of supernatural lights and a capacity of discerning not only vvhat is past or present but vvhat is to come and this in the secret and uncertain things of God's VVisdom It is true there is required in that person who is made a repository of Prophetick Truths that he shine with integrity of life have an absolute command over his passions and possess a Mind elevated and fitted to contemplation Yet God is not tyed up to previous dispositions by degrees but can in a moment both prepare and render perfect that party he designs for such a dignity as he hath done in the person of King David and so as to make him one of the most accomplished Prophets that ever was For there is a great disparity in prophetick irradiations some are imperfect lights and improperly called Prophetick as what may proceed from an evil spirit or from nature as that of Pharoah when he saw oxen and Ears of Corn not knowing from whence that vision might come or whether he was sleeping waking and the like Another degree more elevated is when a ray is infused by which I certainly comprehend that which I see only by a species imaginary such is Joseph's case who had an assured knowledge of what he saw that is the signification of them whence he is more justly called a Prophet than Pharoah who only saw and knew not what they signified A Third degree more perfect is when there are both an impression of species and sensible representations as also an infused light by which I can judge of the verity of the thing displayed before me as Daniel could tell the King his Dream and what it signified for the Corporeal forms vvere fixed in his Spirit and the meaning of theâ—… revealed in Daniels Mind The last and noblest degree is when a Truth is represented to us by species intelligible and a light infused Superadded which enables me infallibly to judge of what is represented by them without any external medium of word fact or imaginary Vision and this last irradiation Cassiodorus ascribes to David whence he entitles him the most eminent amongst all the Prophets But it will more recreate us to know what are those uncertain and hidden things laid open to him than the manner how it vvas done Some opinionate it vvas the Creation of the World vvhere the wisdom of God appears glorious in the admirable reduction of a confused Chaos to light and order In the contrivance of the Heavens that such vast and numerous Bodies should keep constant and uninterrupted motion vvithout any jarring or hindrance to one another in their Rapid Course In their Soveraign influences conveyed incessantly to inferiour things In the prodigious fixation of the Earth poysed and sustained by its own Center In the rare vertue of its plants in the variety of Creatures in the Air Earth and VVater And above all in Man the Epitome of the Vniverse to see him sway as Sovereign and by his reason to quell the fury strength and cunning of the most savage beasts To behold the revolutions of Cities Kingdomes and Empires the strange vicissitude of humane things to day a City swelling in pomp and magnificence not long after become a fallow Field an Emperour weeping in that there is no more Worlds to conquer hath been seen to perish howling dispatched away by a few dropps of poyson on the other side another is beheld drawn from a dunghil set on a throne and to Raign vvrth that felicity as if Heaven and Earth were held in fee to make him happy Here a person drenched in a life of Sin and impiety upon a suddain becomes a Saint there another endued with grace and vertue whom the World Eyes not but with a kind of veneration by a little presumption of his own strength and merits falls to nothing and proves an Imp of darkness To contemplate I say all these works in Nature all the strange events of humane actions and all managed by the Divine wisdom so as to make a Harmony to God's glory and out of the clashing and thwarting malice of Men to draw good who would not be ravished at such a prospect And confess with transports they are truly secret and hidden effects as to man of an all-seeing inscrutable and increated wisdom So that with unspeakable delight our holy Penitent repeated oft this Verse the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast revealed unto me Others and more happily I believe say those communications were the Incarnation Nativity Passion and all the other mysteries which relate unto the humanity of Christ and doubtless the contemplation of those mysteries clearly objected to him could not but strangely regale his mind to consider an infinite Being from all Eternity Soveraignly happy in the perfect enjoyment of his blessed self to be Hypostasiated in humane Nature and that this compositum of so many perfections should be born of a Virgin have no other pallace then a poor stable no other Courtiers then simple beasts from whose Breath he must borrow a little warmth to preserve him from the rigours of the season that a bloody design is hatched against him to avoid which he must fly by Night into Egypt through Cold and other dangers attended only by his apprehensive Mother and her faithful Coadjutour St. Joseph amidst these discomfortable reflections surely our Holy Penitent failed not to remember the homages done to him by the Angels and Kings that he might see he still intermixed the Splendour of his Divinity with the Ecclipses wrought and cast on his Humanity From thence he carryes on his thoughts to Christ's Sacred Passion where he lanches himself into an Ocean of misery not a drop trickles down of his bloody sweat but it makes him sink he distinctly ponders every blow lanced at him every scorn and every Calumny He numbers his weary steps whilst he is haled from one Tribunal to another he foresees the shameful flight of his Apostles and how he is abandoned in distresse by his nearest and dearest Friends Thus he sifts every particular passage of that Sacred Tragedy and were it not he is sustained by the consideration of its immense Fruit to wit the redemption of the perished World he would have shewed by his compassionating Death too much was revealed unto him to be at once the Subject both of his knowledge and life Now that this expression of our Penitent doth quadrate with these mysteries you must observe that the second person of the blessed Trinity is styled the Wisdom of the Father because produced by an act of his understanding and though his Incarnation were certain as decreed from all eternity and foretold by many Prophets yet it was uncertain as to the precise time and secret as to the manner of his coming and particular occurrences of his life it is true both were couched in some prophecy or other but so obscurely that the most learned could not dive into them until he came himself to unread them by his
of grief or repentance he might have enjoyed for many years To recover then in some sort those years and lasting joyes we must here denounce war against our senses denying them the least contentment we must drag our Bodies after us as a slave would do his Chain that by this subjection we may preserve our obedience untouched to our Creatour and let our Soul which naturally covets Eternity deliciate her self in ravishments proper to her spiritual substance by this means we may strike off all the arrears of Time which the Apostle so seriously recommends unto us Now for the reason why he puts us upon this task of good Husbandry to repair our losses because the dayes are evil St. Austin tells us there are two things sayes he which give birth to these our unfortunate dayes One the common misery of Mankind derived from Adam's sin For cast your thoughts on the Mass of things created and you will find none so indigent so unsatisfyed and reduced to such straights as Man other Creatures are no sooner brought into the World but nature gives them a capacity of helping themselves Man after he is born for many years hath his understanding so tyed up that he resembles a meer Brute only surpassed by them in an industry to preserve natural life other Creatures find here those objects which quiet all their motions the elementary Bodies meet with their Centers which settle them in a full repose the natural appetite of Beasts encounters that which satiates and gluts all their avidities plants grow to a certain greatness proper to their species Man only is the unsatisfyed Being upon Earth for his understanding elevates his thoughts above the Heavens and all the powers of nature his will frames infinitely more desires than the World hath perfections so that there being found no Object upon Earth adequately proportioned to the vast capacity of his Soul it is necessary he still languish here in a State of dissatisfaction This casts him upon so many shelves of misery and makes him restless hoping still to find something to allay his desires Sometimes he fancies riches would do it but finding them ordained to the purchase of other things it cannot be a sovereign good thence he flyes to honour and observing that also to depend upon the breath and will of another he fastens on beauty this likewise he perceives to fade and perish by a thousand accidents this invites him to the acquisition of knowledge and after many a toilsome hour he finds only this proficiency how little we are capable of that the least plant of the Earth will puzzle and confront all his acquired Notions to render the true vertues of it Thus he passes on from the Essay of one delight to another still as unwearied as unsatisfyed and why all this But because my Mother hath conceived me in sin For my Mother conceiving me in sin received by inheritance the doom of Death and of miseries consequent to a mortal Life and so cannot but convey the like direful effects to her posterity Timon an Orator of Athens was wont to deliver so pathetically the miseries of Man in this Life that after his Oration which he held forth in publick it was usual for many of his Audience to hasten their passage unto Death by a course of violence some by precipices others by water some by poyson others by a ponyard or halter In fine they regarded not much the means so it might but have the effect that is to rid them from the Calamities to be sustained in this life In a word his Eloquence wrought so many Tragedies that the Senate was feign to make a recluse of him that by sequestring him from humane Society they might prevent the destruction of Mankind This person was an Infidel who considered only Man 's corporal necessities together with his failings in order to moral vertues and if from this Ground he could draw such efficacious perswasions what would he have done with the addition of our Penitent's Faith which teaches that eternal felicity or misery depend upon our actions here that we lye under the Obligation of many positive precepts against whose observance are laid continual Ambuscado's both from the malice of Hell deceit of the World and our own bad inclinations that in the midst of these imminent dangers we steer our Course to an Eternity of Joyes or Pain What Energy I say would this consideration add to the draught of our misery when we not only suffer here but suffer with so much hazzard of incurring the doom of Torments without end Ah blame not then our Penitent if he set before his Eyes and is willing also the petitioned should glance upon his condition in this state of mortality his own reflections will serve to keep him in a wary humility checked with the frailties and inconstancy of his own nature the notice also his dear Creatour may take of what mould he is made will stand he hopes in good stead for he knowes him so inclinable to pardon that if it may be said with reverence he lyes at catch for an opportunity to save us and if the least hold be given he presently fastens upon it and hastens away like a Souldier laden with a rich booty of which he fears the reprisal till he brings us to a place of security where we shall have no more reason to fear the irregular motions of corrupt nature no more to vent in sadness And my Mother hath conceived me in sin Holy Job that prodigy of humane Constancy amidst the smartest Tryals was yet so sensible of Man's misery in this life as to fall with bitterness upon the very day wherein he was brought forth wishing it might perish and never be reckoned amongst dayes in the course of the Zodiack Nay he goes so farr that he involves in his Anathema's every circumstance which concurred to his Conception or Nativity Expositors of Scripture excuse these maledictions in Job and free them from sin upon this score that he weighing the disproportion of Man's desires unto the objects he encounters in this life which hold him in a continued disquiet how naturally he sets his heart on riches honour beauty and other perishable goods with what difficulty they are attained with more preserved and with little satisfaction possessed Amidst these pensive Meditations beholding himself in the extremity of affliction his sensitive part crushed even to nothing brake forth into this seeming rage as to fly at every thing that had a hand in leading him to so much misery If this pattern of vertue might be allowed such Salleys that speak so much heat without any derogation from his innocence upon the meer consideration of that high pitch of distresses wherein he was plunged Our Penitent having been made a prey to sin and frailty may doubtless with all submissiveness as he doth expose his Nakedness as cast into the World without arms beset with Enemies bent upon his destruction both at home and abroad and
104. l. 7. nor well p. 106. l. 12. a little after p. 111. l. 3. his future p. 136. l. 23. injure p. 151. l. 12. palms p. 158. l. 6. communicates p. 160. l. 20. object p. 161. l. 1. for that p. 162. l. 16. Deity p. 163. l. 3. most love p. 165. l. 6. heeld p. 183. l. 7. preceding p. 184. l. 16. decides p. 186. l. 21. punishment p. 189. l. 15. account soever p. 202. l. 5. it is only our heart p. 203. l. 5. she seemed and â—… 25. interiour p. 221. l. 21. in his mind p. 225. l. at a more p. 231. l. 25 entertains p. 236. l. 25. possible and l. 27. abstruse p. 237. l. 17. should p. 248. l. 12. incentives p. 263. l. 8. blot out degree and in the place read will p. 278. l. 16. believe in thee p. 280. l. 2. in these p. 284. l. 29. affect p. 297. l. 26. blot out his and read all material p. 324. l. 25. beating p. 325. l. 21. obstructed p. 343. l. 25. Quires p. 355. l. 2. appartment p. 363. l. 9. premises p. 366. l. 19. after love adde to p. 369. l. 8. danger and. l. 15. this instruction p. 370 l. 1. of his heart p. 403. l. 1. word p. 365. l. 5. since as I said it is engraven CHAP. I. Miserere mei DEUS Have mercy on me O GOD. AT the first entrance our Kingly Prophet prefers his Petition and without any circumlocution expresses in direct terms what he would have Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God and he do's it with such confidence as if he had a right to be forgiven which minds me of a rare sentence of S. Gregory Nissen that Man cannot more willingly ask pardon than God is ready to give it The Divine Majesty expects if it may be so express'd with passion the conversion of a sinner and no sooner a repenting motion animates his heart but the whole Court of heaven is alarmed with joy and this joy is followed with showers of mercy No wonder then if our Petitioner make his address with so little Ceremony since he speaks to a Judge resolved to mercy upon his submission to a Father who is transported with joy at the sight of his long lost Son to a Creatour who hath framed every particle of his being and perfectly knows how frail weak and prone to innumerable failings he is if left to himself wherefore he cryes Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God He shelters this guilty me t'wixt God that made him and Mercy that must save him on these two he anchors all his hopes which being let down by a vigorous faith renders him secure amidst all the storms that hell and earth can raise so that now like a rock he stands braving all his enemies assaults who not long before was handed like a ball from one pleasure to another as if he had been made up of sensuality passion and a neglect of God Next in this exordium our Petitioner would insinuate a great truth that the first grace is a free gift of God and man a vessel of mercy not of merit hence he cryes Miserere mei Deus that is to say let him pine away in sorrow and repentance let him produce acts of ardent affection by which he prizes God above all things imaginable yet when all this is done he is a Child of perdition and clouded with the guilt of Sin unless an act of Grace be made him from his Sovereign Wherefore we must know that Grace expelling Sin by access unto the Soul finds there no merit nothing that can pretend to a justification neither Faith nor any other Vertue strikes the stroak since Grace is the basis or ground-work of all merit whence it s being is derived no less than a beauteous Flower from the Plant that gives it birth This piece of Divinity lay not hid to our penitent hence he acknowledges his imbecility in meriting any favour only he strives by holy acts of love and grief to dispose himself for mercy Nay though he should comfort himself with Nathan's words that he was already possessed of the first Grace yet to persevere in it so as not to fall again he knew must be the work of the same merciful hand for it is no less out of our reach to become just than to remain so without a constant supply of many actual Graces which must issue gratis from Heaven This kept him still in humility as never to presume of his own strength alwayes in fear without any security of happiness in this life So that having throughly scann'd the Condition of Man in this present State he concludes the best lesson suitable to our continual wants here is incessantly to repeat and entreat under this effectual form Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Whil'st he thus layes all his hopes at the feet of mercy he cannot but bless the sweet proceedings of Heaven in requiring of us to compass our happiness that which is so conformable both to our Reason and Nature For can there be any thing more rational and delightful to Man than to love a Sovereign Good to congratulate the Divine Essence Divine Subsistences Divine Attributes and unchangeable perfections essentially seated in God Can there be any thing more just than to desire this greatness and goodness should have his Divine Laws fulfilled the Universe conserved for the Encrease and Accomplishment of his Service and that all praise and Benediction be poured forth before him by all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth Can there be any action more commendable than to conceive an extream detestation of Sin because injurious to His Supream Majesty and obstructive to his glory and yet in doing this we so attemper our selves for the reception of his favours that as in the Order of Natural things upon the Organization and fitted Dispositions of a Body he hath obliged himself to infuse a Soul so he hath no less engaged to vest that Mind with supernatural Grace which by acts of love and repentance shall be prepared for it But alas Amidst these pleasing reflections when he looks into himself he finds a check seeing he cannot even dispose himself for this happiness without a supernatural aid for though 't is true humane Nature by its own strength knowes that God is worthy of all love yet our knowledge in morality is much more capable of comprehension than practice 'T is not enough to have Wings to fly if they be so hamper'd as they cannot be display'd so this natural faculty in Man of loving God above all things is so weakned by original Sin and a million of Obstacles that we find the inclination of doing it far more ineffectual than the dictamens of our reason to have it done And no wonder when St. Thomas affirms our Will by original Sin is much more damnified than our understanding whence self love growes powerful in us and if it hath not a
counterpoise of supernatural succours we are violently hurried into the pursuit of Fading and sensible objects This consideration makes our penitent deplore the miseries of humane Nature so wounded and made impotent unto good as of her self she cannot pay what she owes to the most lawful object of all hearts for his just homages are not only Sighs Groans and Enthusiastick throwes but effective services as the exact observance of his commands an aversion from what may put a separation 'twixt God and our Soul such are sensual pleasures greatness in the World and honours in excess victory over Temptations and in many encounters this love exacts a perpession of all the Calamities to which Man is incident even to the privation of life that he may not fall into transgressions opposite unto it And these difficulties do so far exceed humane imbecility that at last he makes this result he must stick close to his praeliminary address miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Again when he reflects on the distance of these Terms Deus mei God and me methinks it should startle the greatest Assurance to consider the sublimity of him that is offended and the despicability of the offendour the one is immense and fills all places the other is contracted into the dimensions of a small Body the one is immutable and still the same the other is corruptible and mouldring away every Moment towards that nothing from whence it came the one is eternal the other subject to time the one is the object of Beatitude the other of Misery 'T is true our penitent in relation to earthly greatness was qualified with the highest Title the World can give as being Sovereign Monarch and sole Ruler of a chosen Nation a vast and numerous Body of People yet if compared to God he is not so much as an Atome in respect of the Sun And for this me this nothing to rise up in rebellion against such a Sovereign it must needs work a strange Confusion and Disturbance within him how to make his submission on the one side dejected by his own unworthiness on the other dazled and confounded by the glory of the incensed Yet at last he breaks through all obstacles and implores mercy he had rather perish in hoping too much than to commit a Sacriledge in distrusting the goodness of him who invites all without distinction unto him Nay I believe had the object against which he trespassed been any thing less than God he would never have opened his Lips in Order to a Remission For he knew well that he only to whom Goodness and Mercy is essential would or could obliterate his guilt 'T is true his power and greatness strike a terrour yet they are so contempered with a merciful sweetness that the Blackest Soul may there find wherewith to rinse her stains and exchange them for a pure Dye of innocency if she can with a Davids Heart and Tongue but issue forth Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God I observe moreover that Almighty God permits a Soul though very dear unto him to be often here exposed in troubled waters where she seems to be wholly lost and abandoned that Heaven appears to have no light for her and the Earth nothing but malice to work her ruine How many terrors and anxieties of Mind have Saints endured and been left without any glimps of Comfort even for some whole year And why all these rude tryals in the conduct of the most innocent Soul but that God seems to be delighted when his creatures tune forth Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Whence you may see that God will exempt no condition from this supplicating stile he will be sued to by the innocent as well as nocent and where the Formality of malice is wanting he oft gives the apprehension to the end that flying to this powerful miserere they might draw at least from his Goodnss the benefits of Conversation encrease of Grace addition of Vertue and other innumerable Mercies which he hath in store for those who trust in him So that there is no time nor place unseasonable for any person to prefer this Petition Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God The Application By this Petition we are taught not to presume on the value of our own actions For God is the Sovereign Lord of the whole World and particularly of the just all whose good works convey unto him a pleasing odour yet can they not arrive to that pitch as to have any Empire over him or force him to let them share with him in the participation of his Heavenly Kingdom Let the just perform all the good imaginable in return he may justly say I accept these services in discharge of your past debts and what you owe me for your Creation Conservation and the Grace I have given you to act So that we may truly say with St. Paul when we have done all we can we are useless Servants For whereas we were pure Negatives it was his Sole Mercy that extracted us from nothing it was this same Mercy which added to our natural Being a Being of Grace Lastly the accomplishment of this Mercy is to bring us into the possession of eternal Glory wherefore if we attire our actions in the colours of Mercy and alwayes beat upon this string we may justly hope one day to sing the praises of this incomparable Mercy with our holy penitent throughout the vast spaces of Eternity Amen CHAP. II. Secundum magnam Misericordiam tuam According to thy great Mercy OUr Holy Penitent having set a foot his Petition we have all reason to believe since it is in a matter of so great weight and from a person so accomplished that 't is framed and ajusted to the exactest rules of an effectual address wherefore let us examine what Arguments he uses to move for a grant I observe in the first place he alledges not the innocent and harmless life he led whilst he kept his Fathers Flock Nor his zeal for the honour of God's people in his Combat with Goliah He mentions not his constant sufferings wrought by the malice of Saul Nor his transport of joy and reverence when he danced before the Ark In a word he declines the memory of any action in his life past which might make him recommendable wisely considering as did Job that admirable pattern of patience Should he expostulate with God He would not be able to answer one word for a thousand Therefore he casts himself wholly upon the Favour of his judge saying Secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam according to thy great mercy He silences all the other Divine Attributes and conjures his Creatour by that which seems most appropriated to his condition Nor is he content to challenge his mercy without the specification of great mercy as if the Enormity of his Crimes were such as required more than an Ordinary Condonation Indeed his Mercy may well be stiled
great for it hath all the dimensions of greatness it reacheth from Heaven to Earth even to the Gates of Hell It is extended from one pole to another nay it is immense as God himself participating of his Divine nature it searches the abstrusest corners of our Heart and if the least Crany be put open to his light and grace it is presently replenished by this great mercy Ah! did we but know what mists of terrene affections the beams of his mercy have dispersed within us what a change they have made in our bad inclinations what dangers they have met and diverted from us We should even repine at Nature that hath not furnished us with more Hearts and Tongues to love and praise this great mercy He adds likewise secundùm that is according to the custome of thy great mercy which uses not to boggle at the remission of any sin nor to look so precisely upon the degree of the offendours past malice as upon his present repentance whence he grounds the Communication of his Grace by which we may discern the Sense our Holy King had of his transgressions which made him willing to huddle up his score and without giving in any particular to desire they mighâ—â—…ther in a cluster be cast and drowned in the Ocean of his Mercy We are taught by this two things First not to presume upon the value of our own actions so farr as from them to justifie our selves for in this kind none could plead more for himself than our holy petitioner he had with a Piety and fortitude unequalled run through many difficult and glorious enterprises wherein God was pleased to appear for him and own him his champion Yet he thinks good to hush up all this well knowing that praise is due alone to him under whose guidance and protection he had begun and set a fortunate period to them Next we are taught that reflecting upon our sins past we should never despair for as our good deeds we owe to God alone by whose inspiration moving us we do them so we must submit our bad deeds whereof we our selves are the sole Authors to his Mercy Whence we may see though he cannot concurr with us in doing ill his unspotted Nature being incapable of any obliquity yet it being done he will share with us in the undoing or repairing of our misfortunes And which is more no sooner hath this Mâ—rciful Hand dragg'd us out of the mire of Sin but 't is stretched forth to be joyn'd to ours in a happy nuptial bond promising by his Prophet to espouse us unto himself for ever in misericordia in the inseparable Union of his Mercy It is this great Mercy without end or beginning which hath decreed from all eternity to bring us off clear from all misery and place us glorious in his light inaccessible from the time that God was and loved himself he disposed us for his love and mercy have we not therefore reason to spend every moment of our Life in loving praising and glorifying this great mercy It is in all kinds infinite no excess of malice obstructs it no frequency of Commission or reiterated guilt renders it inexorable no time excludes it no not a desperate delay to the last moment O God thy judgments may be well said to be unfathomed Abysses wherein are lost our most Enormous crimes and from that loss we find our selves transferred unto the enjoyance of thee irradiated with the comfortable beams of thy mercy But above all this mercy never appears so great as in the admirable Mystery of the Incarnation where we behold the eternal Father giving up his only Son in behalf of Mankind vitiated and defiled with Sin rebellious and insolent against His Sovereign a Worm and poor scantling of putrefaction a prey for the Flames of Hell That I say a God most perfect in himself who hath no want should love so vile a Creature at such a distance from him and who could stand him in no stead and yet this eternal God full of greatness hath cherished Man in such a manner as to bestow upon him the dear production of himself coeternal consubstantial and equal to him in Greatness and Majesty and for what end To save him from ruine to enrich him with eternal Life this is that great mercy our Penitent now implores and he claims it by vertue of a promise made to Abraham that since he had not grudged him his only Sonne all Nations should be blessed in his Seed that the Eternal Death of him who is temporal should be redeemed by the temporal Death of him who is eternal How many Miracles found birth in the execution of this act of love and mercy First Nature was stopt as to the result of a humane subsistence in whose place was intimately applyed the personality of the Divine word and this infinite subsistence was adorned with graces vertues and priviledges supereminent a Mother enjoyed a fruitful Virginity and a delivery without pain in the fruit was found at the same instant the blood consolidated organized animated and deifyed So that the Second Person of the blessed Trinity assuming a new Being newly produced that is the essence of a holy humanity attyred himself with it becomes a good man and a master piece of love and mercy A remedy so necessary that without it all the purity of Angels and Holy Souls all the inflamed desires of the Patriarchs could never have merited with condignity this incarnate mistery For were all the groans put together all the tears sufferings and exquisite torments which Saints have endured for the love of God and on the other side but one single tear thrown in of Jesus Christ shed either at his birth or any time of his life this tear issuing from the flaming Furnace of his Heart Sacred and united to the Divine Word would exceed in value all you can think or imagine in the meritorious actions of Creatures So that this adorable mistery is not a mistery of just retribution springing from any humane or Angelical merit but 't is a mistery of goodness and supereminent mercy and in consideration of that prodigious design of love he is animated in his suit and believes he cannot receive a repulse because he acts it Secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam in the name of the Messias in whom all the Divine mercies from the beginning of the World issued forth unto mankind are comprised and consequently may be stiled a great and the greatest of mercies The Application Our Holy penitent having in the clear prospect of his prophetick View beheld this great work of mercy brake forth into this happy expression and couches a clause of all others the most efficacious to obtain the end he sues for we may learn from hence that our Mediator Jesus Christ is the best Sanctuary in all our distresses whether in regard of our past offences or of our impotency to repair our failings Methinks I hear our Petitioner to say O God what
shall I return thee in requital when I would praise thee an Abyss of Majesty exhausts in a moment all Encomiums and my Adorations appear nothing before thy Divine Essence could I unmake my self in deference to thee the Fountain of all Beings it were a poor homage to thy ineffable greatness Nay could I annihilate the whole World for thy glory yet would it nothing equal what thy immensity might justly exact But whilst I thus labour with my own poverty finding nothing created worthy thy acceptance behold the perfect oblation of thy Son a prodigious effect of mercy this I offer to thee he can best speak our gratitude who can only satisfie thy Justice since by this gift the very treasury of Heaven will be exhausted and the Earth enrich'd with a pure Sacrifice whose odour draws upon mankind a continued flood of mercies It is this eternal offering meant by our Petitioner when he mentions thy great mercy whose very thought and foresight at the distance of many ages replenished his heart with joy And if the expectation of him to come so transported what dilation of spiritual joy ought to invade us who now possess what they had only in hope who now reap a plentiful harvest of Salvation when before the World was blasted with sterility and doom'd to darkness untill the bowels of this great mercy were opened to store us with his light and grace Let us joyn our Petitions with Holy David and adore the wonders of this great mercy in which we behold humane flesh hypostasiated in a Divine nature a Creatour link'd to his Creature Death unto Life Glory unto Confusion and Iniquity stamped with Innocence And whilst we contemplate these admirable contrivances of the Divine Wisdom can they do less than ascertain us if we place in the Frontispiece of our supplications this compositum made up of so many contrarieties that our desires will take effect that under this Sanctuary we shall strike off all the scores of guilt and render a satisfaction as great as God can expect or require Hence you see how confidently every sinner may repeat with David Have mercy on me O God according to thy great mercy CHAP. III. Et secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum And according to the multitude of thy mercies OUr Holy Petitioner having expressed his relyance in general on Gods mercy next fixes upon its effects in particular and makes a series or list of all his mercies Wherein methinks I behold him just like one in desolation of Shipwrack fastning on a plank and though the storm continue darkness surround him and nothing but the Face of Death appears before his Eyes yet he remembers that many have been saved in his condition how some have been cast upon the shore others upon a Rock some by a passing Boat gathered up In fine he calls to mind a thousand wayes of preservation to consolate himself in this distress and every thought of hope makes him grasp with new fervour his floating support Even so I may say of our distressed Penitent his goodly Vessel of innocence was wreck'd dashed against the powerfull charms of a Woman from thence he was thrown into an Ocean of Sins where on all sides he beheld the menaces of eternal destruction in these perplexities he runs with his thought over all the passages of God's mercy from the World's beginning by the consideration of them a little to keep up his sinking Spirits He fails not to remember the mild proceeding of God with Adam in not punishing him irrecoverably as he had done the reprobate Angels but was contented to Exile him from the delicious place of his Creation and to expose him here to the Whirl-winds of passions in which contest if he proved faithful his reward was to be the same as first designed for him From thence he passes to the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah where though God's justice fell heavy upon those miscreants yet he layes it on their impenitency and admires his goodness that would notwithstanding have kept in his shafts of vengeance for the sake of ten just persons if that small number were but found in those populous Cities he goes on to the Ninivites and pleases himself to see them under the Lee born thitherby repentance even when the storm of God's wrath was ready to plunge them in an Abyss of ruine He insists much upon the prayer of Moses which still diverted the rigorous designs of God upon his people he fancies that every Groan and Sigh of his contributes something towards the making up of a brazen Serpent by whose Soveraign aspect his cauterized Soul might be unvenomed and made whole It was no small Consolation when he reflects on God's people in the Land of Egypt whose Oppression which their own Sins had drawn upon them was yet relieved at the rate of miracles and wonders and such as Israel had not seen And why all this But to make good his promise to Abraham Isaac and Jacob that he would never abandon a Truly-repenting Heart Thus he goes on enumerating a thousand other passages of God's mercy from the Worlds Creation until his time nor is he content with this but advances further displaying in his prophetick knowledge innumerable other effects of God's compassion to Mankind and at last begins to make this Application though he could not deserve to partake of his great mercy that is not only to have his guilt remitted but also to become the object of his choicest favours yet at least he hoped he might be hudled in amidst the multitude of his mercies How sweetly did those Attributes Divine resound in his Ears where God is stiled rich in mercies where his Mercy transcends all his other works and where his Goodness and Mercy are proclaimed inexhausted Sources He leaves not a Crany in the World unransacked and after the severest scrutiny finds and confesses there is no place destitute of his mercy no Creature that is not cheered and enlivened by the effects of his mercy this made him cry Lord when thou dost open thy hand all Creatures are filled with blessings and he tells us that every Being looks upwards depending on his Creatour and expects from him a seasonable supply of all wants Nay he excludes not Hell nor Souls doom'd to eternal flames from this mercy for he considers that God is bonus universis good to all and though his Justice have plunged them in that Calamitous State of misery yet that their torments are not more intense and in many circumstances aggravated they owe it to his mercy which still hath something to do even in the punishment of the highest offendours Having then survey'd Angels Man and sensible Creatures the Heavens Earth and Hell and found no Being that could in the least repine for want of mercy upon these reflections with just reason our Petitioner entitles them a multitude of mercies for on all sides they flow as from a natural Source Nor wonder that we have more Presidents of his
mercy than Justice for the one consists in a communicative vertue of what is good and as God is essentially good so he can alwayes breath forth these emanations of his goodness upon us Now Justice though it be equally essential to the Divine Essence with mercy and other Attributes yet in its operations ad extra or exteriour effects it depends upon the obliquity of our actions without which it hath no matter or Subject to work on So that mercy he can alwayes shower down upon us but Justice only when we offend he would not forget how the greater number of Angels stood the brunt of temptations when Lucifer perished with his proud adherents it was this mercy held them up at the instant of their Tryal and though our afflicted penitent found not this innocence preserving mercy yet he hopes to lay hold on that part where he is stiled a purifying mercy Let his Subjects fall from their obedience and throw curses at him let his Children prove unnatural and labour to dethrone him let a pestilential Disease depopulate his Country in fine let the Joy of his Life Absalom be sacrificed by the Hand of his own Souldier with smiles he will pass through all these Tests so they proceed from the hand of this all purifying mercy He values not the mediums but the end he tends to and when he thinks oâ— this he begins afresh to admire this mercy in the reward of the elect he knows not whether it exceeds more in the expectancy and furtherance of a sinners conversion or in those immense felicities he communicates by his presence For here he beholds a God courting his Creatures insensible as it were of injuries and dishonours from them and seconding their least good intents with the powerful succours of grace There he contemplates a God remunerating our small inconsiderable Acts of Vertue with the same Felicity wherewith he himself is blest and made happy For his Beatitude is to enjoy himself and contemplate his own beauty and perfections and this same Beatitude he imparts to us poor worms through the excess of his Mercy But whether our holy penitent more extolls the effects of his mercies in Heaven or Earth I know not yet of this I am sure he is reconciled to make it whilst he hath life the Theam of his Pen Heart and Tongue he will celebrate the praises of his innumerable mercies for all Eternity he hath scarce a Psalm which speaks not his zeal for this subject as if his quill had been dipped in this Fountain of mercies Another branch which growes up amidst the multitude of his mercies is that he distributes his blessings not so much in the measure of his wisdom as love and after his innumerable favours done to his Vineyard he defies the whole Mass of Creatures to tax him of any want on his part For should he reward us according to our actions which he in his praescience and eternal essence foresees will come to pass who of us should be left alive or who of us should be born Only the innocent should then be favoured and rather than it should be so he was willing to put it upon the Tryal how or what we might prove hereafter He foreknew that Lucifer should fall that Adam would sin Saul become disobedient and Judas betray him yet he forbare not for all this to throw his favours upon them to shew his mercy is ever in competition with Man's malice and like a good Physitian if one Medicine work no good he applyes another like a gâ—od Husbandman if his Land yield him no Crop one year he cultivates and labours it again the Second and Third by which it often happens that one fruitful season repaires the sterility of divers years past Just so God still goes on and though he sees no hope to stop our malice yet he stops not his mercy this proceeding made St. Austin cry Praise and Glory O Lord be to thee O Fountain of mercies the worser I grew and more perverse so much the nearer thou wast unto me It is said a small proportion of chastisement suffices a Father in order to his Son so God as a kind and loving Father thinks a little punishment enough for his Children St. Chrysostome says that after the Master of the Vineyard had his Servants beaten and slain by the Husbandmen he sent his Son and for all these their outrages required no other satisfaction than to see them abash'd and ashamed of their Cruelties and Ingratitude They will says he reverence my Son so that 't is evident their blushing not their bleeding he desired Whence St. Hierom makes a result of this Parable that in God's Clemency there was no Weight no Number no Measure nor likewise in the others Malice So that our holy penitent beholding in every transaction of God with Man this fulness of Mercy might with reason expostulate and entreat his pardon Secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum according to the multitude of thy mercies The Application Let every one examine his life from the time he had the use of reason and I am confident he will find many tyes of obligation to this great mercy nay amongst the mass of Christians I believe there is none but ranks himself a favourite in order to his largesses of mercy For his love is constant and knowes no change this great and good God hath persisted for an infinity of time in the perpetual resolution of gratifying us with his gifts his enflamed heart hath entertained a continual solicitude without any truce for our good Witness the Prophet Jeremy who sayes that God hath loved us with an everlasting Charity His love is eternal having alwayes decreed to enrich us with his favours St. Paul proclaims it that he hath loved us before the World was framed It is disinteressed without any advantage to himself or hope of return on our parts No other motive than the superabundance of his goodness like a fountain which runs over his natural goodness throwes blessings on all Creatures Plutarch speaking of love sayes it takes any occasion be it never so slight to oblige the beloved he wants no baits nor snares carrying about him the matter of his own bondage So God's love never takes leave of a Sinner nay where Man 's impiety extorts as it were from him the darts of his Justice he seems presently to relent and promises as he did after the Deluge to do so no more so that his love being eternal unchangeable and devested of all self ends what can we ask of God that issues not from his mercy wherefore let us with holy David cry have mercy on us O God according to the multitude of thy mercies Amen CHAP. IV. Dele iniquitatem meam Wipe away my iniquity OUr poor Criminal having thus prepared his Judge the next care is to lay open his condition and shew he implores God's purifying Mercy by whose vertue the Chains of our sins are loosened and dissolved Nor did it a
Penitent's proceedings and that he would disguise if not wholly suppress a main part of his offences yet let us examine e're we censure and I believe his confession will not be found to want the due circumstances of a true repentance I have sinned sayes he against God alone He considers first he is a criminal next he beholds no power on Earth which hath right to take cognizance of his trespass and to carry on a compleat process against him the Holy Ghost had taught him the anointed of God are sacred things not to be violated by any hand wherefore since no humane Law could reach him for that power is not supream which is linked to any dependency To whom can he acknowledge himself an offendour but to him who is King of Kings and from whom all Dominion both in Heaven and Earth is derived He alone is his Judge he alone can punish or save and to his sole will he submits himself and the correction of his misdeeds This specification of his Royal dignity which exempts him from all Earthly Jurisdiction renders him not more innocent but rather is a circumstance of aggravation for the perfection of the person offending is a note of higher ingratitude proportionably to the excellency of his nature and therefore Divines conclude the sin of Lucifer to be the most Enormous that ever was committed First because of the excellency of his nature next in that he directly strook at the source of his perfections for which he ought to have been more grateful than other Creatures having tasted more liberally than any other of his divine Favours Lastly from the causality or consequence of his sin which gave a rise and was the foundation of all the evil that hath happened in the World and in Heaven before it was created overwhelming both Angels and Men by his temptations as in Tobit Chap. 4. From the Pride of the Devil all ruine and perdition is derived and took its beginning If we look upon the dignity of our Penitent we shall find none above him upon Earth if on the favours showred upon him from Heaven he appears the Object of Gods choicest liberalities if on the disastrous sequel of his sin what divisions in his Kingdom what streams of Blood have issued from it Hence I wonder not if St. Austin sayes it is hard for Princes to commit a small offence For the eminency of their place obliges them to so much integrity that the least blemish in them grows up into a monstrous deformity they are as it were the Primum Mobile upon which all the other Orbs depend in their motion Nay Cassidorus sayes it were more credible that Nature could erre than for a Prince to frame a Commonwealth different from the constitution of his own life For he is not onely a glass wherein the people contemplate the Idea or platform of what they ought to do but a glass enflaming and issuing forth incentives to imitation Have we not seen a Rome warlick under Romulus religious under Numa continent under Fabritius dissolute under Lucullus and Anthony Idolatrous under Julian and drenched in Arrianism under Valens to shew the people are alwayes moulded into the temper of their Prince nay think it a crime not to follow his example and believe every leading action in him may authorize and make good any wickedness in them It was for this cause the Poets feigned their gods to have been vicious that from thence they might claim a title and right to do the like and Terentius excuses a young man taken in adultery because he had seen the pourtraiture of Jupiter representing such a posture of obscenity The prophet Hoseah in his Fifth Chapter threatens judgement and ruin to Kings who have become a Snare instead of a Sanctuary to their subjects and St. Austin stiles bad Kings the worst of homicides in destroying the Souls of their Subjects Our sad Penitent was not a stranger to his own condition he knew well his duty to God and how many obligations of vertue were annexed to a Crown he therefore now alledges his regal power not to diminish but rather to give a full view of his transgression by this he confesses that he hath broke his Faith with multitudes of Men deceiving the publick opinion they had of his vertue upon which presumption their Lives Fortunes and what most dear to them were shrowded under his guidance and protection By this he declares the Throne is to edify not destroy the lookers on for a King mediates 'twixt God and Man Now that a Vacuum might not happen but a happy concatenation preserved it is as necessary a King should adhere to God as he would have the People constantly faithful to him a Christian Prince ought to make God not Policy the ultimate Object of his sway so that he must first consecrate himself next his Kingdom to the service of his Creatour And if he do it not he seems to overwhelm and confound both divine and humane Laws By this he ackowledges his own misery as St. Austin sayes Kings are not to be esteemed happy from their conquests and success of Arms but by using their power in the advancement of God's honour and service if they love fear and reverence him if they make their own greatness stoop and lye prostrate before his Divine Majesty lastly if they more value the sweet reign of vertue within them than all the dazling glories of their Earthly â—…ingdoms this only makes them happy Mistake not then our Penitent he boasts not in these words I have sinned against thee alone his exemption from any terrene Judicature but rather would publish by his greatness the enormity of his crimes how every glittering flash of his Crown makes a new flaw in his unhappy trespass He remembred in Leviticus it was decreed the same proportion of Sacrifices for the Priest as for the Universal people and what satisfactions might then justly be required of him into whose hands are entrusted the guidance of that chosen Nation and to fail in so important an affair must needs involve a greater blame For where the Prerogative is more sublime there the miscarriage carryes with it more of deformity as St Hierom cryes Let us rejoyce whilst we ascend but likewise beware a fall because there is not so much contentment in the purchase of honour and greatness as there is grief and confusion to be torn from the prossession of them Besides such shall not only render an account of their own defaults but also be responsible for the deviations of all those to whom they owe the duty of direction and good example O ye great ones whose Birth or Fortune have made eminent in the World take heed you be not the Subject of Jeremy's complaint who having surveyed the Valleys found therein a meer vacuity from thence passing to the Heavens he there met with a profound darkness returning back upon the Mountains he beheld them all in disorder If you be Sovereign Princes meant
purity is Religion by which we are taught to pay the tribute of excellency and respect unto God as the Sovereign Author and Primogenial Source of all Beings other Creatures who cannot comprehend the infinite perfections essentially seated in God have a right that their wants be supplyed by our Piety so that we have a duty of acknowledgement not only for our selves but in behalf of every thing created to our Service by an act then of Religion we return our own Being and all other Beings likewise of the whole World into his Hands from whence they came to be disposed off as he pleases that as we hold it from him so we would not enjoy it but for him and this from two considerations the one of God's immense greatness and Majesty the other of our own smalness or rather nothing as to the one our Penitent defies any Being to compare with God he confesses the Earth Seas and Heavens lye at his beck that his Enemies he disperses as the Sun doth the Shades of Night and having thus exalted his unmeasured greatness he then religiously exposes himself before him acknowledges he is a worm and not a man and if a man the very outcast and opprobry of Mankind He presumes to question God what man is that he should daign him a glance of his careful Eye and declares his opinion that he is but a piece of vanity an empty out-side a heap of dust and therefore it is but just in him to honour the Majesty of God by a profusion of what he enjoyes and that his Being can never be put to a better use than by annihilating it self if possibly to witness by that submission the immense perfections of his Creatour His fortitude in attempting great things needs no dilucidation the Sun-beams are not more conspicuous what Nation hath not received the History of his deeds together with the tydings of Christianity where also is set forth his patience in adversity in many rebellions unnatural stratagems and implacable hatred of Saul against him For his Faith in Christ amongst all the Prophecies of a Messias his Psalms excell in delineating and issuing a lively Character of all the passages of his passion So that all these vertues could not spring but from a hope of enjoying one day that Sovereign good for whose acquisition he was ready to Seal all these actions with his blood and life I confess this tincture of Snow to arise from a bloody stream might seem a wrested interpretation were it not that a passage in the Apocalips doth clear it where it is said they whitened their stoles in the blood of the Lamb that is the effect of this ablution gives innocence wipes off like Baptisme all the spots of Guilt or Pain so that once dipped in this Lavatory he may justly promise to himself a lovely Grain far surpassing that of Snow Wonder not then if our Petitioner touched with a sense of his transgressions and frighted with the memory of that condition wherein he had been plunged should aim at the glorious Palms of martyrdom both to secure his pardon purchase a compleat abolition of his Faults and make himself a perpetual Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to his dear Creatour Lord thou wilt wash me and I shall be whiter than Snow The Application Let us by the example of our Penitent thirst after these purifying streams one boisterous billow of Persecution carried home to the strugling Patient will have more vertue than all the waters of Jordan St. Gregory saith that the departing of the Body from the Soul is but a shadow but the departing of a Soul from God is a sad Truth And as a shadow is refreshing in Summer so is Death to the Righteous especially if voluntarily accepted and inflicted upon the account of a pious cause But since this Crown is out of our reach and depends upon anothers severity we must be thus severe to our selves as to put on an undaunted look against any difficulty which may obstruct our Salvation or advancement to pâ—…fection and resolve to suffer or overcome them either of which we may by the aid of Grace never wanting at a pinch Next we must rejoyce when harassed with adversities it is St Luke's declaration of the Apostles that they returned from Tribunal seats with joy having been made worthy to be there reviled and scorned for the name of Christ and truly Saints have seemed to measure their hopes of glory according to the proportion of their sufferings Lastly we are to expose our selves to hard and painful things for the spiritual good of our Neighbour if we strengthen our selves with these arms of fortitude we shall be fitted for that last and most glorious proof of valour at least secure an immense reward to our selves Amen CHAP. XVII Auditui meo dabis gaudium laetitiam Thou wilt give unto my hearing joy and gladness WHen the Church proclaims the sin of Adam happy in that it merited to have such and so great a Redeemer Methinks it hath some resemblance wâ—th this clause of our Petitioner where he promises to himself joy and gladness as if they were a necessary consequence to repentance In the precedent verse he minds his Creatour of the Rules he hath set down to purchase innocence to wit by temporal adversity here he opens the secret of God's working with a justifyed Soul which is to fill her with jubilies and consolation For when Almighty God enlightens our understanding to consider his greatness providence goodness and his other perfections and when he gives a touch to our Wills imprinting in them holy impulses of fear hope love and the like by which we are excited and enabled to frame and execute holy and pious resolutions he doth not this by a way of violence as a stone is taken up from its Center but by a way of sweetness he governs and changes our inclinations if we do not prove too stubborn So that the first step to our justification is not made without the concurrence of our Wills and questionless it is no small subject of joy to reflect that we our selves have been Actours in this great work of our justification which exceeds the Creation of Heaven Earth and all that is comprized in Nature for though we owe to God all that we have yet that his liberality may take its desired effect this he will have depend upon us to the end by working our Salvation it might prove an honour and satisfaction in that we our selves have contributed something to it by the consent of our free will by which we can claim the actions we do to be our own The next branch of joy and gladness in a justified Soul is the access of grace a supernatural form infused by God by which we are raised to a supernatural Being that is to say a new Being more prizable than an intellectula or reasonable than Angelical or Seraphical considered precisely in the order of Nature Because Grace gives a new
delicacies sought to preserve a beauty and make it proof against time Yet once grown old or cut off by Death it is cast into oblivion the other kept in Chains and threatned daily with ruine yet at the last proves matter of veneration even unto those who before perhaps contemned it You see then how to live in the Memory of Men what Art is to be used to raise a stately structure of our selves the materials of this must be acts of Charity towards our Neighbour and acts of severity towards our selves the Cement must be Patience Constancy Resignation to God's holy will and the like with these Saints have purchased glory to themselves before God and veneration amongst Men that even Kings have crouched with bended knees before their Ashes who whilst here poor Pilgrims upon Earth were looked upon as Idiots and made as it were the mockery of the World so that humbled bones at last shall Triumph and erect their Trophies where they had been made the spoils of Death St. Gregory Nazianzen affirms the Ashes of St. Cyprian were so powerful as no Disease wanted there its remedy and this Testimony he received from those very persons who had been the Subject of his miraculous Cures St. Ambrose relates of one Severus who being blind by touching only the Casket wherein were enchased the relicks of the Holy Martyrs St. Gervasius and Protasius he recovered his sight St. Austin recounts many miracles wrought by the relicks of St. Stephen and adds The benefits obtained at his shrine were so great and numerous as whole Volumes might be filled with the relation In fine there is not a Doctour of the Church whose writings speak not the wonders Heaven hath owned even in their time upon the score of supplications made in the presence and honour of Saints Bodies Nor did this religious Worship of relicks spring up originally with the Ghospel for St. Epiphanius brings evidence how the Sepulchers of Esay Ezekiel and Jeremy were had in great veneration among the Jews and this from the extraordinary succours God conserred on distressed People at the Tombs of those Holy Prophets We find likewise Exodus 13. that before Moses conducted the Israelites out of Egypt he ordained the Bones of Joseph to be taken up and born away with Ceremony into the Land of promise Now why all this But to verify our Holy Prophets assertion that humbled bones shall rejoyce that Death may cause a separation twixt Soul and Body and so seem to Triumph over this mortal clay of ours cannot be denyed Yet if our members have served in purity as St. Paul terms it and merited in life to be the Temple of the Holy Ghost such as these though exanimated may still retain a vertue by which they give life and joy to other Beings Whence justly our Petitioner fore-declares and humbled bones shall rejoyce Truly it is but rational to conceive there should be a Providence to preserve from common corruption those Bodies who had been instrumental to many acts of vertue and made a daily victime by pennance For since mortality is the effect of sin there ought at least be something that hath the resemblance of immortality to attend that Body which hath much contributed to the Souls happiness Besides we believe our Bodies shall one day be glorified and vested with immortal dotes it is fit then such who have here led a life as it were Angelical without any contamination of sensual pleasures should anticipate in some kind their future glorifyed condition and how can this better appear than by imprinting a Sovereign vertue in their extinguished Ashes since it is decreed a compleat glorification cannot unless particularly dispensed with be conferred till the universal Resurrection This admirable operation given to their Earthly and liveless substance as it is a Testimony of their Souls felicity so is it no less to us a pledge the most dear we could have by which we are assured of their watchful and compassionate care over us In fine how powerfully are we wrought into the imitation of their lives when at their shrines we behold both Death and Nature vanquished and the prodigious effects of humbled prostrate Limbs lowdly declare how precious the Death of Saints is in the sight of God Thus our Holy Petitioner hath laid open unto us First the Jubileys of mind which fill a Soul united unto God by love and repentance Next to compleat the Harmony he tells us our very bones shall not want their portion of joy that if they here be made bare disjoynted or broken Almighty God never fails to sweeten those rigours by internal whispers and consolations which carry them on to perseverance in their pressures and debasements and when Saints have once payed this debt to nature then he gives to the one part the immediate fruition of his Glory and to the other he often communicates such Soveraign vertues that they are as it were certain previous dispositions to immortality 'T is true the relick of a Saint appears but a lump of Earth liveless inanimate and so is not capable of joy yet God making it the instrument of miraculous effects is thereby glorifyed and what ever relates to his honour is matter of exultation Again St. Paul saith that every Creature groans that is feels throwes and longing desires after their Maker If then these resentments be allowed to every Being much more ought we grant it to the Sacred pledge of a Saints Body in which the Omnipotency and other Divine attributes of God do so gloriously shine and humbled bones shall rejoyce The Application Let us then so manage our senses in this life enslaving them to the Lawes of reason that after the short course of their servitude here we may arrive to that joy mentioned by our Holy Petitioner Amen CHAP. XIX Averte faciem tuam à peccatis meis Turn away thy Face from my sins WHen I cast my Eye upon this clause of the Petition I cannot but reflect on that passage of Esay where he sayes it is a bitter thing to have once abandoned God for after a sin is committed though it be secret unseen and none reprehend us for it yet we fear every shadow suspect every look and syllable nor can we ever think our selves secure and out of danger St. Austin sayes as iniquity is alwayes accompanied with a neglect of God and consequently is a kind of Pride by which we value our own satisfaction beyond his honour so sin by a just punishment throwes us down below our selves it first induces us to actions unworthy our reason and after that engagement what Tyranny like to this usurper For having shaken off the fear of God who alone ought to be the Object of that passion we sink into the fear of every thing capable to be the Term of Sense if a sound it is a loud promulgation of our Crime if a Shadow it is some Ambuscado to surprize us if the World be civil they are acts of
when they prevaricate by injustice falshood irreverence to God impenitency and the like they act against a Law-giver which is God himself and against a Law that took birth with their Creation and is the Model and Rule of humane Lawes which without conformity to this Law are not Lawes but injustice and tyranny I will teach the wicked thy wayes The third remonstrance of our enflamed Doctour is to inform the wicked that positive Divine Lawes are necessary not only to rectify their wandring steps but also to preserve the just in their righteous paths The reason is Man is designed to a supernatural end to arrive at which his natural faculties are deficient wherefore it was requisite he should have supernatural precepts and rules proportioned to the sublime condition of his end Besides after he had exchanged a state of innocency for that of sin and corruption he stood in need of a Master who might instruct him how disastrous a thing sin is how necessary to have a redeemer all which Divine Lawes do open unto him Again to observe even the Lawes of Nature would have been a hard task if he aspired not after somthing more sublime for the efforts of his Soul are so clogged by the violence of his passions and his nature so weakned by sin that unless divine positive laws had engaged man unto heavenly pursuits scarce would he ever have been able to reach the perfect observance of the Law of nature Lastly it was necessary he should have alwayes before his Eyes his dependency and subjection unto God so to be stirred up to the performance of his duty and by giving testimony of his faithful obedience merit something at his hands wherefore his Creation was no sooner finished but God laid a command upon him that he might know even in Paradise he had a Master Next he consecrated the Seventh day to works of his service obliging the first inhabitants of the Earth to its observance Moreover those first Men of the World were obliged to the supernatural vertues of Faith Hope and Charity without which acts they could not be saved now those decrees were positive Lawes and superadded to those of nature so that in all times Men were never left purely to the Law of nature but it was intermixed with several positive ordinations that might help them on more advantagiously in the way of their Salvation Our Holy Penitent having thus exposed before the wicked the endearing providence of God over mankind who never abandoned them to the sole instinct of nature and conduct of their own Reason but like a careful Master teaching them his will by himself and giveing them particular directions to lead them in the way of vertue he would not stop there but proceed to a further elucidation of God's benefits towards them that at last overcome by his goodness they might lay down their arms and think it no dishonour to lye prostrate at the feet of so noble a Conquerour which if our penitent can effect he will repeat with much joy I will teâ—ch the wicked thy ways Our zealous convert plyes the Iron whilst it is hot hoping to render the wicked more malleable wherefore he produces the Mosaick law given by God to sanctify the Children of Abraham and dispose the World for the knowledge belief and honorable reception of Jesus Christ The Law consisted in precepts moral ceremonial and judicial The first contained the Ten Commandments and divers others relating to them and though the Law of nature led to their observance yet many errours were committed in reference to them which were cleared and better regulated by positive Lawes The Ceremonial were ordained in order to the worship of God regulating what belongs to the Sacraments Temple institution of fasts and bloody Sacrifice of Beasts wherein God manifested his justice declaring that sin deserved Death and likewise his Mercy in that he would exchange the death of a sinner for that of a poor animal The third are judicial which conspire to the establishment of a rare Government amongst the Jews that by an admirable policy being kept in peace Religion might flourish the number of their Laws amount to above six hundred an Argument of God's indulgence towards them For the Jews being stupid and of a gross apprehension uncapable of being led by general rules as not knowing how to apply them in particular emergencies he was pleased in every point to satisfy and instruct them Nay his particular providence here in appears that delivering so many Articles for their observance he seems to take upon him the whole care of providing for their temporals as well as spirituals as if he would keep a watch over every step and motion of theirs to the end all things might be exact and setled in the highest order He designed them likewise to be a pattern of Holiness and Sanctity to the Gentiles that by their example they might be drawn from the corruption of Idolatry to the real sentiments of vertue and religion wherefore he planted them in the midst of the habitable world Lastly it was just that Nation should be the most Religious and Pious from whence Jesus Christ was to issue forth that they might prefigure publish and engrave him in the hearts and minds of Men by their holy Ceremonies and legal observances which were all to represent him and the wonders of his life and death for this cause the kingdome of the Jews was prophetick and their religious actions a figure of the qualities condition and mysteries of Jesus Christ Nay all the worship and service which God required of that Nation and all the Exercise of their Religion was meerly to foretel announce expect and receive the Messias wherefore St. Paul calls it a holy Law abounding in Ceremonies and all tending to this effect I cannot doubt but our great Doctour and Prophet did with much Energy insist upon the designed End of the Mosaick Law which is Jesus Christ representing to the wicked that the sole way to Salvation was by repentance and belief in the Messias exhorting them to joyn with him in the practice of Heroick acts of vertues so to expedite his coming and repeat after him this his daily Prayer who will give us from Sion the Saviour of Israel He told them there was not a sigh or languishment any prayer or good work directed for the accelleration of this mystery which had not its effect that Abraham advanced it much by his prodigious act of obedience in offering to Sacrifice his Son and after he had run over all the Gests of Saints till his time he conclude all these motives would have been little efficacious without the charity mercy and love of God to lost Man St. John attributes the glory of this Action to love alone and if some have compared the vigour of love to equal that of death I dare give it a higher Encomium and will say it was so generous as to transport it self up to Heaven and assault the Divinity
in his Throne drawing from thence the eternal Son of God O who can be so wicked to behold the lines of this merciful proceeding drawn forth and not presently joyn issue with our holy preacher to abandon the pernicious wayes of sin and become a Disciple in the Rudiments of vertue To behold a Redeemer living in the Hearts of Men before he came to live upon Earth to see all the Sanctity of the World addressed to him to speak of nothing but him and all conspire to his glory If before he came he had so many tongues and voices to set him forth and that the Law and service of God had no other aim than to engrave the Messias in the Hearts of Men what expressions ought to enflame our zeal after his birth life cross and triumphant glory These are the wayes our Graduate will distill into the Minds of the wicked and certainly he did it with an excess of fervour and delight helped on by the consideration that out of his seed the Saviour of Israel was to be born And it is clear he kept close to this Theam even to the last making it his Testament and the subject of his expiring words to his Son Solomon That he should be sure to walk in the wayes of the Lord that in the exact observance of his judgments and Commandment written in the Law of Moses were fastned the succession of his Crown saying This done thou shalt not want one of thy posterity to sit upon the throne of Israel These are the wayes if happily taken will preserve the wicked from ruine give them eternal life secure them from Hell and open a passage to all the delights of Heaven as St. John sayes To the end that all who believe in the should possess eternal bliss Wherefore our Penitent egged on by so many powerful motives to the discharge of his task will never fail in what he hath promised to teach the wicked the wayes of God The Application Our Penitent instructs us here by his example that there is no employment so acceptable unto God as to disperse in our Neighbour the clouds of Ignorance and imbue him with principles of wisdome His Son Solomon was perhaps taught by this clause to address so happily his petition And Joel the prophet makes it the great subject of good tydings he foredeclared to the Church Be glad yea Sons of Sion and rejoyce in the Lord your God who hath given you a teacher of righteousness Aristotle being asked why Commonwealths did not assign pensions for Masters that taught and instructed others as they did to other offices of the State made this reply because there could be no reward answerable to their desert if he thought certain notions in natural knowledge to be so valuable what a price would he have set on such as convey the sublime mysteries of heaven unto us Let us then instruct our Neighbour by good example by doing charity to the distressed and by wholesome Documents every one according to his Talent and Ability And in doing this we follow the steps of a great Saint who believed he could in nothing better express his gratitude and zeal for God's honour than in the Reduction of Souls to the way of Salvation Amen CHAP. XXVIII Et impii ad te convertentur And the impious shall be converted to thee BY this clause our Penitent destroyes the Opinion of some in those modern times who assert that Christ died not for all Men but only for the elect for if the impious be not excluded from the participation of his precious Blood surely there is none that are impiety being a crime that directly strikes against the honour of God and is a complaet rebellion against his Divinity Now if our Divine by his preaching was confident to reduce such offendours whom can we imagine shall be excepted nor can they say we are put into a worse condition by the Evangelical Law in which a plenitude of benedictions are showred down upon us and which as far exceeds the Mosaick as a thing real the type and figure that represents it St. John Chap. 1.2 sayes Christ is a propitiation for our sins and not only for ours but for the sins of the whole World First Christ satisfied for Adam's disobedience and original sin witness St. Paul ad Rom. Chap. 2. As death entered by the default of one so life by the justice and obedience of one Again St. John sayes Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World that is original sin for the Greek version puts it in the Singular Number so Bede Theophilact and St. Thomas understand it The Angelical Doctor adds that the Son of God was incarnate rather for original sin which was an universal evil whose venome infected all Mankind than for the actual and personal sins of the World but as no sin is irremissible to an infinite mercy by consequence after original sin he made satisfaction for all actions and transgressions which were mortal The reason is that mortal sins not only deprive the Soul of the vision of God for all eternity but likewise exposes it to the everlasting torments of Hell the Son of God then whose nature is all goodness considered the misery of these sins and offered up his life and death for their expiation For without sanctifying grace our works are not meritorious nor can they satisfy for any venial sin Wherefore deprived of grace by original sin we could not by our selves no not by the assistance of the blessed Angels satisfy for the least venial sin Because though they be endued with grace yet no pure Creature can merit condign grace Wherefore it was necessary that Jesus Christ should make satisfaction for our least failing as St. Austin sayes excellently well that to save an infinity of VVorlds we ought not to cast one glance of the Eye contrary to the will of God Whence it is clear no Creature can satisfy for the least sin since to do it we must offer up something more valuable than the whole VVorld If then we could not free our selves from the least deviation without the interposition of his merits much less were we in a capacity to relieve our selves from the guilt of Enormous Crimes and if as to these the fruit of his passion was not applyed unto all it must be either from the inefficacy of satisfaction or a defect of commiseration and goodness towards his Creatures It cannot be the first for his merits are infinite by reason of the divine person from whence they proceed for actions belong to the person according to Philosophy It was likewise infinite in regard of his humanity because it was sanctifyed and deifyed by the divinity which was like a certain sanctifying and deifying form unto that sacred humanity now as the greatness of merit is not only measured by the quality of the work but also by many circumstances and especially in consideration of the dignity of the person that
with a firm hope cry Lord thou shalt open my Lips The Application We are taught here when we begin to pray that we look upon our selves as infirm indigent and ulcerated Beggars who expect from the merciful hand of God to find some relief in our necessities and we must further reflect upon this great addition to our misery that as that the time was not tedious to him to whom the Saint replyed that the whole world was a great Volume expanded in which he read as it were in great Characters the wonders of its Creatour to which also alludes the Sentence of St. Chrysostom There is not any particle of a Creature be it of worth or not which issues not forth a voice more loud than a Trumpet and speaks the praises of God But above all it belongs to Man by many Titles of obligation to contribute to the praise and glory of God First his natural perfections more lively represent the Divine perfections as being created to his Image and enriched with an understanding able to comprehend supernatural things so that he alone in this Earthly Sphere can acknowledge and make a return of gratitude for all the visible productions we here behold Whence it is evident that Man is obliged to pay the tribute of praise and thanksgiving in the behalf of all Creatures it was upon this score the high Priest among the Jews was wont to have wrought in his Garment a draught of the World to insinuate that it was his part to discharge the duty of Adoration and acknowledgment unto God in the name of the universe Next Man may be aiding to the glory of God employing those gifts of grace he receives in acts of Religion obeying his Commandments embracing his Councels referring all his actions to his honour and evidencing by a holy life that all his endeavours are in order to him and his service For from hence is reflected a certain external glory upon God not only in that he is known loved and respected by such a life of Sanctity but also in that he hath such holy and generous Creatures just as it is the glory of a Father to have a Son vertuous and wise and who by his valour and sage conduct drawes the Eyes of the World with a kind of admiration upon him But the greatest glory Man can give unto God is in a state of Beatitude for when once there arrived he shall see him face to face without any interposed Veil he shall know the wonders of his essence cast his sweetness inconceivable and have his heart ravished with eternal affections He shall there praise him in a full consort for all Eternity This is the highest pitch of glory Man can give unto God in which he is partner with the Angels it is the final end of our Creation we are not put into this World upon any other design than by a constant progress in vertue to advance our selves daily to this end Here you may discern the general Heads of praise in which our Penitent will engage his mouth First he will praise him in the infinite variety of Creatures he hath framed in this inferiour World for Man's use and in his behalf he will powerforth his thanks and acts of gratitude resolving never to abuse them or design them contrary to that end for which they were made Next he will submit all his actions to be led and conducted according to the impulse and dictamens of those Graces he shall please to bestow upon him making his Body a holy chast and maâ—…rated victime to his Laws and by this means he will dispose himself for that last and highest service he is to render him in a compleat Beatitude where his Mouth shall never cease to celebrate his praise And my Mouth shall declare thy praise Whilest our Penitent thus in his thoughts runns over all these motives which might justly afford matter of praise to his grateful Tongue there occurs one more which must not be omitted since it exceeds all others and exalts the glory of God beyond all the submission of Men and Angels it is the mystery of the Incarnation in which Christ Jesus God-Man hath contributed the most to God's glory For he hath saved the World by the effusion of his pretious blood and nothing is more glorious to God than the Salvation of Mankind for good and holy persons will praise love admire contemplate enjoy and adore his perfections in the vast spaces of Eternity Now had he not dyed for Man no Paradise no felicity could have been for them so that God had remained under the privation of that glory he doth and is to receive from blessed Spirits for all Eternity Nay more not only Men do glorify God by Jesus Christ but the Angels likewise in whose concern the Church declares the Angels praise your Majesty the Archangels bow before you the Powers tremble with respect the vertues of Heaven and blessed Seraphims with like joy and love do glorify you So that all the external glory consecrated to God either in Heaven or Earth is in consideration of the divine person as it supports the sacred humanity of Christ Lastly Jesus Christ in Heaven doth praise and magnify the Divinity with an Air incomparable he doth it more copiously with more variety with a note more lively and ravishing than all the Choires of Angels and Saints put together The reason is that the most perfect knowledge and most ardent affection are the â—ources of the most sublime and magnificent Panegyricks Now the Soul of our Redeemer enjoyed without dispute a more clear and penetrating wisdom and knowledge of the Divinity is enflamed in that Abyss of essence to a higher degree than any other whatsoever and consequently his most pure Soul breaks forth into praises which outstrip and surpass by far all the Harmony both of Angels and the blessed spirits in Heaven I doubt not but our Penitent with much satisfaction let his Tongue strike upon this Theam for if the very thought of the Messias replenished his Mind with abundant joy what consolation to consider that by him alone God would derive to himself more glory than from the whole mass of Creatures that he was to share with him in this task of praise that he would procure encrease and magnify the honour of God to his utmost and since Angels and Men were to pay their homage of praise and benediction by and in the person of the Messias our Penitent would not be exempted from that priviledge of bearing a part in the confort and bless the divine goodness in that by the bloody Sacrifice of the Messias God's honour should be repaired and as many voices gained to promote his greatness as there were to be glorious spirits in Heaven that by his sacred Mouth the praises of his God his sovereign good and object of his love were to be ecchâ—…d forth in the midst of Paradise with what â—…y would he put a helping hand and conspire in this design
and repented what he had done when the Prophet Nathan published his deliverance and that his sin was taken from him so that he had all reason to assert a contrite and humble heart O God thou wilt not despise St. Ambrose sayes that pennance is as necessary to a sinner as any Balsom or Medicament can be to a dangerous wound For where parts by any hurt are disunited and by separation break off a necessary communication with the blood or vital spirits nature cannot of herself repair those breaches without the supply of remedies ordained in such extremities So likewise in any spiritual distemper which threatens the Souls ruine if the sovereign medicine of contrition whose principal ingredient is gathered in Heaven be not applyed she must needs run a hazzard of destruction Wherefore since pennance is the sole remedy of sin after Baptism this great Doctor exhorts us to make it our Refuge he bids us not to shrink at the face of sufferings but on the contrary fill our Soul with bitterness endure the storms of compunction remember the heart is to be contrite not crooked or broken but shivered into pieces by disgraces confusions tears sighs and acts of humility and when you shall be in these Agonies upon the account of vertue then may you joyn issue with our Holy Petitioner and say a contrite and humble heart O God thou wilt not despise But our Penitent adds the particle of humble to shew that a heart compleatly disposed for God's favourable aspect must have a stroak of humility because this vertue speaks obedience for Eccles Chap. 10. sayes as the beginning of Pride is the Seed of Apostacy from God so humility is a reduction to our duty St. Austin makes no distinction between pride and disobedience nor between humility and obedience but takes them in a manner for the same thing In his Fourth Book of the City of God he declares It is good to keep our hearts aloft not towards our selves for that is pride but unto God which is obedience and a vertue not to be found but in the humble Again on the Eighth Chapter of Gen. our proper will cannot but sink under a great weight of ruine if it prove rebellious to the will of a superiour power this the First Man contemning Gods command found too true and by this he learnt to distinguish between good and evil that is between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience So that we see the transgression of our first parent sprung from a secret Root of disobedience for puffed up with pride he would be his own Master and scorn to be subordinate to the Lawes of God this made him seise on the forbidden fruit and by that act of disobedience we are all made guilty So that to repair our innocency and begin a new life we must destroy the old man that is pride and self love And as by those unhappy instruments we fell from our righteousness it is by humility and a love to God above all things we must return to Justice and if our Hearts be vested with these noble qualities we shall alwayes have a stock to fashion out to our Creatour a Sacrifice that will not be despised It is feigned by the Poets that the Son of the Earth wrestling with Hercules still as he touched the ground he received a fresh vigour just so the humble minded Man who esteems himself to be but an Imp of the Earth the off-spring of Dust and Ashes in proportion as he bowes himself in acts of lowliness he will be raised and approach nearer to Heaven St. Austin speaking of the Centurions humility who judged himself unworthy to receive such a guest as our Saviour under his roof sayes that by confessing himself unworthy he rendered himself more worthy for there is no disposition so fit for the reception of God as to acknowledge and avow our own unworthiness But you must know there is a humility of the understanding another of the will this gives us a true knowledge of our nothing that brings us readily to submit Now to be humbled by the will and force honour and greatness to stoop this is Heroick and worthy a Prince but to be brought down by adverse fortune this humility carries with it little of wonder there being no great vertue for one that is humbled to become humble This vertue then to render it meritorious and accomplished in all points as to make our Heart a pleasing Sacrifice to God requires that we seriously consider our own faults and imperfections the wants and necessities incident to humane nature and which every one how charming soever in the outside they appear carry about them This will sufficiently evidence that instead of praise and veneration we ought to expect nothing but scorn and confusion from the sense of our own defects and conclude that honour and excellency belong not to us Thus you see the will is carried on by humility to decline all things which raise our hope or appetite above our deserts It is proper then to this vertue to check all excessive attempts in Man after the purchase of greatness and Earthly advantages Nor is it notwithstanding opposite to hope as a Theological vertue nor unto magnanimity as a Christian vertue For these stirr up to the pursuit of what is great in order to God and humility obstructs not this waving only that greatness which sides with the inordinate interests of the World St. Thomas sayes There is none but may believe and declare himself without a falshood to be the most vile Creature in the World according to the hidden defects he knowes in himself and the gifts of God unknown to him which are or may be in his Neighbour In fine Christ our Lord declared it to be the sole clew leading to Heaven it is the first and last step to bliss For in this life where all is storm and tempest torment war and temptation where nothing is secure and certain humility alone amidst these perills and dangers like so many rocks and shelves can bring us safe off and conduct us to the Haven of happiness Elias in that furious whirlwind terrible Earthquake and dismal Fire wrapt himself up like a bottom of Yarn and lay close to the Earth Job in that general destruction of all his goods rent his garments shaved his Head fell flat to the ground and worshipping said Naked I came into the VVorld and naked I shall return The Lord hath given the Lord hath taken away blessed be his name The tempest afterwards encreasing upon him as boiles botches leprosy worms and a wife he fled to a Dunghill with a piece of potsheard in his Hand making choice of the humblest and safest place Our Holy Penitent likewise in that his persecution by Saul cryed out I was humbled and he delivered me So that he spake not at random but had experience how acceptable unto God is a contrite and humble heart The Scripture attributes two Names unto Christ
torment them Jeremy weighs the wrongs Nebuchodonozer had done to Jerusalem by dishonouring Matrons deflowring Virgins killing little Children tormenting the aged burning houses their robberies and spoils and yet all these he passes over in silence though he took it much to heart and presses only the prophanation of the Temple having made of it a stable for his Horses When the Angel appeared to Joshuah with a drawn sword and commanded him to put off his Shooes as before he had done to Moses in the flaming bush enjoyning him the like many grave Doctors assert thâ—… this Angel was the Son of God wherein he would insinuate two things First the reverence they ought to bear to that place where in a manner so particular he was pleased to manifest himself Next that against those who should lose this respect he had Fire and Sword ready to vindicate his honour For the Majesty of a King or regal power upon Earth is respected throughout the whole jurisdiction of his Crown but yet much more where he hath his Throne and Chair of state So God as he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords over all the Nations of the World ought in all places to have homages of submission and obedience paid unto him but especially in places dedicated to religious acts in Heaven at the right hand of his Father is the supream throne of his greatness in the Synagogue he had the propitiatory and in the Temple his Sacrarium and as to a Temple or Church wherein God is to be honoured Nilus sayes a Christian should bear no less respect to this his Holy Tabernacle than if he were in Heaven Because the glory of God is more apparent in the adorable Sacrament of the Altar and from thence a greater reverence may justly be required than from all the Temples that were in past ages dedicated to God's honour For in this dread Sacrifice God is adored honoured appeased loved and served by his Son Jesus Christ in all the Corners of the World where this mystery is celebrated all the adorations and homages of other Creatures contribute nothing to his Glory if compared to what he receives here by his Son because he is an object infinite and as a King receives more honour from the submission of a Prince than of an ordinary vulgar person in like manner the adorations rendered to God by Jesus Christ do glorify him more than those of all Men and Angels together by the Mouth of Malachy the Prophet God sayes my name is great among the Gentiles because in all places a pure oblation is offered up unto me which Theodoret explicates an unspotted Lamb taking away the sins of the World and which is Sacrificed unto him in this mystery The Master of the Family Matth. 20. having had his Servants ill treated by the labourers in his Vineyard sent his Son to reduce them to obedience saying they will respect him So God the Father would render his Son present in this mystery to induce all Christians to pay their duties to his greatness Who would not then Combat in the presence of their King We may reasonably expect to live with Angels and with them contemplate the divine essence since now we live with Jesus Christ himself who is the Food of our Souls he who gives himself to be eaten here will not deny us to see and behold him in eternity Now our Holy Penitent in his prophetick view beheld this Hill of Sion as a place marked out for the admirable structure of the Evangelical Temple whereof the Messias was to be the Corner stone and therefore he calls it holy wherein Sacraments conferring grace by their proper vertue were to be administred upon this score he preferrs the Gates of Sion before all the tabernacles of Jacob He forespeaks the building of this Sion and that God will there be seen in his glory as much as the Cloudy Scene in this World can represent him and as on mount Sinai the written Law a carnal and Earthly Law was given so on Mount Sion should be enacted a Law Evangelical holy spiritual and heavenly These fore-notions imprinted in our Petitioner a reverence to this model of perfection and stirrs him to implore his mercy in her behalf that since it is to be a Law of love all powerful to conduct Souls unto a great pitch of sanctity in this life and glory in the next he will hope his prayer may contribute somthing to draw from his liberality a confirmation of his gracious promises unto her in this confidence with much fervour and zeal he repeats Deal favourably O Lord in thy good will with Sion The Application We have a Lesson here of Charity which shews us inexcusable if we fail to endeavour the succour of our Neighbour For there is none so impotent but may lend the assistance of his prayers and how powerful that is to avert danger appears in that God seems willing to prevent the Prophet Jeremies mediation commanding he should not resist him that is he should not stand between him and the destruction of his people as if it were in the power of this Prophet by means of his prayer to hold God's Hand and force him to a merciful composition Besides we are much encouraged to relieve the distressed in this supplicating way by the form of prayer which Christ prescribes in that we should conjure him under the title of Father nay more our Father which speaks I have a right to ask not only as I am your Child but likewise to intercede for him who hath the same relation unto you and by that an alliance towards me which naturally exacts my help if then as a Maker you can destroy as a Father nature will prompt you to save In fine God playes not the stately like the great Princes of this World but gives audience upon the place whether in behalf of your self or Neighbour Nay he excludes not his greatest Enemies but doth treat with them of peace upon the least overture they make Ah! let us then daily present our supplications before his throne of grace in behalf of all persons capable of eternal Salvation Amen CHAP. XXXVIII Vt edificentur muri Jerusalem And let the Walls of Jerusalem be built BY the Walls of this Sion or Jerusalem for they are usually taken for the same thing is meant the Prelats and Pastours of this happy Congregation within whose circumference or direction we are all piously to walk and to whose care and protection all Mankind is committed Our Penitent beholds the Messias as the foundation and prop of this eternal structure for the Office of a Priest consists in the power of administring sacred things and to offer prayers gifts and Sacrifices unto God for the remission of sins and this in the name of the universal Church Now Iesus Christ was constituted by God over all Souls with a plenary authority to reconcile them to him and for this end he offered up a true and real Sacrifice
in which the immolated victime suffered a real mutation both in that Christian oblation without effusion of blood which he celebrated the night before his death as also in the bloody Sacrifice of himself which he might have hindred but would not he is then a true Priest Again his power not being confined to Sacraments nor to certain words and ceremonies as that of Men who are Priests after him and not depending upon the impression of any Character since he was setled in it sufficiently by his Hypostatick union he enjoyes a degree of Priesthood with eminency above all other Men invested with this sublime dignity Wherefore doubtless this his Priesthood above all other things was most acceptable to God because by this title and quality he hath wrought the Worlds Salvation hath reconciled Souls unto God and put them into a condition of rendering him glory in all Eternity So that among all the sublime qualities of Jesus Christ that of his Priesthood hath been the most beneficial to the World for by it he hath made up all the breaches of sin both in Heaven and Earth appeased God's anger by his Sacrifice and restored us to his lost grace and favour Next he is not only Priest but sovereign Bishop empowred to institute ordain and govern at his pleasure in all spiritual things which relate unto God and the Salvation of Souls wherefore St. Peter Ep. 1. C. 2. Stiles him the Bishop and Pastour of Souls St. Paul likewise to the Hebrews Chap. 7. sayes It was fit we should have a Bishop holy innocent unpolluted and separated from sinners who hath no necessity of offering Sacrifice daily for his own sins So that Christ is not reduced to that extremity as to offer Sacrifice for the expiation of his own faults he hath no need to purify himself since he hath a Sanctity which outvyes that of Angels his only task is to enlighten purify and improve others that he might transmit them from the perfection and spiritual treasures of this life to the perfection and eternal treasures of the next At this his sovereign Chair doth aim that is the acquisition of immortal felicity he hath laid down for our safe passage and firm footing two planks to wit the Cross and pennance he is mediatour between God and Man an intercessour for us he assists at our right Hand that we might not be overthrown and amidst the storm of Stones which fell upon St. Stephen he is awake and upon his Leggs ready to run to his succour so that he hath all the conditions of a powerful and careful Prelat The Prophet Joel had in his prospect this Prince of Ecclesiasticks when in his 2. Chapter he exhorts the Daughters of Sion to skip for joy and fly to the Lord their God because he had given unto them a Doctor of Justice to teach them a spiritual life how to separate their Souls from affection to Creatures and unite themselves to God This he did in commanding us to renounce our selves and follow him to carry with him our Cross to be perseverant in prayer to practise vertues to love God above all things and our Neighbour as our selves In fine his Doctrine permits no vice cherishes all vertues raises Man above himself and his nature and besides his Commandements he gives admirable Councels of chastity poverty and obedience and other precepts leading to perfection which if exactly weighed would evidence as clear as the Sun beams that he is the greatest Master and Doctor of a spiritual life He is then Head of the Church because the Founder from whence she hath received her Life and Being by the seeds of his grace by the preaching of his Apostles by all the good works and stratagems he hath set on foot to draw Souls unto Faith and Baptism From whom she hath received her subsistence and nourishment in the provision of the Sacraments and of a multitude of gifts and graces in order to the propagation and defence of the Church He hath likewise setled here an Ecclesiastical Hierarchy resembling that of Angels and lastly he overwhelms her with the load of his favours transmitting daily her Members to his Church Triumphant where he invests them with glory nor will cease untill he hath made of the Souls issuing from the militant here beneath a Church glorious and without the least stain or wrinkle This Saint of Saints this Prince of Ecclesiasticks this Doctor of Justice is the Corner stone on which our Penitent had fixed his Eye and petitioned to be the Basis of Jerusalem's fair Walls so that having such a foundation what noble superstructure might he not expect and truly this edifice was squared out to the highest Ideas of perfection First we see an addition of the three Theological vertues that is so polished and refined as it gives them quite another lustre as to Faith the mysteries of the blessed Trinity the Incarnation and the holy Eucharist are in the Evangelical Law drawn as it were out of a Cloud into the Sun-beams and therefore St. Paul styles the written Law a Schoolmaster which taught the Jews only the first Rudiments of Religion whereas Christian Faith proposes ravishing objects and discovers the wonders of the said mysteries distinctly which begets reverence and devotion in the Hearts of Men. As to hope which enflames our courage to the Execution of generous undertakings the Jews had very obscure revelations of eternal beatitude nor could they hope for it till the coming of the Messias and Redeemer who was to open Heaven's Gates and have the honor to be the first Man that entered there in the interim they were fed with promises of Earthly rewards which rendered Souls Mercenary and their intentions more gross whilst the Evangelical Law unfolds the wonders of Heaven the glory of a Resurrection and engages for our immediate reception into that place of immortal felicity after this life supposing we are distain'd from all guilt of sin As to Charity the Soul of vertues and devotion it must needs receive from the Evangelical Law many degrees of heat and fervour since it renders our faith and hope more perfect For where the knowledge is greater of things more worthy of love and where our hopes are heightned to a more valuable expectation there doubtless will be found the production of a more ardent desire and affection After this rare piece which much embellished the structure are disposed the Sacraments which like a great water about the circumvallation serve both to secure the inhabitants from the assaults of their Enemies and to strengthen them in the noble exploits of vertues So that by this succour and powerful aid they are obliged in honour and conscience to a more eminent degree of Sanctity We see that Arts and Sciences are improved by success of time and those Masters which come after are more expert than the former Now this proceeding we behold in divine precepts not out of any deficiency in the Law-giver but because after Adam's sin
the erecting this magnificent structure of the Church as by his ardent prayer to dispose the divine Architect unto this admirable work what a reproach will it be to us who find the Fabrick done to our Hands and who are our selves so happy as to be part of the materials if we do not so much as keep it in repair nor preserve it against any rebellious or violent effort To this performance is required a due obedience to the supream Pastour who as it were the form and Soul of this edifice Next a reverence and submission unto Bishops who are the pillars and great supports of it Lastly a respect to Priests who are a main ornament and useful to this glorious Fabrick Whereas then our Holy Penitent poured forth his prayers with so much fervour for the raising of these Evangelical walls it is our part now to make addresses unto Heaven that according to his promise it may continue pure unstained and invincible against all the malice of Earth and Hell Amen CHAP. XXXIX Tunc acceptabis Sacrificium Justitiae oblationes Holocausta Then thou wilt receive Sacrifice oblations of Justice and whole Burnt-offerings OUr Holy Penitent had entertained in his thoughts not only the Materials and Architecture of this Building but he went further and reached in his prophetick view the Sacrifices which were there to be offered up The first object display'd in this Temple is the Messias God-man who was a true Sacrifice oblation of Justice and Holocaust A Sacrifice in that he appeased God's anger frankly offered and with the purest intention that could be imagined this is expressed in John 14. That the World may know I love my Father and perform his commands arise sayes Christ to his Apostles and let us to the Cross For God having committed to him the affair of Man's Salvation lost by sin he was enflamed with a zeal of rendering all possible satisfaction and considering that if he should make himself a victime and present that Sacrifice to God it would be of an infinite value in regard of the infinity of his person and such a Sacrifice infinite would counter-ballance the infinite malice of sin and prove a satisfaction answerable to Man's offence Wherefore that God might have reparation of honor he designed an actual bloody Sacrifice of himself unto God for the sin of Adam and all Mankind And to this end likewise that God being appeased and satisfyed by the dignity of this Sacrifice might depose all animosity against Man and restore him to those expedients by which he may work his Salvation Amongst all the contrivances that can enter our thoughts none appear more excellent and noble both to ajust God's honor and Man's Salvation together than this immolation of himself upon the Altar of the Cross First it is very powerful to appease God's wrath for nothing more than death can be endured for God's honor nor can any Creature more absolutely avow himself unto him than in dying for his sake Wherefore St. Paul sayes of Christ ad Ephes 5. He gave himself up an oblation and host unto God in the perfume of sweetness Next it is very proper to cure Man's infirmity who by his disobedience and pride had forfeited his right to Paradise wherefore Christ submitting himself to the Cross and so accomplishing the will of his Father repaired those breaches we had made by our Rebellion Lastly it is very efficacious to purchase our love without infringing the liberty of our free-will For what can more charm us to love than to behold a person for my sole interest sustain the torments of a Cross which was the most infamous of all kind of punishments yet so great was the affection our Saviour Christ bare us that he deposited in the infamy and reproach of the Cross all that honor which his miracles his Doctrine and innocent life had purchased to him leaving them all hanging on it as a Trophey of his love The Cross then is the North Star of our comfort and hope for what can he deny us nay what will he not grant us who on the Cross hath made such large expressions of his kindness God is said to be the searcher of hearts that is he only knowes the sincerity of them whence some have taken occasion to murmur at the Maker in that he placed not a window before the Breast of every one But though we may be jealous of all the rest yet sure we cannot be of Christ upon the Cross nor of his love since he there even layes open his Bowels unto us upon this consideration Christ might justly promise to himself That when he shall be lifted up from the Earth that is upon the Cross he would draw the affections of all Mankind unto him How different is the proceeding of this our eternal Priest from the usual wayes of Men who upon a mean and trivial interest fall upon the destruction of their Neighbour whilst his design is to Sacrifice himself upon our score and by that means gain our love as a just Tribute to his eternal Father he might well assure himself this Sacrifice would be accepted he knew that God could not behold the Face of his Christ under this bloody posture for the redemption of guilty Souls and not be touched with the worth of this Sacrifice wherefore our Penitent may confidently repeat tunc acceptabis then that is at this plenitude of time a Sacrifice will appear which shall convey to Heaven an odor grateful unto God and serve as a balm to cure all the wounds of humane nature This Sacrifice was likewise an oblation of Justice for supposing that God would have sin punished because it is a decree of his eternal Law which cannot erre nor want its effect Again since Man was impotent to any compleat satisfaction for sin wherewith he was defiled and contaminated it was necessary some person exempt from all sin should interpose and take upon him out of love and goodness the discharge of our transgressions Now Christ was this happy Redeemer who replenished with mercy spared not his sacred humanity for our deliverance First he dragged us out of the misery wherein we lay after Adam's sin that by no action of ours we could recover grace or any wayes reach our justification this impotency Christ took away and purchased to all Mankind means of Salvation in case they make right use of it Next he freed us from the misery of sin and by his passion obtained a perfect enlargement for all those who faithfully cooperate with his grace Lastly he merited for the Soul and Body an exemption from the Calamities they sustain and endure in this life and afterwards the glory of Heaven if so be they persevere in sanctifying grace and all this upon the design of rendering a full satisfaction for all the sins of the World in rigour of Justice And since God was irritated by Man's contempt which sin involves Christ knowing that God could not receive more honour than