg in the heat of his anger and to be struck with the thunderbolt of of his sentence 5. He is now our Advocate He will be then our Iudg not only to reveng injuries don to Orphans Widows Laborours and to the Poor But moreover to reveng offences committed against God his Father He hath infinite obligations to him a passionate love for him a most ardent zeal for his glory is very sensible of that which offends him His interests are dear to him He will have an ocean of enormous sins to condemn and punish I leave you to think with what indignation with what heate of anger He will be inflam'd It will be so great that it will be a horror and a death to sinners I will not say to be condemn'd but to appear in his presence I will not say they will not dare but they will not be able to subsist in the sight of his Majesty they will not be able to think of him who shal he able to think the day of his Advent and who shal stand to malach 3. 2. see him says his Prophet 6. The terrour of him will be so great that the reprobate will desire rather to be crushed ground and reduced to dust then to be presented to the tribunal of this terrible Iudg. they Luke 23 30. will say to the mountains and to the rocks fall upon us and hide us from the face of the Lamb we have abused his meekness we have oblig'd him to becom a Lyon we shal not be able to endure the reproches He will make us rocks fall upon us and crush us to pieces that we may not be forced to appear in his presence hide us from the face of the Lamb they have cause to fear it His presence only will put them to more pain the rocks would but crush their bodys the presence of JESUS will crush their bodys and their souls 7. They know they must now render a most punctual and exact acount of all the Talents and Goods they receiv'd from the liberal hand af God and of all the evills they have ever don 8. They know they must answer not only for mortall sins but
account they do ill in believing that they being sinners can by Baptisme wash away the sins of others and do injury to the Son of God by going themselves or by carrying their children to their Ministers to have their sins remitted by this Sacrament since it belongs to the Son of God to wash away sins by Baptisme Heaven declar'd this Verity to S. Iohn Baptist Vpon whom thou shalt see the holy Ghost Iohn 1. 33. descending He it is that Baptizes But who is so weak that does not answer easily that they baptize on the part of God in his Name and by his Command that they go not to their Ministers as men but as God's Deputies and Vicegerents to be baptized I say the same of Absolution we absolve from sins not of our own selves but in the Name of God as his Deputies and Ministers by the Power Authority and Commission which He hath given us 3. Behold the Commissions and Patents of it Whatsoever You shal Matt. 18. unbind on earth shal he unbound in heaven and in Saint Iohn Whose sins you shal forgive they are forgiven them And whose You Iohn 20. shal retain they are retained These words of our Saviour are as clear as the Sun but let us suppose they have need of interpretation To whom shal we recurr for the interpretation of them To one that came a 100 or sixscore years ago or to the ancient Fathers of the first ages when according to Reformers themselves the Church was in her purity S. Chrysostom speaks great things vpon this subject Lib. 3 de Sacerdotio and seems to have foreseen all the evasions of Reformers First he says that the Son of God communicated to his Apostles the same power that He received from his Father and this great Saint speaks so after our Savior himself For in the same time He sayd to his Disciples whose sins you shal remit they are remitted He sayd to them I send you as my Father sent me But our Savior had not only power to declare that sins are remitted by faith but He had power also to remit them In the second place S. Chrysostom says If a king should give to a favourit power to imprison and to deliver prisoners what favour would this be Yet this would be nothing if compar'd with the power of Priests there is as much difference 'twixt these powers as between heaven and earth Thirdly he says that the Priests of the old Law had not power but to judg the leaprosie of the body and to judg of it only not to cure it ours have power to judg of sin which is the leaprosie of the soul and also to cure her of it Aug. hom 49. ex 50. S. Amb. Lib. 1. de Penit. c. 7. S. Austin says let no body flatter himself saying I confess in my heart I confess to God this is not enough and on this account in vain the Son of God would have sayd to Priests All that you shal unbind on earth And S. Ambrose speaking to the Novatians who sayd that men have not power to remit sins says Why baptize you if men have not power to remit sins for Baptisme is the remission of sins and what if Priests attribute to themselves the power that is given them either by Baptisme or by Penance Let us leave Dissenters and consider the wonders of this Power that we may with those in the Gospell glorify God who gave such power to men I confess that there are not many Misteryes in our Matt. 9. Religion which I more admire than this and you will admire it with me if you consider with me the circumstances of it 4. The first is that this Power is Divine it pertains not properly but to him who receiv'd an injury to remit and pardon it It belongs then to God to remit offences against him Wherfore the Pharisees hearing our Savior say to the Paralitick thy sins are forgiven thee and not believing that He was God thought that He blasphem'd What would they have then thought what wouâ—d they have sayd if they had known as we know that JESUS CHRIST would give to men and to sinful men this Power 5. A Power in the second place so soveraign that 't is definitive without appeal The sentences which Priests pronounce and all that they justly ordain on earth is ratifyd infallibly in heaven When you have confest with necessary dispositions if the Priest say to you I absolve thee c. fear not that God will condemn you He cannot fail in his promise and He promised to absolve you if the Priest absolve you legitimatly 6. And this is don with so much Authority and Majesty that this Power is perfectly Royal for the Priest absolves not praying If he should say over you the misereatur only or should pray God to absolve you you would not be absolv'd JESUS-CHRIST wills that he say I absolve thee and heaven and earth shal melt rather than you shal fail of absolution how ever great and enormous your sins may be 7. This is a fourth Circumstance of this Power that it is most ample absolute and general without exception restriction or modification For there is no sin which the Church cannot remit since the Son of God hath sayd absolutely and without reserve Whose sins you shal remit shal be remitted 8. But that which is to be admired most in this Power is the facility and convenience we have to vse it 'T is true that having committed a sin it is not so easy as some think to have a true repentance of it We must ask it instantly of God and indeavour to obtain it of him by good works But when we have obtain'd it what is more easy than to find a Priest who may absolve us Have we not great cause to be astonished and to cry out my God! How have you been so liberal as to give this Power to your Church and to so many Priests If you had given it but to the Pope or to Patriarks or to Bishops or for one only time of the life of each one the excess of liberality would not have seem'd so great but for always for so many times and to so many Priests What excess of love of grace and mercy ô how will a soul that considers well thiâ— Benefit melt with dilection how will she burn with the love of such a Benefactor How often will she kiss those sacred wounds How often will she bless that adorable Blood which purchased her so great a good How often will she say my soul bless thou our Lord. On the contrary What regretts shal we have in hell if we are damn'd for having neglected contemn'd or prophan'd so great a Benefit The devout Rupertus was wont to say he had no pity on Christians that were damn'd and when one sayd to him why have you not if a dog should be so afflicted we should be moved to compassion I have none sayd he for 't is
is good and deserves to be loved for God is so good great holy powerfull and worthy to be loved that if He did desire it we should sacrifice our selves for his service though there were neither heaven for those that love him nor hell for those that love him not 11. We should do as the blessed Spirits do it is IESUS that gives the Counsel putting these words into our mouths Your will be don in earth as it is in heaven that is as the Angells do it they do the will of God and obey his Orders with a free pure and disinteressed love all that they pretend is to obey God to do his will all the recompence that they passionately desire is to receive new Orders to be employd again in his service purely for the love of him 12 This is not sayd that a faithfull soul may not hope and keep the commandements for reward or retribution as the Prophet says he did But that it be not the principal yet less the only aime of our love for as S. Bernard says perfect love of God intends no recompence but merits much The loving soul receives from the hands of God ineffable and incomprehensible goods but though she should not though there should be no Paradise nor reward she would not omit to love God serve him and to be pleasing to him and if she practises vertue for reward the reward which she desires is the increase of her love if she is glad to merit to be higher in heaven this is not to have there more of honor and glory but it is to have more of love if I merit much says she I shal see God more clearly and perfectly in heaven I shal glorify him more excellently I shal praise him more advantagiously I shal be united to him more strictly and intimatly I shal love him more ardently and so love is the true salary of love 13. In fine your love must not be idle and paralitick but active to render service to God and to do good works for his glory Charity works great things where it is and where it works not there it is not says S. Gregory S. Iohn 14. 23. 1. Ep. 3. 18. Psai 96. 10. He that loves me will keep my word says IESUS My little children says his beloved Disciple let us not love in word and tongue only but in work and veritie and the Royal Prophet You that love our Lord hate ye evill he says not only commit not evill but hate it He says not hate it in your self but absolutely hate it If you love God you will hate sin wheresoever it is found you will destroy it in your self and in your neighbor also if if you can if one should say I abuse not my friend but is not sorry that another does nor hinders him when he can may one truly say he loves him Let us conclude with a reflexion upon these words of JESUS I Came to cast fire upon the earth and what desire I but that it be inflam'd Luke 12. 49. And does He not move solicit and stir up our hearts to this fire and flame of love by all possible wayes 14. He prevents us with great love He lou'd us more than riches He was made poor for us more than honours He suffered a thousand infamies more than his ease and pleasure He led a life in pain and labor more than his body He depriu'd it of glory and of life more than the Angells He redeem'd them not And though we are so ungratful and unworthy as not to return love for love He tryes yet other means 15. He heaps Benefits upon us and makes us presents to engage our mercenary hearts He practises the counsel He gives us by the Wiseman and by his Apostle Give meat and drink to your enemy Prov. 25. 21. Rom. 12. 20. when he hath need and you shal heap upon him burning coales to heat his love to you so many prosperities that are sent you so many morcells of bread you eate so many creatures that serve you are so many burning coales He heaps upon you to heat your love so many presents He makes you to gain your affection so many baits he laies to catch your heart Et si parva sunt ista adiiciet majora And if it seems to you that all this is too little and that your heart is yet worth more He assures you that all the favours whiich he hath don you and which he does you yet every day are not but gages and pledges of the great Goods He hath prepar'd and promis'd you if you love him Neither eye hath seen nor eare hath heard 1. Cor 2. 9 nor the heart of man can comprehend the things which God hath prepar'd for them that love him says S. Paul 16. But since we esteem not these promises enough and are like those Israelites who contemn'd she desirable land He lifts up his hand He commands us ro love him and threatens punishments if we do not Is not this to be extremly desirous of our love to put as it were a dagger to our throats and say to us love me J will kill you if you will not He does not only say it but he does it he damnes us eternaly if we love him not 17. And when He sees that fear of future punishments doe not sufficiently move our hearts He sends us sometimes afflictions to force our love He takes away all you love in this world becaus you love not well that which ought to be loved above all things He removes from you all that may amuse and employ your heart that it may be in a manner forced for want of other object to unite it self to Him ô great God what can you do more to have this heart which you so passionately desire you besige it on all sides and it renders not neither the preventions of your love nor the attractives of your benefits nor your promises of paradise nor your strict commands nor threats of hell nor constrains of afflictions can open this lockt heart Extremis morbis extrema remedia 18. When a passionate lover hath tryed all wayes and finds them unsuccesfull he coms to the last makes use of a charm composes a love potion JESUS makes use of this artifice to gain our affection He puts himself upon our Altars and into our Tabernacles there he is the charm of love They say that in a charm of love to render it more powerfull the Lover ought to mix with it some of his own substance some drops of his blood and JESUS puts all his blood into this potion not a part of his substance only but all his substance Body Soul and Divinity 19. What think you Judg you not that God ought to have your heart after so many pursuances do they not inflame you to beg that of God which is so necessary and which you cannot have of your own selves Aske it of God fervently humbly frequently aske it of
if he gain the whole world and sustain the damage of his Soul And so if we will be good Christians we ought to love our Neighbors there is nothing that we ought not to lose pleasure riches honor and also if need be life it self for the Salvation of our neigbors And this the beloved Disciple and faithfull Interpreter of his Master teaches us in these clear words In this we know the Charity of God becaus He hath given his life for us and we ought also to give our life for our Brothers He does not say 1. Ep. 3. only that 't is expedient that it is a Salntary counsell but that we must give our lives for their salvation and to move us more He puts before our eyes the example of IESUS-CHRIST S Iohn 13. who made his love of us the rule of our love of others I give you a new commandement that you love one another as I have loved you And lest we should less note it He repeats it again in the Iohn 15. same Gospell This is my Precept that you love one another as I have loved you 7. Though this Vertue be so pleasing to God and so important to our Salvation nevertheless men fail in this the most and to say nothing of all those who live in hatred envie discord contention scandal which are the common pests of the world and the mortal ennemies of charity there are many who seem to have good intelligence who make mutuall visits complements offers of service Yet love but in word and tongue not in work and verity they will not open their purs nor use their power nor apply their pains and labor for the assistance of their neighbor in necessity 8. Others love their kindred and relations but with a natural inordinate and hurtfull love they procure them what is honourable or profitable upon earth though they put them into eminent danger of losing heaven they give them what pleases the senses and satisfys their foolish inclinations though to the prejudice of their souls and their salvation and if they see them desirous to renounce the world and to betake themselves to a vertuous cours of life they call upon them and to shew their love diswade them from it and recall them to the usuall and libertine cours of life so they seem to love but do truly hate to be good friends but are the worst of enemies and the maxim of our Savior is verefyd in them The enemies of a man are his domesticks Matt. 10 9. Others in fine extend their love beyond Relations but to those only from whom or by whose means they expect honor pleasure or profit This is an imperfect love a love of concupiscence and interest and not of charity which seeks not proper interest but loves God and in him or for him or for the love of him all others though they be our enemies becaus they are his images redem'd by the precious blood of IESUS capable to know serve and possess him and becaus it is his Will intimated to us by this general precept to love our neighbors and particularly commanded in S. Matthew I say to you love Mat. 5. 44. your enemies do good to them that hate you pray for them that persecute and calumniate you that you may be children of your Father 10. But the first and most necessary effect of this good will and love which is exacted of us for our ennemies is to pardon them for this is the first mercy and charity that we can doe them and the most necessary alms we can bestow upon them What good can we do them if first we do not pardon them but keep in our hearts odium enmity bitterness and a desire to take reveng of them Wherefore the Son of God who endeavours by all means our Salvation does not only command this charity and mercy but moreover obliges us to it by other pressing motives He promises us his greatest mercy which is the pardon of our sins if we pardon others dimittite dimittemini and he assures us that his Father will treat us most rigorously if we do not Sic Pater meus celestis faciet vobis so my heavenly Father will cast you into the prison of hell if you forgive not others from your hearts And S. Iames tells us judgement Iames 2. 13. without mercy shal be donâ— to them who shal not have don mercy S. Austin praying for the soul of his deceased Mother sayd I know that she led a holy and innocent life but woe to a laudable life if you examin it without mercy Whatsoever life you lead woe to you woe to you if you have enmitie you shal be judged without mercy and woe to a laudable life if judged without mercy What laudable thing do you You pray woe if you have bitterness woe to you notwithstanding your prayer for that he Psal 11â— remembred not to do mercy let his prayer be turn'd into sin says the Psalmist Your prayer condemns you saying our Lords prayer you demand Vengeance against your self you say I pardon such a person but I will not speak to him I will not that he com into my house and after this you say forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us God will hear you He will not speak to you favourably nor admit you into his house and if you be not admitted into heaven whether shal you go What laudable action do you you give alms woe to you if you have malice woe to you notwithstanding your alms S. Paul says if you should give all your goods to the poor if you 1. Cor. 13 have not charity you are nothing and by charity in this place he understands the love of neigbours What vertuous action do you you fast woe to you notwithstanding your fast if you have dissention In Isaiah the Iews Isay 58. 3 complain'd to God We have fasted and you have not regarded us God answers them with all your fasts you do your wills you press your poor debtours you have debates and contentions What laudable thing perform you Sacrifice woe to you if you have malice God says by Osee and twice in the Gospell I love and will rather mercy then your sacrifice And therefore many Osee 6. great Saints offering to God the most meritorious sacrifice that can be offer'd to him the sacrifice of their lives have interrupted it to obey this Commandement of mercy in the hour of their death when they had time little enough to elevate themselves to God to offer and to unite themselves to him they remembred their enemies pray'd for them and desired their good 11. These heroical vertues of the Saints were extracts and copies of those which we admire in IESUS-CHRIST the King of Martyrs and the Saint of Saints He being unjustly and most cruelly nailed to the Cross mock'd blasphem'd did not do as some do they think that they exercise great acts
accompanied them to old age And who doubts if God do not worke wonderfully in them and if they do not use the greatest violence upon themselves that the second part will be found as true that these vices will remaine with them ' til death Et cum ipsis in pulvere dormient S. Austin notes judiciously that the Son of God to raise Lazarus proceeded otherwise than He did to raise the daughter of the Prince of the Synagogue to raise this young maid He took her only by the hand and sayd to her daughter rise as if He wakened her out of a sweet sleep to raise Lazarus He troubled himself twice wept cry'd-out with a lowd voice Lazarus com forth this was not that He had more difficulty to raise him than the other since He will raise all men in the end of the world in a moment in the twinkling of an eye But this was 1. Cor. 15. 52. to shew that there are sinners which are with much more difficulty converted than some other He that having fallen through humane frailty makes speedy recourse to the Son of God is easily revived but he that is halfe rotten as Lazarus buried and bound by his ill coustoms cover'd with the stone of obduration returns not so easily to the life of grace but to this effect there is need of cryes teares groanes great force and violence upon himself such is the strength of bad customes and vitious habits which if not in the beginning rooted out do daily grow stronger increase and becom a second nature You see then that your conversion deferred to future time or to old age is not only very dangerous but also much more hard Let us then proceed and shew that it will be likewise less fruitfull 4. To convince you of this let us suppose you will live to extream old age and that you will do penance and practise vertue about the end of your dayes this I grant you to convince you though most probably it will never be But what will you say of the Time so dear precious and important which you lose by delaying your conversion Have you forgotten the counsell of the holy Ghost who says to you by the Wiseman go to the school of the Ant disdain not to learn your lesson of this little Prou 6. creature see how diligent it is in the summer to make provivision for the winter how it loses not one moment of time Have you forgotten this advice of our Savior worke whilst it is day for the night will com in which you can do nothing And this Iohn 9. 4. word of S. Paul Let us do good whilst we have time This life is the time to make provision the proper day to worke the season to merit All our good actions are the seed of eternity they will produce us eternal ioyes honors riches and delights Is it not then a great prejudice to lose so great treasures as you might heap up in the space of many years A noble and learned yong man who lived a little licentiously having written a fine letter in heroick verse to S. Austin the Saint answered him in this manner Reading your letter I desired to have for some hours your poetick veine to describe in a dolefull Elegie the greatness of your loss God hath indued you with a good understanding with a happy memory and with much acquired Science ô great damage to lose all these talents how much am I displeased to see that you lose them for trifles If you have found a golden chalice would you not make á present of it to our Savior would you not give it willingly to the Church to be employ'd in his service God hath given you a golden understanding Why do you not make of it an acceptable sacrifice to Him I say the same to you you are in the spring of your age you have a good nature a lively spirit a solid judgment and a free Will ô if all this were seriously consecrated to God what glory would He receive thereby what services might you render Him what soules would you gain to him what recompences would you find in Heaven and you lose all this for the desire of I know not what for a little sensual pleasure for a tye to some Creature for fear to displeas I know not whome through slothfulness to give your self in good time to God you bury these rich treasures in a tepide unprofitable and idle life And you reserve for God but the scum of your life the ruines of your age the incommodious and uncertain time your old age in which you will be able to do little more then to say a few prayers sitting in a chimney corner 5 God commanded in the ancient Law that they should offer to Him in Sacrifice the strongest best and soundest of the creatures will He permit that one offer to him the most weak feeble and unprofitable age of man He that ordered the first fruits of the earth should be offered to Him and otherwise blessed not the rest does He not exact that a man should offer to him the first fruits of his life will He bless the old age of him who denyed him his youth Remember ô man that your life is the possession and the inheritance of God if your farmer brings you for renâ— wheat mixed with much Ry you complaine and esteem him unjust what would you do then if he should bring you only weeds What would you do if the Keeper of your Vineyard instead of good and pure liquour which he owes you should bring you nothing but dregs and lees And of your life which is the inheritance of God you give to the Divell the good corne the fine flower the pure liquour to wit your younger and better years and you reserve for God but Ry straw dregs and lees which is your old age Are you not asham'd to reserve for the exercise of vertue but the time of old age Is it time to begin to live well when you are ready to dye and to lay the foundations of your eternal happiness in that age to which so few do live 6. S. Augustine cryed-out to himself Quamdiu cras quare non modo quare non in hac hora I say the same to you How long wâ—ll you say to morrow why not at this present since you have time to do it and time that is proper which is in your power and you know noâ— that you shal have the time to com How many see you die iâ— their youth and have not time to do the good which they design'd Why not now whilst your custome to evill is yeâ— weak and easy to be broken and if you expect long it will be confirmed and made invincible Why not at thiâ— present whilst you have strength to beare Austerities since in old age you will be worne out and will havâ— difficulty enough to bear the inconveniences of old-age iâ— self Why not now whilst you are in
the first saturday in lent says this solemn fast was holily instituted for the health both of soul and body And in the Decretalls of Gratian we read that many who had infirmities their goods being confiscated and they reduced to poverty so that they could not make good cheer were cured by this forced dyet All good Phisitians will tell you that for one hurt by fasting fifty are killed by eating and drinking And Experience shews that the more abstemious usually enjoy better health and longer life It is true that Fasting macerates and weakens bodys that are not well accustomed and hardned by it But it strengthens souls and makes them reign they are disposed by it to prayer and contemplation they please God by it satisfy his justice merit and impetrate of Him Benefits temporal and eternal The servant body then must indure theses paines and labours by which accrew so many and so great advantages to the lady soul nor does the Soul do injury to the body making it to fast but much obliges it She exempts it from punishments which it merited by rebellions for nothing appeases more the anger of God nothing averts better the thunderbolts of his justice then fasting and other macerations of the body which proceed out of true conversion and compunction of heart Witness the Ninivites It is doplorable that they who glory in the name of Christians have not so much sight and judgment as those poor Pagans the Son of God hath reason to say that they shal rise in judgment and condemn them Ionas sayd not to the Ninivites fast put on hair-cloth do pennance but only fourty days and Ninive shal be subverted and yet Pagans as they were had the light to know that to appease God it was necessary to fast and to do penance they published a fast so general and severe that all from the greatest to the least from the eldest to the youngest also bruit beasts fasted three days and nights without any meat or drink Should the Church command such a fast how would they cry-out against her but he Creatour approv'd this Edict and pardoned the sins of those that had so fasted 6. To be short if austerities be unlawfull and forbidden we must condemn all the ancient Anchorets and a great part of the primitive Christians who fasted almost daily in bread and water through the Spirit of penance and mortification we must condemn the Religious of the present Church who weaken their bodys by the exercises of penance We must condemn our Savior who fasted and spent whole nights in prayer upon mount olivet to give us example we must condemn the holy Ghost who exhorts us by the Apostle earnestly to shew that we are the Ministers or servants of God by Patience by Watchings 2. Cor. 6. 6. and fastings by longanimity and sweetness by the sincerity of our words by chastity and by cordial charity 7. These are the vertues and dispositions which ought to accompany our fasts They who have not health or strength for the one ought to addict themselves with more zeal to the practise of the other shewing that they are the faithfull servants of God and true Children of the Church By much patience You say you cannot fast because you are big with child or you are a nource And well says S. Chrysostome God excuses you from this fast But He requires another of you S. Chryâ— hom 22. ad pop which is that you abstain from anger this abstinence will do no hurt to the fruit you bear on the contrary the too ardent Passion by which you are transported may hurt it much and make it to dye without Baptisme By longanimity and sweetness If God say to you in judgment why have you not fasted if you answer I had a great weakness of stomake a continual and great giddiness of my head when I fasted And well if you say true God will admit of this excuse But what will you answer when He will reply why have you not pardoned your ennemie Why have you not thrown that hatred out of your heart which filled you with gall and betterness One sweet word sayd to salute your neighbor and to gain his heart would it have burnt your mouth or caused dizziness in your head By sincerity of words you are sick they command you to eate flesh obey your Phisitian and Confessor but eate not that flesh which is forbidden you I fear I shal see one day that many eate flesh in the Lent not boyled but raw and also humane flesh by calumny and detraction it is the Scripture that speaks so the harmfull approach upon me and eate my flesh sayd the Royal Prophet And holy Iob why do you persecute me Psal 26. 2. and are filled with my flesh They make a conscience to put their teeth into a piece of dead flesh and they make no scrupule to tear with their tongue the living flesh of their neighbor by calumnies and murmurations which is wors By Chastity fast not only with the mouth for it is not the mouth only that offends God make all the members of your body to fast Impure looks touches lacivious thoughts and delectations are carnal meats these are prohibited in all times and chiefly in the Lent he that fasts not commits but one or two sins a day but he that consents to dishonest thoughts commits sometimes more than ten By cordial Charity The holy Fathers say fasting is not only instituted to punish the body but also that we may have more means and leasure to give alms to viset sick and to practise other workes of charity fiat refectio pauperis abstinentia jejunantis Either you fast or not if you fast you should give to the poor what you would spend in a supper if you do not fast seeing you honor not God by abstinence honour him by mercy corporal or spiritual We ought to fast so in charity towards our neigbor We must fast in charity also towards God and not for terrene and temporal Ends. 8. The Son of God says to us When you fast wash your face Matt 6. 18. that is to say purify your intention Make not a fast of Gallen to be well and in good health nor the fast of the Avaricious to spare the purse but the fast of a Christian to obey the Church to have more means to give alms more leasure to practise good works the spirit more free to pray to satisfy the justice of God to make the funerall of our Saviours death to dispose our selves to communion to honor and imitate the fast of JESUS in the desert so having accompanied Him in his penance and fast on earth we may merit to be satiated by the torrent of pleasure with him in heaven Amen DISCOURS XXVI OF ALMS BLessed is the man that considers the necessities of the poor to have pity on him God will treat him sweetly and mildly in the day of judgement Psal in the day which the Royal Prophet
don to me becaus He esteems more that which is don to his members than what is don to himself let us weigh these words 4. First He says That which you have don to the least of mine He means chiefly the poor since He speakes of those that Matth 52. 40. hunger and thirst T is then a strang folly which displeases him extreamly to give your goods to flatterers to dissolute persons or to employ them to enrich your children to elevate or greaten your parents or to leave them wherewith to live in dilights in dissolutions whilst our Saviour hath not where with to live in the person of the poor is not this a great injustice to give to your child wherewith to live in superfluity and not to give to our Saviour wherewith to sustaine a poor life says S. Austin He says Wherewith to live in superfluity for you may merit if out of the spirit of charity and mercy you leave to your children or to your parents as to the members of JESUS CHRIST goods as alms wherewith to maintaine themselves according to their quality in Christian modesty and frugality not in superfluity and in the ambition of the world 5. You have don to me for the love of me if you give alms out of natural compassion 't is not christian charity but moral vertue if our of ostentation to be esteemed liberal 't is vanity if becaus the poor man is of the same countrey profession or condition that you are that he is a Soldier and you have been that he hath been a marchant and you are 't is to give an alms to a man to a soldier to a marchant and not to JESUS and becaus the poor man is his member Disciple or his Brother likewise if you give it to the end only that God may recompence you by temporal goods JESUS will not say to you you have given to me becaus in effect 't is not for IESUS that you give it but for your selves 't is not alms but avarice You have don to me He says not to my servants my faithfull but to me we must then consider IESUS in the poor and comport our selves towards them with the same dispositions that we would to IESUS and season our alms with all that is requisite to a most vertuous and meritorious action 6. First bestow your alms with tenderness commiseration and with bowells of compassion for mercy ought to make our hearts miserable by a sympathy of charity participating in the sufferances and afflictions of others 7. Secondly with benignity sweetness and affability the testimony of affection and benevolence and abstaine from all reproaches which would make a poor man suffer more by the confusion to which you put him than you pleasure him by the alms you give him 8. In the third place with interiour humility thinking that you are not worthy to give an alms to IESUS and in effect all that we do is nothing in comparison of that we should do and what we give less than our lives is less than that which in occasion we ought to give for God hath given his life for us and we ought to give also our lives for our 1. Ep. c. 3. bretheren says S. Iohn 9. In fine give prompty ioyfully and copiously let your good will exceed your power in giving a penny wish it were a pound an have also a desire to give it if you had it and if it were convenient in giving a mess of broth wish it were the best becaus it is for your best beloved who merits that we should consume the treasures of the world for the service of the least of his members 10i Let us conclude with the fine words of S. Augustine Brothers exercise mercy there is no other band to tye us to the love of Aug. in Psal 102 God and of our neighbor there is no other means to carry us from earth to heaven and a little after he adds Behold what you may buy how much you must give for it and when you must buy it Behold what you must buy Paradise is to be sold you may buy with money the kingdom of heaven eternal life and the possession of God What great favour what incomparable happiness if God did not permit it who would dare so much as to thinke of it ô if men be damn'd they deserve not to be pitied Satan will have good reason to laugh at them and say ô great fools they would give willingly the half of their goods to buy 30. or 40. years of life and of a life full of afflictions infirmities and miseries and they would not give it to buy millions of years of a most happy and delicious life And do not tell me so precious marchandise is not sold at a cheap rate and that you have neither gold nor silver nor means to buy it Bohold how much you must give for it a glass of cold water a little service if you have nothing els may procure you it our Saviour speaking to his poor Apostles sayd you have always poor with you and you may do good to them when you please He says not you may give to them But you may do good to them becaus many cannot give but every one can do good You may viset the sick and imprisoned and though you have nothing to give you may comfort them exhort them and do them other services The Son of God will not say you have not redeem'd me out of prison but you have not visited me that you may have no excuse You are a married woman t is not permitted you to give great alms of your husbands goods But t is permitted and it will be a good alms to serve assist and cherish with respect and tenderness for the love of God the old and infirme of your family You are a chamber-maid it would be theft and not alm◠to give to the Poor the goods of your Master against his will but it will be a Charity if you help this inferior servant if you assist her in the labor wherewith she is opprest You are a Counsellour an Advocate or a Solicitor you have many Children and little means and not able to give alms But you may assist with your credit counsell and service this poor widow this orphan poor man and the like persons whom commonly men neglect You may instruct in the Mysteries of faith and in what is necessary to salvation your domesticks servants neigbors and the poor that beg alms at your door this is the best alms you can bestow upon them an alms more excellent than the corporal so much as the soul is better than the body heaven than earth the grace of God than money or bread You have enemies that do you great injuries if so they are poor in vertue ô what an excellent alms would you bestow upon them if you procure it them and you will procure them vertue if you gain their affection by pardoning them and seeking their
to drunkenness or to gluttony S. Paul says to us that our belly is our God if we are avaricious he declares to us that Philip. 3. 19. Colloss 3. 5. Ephes 5. gold and silver are our Idolls if we are unchast we adore an Idoll of flesh If it be our designe to greaten our selves and to make our fortune at what rate soever our idolls are the world and its vanities or our children If we cloath our selves excessively our Idolls are our bodys in a word all that weighs most in the ballance of our affections is our God says S. Austin Banish then all such inordinate affections honor and adore the true God only give your selves to him without reserve love him bless him fear him serve him with all your heart refer to him all that you do all that you say all that you are He only is your treasure your refreshment your life and your glory He alone is your honour prosperity and felicity in soul and body in time and in eternity upon earth and in Heaven where He will satiate and make you perfectly happy by the enjoyment of his eternal glory Amen DISCOURS XXIX OF THE FIRST COMMANDEMENT Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me c. AS by this commandement God excludes vnjust worship and adoration of fals Gods So by the same He demands just honor and homage which we owe to the only true God It is by the Vertue of Religion that we acquit our selves of this obligation For this vertue moves us to give to God the honour worship and adoration due to him by reason of the infinite Excellence of his nature and sovereignity over althings It teaches us to honor him by our Vnderstanding and our Will with our Body and ouâ— goods and moreover to honour althings that are specially referr'd to him And this is that which is exacted of us by this Commandement and which we shal shew in this Discours 1. The Vertue of Religion hath this Excellency amongst other moral Vertues that we may practise it in all occasions and in all times We have always the object of it great reason and Power to do it The object God is always near us we are in his presence He is always great and worthy of honor Great reason He obliges us incessantly we receive from him continually Being Preservation Motion we should think of him as often as we breath if we could and He did require it of us we have always Power to exercise this Vertue for there is no need of riches strength of body fine words It is practised by the motion of the heart by the affection of the soul by the acts of the understanding and the Will 2. By the understanding we must conceive a high and great esteem of his Greatness and Excellence of his Power Wisdom Goodness Iustice and other Perfections apprhend lively believe firmly profess humbly that He is infinitely Powerfull Wise Good that whatsoever He does He does it most wisely justly holily that all that we can think all that the Angells can conceive of his Greatness is nothing to that He is We must acknowledg before God that he is our Creator Beginning last End soveraign Good true Treasure only Beatitude that He is our legal Lord soveraign King that He can dispose of us more justly and absolutely then a King of his Vassal then a Master of his slave then a Potter of his earthen Vessel that if He should take our Children from us our goods honor life without having given Him any occasion of offence He would not do us injury would use his right would be in so doing most just amiable and adorable By our will we must resolve to do promptly all that we know conduces to the service of God and to the advancement of his glory and to avoyd all things which displeas Him To desire and beg frequently the things that are convenient to be asked of him that so we may honour and reverence Him by submitting our selves to him and by acknowledging that we have need of him and totally rely on him To adore him often professing subjection to his divine Will in acknowledgment of his excellency and infinite Majesty and our subjection and dependance on Him 3. And becaus we are composed of soulw and body and receive them and all other goods from him we owe him not only the interiour but also the exteriour acts of Religion such is Sacrifice by which we honour him as our God and Soveraign professing his supream Dominion and a dependency of all things on him we thanke him for Benefits satisfy his justice and implore succour of our necessities such is the use of Sacraments by which we tacitely protest that God is the Sanctifier and the Authour of grace which subjects to him more and more our Souls Such are genuflections prostrations to testify by these signes the high esteem we have of his Greatness and our submission to him Such in fine are thankes Vocal prayers prayses and other like tributes of honor and homage which we pay to him We ought more over to employ our labour and to use our goods for the service of him Yea to contemne our honor and sacrifice our lives in a just occasion 4. And since all that is in God is God and consequently amiable honourable and adorable we ought also to honor and adore all his divine Attributes and Perfections cheifly in occasions when it pleases him to practise them When he sends prosperities to vertuous people or to their children adore his fidelity who promised to favour the vertuous when He gives goods to ill men adore his Goodness who does good to his Enemies when He calls a just man out of this life who seem'd necessary in this world adore his Independence who hath not need of his creatures when He preserves in life the Vicious adore his Patience and Longanimitie When He sends afflictions adore his justice 5. In fine the Vertue of Religion obliges us to reverence God not only in himself and in his divine Perfections But also in his Friends and Servants in the Times and Places which are particularly consecrated to his service and in all that hath a special respect and relation to his Majesty It was by this disposition that Iosuah 5. Gen. 48. 16. Psal 138. Or. 139. Apoc. 1. 4. Iosuah honoured the Angel that appeared to him That Iacob prayed an Angel to bless his Children That David honoured very much the friends of God And that S. Iohn Evangelist implores the assistance of Angells to obtain grace and peace from God It was by the same Vertue that great S. Antony honoured Priests as Ministers of Christs Inheritance Officers of his Crown and Dispensers of his treasures and that meeting even the least of them he fell upon his knees and demanded his Benediction By this Vertue S. Charles the Great entred into Rome and visited a foote the Churches of it embrased and kissed with devotion the Pillars of them By
this Vertue another Saint Charles the Cardinal Boromeus honoured so much the holy scripture that also studying it he read it always kneeling and uncover'd The seraphical Saint Francis commanded that papers which had the name of God written in them should not be Prophan'd but plac'd in decent and convenient places S. Lewis forbid painting and graving of the Cross upon the pavement for fear the people should tread upon it On Festivalls and Vigills in honor of the Saint celebrated or of the Mistery solemnized he gave dinner to two hundred Poore and serv'd them at the table He fasted all fridays of the yeare and in those of Advent and Lent he eate neither fish nor fruit becaus these two Times are consecrated to God 6. If these great Saints were now on earth what would they say what would they do seeing the comportment of men What thinke they now in heaven seeing the irreligion of those who will not allow them any honor though God does honor them and honor be a due salary of their Vertue who count it superstition Luke 15. 6. Luke 16. Apoc. 5. 8. and 8. 4. Matth. 18. 10 to implore their intercession though they have credit and favour in the sight of God do hear our prayers do know our necessities have experienced our miseries and have Charity and affection for us as the scriptures tell us What thinke they seeing the indevotion of others who rise in the morning and go to bed at night as beasts who sit down to table at noon as Epicurians and pass over the day as if there were no God who even fear to assist often at the Sacrifice to frequent the Sacraments to adore God and pray him as they ought lest men laugh at them and call them devotes or hypocrites though they are not ashamed to do ill in open street What do they think in fine seeing such irreverences of men towards holy things They employ the time of holy days in playing in visits and drunkenness if they discours for pleasure and recreation it seems not well seasoned if it clash not upon Priests or Religious Persons if they com to the Church it is not to appease God but to offend him to see and to be seen They prophane the holy scripture and use it in their jests meriments and Scurrilities 7. Si Ego Pater ubi est honor meus If I am the Father where is my honour He might have sayd if I am King If I am Iudg. If nature teaches the most barbarous to honour their father who is more worthy of honor than He from whom we have received not Body only but also Soul and All 8. If we honor the King and also the Courtiers for his sake should we not honor the King of kings so great powerfull and Soveraign that all the Kings of the world are his Uassalls and are but wormes in respect of Him 9. If we honor Iudges becaus they have some Power in this world ought we not to honor him who is infinitely powerfull and from whom all power is dereiv'd And give also an inferiour honour to the Saints whom God does so much honor that He makes them our Iudges You shal sit says our great Iudg upon S. Matth 19. 28. 1. Kings 2. 30. seats judging the twelue Tribes of Israel Let us remember then what God says to Samuel whosoever shal glorify me I will glorify him and they that contemne me shal be base If we neglect the service of God if we respect not his friends and althings that specially appertain to him sooner or later we shal be contemn'd coâ—â—r'd with shame dishonour and infamy But if we honour him as we ought we shal be replenished with glory either in this world by the good odour of our reputation or in the other by the crown of justice which God reserves for us in Heaven Amen DISCOURS XXX OF THE SECOND COMMANDEMENT Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in Vaine For the Lord will not hold him innocent that shal take the name of the Lord his God in Vaine Exod. 20. THe royal Prophet representing to us the name of God as holy represents it at the same time as terrible and dreadfull Holy and terrible is his name Let us confess to thy great name becaus it is terrible and holy And he joy ns Majesty and power with Sanctity to imprint in our hearts reverence and to stricke terrour into us lest we should at any Psal 110 Psal 98. time dishonour him And God assures us in this Commendement that he will punish us for it that we may not pretend ignorance to be any caus of it The Lord will not hold him Innocent that shal take the name of the Lord his God in vaine In other sins the mercy of God pleads in favour of sinners demands pardon strives S. Iames. 2. 13. with justice and sometimes overcoms it and mercy exalteth it self above iudgment says S. Iames But in this sin the Verity of God joyns it self to justice and obliges God to punish the prophaner lest his word do fail Is it not then a misery which de serves to be deplor'd with teares of blood to see that there is nothing so licenciously and frequently prophan'd and abus'd by Christians as the name of God by pronouncing his holy name irreverently violating Vowes unworthily swearing falsly or prophanely Cursing or blaspheming detestably 2. But some will say Oathes are they essentially naught Is it not permitted to swear sometimes Yes 't is lawfull since the Scripture permits and approves it Saints have practised it and God himself vouchsafes to sweare The Prophet Hieremy permits us Hierem 4. 2. Psal 62. 12. Apoc. 10. 6. Gen. 14. 22. 3. kings 17. 1. Rom. 19. 2. Cor. 1. 23. Gal. 1. 20 Gen. 22. 16. Hier. 22. 24. Luke 1. 73. Psal 109 to sweare in the name of God provided it be with all necessary circumstances David praises those that sweare by the true God not by fals Deities as Pagans did Angells Patriarks Prophets and Apostles have sometimes sworn An Angel in the Apocalyps lifts up his hand to heaven and sweares by him that lives for ever and ever that after judgment there will be no more time In the book of Genesis the Patriarke Abraham says to the King of Sodom I lift up my hand to the most high Majesty of God who possesses heaven and Earth In the third book of kings the Prophet Elias sayd by the living God in whose sight I stand S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans God is my witness that without intermission I make a memory of you In the second to the Corinthians I call God to witness upon my soul that sparing you I came not any more to Corinth And in the Epistle to the Galatians Behold before God that I ly not God himself whose least word is more firm then heaven and earth having nothing greater then himself vouchsafes to sweare by himself and by
his life And the Psalmist says expresly The Lord hath Sworn 3. It is true then that absolutely speaking an Oath that is accompanied with all its circumstances is neither mortal nor venial sin on the contrary it is a vertuous and meritorious action It is an Act of the vertue of Religion which hath for its object the payment to God and his divine Perfections the honour and homage that we owe him When an oath is well made we honor the Immensitie Science and Veracity of God Calling him to witness what we say we acknowledg him to be in all places present with all his creatures to know all that passeth in this world and to be the Soveraign and infallible Verity Source and Origin of all verity who authorizes by his testimony all truthes 4. There are divers sorts of oathes But that I may not burden your memory I will distinguish them into 3. kinds only which Divinity calls Assertory Promissory Execratory 5 First the Assertory is when you ascertain any thing that is past or present calling God to witness what you say calling him I say either by himself as when you say by God before God I say this in the presence of God or by some creature S. Matt. 5. that hath relation to him as when you say by my soul by this light by this fire so JESVS-CHRIST says in the Gospell that to sweare by heaven is to sweare by the Throne of God to sweare by the earth is to swear by the footstool of his feet 6. Secondly the Promissory is when you promis under oath to do or not to do any thing And You commit perjury and offend God mortally if you have not an intention to do or not to do what you promis or if you know that you cannot do it or if afterward you voluntarily fail to do what you promised in a matter of importance 7. In the third place the Execratory or oath of imprecation is then when to assure any thing you call God not only to witness what you say but you call him moreover to reveng the ly in case you say not true as when you say God punish me may I die presently never may I go out of this place Never may I see God the Divell take me if this be not true it is as much as if you sayd if I say not true I will that God permit that I die that I never depart from hence that the Divell carry me away c. 8. And it happens sometimes that God takes such swearers at their word and sends them the evill which they wished Niceforus Calixtus says that three Calumniators accusing the Bishop Narcissus of Adultery one of them sayd that he would dye if what he affirmed was not true another that he would be burnt the third that he might never see The first died suddenly the second was burnt with his house by a spark of fire that fell from his lamp the third having seen the punishment of his complices repented of his fault and wept so bitterly that he lost his sight 9. The Prophet Hieremiah above cited marks out to us the conditions wherewith an oath must be accompanied that it be not vitious but vertuous and meritorious Iurabis vivit Dominus in veritate in justitia judicio He permits you to sweare by the life of God or other oath provided that it be with truth with justice and with discretion 10. First with truth this circumstance is so absolutely necessary to an oath that if you swear an untruth or are not sure of what you sweare it is a perjury though it should be about the vallue of a pin I say though it should be upon the matter of a pin for it is not in this sin as in other kinds of crimes wherein the levitie of the matter makes the sin to be but venial here the levitie of the matter diminishes not the sin but encreases the malice of it for it is a greater contempt of God to abuse his authority and to call him to witness an untruth for a thing that is friyolous and of little consequence 11. And we must not only not sweare to assert an express and formally But not also to confirm a disguised and palliated untruth I call palliated lyes equivocations ambiguous words and of a double meaning for these deceive men they are subtil and crafty cheats And is it not a great evill to make use of the name of God and his credit to cheat and deceive men S. Isidore and S. Bernard tell us that what ever artifice of equivocation we use in swearing God who sees our conscience S. Isod lib. 2. sent 6. 31. S. Ber. lib. de mod bene vivendi ser 32. Aug. Ep. 224. ad Alipium takes our words according to the sense that he to whom we sweare does understand them S. Augustine concludes the same I doubt not says he but you ought to keep the fidelity of your promise according as he to whom you swore did understand it and not according to the ambiguity of your word whence it follows that those are perjured who contenting themselves to perform their words according to their own concealed sence of them have deceived the thoughts and expectations of him to whom they swore and consequently shal not be saved since the Prophet says that to go to heaven one must not in swearing deceive his Neighbor Qui jurat proximo suo non decipit 12 Secondly you must sweare with justice that is to say you must not sweare but that which is just and lawfull And therefore they sin grievously who swear to reveng themselves or to do any thing displeasing to God They are not at all oblig'd to keep such oathes since nobody can be oblig'd to do ill Nay they are oblig'd not to keep them becaus the Law of God obliges them not to do such things 13. In the third place it must be with judgment that is with prudence and maturity for things necessary and of importance and by reason of some obligation grounded in a vertue as charity justice or obedience For to sweare lightly rashly without just cause or necessity though it be for verity is a sin and moreover the cause of many inconvenients It is an irreverence and a dishonour of God to call him for witness in things that are frivolous or of little or no importance 'T is as if Lackeys playing in the court of Whitehall should call the King to be Arbitrator in all their childish disputes and differences 14. But take the inconveniences which do follow this accursed language from Ecclesiasticus or rather from the holy Ghost A man that is given to swearing shall be filled with iniquity and Ecclus. 33. 12. his house shal be always afflicted He shal be filled with his own sins which he commits by swearing lightly and also with those of others who will learn to sweare by his example and through the force of custome forsweare also themselves
Geraseens to precipitate them into the lake of a thousand brutal actions and after into the pool of fire and brimstone of everlasting death It is certible to hear Isaye 1. 14. Malac. 2. 3. with what execration God speaks of holy days so Prophaned my soul hateth your Solemnityes I will cast upon your faces the dung of them 6. Let us say then with the Psalmist Turn ô my Soul into thy rest becaus our Lord hath don good to thee Psal 114. 7. Turn ô my Soul convert your self entirely to God on the sunday at least It is instituted for this end and it is called the day of our Lord becaus if we have been turned to our selves and to our affaires the other dayes we must at least turn to God and to his service this day which He hath reserv'd to himself It seems an usurpation of anothers goods and a sort of sacriledg to rob him of this day and to employ it prophanly against his will Turn ô my Soul into thy rest It is a great crime to refuse Obedience to a commandement so sweet other Masters urge their servants and cry out to them worke work ha God says to his my children I will not that you weary out your selves give some respit to your selves from labours rest in me who am the Center of your hearts and the true rest of your soules He calls this day by his Prophet The delicate or delicious Sabbath His Isaiah 58. 13. delights are to be and to convers with us why should we not then make it our delights to be and convers with Him Turne into thy rest becaus our Lord hath don well to thee The Sunday was instituted that we might have opertunity to serve God and more leasure to thanke Him for our Creation Preservation Redemption Sanctification and Vocation to his Service for all graces and good workes which He gives us for preserving us from a thousand infirmities miseries deaths and from so many occasions of sin He hath delivered says the Prophet my soul from death my eyes from teares my feet from sliding if we are grateful for benefits receiv'd we shal give him occasion to give us new if we employ weâ—l the time design'd for the service of God He will bless the time granted us to make provision for our selves and families do then the workes of God on holy dayes and He will do yours on other days and moreover make you pass from the figure to the Verity from the shadow to the light from the symbole to the reality and from the temporal rest of this life to the eternal repose of glory Amen DISCOVRS XXXII OF THE FOURTH COMMANDEMENT Honour thy Father and thy Mother AS the Commandements written in the first Table tend immediately to the honour and glory of the Creatour recommending ro us Piety and devotion towards Him So these of the second Table tend immediately to the salvation and the utility of men and recommend to us charity and justice towards all our neighbours that each one doing his duty in his state and condition the families and communites of Christians may be well ordered and disposed The most important of these dutyes is that of children towards their Parents and therefore it is exacted by the first commandement of the second Table and to move them more to it recompence is herein promised to those that shal honour their Parents with the triple honour of Reverence Obedience and Assistance 2. First with the honor of Reverence for our Parents are the images of God whose authority is a Ray of his Paternity they are Sources and Causes of our life after Him Organs and Instruments which He uses to give and preserve our Being Hence it comes that we ought to honor them be they whatsoever though your Father be vicious and deboist he is stil your Father a cause of your life an instrument of God and an image of his Paternity And becaus the chief part of this honour consists in the interiour you must esteem your Parents in your heart acknowledg them your Superiours respect and reverence their Authority And becaus they know not your interiour you are oblig'd to testify by exterior signes the honor which you have for them to speak to them humbly of them to others honourably to give them respect and reverence and to do nothing that savours of neglect or contempt The Queen Bethsabee was not of the Royal blood but of mean extraction and nevertheless the wise Salomon her Son though a great and powerfull Monark and sitting in the Throne of Iustice rose out of it to meet and reverence her and placed her in a Throne at the right hand of his Majesty This wise King was the figure of our Saviour who being King of kings and God of infinite Majesty disdained not on earth to be subject to his holy Mother and who elevated and placed her in heaven at Psal 44. his right hand Astitit Regina a dextris tuis 3. To honour your Parents you must moreover consult them before you undertake any thinge of consequence when you would marry commence a suit undertake a far journey or engage your self in any other thing of importance aske their counsell and follow it this shews you esteem their prudence and God blesses this proceeding the young Tobias had a great blessing was assisted by an Angel deliver'd from all danger replenished with riches and prosperity in his journey becaus he undertook it by the advice and direction of his Father 4 The second honour of our Parents exacted by this Commandement is that of Obedience This honor S. Paul often recommends to us and in the Epistle to the Ephesians he proves it by this commandement to be their due Obey your Parents in our Ephes. 6. Lord For this is just Honour thy Father and thy Mother He adds In our Lord For if they command you any thing against the commandements of God or of his Church or if they would avert you from Religion and his service S. Bernard tells you that Epist 104. 't is Piety to neglect them for the love of IESUS-CHRIST for He that sayd Honor your Father and your Mother says to you also He that loves his father or his mother more than me is not worthy of me But when they command just and lawfull things you must obey them they are your Superiours and the Causes of your Being they then as Superiours ought to move you and as Causes of your Being to be also the Authours of your operations And if a servant be oblig'd to obey his Master for a little nourishment and a smal salary he receives how much more a child his Mother who nourished him with her own substance and his Father who laboured so much to bring him up and endeavours to provide for him 5. I find in the holy scripture that your obedience to be perfect ought to have three conditions at the least it ought to be blind cordial and
the same Word also we may learn that scandal is not a word or action which gives occasion of dishonour infamy or confusion that to scandalize another is not to discover his Vice to publish and make it known to the world this is not to scandalize him properly speaking 't is to diffame and dishonour him Scandal is a word or an action that is not so right as it should be which gives occasion to our neihgbor to commit a sin So S. Thomas and after him all the school Dictum vel factum minus rectum praebens alicui occasionem ruinae To have a perfect knowledg of this Definition we must weigh all the words of it the defect whereof makes men to be deceived often and to remain in ignorance 2. Dictum scandal is sometimes a word for the body is poysoned by the mouth and the soul by the eares sayd Plato and S. Paul who cites but seldom profane Authours alledges to this purpose the saying of the greek Poet corrumpunt bonos 1. Cor. 15 33. Psal 118 more 's colloquia prava evill discourses corrupt good manners David seem'd to fear the contagion of them when he prayed Lord deliver my soul from vniust lipps and from the deceitfull tongue and we have greater reason to do the like you will find many who will not speak openly against the faith lest they should be accounted impious or Atheists But they will say one might object such a thing against our beliefe or Infidells propose to us this argument Deceitfull tongue They move not manifestly their neighbour to dissention but slyly and secretly I wonder say they how you endure that you are too patient he will tread upon you one sayd such a thing of you Deceitfull tongue They speake not words openly impure but cover'd equivocal and of a double meaning Deceitfull tongue such words are usually more hurtfull than the other these are sharp arrows which enter more deeply into the mark and the wit and subtility which is in these cover'd words makes them enter more easily into the imagination and to remain there longer These are the burning coales which desolate and ruine the purity charity and simplicity of Christian soules 3. Dictum vel factum Scandal is a word or worke and action which may be the cause of sin and workes or actions are more scandalous than words these move indeed but those draw 't is enough to draw another to what is naught if others do it if it be the mode if but one only considerable persone do it if it be the custome so inclin'd are men to what is naught they are like goates or Sheep if one pass a place the rest follow not regarding the danger of it What do I say follow Men do not only follow others in what is naught but they will with tooth and naile endeavour to justify the following of them They say we must accommodate our selves to the place in which we are and live according to the world since we are in the world To which I oppose this of the S. Paul Be ye not conform'd to this wordl and this of S. Iohn Love not the world nor the things which are in the world and this of the Rom. 12. 2. 1. Iohd 2. 15. S. Iohn 17. Rom. 1. 7. Thess 1. 4. And 7. S. Pet. 1. 3. And 9. Acts. 10 15. 1. Cor. 6. 2. Son of God speaking of his disciples to his Father they are in the world but they are not of the world Christians Disciples of Christ have been sanctifyd in Baptisme and in the other Sacraments they are oblig'd to be holy 't is their vocation and profession they are called to be Saints says S. Paul to the Romans and to the Thessaâ—onians God hath called us into Sanctification And S. Peter But you are an elect Generation a holy people To be holy and to be common are two opposite Termes what God hath Sanctifyd do not thou call common Christians shal judg the world says S. Paul in his 1. Epistle to the Corinthians they must nor then be Complices or Companions in the actions customs and proceedings of the world Reason it self forbids us to follow them We know that there is nothing so erroneous as the opinion of the world nothing so corrupted and perverted as the judgement of men there are but few that know in what true vertue does consist and amongst those that know it there are but few that live according to this knowledg because their Passions oversway their judgments and corrupt their actions and therefore a wise man ought to steere a quite contrary cours But ought we not to avoyd singularity yes that which you affect of your own head and by the spirit of Vanity but not that which you accept from the will of God and by the spirit of sanctity Are not the high and common wayes the more sure yes to go to a place on earth but not to go to heaven our Saviour tells us so in express termes Enter by the narrow gate becaus broad is the gate and large is the way that leads to perdition and many there bes that enter by it How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that lead Matt. 7. 13. to life and few there are that find it But if I leave the usuall way of men what will they say I shal pass for a scrupulous a melancholy person or a hypocrite and they will laugh at me And who will laugh at you Libertines Impious and Atheists but God Angells and vertuous Persons will esteem and praise you Will it not be much honor to you to be blam'd by those that are worthy of blame and to be esteem'd by those who merit to be esteem'd The conscience also of Libertines themselves will be forced to admire what their mouth condemnes for vertue sends forth such bright rayes that they strike a holy terrour into the soules of her greatest enemies and she receives praises from those who at the first sight of her did burden her with reproaches But suppose that you are really laught at and derided What vertuous Person hath not passed this tryal Tobias and Iob were they not mocked as Idiots and simple men S. Charles did he not pass amongst worldly souleâ— for a man too stiff and obstinate in his way S. Chrysostome for too austere Granado and Avila for scrupulous and what is most considerable the Saint of Saints IESVS-CHRIST hath he not passed for a foole or madman for a friend of good cheer for a hlasphemer and for a magitian We must then have the courage sayes great S. Francis Sales to make the world know by our manner of living that we are not of this world but the servants of God that the lights of the Gospell and not the maximes and the customs of the world are the rules of our life so we shal tye the tongues of the impudent and draw many to the same manner of living by the examples of our vertues Let
he does wish it otherwise if his consent be any ways extorted either by force or fear it excuses you not from robbery for there is nothing so contrary to a free consent as force or fear He then is a robber who to do justice to a Party that hath right receives a bribe or present He is a robber who wearyes another with suits and expences to the end he quit that which he may pretend to justly He is a robber who makes his dependents to do him services to which they are not oblig'd wâ—thout paying them well for them He is a robber who forces his Creditors to composition for fear of inconveniences which he may bring upon them becaus the consent to these and the like actions is not free and voluntary so far these palliated injustices are from being justifiable in the sight of God that on the contrary they add to simple theft a circumstance which changes the species of it and which is called Rapine 9. To have a horrour of these and the like disorders Consider that this vice engages you in an ocean of sins and precipitates you in a manner-irreperably into eternal damnation For t is not so in this sin as in others You are not quit of it by repenting confessing and doing penance for it it obliges moreover to Restitution And see here what Divines say of it 10. They teach us in the first place that restitution is an act of commutative Iustice and consequently that there must be an equality between the dammages which you have caused and the reparation which you make of it In Vindicative Iustice if mercifully you relax a little the rigour of the Law if you make not the greatness of the pain precisely equal to the grievousness of the crime the mercy of God excuses easily your fault But in Commutative Iustice if having stolen 50. shillings you restore but 48. you are stil a theef 11. Secondly they assure us that Restitution is necessary to salvation that without it sorrow confession and absolution are unprofitable that nothing can excuse you from it but only impossibility to make it 12. But to restore all must I fall from my estate and Condition You are oblig'd to it having built your fortune upon the ruine of your neighbour it is most reasonable you repair that of your neighbour by the ruine of yours ought not the condition of the Innocent to be better then that of the Criminal 13. But I cannot make restitution without defaming my self for he to whom J shal restore will see that I have injured him and will decry me You must give it in this case to your Confessor or to a faithfull friend who may render it without naming any personne take an acquittance of him and shew it to you that you may be sure of your discharg from this obligation an obligation so strict that no power on earth can free you from it Death it self which dissolves consummate marriage delivers you not from it and if God should raise you up again you would not be oblig'd to retake your wife but you would be to pay your debts and your heires ought to do it in your defect 14 Divines inform us further that not only he who does an injury but moreover all that cooperate or concurre to it are oblig'd to Restitution as Receivers fals Witnesses makers of antidates and fals contracts Counsellours who counsell you to prosecute a suit which they know to be uniust or they who by notable negligence make their Clients lose a just one and Notaries who by ignorance or malice change the intention of the Testatour 15. Infine they conclude that this commandement obliges always and incessantly becaus it is not an affirmative precept only that commands us to restore but also a negative that forbids us to retaine and as such it is expressed commonly by negative terms in the Bible 'T is the property of negative commandements to oblige always and for always and therefore we sin at least so often as the thought of paying satisfying restoring coms into our minds if having power we neglect it 16. Do better injure no man commit not sins which oblige to restitution for you will make it or not if you make it you will have contracted sin and obligation to punishment without receiving the profit of it since you must restore the principal and make good all prejudice and dammage and if you make it not being in capacity to make it you are undon you are lost for ever 17. If then you have been so unfortunate as to oblige your selves to it doe as a rich man of our age who going from a Sermon distributed his goods to those he had injured saying Pereant mihi ne ego Peream may I lose these goods lest I lose my self these goods are for the earth my soul is for heaven these goods are perishable my soul is immortal these goods will stay here my soul will go with me they will be the possession of my heires my soul will be my owne these are not true goods however great and abundant they be since they make not good so many bad men that possess them they are not true riches since they make not rich nor content those that are flaves to them I must leave them one day necessarily and without merit t is better then that I quit them now voluntarily and with merit 18. This good man did very well to cure his wounds But I advise you by flying avarice which was the cause of them to prevent all wounds Hear then what the holy Ghost hath sayd of it Nothing is more wicked than to love money Hear our Saviour Eccli 10. 10. mark 10. 24. Tim. 6. 9. How hard it is for them that trust in money to enter into the kingdom of God! Hear also his Apostle They that will be made rich fall into temptation and hurtfull desires which drown men into destruction and perdition For the root of all evills is avarice Root out then covetousnes says S. Austin and plant charity the root of all good This will make you feed Christ in the hungrie refresh him in the thirsty harbour him in the stranger cloath him in the naked visit him in the sick comfort him in the prisoner and this will make you one day hear this most joyfull word which will put Matth. 25. 34. you in Possession of all good com yee blessed of my father possess tâ— kingdome prepar'd for you from the foundation of the world Amen DISCOVRS XXXVIII OF THE EIGHT COMMANDEMENT Thou shat not bear fals witness against thy neighbour IF the fifth commandement ougth to be much respected becaus it forbids us to assault the life of our neighbour and the sixth which forbids us to dishonour his wife and the seventh which prohibits us to steal or to hurt him in his goods with more reason the eighth commandement ought to be looked upon as of the greatest importance since it forbids fals witness which
good will for us that He desires nothing more than to fill us with goods to embrace us and to unite himself to us for ever we must cast our selves into his armes as an infant into his mothers put into his hand with great confidence our affaires afflictions salvation and our family ô God! I trust in you you are infinitely good you give your self to me you will give surely that which is much less 7. The third conformitie of the Eucharist with milk is in the manner of their operation First this is proper to milk amongst other nourishments that it is the whole feast and the entire refection of the infant it Satisfys hunger and thirst and serves him for meat and drink And this is also proper to the Eucharist that in one only Species of it is contain'd the whole refection of the Soul you are as well communicated and spiritually fed in taking the Host alone as in receiving both Host and Chalice 8. Here Dissenters think that they have a great advantage of us declaming against our communion in one kind But I see not how they can except against it For whatsoever the protestant people do in receiving of this Sacrament Catholicks do or may do too and what more ought to be don the Catholick Church does it and the Protestants do it not must one feed upon Christ Crucified by Faith Catholicks do it must the Eucharist be taken in remembrance of Him and his Death and Passion they do it must the people drink wine out of a Cup Catholick people do the like and over and above this they communicate the very Body of their Redeemer animated with his Soul full of blood and hypostatically united to his Deity this ought to be don to the end we may have life in us and Dissenters do it not But since they desist not to cry out and say that we deprive our people of the necessary means which Christ hath left them for their Salvation I must make you see that the holy Scripture the Fathers and Antiquity do authorize our practise 9. What pretend you in communicating Is it not to have eternall life you will acquire right to it in receiving but the Host for IESUS CHRIST sayd in most clear words He that eates Iohn 6. 51. and 58. Aug. tr 27. in Ioan of this bread shal live for ever And before the murmuration of the Capharnaits He spoke not of drinking his Blood but of eating his Body only He spoke not then of drinking his Blood but to answer to the gross thought of the Capharnaits and to tell them that they were not to eate his flesh separated from his blood dead cut and mangled as S. Austin says they thought but to eate his living Body full of blood Nor did He command all men to drink of the chalice or cup when He sayd in S. Matthew Drink ye all of this For these words were not spoken to all men nor to all the Faithfull But to all the Apostles and to them all only which is manifest out of the text it self for what S. Matthew says was commanded to all S. Marke relates to have been answerably perform'd by all they drank all thereof the second all is restrain'd to all the Apostles to whom only He spoke these words as also the other before and after and who were then made Priests what reason then is there to extend the former words farther then the Apostles Christ himself gave most S. Luke 24. probably the Eucharist under one only species to the Disciples that went to Emaus for He vanished says S. Luke as soone as they knew Him in breaking of the bread which S. Hierome S. Austin 5. Hier. in Fp. Paulae ad Eusto S. Aug. lib. 3. de consen Evang. c. 25. Et Ep. 59. ad Paulinum S. Paulinus V. Bede and other Doctors do understand and also prove to have been the holy Eucharist And 't is evident in S. Ambrose in Eusebius in S. Cyprian and in Tertullian that the primitive Church which would do nothing against the express command of Christ did give it often to the faithfull did carry it in journeys did send it to the absent and to the sick in one only kind or species and therefore they also held it to be as milk a whole and entire refection 9. Milk is given to an infant to nourish and make him grow and the Eucharist was instituted to make the children of the Church to increase and thrive in Christian perfection and therefore t is institituted under the species of bread which nourishes fortifys and causes groweth S. Ambr. orat de fratre suo Satyro Euseb lib. 6. c. 36. S. Cyprian de lapsis Tertull. lib. 2. ad uxor 10. Milk hath this property that it communicates often to infants the humours and the complexion of the Nource when the Poets describe a cruel man they are not content to say a rock hath brought him forth but they add that Tygars have given him suck And the holy Canons counsell mothers to nourse their own Children as much as may be for fear that giving them to vicious persons they suck with milk the ill humours of the nources The Son of God is not content to bring us forth in Baptisme He himself gives the brest He nourishes us with his own flesh that He may communicate his own inclinations to us He after communion sayd to his Disciples That the world may know I love my Father rise let us go to suffer for his glory So after communion we must examin our selves what service can I render to God what can I do that may conduce to his honor what is that in me or mine that displeases him and which I may correct if we use so this precious milk it will make us grow in perfection it will make us like to Him who nourishes us with his own substance it will give us his complexion and resemblance and if we resemble Him on earth in the life of grace we shal resemble Him in heaven in the life of glory Amen DISCOURS XLVI Of the Eucharist as a Sacrifice SAcrifice is a worship so noble and so proper to the Almighty as none either in heaven or in earth may partake with him in it So due to him and so necessary for men that every Law and Religion hath been stil anexed with a correspondent Sacrifice and Christians have all the reasons to honour God by it the Iews and those of the Law of nature ever had We are an externe and visible Congregation as they were We have the passion of the Messias to be represented before our eyes now with us past as with them it was to come we have the same God with the same worship to be honoured for received benefits to be praised for our sins to be appeased for favours to be invocated 2. Wherefore God promised us a Sacrifice by his Prophet Malachias Malac. 1. 10. where rejecting the ancient Sacrifices and
46. 16. and should burn in Sacrifice all the beasts that feed on it in acknowledgment of Gods Benefits all that would not be enough He sayd true but he sayd not all for we may add if we should make a fire with all the fewell in the world and all men and Angells should be therein consum'd for the honor of God all that would not suffice to acknowledg worthily the favours He hath don us But when we offer to God the precious Body of his Son we render him that which doth counterpoise all Benefits He hath don not only to poor sinners upon Earth but moreover to Saints in Heaven 8. This Host of praise being presented to God in thanksgiving for favours obtaines other If you shal aske says our Saviour any Iohn 16 23. thing of my Father in my name He will give it you We cannot better ask of God any favour in the name of IESUS then having Him with us upon our Altars in our hands and within us The Clemency of God will have regard to the love He hath for Him to the sacred Oblation you present to him and harken to the petitions you make by him Have you much offended God deserv'd his justice and his anger Do you fear the effects of his vengeance Dare you not appear in his presence by reason of the enormity of your crimes Take into your company the Heire of heaven the beloved of the eternal Father assist at Mass devoutly offer to the Father the precious Body which is there Sacrificed the blood which there is poured forth the Passion which there is represented and you will appease his anger and He will harken to your requests For it was for this chiefly that Christ instituted this Sacrifice to be the sacred Victime which appeases the wrath of God as he declares in Saint Luke when you are in the state of sin if mass be sayd S. Luke 22. 20. for you or if you assist at it this obtaines of God actuall graces lights and good motions to enter into your selves to quit the sin and to convert your selves to God if you resist not the Summons of his graces when you are in the state of grace Part of the merits sufferances and satisfactions of IESUS CHRIST are applyed to you to acquit your debts and to deminish the pains due to your sins 9 But suppose you are not indebred to the Iustice of God the poor souls in Puâ—gatory are and you may help them much by making a mass to be sayd or by hearing one for them For 't is not in vaine says S. Chrysostome that the Apostles ordain'd that in the dreadfull Misteries we make a memory of the dead for they knew that by it arriv'd to them great benefit And S. Cyrill of Hierusalem S. Chry. tom 3 in Ep ad Philip. S. Cyrill Catech. Mystag 5 Paulo ante medium Aug. lib. 9. Confes C 35. we beseech God for the dead believing the obsecration of that holy and dreadfull sacrifice which is put upon the Altar to be a great kelp to the soules for which 't is offered Wherefore S. Augustine in his Confessions prayes God to inspite the Bishops and the Priests of his acquaintance to remember his Father and Mother at the Altar 10 Having then seen how acceptable and glorious this Sacrifice is to God how beneficial both to the living and the dead fail not to assist at as many masses as you may hear them as devoutly as you can Offer them in the first place to God to do homage to your Soveraign to render him your respects and humble submissions to pay him the tribute of honour and service which you owe him Secondly to thanke him for an infinity of most great and inestimable benefits you have received from him benefits in soul benefits in body benefits of nature grace spiritual and temporal Thirdly to appease Him and to ask pardon of Him for jnnumerable sins you have committed and to gaine his favour represent to Him the love which his Son had for Him the zeal which He had for his glory the service He hath don Him offer and lay before Him the Mysteries of his Incarnation Nativity Circumcision his life labors and Passion this is that which S. Paul calls obsecrations Fourthy beg light and guidance in your actions succour and assistance in temptations love and grace to keep his commandements and all that is necessary as well for the spiritual as the temporal and you should do all these dutyes not only for your family but also for others If you assist at mass so you will not receive only the many and great advantages of it in this life but moreover reap the fruits of the Mysteries which the Mass represents to you and which glory discovers to the Blessed in the other Amen DISCOURS XLVII OF THE THREE PARTS OF PENANCE 1. AMongst many expressions which the holy Ghost vses in the scripture to make us conceive the maligne and monstrous nature of sin one of the most natural is the comparison of an impostume An impostume is a corruption of flesh and blood in our bodys which makes a stinking smell sin is a corruption of reason and of vertue in our souls which cause a stink unsupportable to God and his Angells They are corrupted and made abominable says the Royal Prophet All Surgeons will tell you and daily experience Psal 13. 1. shews it that to cuâ—e an impostume three things are necessary First it must be cut with a lancet secondly the corruption must be forced out in the third place it must be bound up oyls and unguents being applyed to it Such like are the three parts of penance so often repeated and so ill practised Contrition is the cut of the lancet Confession is that which brings out the corruption Satisfaction is the application of the unguents and binders These are the 3. Acts necessary to cure the spiritual but horrible impostume of sin of which I shal treat in this Discours In which omitting the Questions of Scholasticks I propose only Verities drawn out of Scripture and Councills of the Church 2. First then it is certain that 't is absolutely necessary to repent after sin that without repentance there is no pardon no grace of God no hope of salvation whatsoever Confession or Satisfaction you do make whatever absolution is given you Whatsoever indulgence or Iubily is granted you If you want this repentance also without your fault though also you think you have it if you have it not in effect there is no Sacrament nor absolution profitable And certainly Absolution is not more efficacious and requires not less disposition than Baptisme But to receive profitably Baptisme if we be in mortal sin we must have sorrow for it for in the second and third chapter of the Acts S. Peter having made a powerfull predication and his Auditours being moved inquired of him what ought we to do to obtain pardon of our sins He answered do Penance and
receive Baptisme The Councell of Trent assures us that penance hath been in all times necessary to obtain pardon of sins And this is so certen that Divines conclude that a Martyr a man that goes to suffer death for the Faith of IESUS CHRIST if he remember that he is in mortal sin is oblig'd to make a formal and express Act of penance and that in defect of it his Martyrdom will avail him nothing With more reason this formal act of penance is absolutely necessary to receive absolution For the councills declare that the Acts of the Penitent are the matter of this Sacrament without which the Sacrament subsists not and is null and amongst these acts the first the principal and most essential is repentance And hence it coms that 't is a great Sin and Sacriledg to confess without sorrow though you have but venial sins it would be much better if you have no other to say our Lords prayer and to communicate without confession than to confess without repentance 3. Now since it is not so easy to have in your heart true sorrow and regret for daily defects and a sincere and effective purpose to amend these venial sins take this counsell worthy to be put in practise if you have but these lesser sins add to the end of your confession some great sin of your past life for which you have more sorrow and repentance in this case the absolution will fall upon that sin not upon the venial sins of which you have no sorrow or true purpose of amendment 4. Secondly the Councell of Trent does teach us that this imperfect sorrow which is called Attrition ought to be supernatural it must be a gift of God and a motion of rhe holy Ghost And in the first Canon of the sixt session they pronounce Anathema against all that shal dare say a man without the prevening inspira ration of the holy Ghost can believe hope love and repent as be ought to receive the grace of justification 5. This Doctrine condemnes the practise of those Who use great diligence in examining their conscience but little or none in procuring covenient sorrow That is good and necessary but This is the more important if you fail in that a little a good confessor may supply by asking and examining you but if you have not this none can give it you it belongs to God only to bestow it on you and you ought to employ time care affection and fervour to obtaine it 6. In the third place the Council declares that supernatural Attrition ss 14. c. 4. leaves us in the state of sin if it be not actually followed by the absolution of a Priest If you are surprized by the Article of death in the state of mortal sin having Attrition only it avails you nothing to use all diligence to have one if in effect he coms not and absolves you dying you are lost doubt not of it for 't is on Article of Faith You will say God never obliges to a thing impossible shal I be damn'd for want of absolution since it was not my fault having used all possible means to have it I answer you shal not be damn'd for any sin you commit in that you are depriv'd of absolution but you shal be for the precedent sin of which you cannot have a remedy but by perfect Contrition or by Attrition with absolution And this is not only the doctrine of the Councel of Trent and present Church it was the beliefe of the primitive Christians as may be seen in the 180. Epistle of S Augustin 7. But to receive this necessary Absolution and cure from your spiritual Physician you must open your infirmity to him when you have lanced your heart with sharp Contrition or Attrition you must make all the corruption of mortal sins issue out of it by an entire Confession 8. Some say 'T is not necessary to confess all to a Sinner 't is impossible to declare this sin but I will have true repentance of it give alms and do great penances and God will pardon me Deceive not your selves God will not be a lyar to be mercifull S. Iohn 22. to you He sayd to Priests whose sins you shal remit are remitted And whose you shal retaine are retained The sins which you know you have committed and declare not to a Priest are not remitted by him and if he remits them not they are retained and God will never pardon them This hath ever been the sense of the Vniversal Church She always vnderstood that in those words of JESUS CHRIST which containe the institution of this Sacrament was instituted also and commanded an entire confession of mortal sins as the Councell of Trent declared Wherefore S. Austin preaching to sinners sayd flatter not your selves ss 14. c. 5 S. Aug. hom 49. ex 50. Say not I confess in my heart I confess to God this is not enough for so in vain the Son of God would have sayd to Priests All that you shal vnbind on earth shal be unbound in heaven And in effect who would go to Priests if by confessing to God alone they could obtain remission And again Be thou sorrowfull before Confession Confess let all the matter and putrefaction run out in Confession now exult and rejoyce that which remaines will easily be heald 9. By this we may understand why so many confess and so few are amended why so many receive this Sacrament and so few profit by it One great reason is that many make not a true perfect and entire Confession This defect hinders the operation of so great a Caus and makes the Sacrament invalid or unprofitable It happens either through negligence ignorance or shame 8. First through negligence They examin and Confess only the actions which they have don and not those which they ought to do and have not don they confess the sins of their persone and not those of their condition sins which they committed and not those which others committed by their occasion 9. Secondly through Ignorance For they must not think to be excused saying I have not confest such sins becaus I thought not to do ill if you omit any sin through gross ignocance or through culpable blindness God says to you in the scripture If you know not you shal not be known Becaus thou hast 1. Cor. 14. 38. Osee 4. 6. repelled knowledg I will repell thee If this ignorance or blindness be in you becaus you pray not God enough to enlighten you and make you know what displeases him or becaus you have thrust your self into an office of which you are uncapable or becaus you hear not sermons nor read good books which may instruct you nor desire that any one should tell you your faults you are not excused in the sight of God for not confessing them 10. Thirdly through shame which makes us to conceal voluntarily some sin most perniciously and criminally This want of integrity is pernicious since