a Virgin was a Mother Mother of a Man-God Morher of God and Mother of Man these I say are things which surpass Nature and are the subjects of our admiration I admire not sayd S. Cyprian the stabylity of the earth which stands by its own weight in the midst of the Vnivers I admire not the volubility of the firmament which moves day and night and hath no Center in which it may end its motion I admire not the inconstancie of the Moon which never remains in the same state but increases or decreases every moment I admire not the Sun which shews it self always full which is infatigable in its cours and marches as a Gyant to communicate its light and heat to all the quarters of the world But I admire God made man I admire a God in the womb of a Virgin I admire the Omnipotent an impotent infant And we may add I admire the Creator made a Creature the Lord and Soverign a subject and a slave and the Iudg a criminal in appearance In all the other wonders of nature I finde some reasons that do satisfy me But in this Mistery I have nothing els but that which the prophet Abacuc did say I have considered your works and am astonished 2. Born of the Virgin Marie This is the second Birth of the Son of God In his first He issued forth of the Vnderstanding of the Father from all eternity In this He came forth of his mothers womb in time The eternal birth is admirable the temporal is amiable I honor and reverence the eternal I embrace and love the temporal I rejoyce in that and I enjoy this I glorify God for the first and I thanke him for the second the eternal created me and the temporal repaired me It would have nothing profited me to have been created if I had not been redeemed by IESUS begotten of the Father I was created by IESUS born of the Virgin I was redeemed I have then more obligation to IESUS born of the Virgin than to IESUS begotten of the Father And I find many marvells in this second birth as well as in the first I will explicate the marvells of these his births and of his Conception by a comparison so proper and so natural so clear and so intelligible that the most indocible may come by it to a competent knowledg of these misteries 3. Amongst all the creatures purely corporal there is not one that expresses God so naturally as the Sun You see the Sun produces a Ray which is its offspring There is nothing more visible than the Sun producing its Ray nothing also is more clear bright and visible than the Ray and nevertheless there is nothing that we have so much difficulty to eye we cannot fix our eyes upon it not through want of light but through excessive clearness and through the weakness of our sight So the Son of God is begotten by his Father in the light of his Divinity by the way of understanding and of knowledg there is nothing then more intelligible than this Generation and nevertheless there is nothing that we are so unable to understand 't is darkness to us by reason of the weakness of our understanding Thô the Ray be the offspring of the Sun it is nevertheless as ancient as the Sun and if the sun had been from all Eternity its Ray would have also been eternal So though IESUS CHRIST according to his Divinity be the Son of God thc Father He is nevertheless as ancient as his Father He is from all Eternity even as his Father The Sun by its Ray warms the air makes the earth fruitful and produces gold and silver metalls and mineralls in the heart of it So the eternal Father by his Son Created Heaven and earth men Iohn ◠and Angells and does by him his works omnia per ipsum facta sunt The Sun loses nothing by giving Being to its Ray on the contrary the ray is the glory beauty and ornament of the Sun So the Son of God is the splendor of the Father and the figure of his substance 't is the Father's great perfection to begett a Son who is God as He and the same God with him The Ray coms forth of the Sun and is sent down to us but it coms forth of it without comming from it you see it in the Sun thô it be upon the earth So when faith teaches us that the Son of God descended from heaven and came into this world this is not to say he left the bosome of his Father He always remain'd there thô He appeared here The Sunbeam coms into this Church and passes through red glass How did it enter into it how did it go out of ir I know not It went into it without opening it it went out of it without breaking it so the Son of God came into this world and passed through the blessed womb of the Virgin How was He there conceiv'd I know not How was He brought forth I know not He was conceiv'd there He was brought forth without opening without breaking and without prejudicing the Virginal wombe The ray passing through the glass beautifies it renders it more clear and resplendent So JESUS passing through the womb of Mary rendred her Virginity more pure more holy and more sacred Matris integritatem non minuit sed sacravit What hath the Ray don in this glass it hath borrowed a little redness it is becom coloured the glass hath cloathed it with a red colour And what did JESUS in the womb of Mary He borrowed humane nature which is made if a little red earth Adam that is to say red earth He made himself man there the Virgin cloathed him with our humanity The ray borrowing of the glass this red colour deprived not the glass of it JESUS borrowing of Mary our humane nature did not any hurt or prejudice to Mary The sunbeam before it entred into the glass was a Ray but it was not colour nor coloured But since 't is entred into this glass and is com into this Church 't is a coloured Ray 't is a radiant colour 't is a colour which is a Ray So IESUS before the incarnation was God from all eternity But He was not man Now since He is entred into Mary He is a humanised God He is a Deified man is a God who is man and a man that is God The support and the subsistance of this red colour that appears here is the Ray for this colour subsists not but by this Ray So what is the support and the subsistance of the holy Humanity T is the Son of God it hath no subsistance besydes him This Sunbeam as a Ray or light of the Sun is in all the world But as a coloured Ray it is not every where it is only here and in some other places IESUS as God and Son of God is in every place But as man He is not every where He is but in Heaven and in the
goods works the Angells will rejoyce upon it in heaven the Faithfull will be edifyd upon earth Devills will rage for envy in hell The eternal Father will adopt you for his child the Son will make you one of his members the holy Ghost will dwell in you as in his Temple The B. Trinity will adorne you with a triple Crown they will make you happy by Beatifical Vision by perfect Fruition and by possession of eternal Goods Amen DISCOURS XLVIII of Purgatory 1. Though there be but one only Church in the world yet this may be divided into three Parts or Orders which according to their divers conditions beare different names and Titles That which reignes with God in Heaven and happily passed from the Combate to the Victory and from Victory to Tryumph is called the Tryumphant Church That which fights yet upon Earth and environed with Devills and with Sinners labours to vanquish the one and to convert the other is called Militant And that which Expiates its sins in the flames of Purgatory and satisfys the justice of God by the greatness of its paines is called Suffrante Of this I shal now treat and that the Living and the Dead may reap profit by this Discours I divide it into two Parts In the first I will shew that there is a Purgatory in which souls do suffer In the second we will see by what means we may and ought to help those poor soules 2. Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur Blessed are they who dye in our Lord who die so perfect in Faith and Charity who depart Apoc. 14. 13. hence so purged by true and entire Penance that they are free from all spot of sin and not lyable to any punishment due to it But they that are not so pure and clean as so many are not must necessarily feel the severity of Gods justice which leaves no sin unpunished and must be purged before they can be blessed as Scriptures Fathers and reason make evident to every vnbyassed understanding In the second Book of the Machabees we read that Iudas Machabeus that valiant Champion who was high Priest or chief Bishop of the Church and Defender of the true Faith and Religion sent 12. thousand Drachmes to Hierusalem that sacrifice might be offered for the Dead And the Authour of the book concludes It is a holy and salutary cogitation to pray for the dead that they may be delivered from their sins And this was the general practise of the Church as appears by their set form of Office for the Dead in their book Mahzor translated and set forth by Bishop Genebrard Munster and Fagius in Annot upon 14. of Deut Whitaker lib. 1. cont Dureum foâ— 81. 1. Ep. c. 4. This custome is yet observed by the Iews which is so evident that Protestants themselves confess it S. Peter in the new Testament furnishes us with a strong proof of Purgatory in the third chapter of his first Epistle He teaches us that the Son of God descended and Preached to them that were in prison who had been incredulous sometime in the days of Noah This passage connot be applyd to the Fathers that were detain'd in Limbo nor to the damned that were lockt up in hell For the first never were incrudulous as were those to whom the Son of God did speak The second deserv'd not that IESUS CHRIST should preach or Evangelize as the text says good news to them or should mitigate their torments by the happiness of his presence Since according to the Scripture in hell there is no redemption It remaines then that He speaks of the Souls in Purgatory and of those particularly that gave not credit to the preaching of Noah who nevertheless being moved by the deluge and by the present perill called upon God and converted themselves to him by penance But to Expiate the paines due to their sins were doom'd to prison and to punishment until the comming of the Redeemer who preached to them the grace of Redemption drew them out of prison and led them with Him into Heaven S Paul says That he who upon the foundation of faith makes a building 1. cor 3. 12. of Gold silver and precious stones That is of solid and perfect vertues He shal receive reward but he that hath made a building of wood hay stubble that is of imperfections or venial sins Aug. in Psal 37. Psal 6 shal be saved but by fire S. Austin explicates of Purgatory this text and cites moreover to the same purpose these words of David Lord reprove me not in your fury and correct me not in your anger Lord says David according to the explication of Saint Austin permit me not to be of the number of those to whom you will say Go ye accursed into Eternal fire and purify me in this life so that I may not need to be purged by the fire that corrects those lib. de Monog c. 10. who shal be saved Tertullian in the second age of the Church speaking of the devotions of Widdows of his time says that every year on the anniversary of their husbands death they made offerings for them and that they prayed God to give them refreshment they believed then that they were in paines We might alledge many other ancient Fathers But there is no need to cite them since lib. 3. Institut c. 5. n. 10. Calvin himself confesseth that the holy Fathers who lived a 1300 years before his time prayed for the Dead and that which he answers to this is the ancient Fathers were men who were deceived as if he were an Angel or rather a God that could not Erre But if we should have nither Scripture nor Tradition for this Verity yet common sense would teach it For let us suppose that there is a man as there may be who having committed blasphemies murders adulteries and other sins in great number and being upon his death-bed repents converts himself to God and dyes whither shal his soul go Not to hell for God never reiects a contrite and humbled heart and He hath promised mercy to all that shal conuert themselves by true and sincere penance Shal he go strait to heauen and as strait as one that hath serued God well and kept his commandements all his life what appearance of it and where would be the verity of this word of S. Paul a man shal reap that which he hath sown where would be Gal. 6. Psal 61 Rom. 2. 6. Apoc. 22 Matt. 16. the truth of this which the Royal Prophet the Apostle the Evangelist and our Saviour himself hath sayd God will render to every one according to his workes We need not but consider what is God and what is sin to avow a Purgatory in which an imperfect soul is purifyd before she may or would be pesented to God who is Purity it self 3. Wherefore a soul in Purgatory murmures not she complains not of too much rigour on the contrary she embraces
prosperities he invites them to penance by summons and inspirations which would reclaim tygers and if they return to him he receives them he pardons them he embraces them with inconceivable Clemency and sweetness 14. Nevertheless He is so great and terrible in Iusticè that though the death and Passion of JESUS-CHRIST is capable to redeem a hundred thousand worlds He sees notwithstanding an infinity of Iews of Pagans of Turcks Hereticks of bad Catholicks in the mass of corruption in the way of perdition He draws them not powerfully out of it through a most profound and incomprehensible but most just judgement and he accomplisheth the verity of this word of this tunder-clap many are Mat. 20. 16 called but few elect 15. He is great and admirable in his independence and in the plenitude of his Being He is naturally sufficient to himself most content with himself most happy in himself and has no need of any thing without himself He had from all eternity power to produce creatures heaven earth and all that is in them and he hath not created them but in time for to shew that he had no need of them for to make known that since he hath been perfectly happy without them from eternity he created them not for any S. Austin◠12. de Civit. c. 17. sub fin want he had of them but by a free goodness and by a pure and disinteressed charity Let us make an end of speaking of Him whose greatness has no end who is infinite in his Essence and infinite in Perfections for 't is to mafle as infants 't is to obscure his perfections to speak of them so imperfectly and if He were not infinitely mercifull and condescendent it would be a punishable temerity to speak so lowly so grossly and so unworthily of Him Yet this is enough to make us see what a Majesty we offend and whom we make our enemy when we commit a mortal sin And after this shal we not endeavour to conceive a lively repentance of our sins shal we content our selves with a little sorrow and which regards nothing but our own interests if we detest our sins because they rob us of our merits subject us to the tyranny of the devill engage us to Eternal damnation if we have no other motive 't is to feel and resent a scratch of a pin which we have received and not a great stroake of a sword which we have given The injuries that sin does to the Creatour are without comparison greater then those which it does to the Creature 16. For to avoyd them then Let us remember that God is infinitely noble If a Prince tho' a stranger that appertains not at all to us were in this Country we would not abuse or injure him but would honor him and treat him with respect and shal we dare to offend our God our Sovereign the King of Kings This King who is so great that all the Kings of the earth in respect of Him are but slaves and wormes of the earth Let us consider that He is infinitely powerfull We fear to offend the Powers of this world because they can punish us deprive us of our liberty estates or temporal life and shal we dare to offend the omnipotent God who by one word one act of his Will can reduce us to dust who after He has killed the body will cast our soules into Eternal flames Let us consider that He is infinitely Wise that all things ly open to his sight that he can not forget any thing that whatsoever excuse we forge for to flatter our conscience and to diminish the greatness of our offenses He sees the greatness of them He knows all the circumstances of them and pierceth the bottome of our hearts He knows that 't is neither violence nor poverty nor necessity that makes us to commit sin but that 't is because we have not the fear of God nor the due love of him Let us consider that He is good and that He has always been so to us T is a great injustice a very unnatural malice to offend a person that has never given us any cause who has never disoblig'd us all his life We know that 't is God who created us who conserves us at present and hath preserved us from a thousand dangers He who hath given us more than we have desir'd more than we should dare to desire and what is above all desire who has given his own life and died upon the Cross by pure charity towards us After all these graces shal wee have the malice to commit a mortal sin which infinitely displeases Him Let us remember that He is infinitely just and that his justice ought to have its cours His Prophet sayd I feared all my Iob. 9. 82. works knowing that thou wouldest not spare the offender He leaves not unpunished the least failings what will he do then to mortal sins to great Crimes We must hold it then as most certaine that if we commit these sins we shal suffer soon or late most bitter and grievous torments in this world or in the other Let us in fine consider that He is independent that He depends not of any one in his Being nor in his designs nor in his operations that if He associate sometimes his creatures in the Execution of his designs 't is by an Excess of goodness and not out of indigence If He could have need of us we might thinke that He would be obliged to pardon us and to seek our amitie But he needs us not He has been well without us from all Eternity he will be well without us for all Eternity and if we honour not his mercy in heaven we shal honor his justice by our sufferances in hell from which I pray God to keep us by his mercy Amen DISCOURS II. OF THE FIRST ARTICLE The Father Almighty Creatour Of Heaven and Earth THe first verity expressed in these words requires as much vertue and strength of Faith as any other Verity revealed It obliges us to believe and adore a pluralitie of divine Persons in a most perfect Unitie of nature and to Confess that in the Diety there is a Person who intellectually produces a coeternal and consubstantial Son Hence the Apostles truly call Him Father and his Paternity or fatherhood is so proper to Him that 't is not an Attribute or Quality but that which enters the intrinsecal and individual constitution of Him Father also of us because he created us conserveth us at present and nourisheth us Father again because he redeemed us by his own Son makes us his Children by adoption governs and directs us and conducts us to the inheritance of eternal life 2. Almighty or Omnipotent This signifies a perfection not so proper to him as is that of Fathêr Omnipotence also is not his particular Attribute or Quality but to him appropriated and attributed You know that the faith of the church adores three Persons subsisting in the
Divinity You know that Divinity acknowledgeth and reverenceth in God three principal Perfections Power Wisdom Goodness You know that the Scriptures and the Fathers doe attribute to each one of these Divine Persons one of these Perfections tho' all three be common to them all Omnipotence to the Father because He is the source and origin of Divinity Wisdom to the Son because He is begotten by the way of understanding and of knowledg Goodness to the Holy Ghost because He is produced by the way of Will and Love These are three Divine Persons which inseperably and indivisibly applyd themselves to the Creation to the Conservation and to the Government of the Univers These are the three fingers of God as the Prophet I say calls them who sustaine conserve and govern the world Those are their three infinite Perfections which are apply'd unto this worke For if we consider the matter out of which the World was drawn we shal admire an infinite Power If we consider the manner in which the World is governed we shal acknowledge an incomprehensible Wisdom If we consider the End to which this World is designed we shal see and love an ineffable Goodness 4. First we shal admire an infinite Power For if there were so Excellent a workman that could make a Cup of gold of a lumpe of silver he would be admired but if he should make a golden Cup of a mass of lead he would be a workman far more Excellent and yet more if he should make it of a barre of Iron and yet more if he made it of a piece of wood but if he made it of a grain of sand he would pass for a demy God and we would say that his power is almost infinite Ought he not than to be God indeed and to have a power entirely infinite for to make not a Cup of gold but Heaven and Earth Angells and men and all the other Creatures and to make them of nothing as our God did whom we confess in this Article to be the Creatour of Heaven and Earth 5. If his Divinity and his infinite Omnipotencie appeare so Clearly in the matter of which he made the world his Divinity and his incomprehensible Wisdom appears yet more in the manner by which he governs it This Wisdom say I shines so brightly in the conduct of the Univers that we need not but to open our Eyes for to see it as clear as the day For we see that the Heavens turne about us in so regular so constant and so unvariable an order that the seasons of the year serve us by quarters and that they succeed one another with a vicissitude so proportioned to our life We see that the animalls that have not judgement and also that the plants which have not sense performe all their functions with so much industry and perfection and commodity for our service as if they had judgment All this makes us to conclude that there must be in the Univers a Sovereign Wisdome a divine Spirit most intelligent and most provident who rules governs and directs all these things and who by an ineffable Goodness obliges them to serve us 6. For God created all these things for us He governs them all for us and to shew us this his admirable Goodness He created man the last of all as the End to which He referred his works For the end is always the first and the principall in the intention of the Workman and the last in the Execution of the worke And we experience to our great profit that they all tend unto this End and that they conspire to serve and intertaine us some to beare us others to nourish cloath cure and reioyce us T is then for you ô man that the heavens move that starrs glitter that fire warms that air refreshes that rivers run that the earth produces fruits that animalls live and labor and it is for you in fine that God conserves and employs all these Creatures when you thinke least of it when you recreate when you sleep when you injure and offend him He then thinkes on you He acts for you and makes all Nature to labor and sweat for you He says to you not by word but by work you disoblige me extremely you commit sin which displeaseth me infinitely But nevertheless take the presents which I make you taste and see that I am a sweet Lord. For is it not to be very sweet to give you so many sweetnesses and dainties in return to so many bitternesses which you present me daily Ha! we cease not to offend him and He ceases not to caress us what admirable Goodness should we not be monsters of ingratitude and abortives of nature if our hearts be not softened and gained by so many favours 7. Moreover we must note that we are obliged to God for all the good He hath don to other creatures When a Father employes a Tayler nourishes him payes him for his labor gives him stuff to make a robe for his daughter 't is not the robe that is obliged to him and if also the robe should have sense and understanding it would not be much obligd to thanke him since he hath not don all this to the robe for love of the robe but for love of his daughter 't is the daughter then that hath the obligation and who ought to thank her father for it so we are oblig'd to God for all the beauty goodness qualities and proprieties that He hath distributed among his creatures becaus 't is not for them but for us that He hath given them all these qualities and perfections to the end we may thank him prayse him love him serve him and keep his commandements He gave them the Countries of Nations Says the Royal Prophet and Psal 104. 44. they possêssed the labours of people that they might keep his justifications and seek his law Ô how ill does he that serves not God! ô what injustice does he commit against his Creatour T is an insupportable ingratitude not to acknowledg honor and love such a Benefactor 8. If you lett a poor Cottage to your neighbor you will that he pay you rent for it and if he should fail you would cry out against him How comes it then says S. Chrisostome that you pay not the tribute of thanks to your great God that you hom 12. ad Rom. serve him not cordially who hath placed you in this world in this glorious Pallace which He built and which wholy appertains to him If you have a Vineyard which you neither made nor planted nor cultivated but have received it by inheritance letting it to a farmer you will have the half or the thirds of the fruits of it though that the farmer be poor and hath many Children God hath lett you a Vineyard or field to farme and how vouchsafe you not to pay him not only not the fourth part of the revenew of it not also the tythe perhaps not the twentieth part
of CHRIST is Catholick that is to say Vniversall or generall and the Apostles by putting this word oblige us to follow that Church whose Faith and Religion is receiv'd and publickly profest the longest Time by the most Persons and in most Places and so the Faith of the Roman Church hath been 16. Read but the Annales of Baronius or of Gualterus or The longuest Time the works of Bellarmin or Coccius and You will see that ever-since the Apostles the Church hath had from age to age the same Articles of Faith which the Roman Church teaches at this present Reformers confess that during the first four hundred years the Roman was the true Church if this Present were new they ought to shew who was the first Authour of this novellty what was the new doctrin that was taught in what time and in what place fâ—om what Church the Roman did seperate when she embraced this new doctrin and who were they that opposed this novellty These things are noted in every little alteration of Religion and one cannot shew them in the great pretended changes of the Faith of the Roman Church 17 All those that have been converted to the Faith of CHRIST By the most persons and have embraced Christian Religion have always taken the Roman and were converted by Romanists Other Religions convert not infidells and have never extended the Empire of IESUS in any Province of the Earth 18. We must put out our Eyes and burn all Histories not In most Places to see that the Roman Church only hath been extended in all the places where IESUS CHRIST is or hath been adored and that no other Congregation of Christians has ever had publick exercise of Religion throughout the world But we may read in S. Ireneus Tertullian S. Cyprian and S. Athanasius that in their times the Catholick Church was already in all the inhabited Earth and this in accomplishment of what David had often foretold saying that the Reigne and Empire of JESUS CHRIST that is to say CHRISTS Church should be extended throughout all the earth I wil give thee Gentills for thy inheritance and thy possession the ends of the Earth He Psal 2. Psal 71. shal rule from sea to sea and from the river even to the end of the round world 19. Follow then the Faith of the Romane and Catholick Church since these Notes evidently agree to Her and to no other church Heb. 11. 6. and since with out true and entire Faith t is impossible to please God 20 Have and hold inviolable Vnity with this Church since all Faith without this Vnity will not save You There is but one Vniversall Church out of which nobody is saved sayd the great Council of Lateran consisting of a 1215. Fathers And S. Paul Gallatians 5. 20 himself does teach expressly that not Sects only but also Dissentions Divisions or Seperations shal not possess the kingdom of God Wherefore S. Cyprian in the book of Vnity says Whosoever seperats from the true Church is excluded from the promises of the Church and who hath abandoned the Church of CHRIST shal never com to receive the recompences of CHRIST He is a stranger he is prophane he is an enemie of God for He connot have God for his Father who hath not the Church for his Mother S. Chrysostom testifys that separation from the In Ep. ad Ephes. 4. p. 822. de papt cont Don. lib. 1. c. 8. lib. 2. c. 6. Church or dividing of it is no less sin then falling into heresy nay S. Austin holds that it is greater then that of infidelity and Idolatry and for proof of what he says he alleadges the example of Core Dathan and Abiron and other Schismaticks of the ancient Testament who were sent living into hell and punished more rigorously than Idolaters who doubts says he that this was committed more criminally which was revenged more severely But he says things yet more terrible for he assures us that all they that are not in the true Church though they live extraordinarily well tho they give great alms and also shed their Ep. 152. and. lib. 4. de Bap. blood for the love of IESUS CHRIST if they die out of the Church nothing will profit them but shal be damn'd eternally All those that were out of the Arke of Noah which was a figure of the Church perished by the deluge Only they that laboured in the vineyard reciv'd the recompence of the pennie that is eternal life Members that remain not united to the body cannot have life Branches cut of from the tree cannot bring-forth fruit IESUS CHRIST is the Saviour of his Body which is the Church He is the Espouse of the Church and cannot have or acknowledg other children then those of his Spouse 21. Let us then resolve to live and die in the bosome of the Catholick or Roman Church There we may avoid damnation there we shal be assisted to obtain Salvation For there is Communion af Saints that is communication of good works and of prayers There then every one may help his neighbor the Living may succour also the Dead in Purgatory and the Saints in Heaven can help by their merits and their prayers sinners upon Earth Amen DISCOURS XIII OF THE TENTH ARTICLE The Forgiveness of Sins 1. HE that should know well the monstrous nature and malice of Sin the ingratitude impudence and insolence of the sinner the infinite Greatnes Sanctity and Majesty of him against whom it is committed and should also know what the Scripture expressly tells us that a God is thereby irritated exasperated put into anger and fury against the sinner such an one I say could not by any light of reason hope for pardon it would seem to him impossible that sins committed against God should be remitted and he would need the light of Faith to believe that a sinner may obtain remission of them Who would ever think that a God who hath need of none who had not respect to the celestial Principalities and who spared not so great a number of noble Spirits but condemn'd them all without exception to eternal flames would shew favour to worms of the earth to so ungratefull and base creatures after they have so many and so many times offended Him multiplying sins upon sins and reiterating the same sins Here then we have need of Faith and therefore the Apostles make us to believe that God will pardon sins and since they except none that He will remit all sorts of them how ever great and enormous they may be by the Sacrament of Baptisme and after by Absolution as often as we shal do true penance for them 2. Here we meet with an error and one of the most great and most pernicious of some Reformers They say that it belongs not to a sinner to absolve others from their sins and that it is an injury to the Son of God to ask pardon of our sins of any other On this
friends who may receive you into the eternal Tabernacles Amen DISCOURS L. Of Holy Orders HItherto we have treated of Sacraments which were instituted to sanctify men in particular now we speak of the Sacrament of Order instituted for the General good publick Order Government and Ministery of the Church And becaus Dissenters deny it to be a Sacrament we will shew in the first place that 't is a true one Secondly we will consider what this sacred Signe does signify and in the third place the Documents we ought to draw from thence for the glory of God the Salvation of our Souls and the guidance of our lives 1. A Sacrament is an exteriour and sensible signe by which grace of the holy Ghost is given him that receives it worthily Now the Apostle S. Paul and after him the general Councell of Calcedon say expressly that grace of the holy Ghost is conferr'd in Ordination by imposition of hands Neglect not the grace that is in 1. Tim. 4. 14. 2. Tim. 1. 6. Concil calced an 451. Act. 1 5. can 2 thee which is given thee by Prophecie with imposition of the hands of Priesthood I admonish thee that thou resussitate the grace of God which is in thee by the imposition of my hands Hence the Councells and ancient Fathers have always acknowledged Ordination for a true and proper Sacrament and therefore in the general Councell of Florence this is numbred with them both Grecians and Latins approving it I might Fill pages with Citations of the holy Fathers But this of great S Austine will suffice He in his second book against the Epistle of Parmenean proves against the Donatists that the Sacrament of Order cannot be lost becaus Baptisme cannot Let them Explicate says He how the Sacrament of the the Baptized cannot be lost and the Sacrament of the Orderer may be For if both of them be Sacraments of which nobody doubts why cannot that be lost if this may be Here he calls Orders a Sacrament He shews it to be a proper and true one by comparing it whith Baptisme He assures us that nobody doubted of this Verity and if S. Austin may be credited not only all the Writers of his time but also all the Faithfull did believe the same 2. This external and sacred signe expresses two singular favours which Ecclesiasticks receive from God in their consecration The first is the highest dignity in the World For to a Priest is given Power over the natural Body of IESUS CHRIST to consectate and offer and distribute it and over his myistical Body which is the Church to remit sins administer Sacraments and to do the sacred functions of the characters imprinted in him A Power so much more excellent eminent and higher than other Dignities as the Spirit than the Body Heaven than Earth Divine things than humane and as Eternal than temporal S. Paul says 't is certaine by the consent of all the world Heb. 7. 4. that he who hath right to give his Benediction to another is more noble and high than he sine ulla contradictione quod minus est a meliore benedicitur But a Priest gives his Benediction to Princes Kings and Emperours his Dignity then is more high S. Chrysostome exhorting Priests to refuse Absolution and Communion S. Chry. Hom. 3. in Matt. Hom. ad 60. pop Antioch to all that are unworthy though they be Princes or Kings says to them you ought to do it and you can do it you ought to do it otherwise IESUS CHRIST will exact of you an account of his Blood and will punish you most terribly You can do it for your Power is greater than that of Princes of this world If you suspect the Testimony of this Saint becaus he was a Prelate of the Church hear the Prince of the world The Emperor Basil in an oration he made to his people in the eighth general Baron An 869. nn 55. Councell It belongs not to us Laymen to medle with the things of the Church it belongs to Priests and Prelats who have power to sanctify us to open heaven to us and shut it against us to bind us or els to to absolve us Our condition is to be fed as sheep to be sanctifyd conducted and unbound You will not thinke the words of these Great men strange or that they exagerate the Greatness of Priestly Power if you consider that it surpasses the spiritual Power as well as the temporal divine as well as humane For popes who excell in Authority and Grandeure if considered not as as Priests are less in Power than these For the Power of Priests extends upon the natural Body of IESUS CHRIST and that of Popes upon his mystical Body only which is his Church and therefore as much as his natural Body exceeds his mystical so much the Priestly Power surmounts the Papal S. John Baptist who surpassed all men who was the greatest that had risen among the sons of women for his sanctity Yet was less in Power than the least Priest of the Church He shewed with his fingar IESUS CHRIST But Priests produce Him in their hands and give Him for nourishment to others He only diposed the people to penance and Priests absolve them from their sins The Angells who though they can do great things upon creatures of the world they cannot put Christ at their Will upon the Altar but are content to adore love and admire Him there And Priests by vertue of their character have this Power and can offer Him in an unbloody Sacrifice for the salvation of the Living and the Dead 3. This Power of Priests being so great God out of his goodness adds in their ordination another favour to it He whose workes are perfect giving power gives likewise those things that are requisite for the legitimate and convenient use of it He replenishes Priests with abundant grace to make them worthy of their Character to exercise well the functions of it and to rendet them capable to sanctify the faithfull Noli negligere gratiam quae data est tibi per impositionem manuum Presbiterij Idoneos nos fecit Ministros 4. These particular favours which IESUS does to Priests admonish us of the Honour we are oblig'd to render them Honour God with all thy soul and honour Priests says Ecclesiasticus And S. Paul Priests that do well their duty deserve double honor 'T is by them says S. Hierome that we are converted and made Christians by them we are received into the Church by them we are delivered from our sins we reenter into the grace and favour of God by them we receive his blessings enjoy the precious Body of IESUS and offer to God the dreadfull sacrifice by them in fine the Sacraments are administred and the imperial heaven is opened to us We must not neglect them who are the Judges of Kings in the process of eternity them who the Prophet Malachy says are the Angells of our Lord. Malac 2.
the Sovereign of all his Empire would not be absolute nor his Dominion universal since that a Corrival or Competitor would have right to dispute with Him if not the superiority or the preeminence at least equality and independence 4. The Apostles say not only I believe God but I believe in God and these two expressions are very different for the first imports only an Act of Faith by which we believe that there is a God and what does come from Him as what He teaches us in the Scripture and what the Church proposes as revealed by Him But the other signifys not only an act of Faith but also of Hope and Love And we learn by this expression that it is not enough for a Christian to believe God but he must moreover hope in Him and love Him and so distinguish himself from the wicked and from the devill who can believe that there is a God and give credit to his word but becaus they confide not in him nor love him they believe not in God 5. But what is God This Question the disciples of learned Epictetus made to him who answered my Children if I could tell you what is God either He would not be God or I my self should be God He sayd true but he sayd not enough it is not only impossible to explicate what is God but whatsoever we can say of Him is infinitely below what we ought to say of Him Wherefore S. Austin says that we cannot say any thing that is worthy to be attributed to God becaus in this it is unworthy that it is possible to be sayd 6. Neverthelesse we ought to speak of Him for to make Him known and we must make Him known for to make Him to be loved and feared and we must make Him to be loved and feared for to avoyd sin which offends Him 7. The Scripture says that He is great and above all praise Magnus Dominus laudabilis nimis But we must not imagin that it Psal 47. 2. speaks of a material and corporeal greatnesse When we say that one King is greater then another this is not to say that he is of a greater and higher stature but that he is greater in Power and Dominions so when we say that God is great we mean not in material quantity length largness and other corporeal dimensions for He is a spirit and has no body nor parts But He is great in Nobility in Power in Wisdome in Goodness and other divine Petfections 8. He is great in Nobility He is so noble that all Kings and Emperours are but his servants and his slaves All crowns of the world depend on Him and he disposes of them at his pleasure He is so noble that the kings are his beggers they say to Him daily upon their knees give us this day our daily bread and if He should not giue it them they must necessarily want it He is so noble that Kings compared to Him are but wormes who can do less against Him then worms of the earth against you I am a worme sayd a great king in the light of his contemplation 9. He is great in Power Potens metuendus nimis The power which makes great ones of the world is commonly but to destroy they say Alexander the great Pompie the great becaus by their armies they have defeated millions of men ruined Towns and desolated Provinces And what power is this a scorpion a spider is able to destroy and kill à man a little contagious air may defeat a whole army and this power also of the great ones is so vain and weak that they cannot annihilate or reduce to nothing a little fly for always something of it remains But God is so powerfull that He can not only reduce all things to nothing but draw all things out of nothing even without any assistance without any labour and more easily then you look upon me for you may be wearied in looking on me or hindred from seeing me and God cannot be wearied nothing can hinder the execution of his will 10. He is great in Wisdom He is so wise that He makes all the actions of his creatures to contribute to his intentions also those that are done against His intention He lets the second causes acte as if He acted not He lets each cause move according to its genious and particular inclination the natural naturally the free freely and He makes all their actions to serve His designes as infallibly efféctually and happily as if He alone did do their actions purposely He makes likewise to contribute to the Execution of his Will and to the accomplishment of his intentions all that men do against his Will and all that opposes his intentions the impious do all they can to dishonour Him the infidells to ruine his Church the reprobate to afflict and destroy his Elect and He makes the attempts of the impious to conduce to his glory the infidelity of the infidells to the good of his Church the persecutions of the reprobare to the salvation of the elect What an ineffable wisdom 11. He is great and admirable in his Goodness He is an infinite sea and an Abiss of love mercy and liberality which without diminution flowes continually and abundantly In the order of nature what flowers what fruits what plants what animalls what voices what perfumes what colours what drugs what meats and drinks for our nourishment for our service remedy and divertissement 12. In the supernatural Order He shews us evidently his Goodness He accomplishes that which He sayd Mensuram bonam confertam Luke 6. 38. coagitatam supereffluentem dabunt in sinum vestrum He gives good stuffed shaken and overflowing measure into the bosoms of the saints One for example gave a morcel of bread to a poor man or a word of instruction for his salvation this action was so smal this word so soon past that one would not think them worthy to be remembred Nevertheless God forgets them not He will look upon them with complacence he will praise them and recompence them not for a hundred or a thousand years only but for ever so good He is and ardently amorous of good 13. To men in this life He gives graces with so much liberality Ephes 1. 8. and affluence that S. Paul says The riches of his grace have superabounded in us If then we are deprived of them or receive them slenderly it is not a defect of the source but our own fault becaus we make our selves unworthy of them not complying with them not esteeming them but neglecting contemning them Who would not admire the nobility of this Royal divine heart who vouchsafes to give all these goods not only to the elect who are thankful for them but also to his enemies who acknowledg him not who blaspheme him contemn him persecute him Nevertheless he suffers them he supports them he conserves them in health he gives them honours riches
would have deposed against the Apostles and the Gospell which they brought with them who would have sayd to them you are great lyars we were that year in Hierusalem and we saw nothing of all this they would have sent them back into their counrrey with their books But this happen'd not for these miracles were so evident so notorious and confest of all the world that the Apostles who preached them were received by all the world The Gospells which containe them being published not one of the Pharisees who were enraged with spite against IESUS CHRIST and his Religion ever dared to contradict the narration of these miracles in the books which they composed But on the contrary all the enemies of christian Religion Iews Mahometans and Gentills have acknowledged these miraculous works 7. As concerning the miracles of the Apostles and primitive christians Aug. lib. 1. de Consen C. 10. Evang. which they wrought in the name of IESUS they were so frequent and so evident that Pagans not being able to reproach them by any artifice attributed them to magick as may be seen in S. Augustin But to attribute them to Magick is a malice as black and diabolical as magick it self For first Iulian the Apostate and so many others who were so much affected and addicted to magicians and to magick never could render sight to one blind or raise one only dead man Secondly magick hath no power but by the concurrence of the Devill and how came it that he would assist the Apostles to do miracles seeing that the Apostles by these miracles abolished the worship of the devills But if you are so incredulous that you will not belive any thing but what is before your eyes believe a miracle which you see the conversion of the world and confess that IESUS CHRIST by himself and by his Disciples hath made in the world the greatest the hardest and the best change that was ever made 8. He hath made the true God the God of Israel who was not known but in Palestine and to a few in the other parts of the earth to be known and adored by all the world He hath banished Idolatry discredited the devills who abused men silenced their oracles ruined their Temples demolished their Altars broken their Idolls abolished their sacrifices and annihilated their service He hath drawn men from murders impurities parricides and other abominations which they committed in the worship of these fals Gods And what is yet more wonderfull in the place of this false worship He hath planted and established a new religion tho' the more speculative points of it appear contrary to the maxims of reason The proper precepts and counsills of it pieces of great folly according to humane prudence and the opinion of infidells And the practise of it is the mortification the cross and the crucifixion of a man 9. The Iews and other Infidells must confess this at least that this change was a worke which could not be accomplished but by a man not only sent by God but extraordinarily assisted by him since the ancient Prophets who made so many invectives gave so many threats and worked so many miracles against Idolatry could not yet banish it from one only kingdom of Egipt one only City of Babilon nor from any other pagan Town Now this IESUS who is sent by God and extraordinarily assisted by him who negociates with so much success the affairs of his glory Iohn 14. 6. says that He is the Son of God that He is the Way and the Veritie and the Life that God and He are one and the same Thinge This is Iohn 10. 30. than most true else God would not have authorized but disown'd and punished him as the most detestable Impostor and blasphemer that had ever been And on the contrary He is extreamly angry with those who put him to death and hath punished and punishes yet at present this furious attempt with the most terrible and longest vengeance that He ever exercised in this world 10. Let us say then with S. Philip we have found the MESSIAS of whom Moyses and the Prophet wrote we have known him by certain and Iohn 1. 45. evident marks But to what serves it to have known and received him if instead of being our most good and amiable Redeemer we by not practising his doctrine nor following his examples do make him to be our most terrible and severe Judge what profits us to have carried the name and character of Christians if neglecting to be true Christians good and vertuous Christians we make by our fault that JEsus who was sent to be out Father and our Pastor become to us a stumblingblock and an Enemie 11. Let then every Christian look upon his Doctrine as a Law which obliges them as a Rule to which they must conform their lives as a Contract that God hath made with us which contains conditions under which He promises us his Paradise and not otherwise When then you read in this Law Rule and Contract any verity or have it otherwise proposed to you you must consider it ruminate upon it and apply it to your self and to your actions for God sayd it expressly to you and for this end As when you read or hear Vnless you bocom as little children you shal not enter into the kingdom of Heaven Vnless you do penance you shal perish Say in your self Certainly if I be not simple candid and innocent as an infant If I do not penance I shal not enter into the kingdom of Heaven Believe that when you shal be present at the terrible Tribunal of God They who flatter you now will not plead for you then they who say in complyance with you that 't is not necessary to follow so scrupulously this Law and Rule will not then excuse you God will judge you not according to your thoughts nor according to their little reasons nor according to the maxims of the world But according to that which is written in this Law and Rule and that with so much exactness that there shal not be one word not one syllable not one jota that shal not be infallibly accomplished And to say no more behold an irrevocable sentence of the eternal Verity which no excuse no pretext no reasons can put off They that obey not the Gospell shal undergoe eternal paines 2 Thes 1. 8. As on the contrary God promises to those that shal hear and profit by the instructions of CHRIST to be their recompence He promises to give them joyes delights treasures and eternal benedictions Amen DISCOURS IV OF THE SECOND ARTICLE And in IESVS-CHRIST his only Son our Lord. HAving shewn that JESUS-CHRIST is the true object of our Faith we must now consider what the Apostles propose to our beliefe in this Article concerning him Wherefore in the first place we will see what is IESUS-CHRIST to whom they give these names And in the second place Why they give these names to him
not been redeem'd by IESUS-CHRIST sayd to them Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy foul and with all thy forces what ought Christians to do after the Incarnation Redemption and Passion of our Saviour Ought they not to burn with love should they not if it were possible love JESUS above all their forces thoughts and activity of their hearts If I owe my self wholy to him for making me what shal I add now for repairing me and repairing me in such a manner 14. Let us love him then since He so loved us let 's not love him only in words and compliments let us not content our selves to say I honour much my Saviour I love him with all my heart But let us love him in worke and Verity in doing in giving and in suffering for him for so He loved us And since his goodness is so infinite and his love to us so excessive that He preferred us not only before Angells but also before himself it would be a horrible blindeness to preferr any other good before him it would be a strange folly to offend him to disoblige his goodness to lose his amity and his favour for honour pleasure profit or satisfaction of a Passion Do not so if you be wise Say rather with S. Austin all abundance all honour all felicity that is not you my God is but poverty vanity and misery say as S. Francis did my God You are my All Love him with all your heart since He his all your good love him with a sovereign love since He is sovereignly good love adore bless prayse glorify him now and ever Amen DISCOURS VII OF THE FIFTH ARTICLE He descended into Hell the third day He rose again from the dead IESUS appli'd himself so earnestly to our Salvation that whilst He was on earth He let not a moment pass without labouring for it And for this effect whilst his Body lay'd in grave He descended into Hell This world Hell signify's an inferiour and low place And therefore the holy Church makes use of it in divers occasions to signify divers inferiour places By this word she most often understands the place of everlasting damnation And so our Saviour called it in 1. Luke 36. S. Luk. where speaking of the unfortunate rich man says he was buried in hell Other times she uses this terme to signify Purgatory where they are who died in the grace of God but having not fully satisfyed the divine Iustice are further to be punished so in the Mass of the dead she prayes free ô Lord the souls of the faithfull departed from the paines of hell She makes use of it also to signify the place whither the souls of holy and just persons who were not subject to purgation or had duely satisfyd for their offences went before the death of the Saviour of the world expecting He should open them the gates of Heaven by his Passion 2. He descended not only by effect into these two last places making his power and goodness to appear by delivering the soules in them detained But in substance He descended into them his soul was really in those places and He honoured the soules that were in them and made them happy by his presence The third day he rose again from the dead He rose no sooner for to testify that He was truly dead and to fulfill the figure of Matt. 12. 40. him As Ionas was three days and three nights in the belly of a whale so shal be the Son of man in the bowells of the earth He would be three days subject to the law of death to teach us mystically that by his death and Passion He had satisfyd the three Persons of the B. Trinity for the sins committed in the three states of the world in the Law of nature in the Law of Moses and in the Law of grace And to shew us that his Passion was the cause of the delivery of the ancient Fathers out of hell of the Redemption of men on earth and of the reparation of the Angelical thrones in Heaven He rose again By which words the Apostles teach us that He S. Iohn 10. return'd to life by his own power He sayd also in the Gospell I have power to lay down my life and to take it up againe and in another place I will raise up my Body in three daies after death 3. I know well that S. Peter and S. Paul teach in many places that his Father raised Him up to life because this miracle S. Pater is an effâ—ct of the omnipotency of God which thô common Ast. c. 3. 26. and c. 5. 30. S. Paul in the 4. 8. and 10. to the Rom. Phil. 28. and 9. to all the 3. Persons of the B. Trinity yet is attributed commonly to the Father 'T is true then that He rose up by his own Power and 't is true also that the eternal Father raised him to the end He might shew his goodness both ro him and us 4. First to him that his Body might receive the Glory which He merited by his labors humiliations and sufferances For He humhled himself says the Apostle being obedient unto death for the which thing God hath exalted him Note exalted him for his Resurrection was not a simple return from death to life but an entrance into a glorious life That Body which He layd down passible and mortall He receives impassible and immortal that which was inglorious now is glorious which was infirm now is powerfull which was a natural Body now is becom a spiritual These are the excellent qualities which S. Paul attributes to every 1. cor 15. matt 13 43. glorifyd Body But that of Glory or clarity delights me most for the body of every saint shal shine by it as the sun fulgebunt justi sicut sol and nevertheless one shal differ from another in this Quality as much as he exceeded him here in good works or as S. Paul says as one starr differs in glory from another What glory then what admirable splendor what ravishing beauty was given to the adorable Body of JSUS in recompence of his merits And what satisfaction and felicity will it be to see it when our eyes shal be able to behold it as hereafter they shall be by their impassibility These four qualities belong to the Body of the Son of God as a body glorifyd But as a Body Deifyd as subsisting in the Divinity it hath yet a farr other Glory Jt hath a supereminent ineffable and incomprehensible Glory as we may see in the next Discours 5. Wherfore the Son of God thanks his Father for that He brought his soul out of hell and his Body out of the sepulcher and that He raised him up again Exaltabo te Domine quoniam suscepisti psal 29. me Eduxisti ab inferno animam meam And He esteems so much this favour that He exhorts us to thanke God to praise and glorify
him for it Psallite Domino fancti ejus confitemini memoriae sanctificationis ejus psal 29. 6. This is that which many never did that of which many never thought Our devotions are often but productions of self love practises of interest and reflections vpon our selves If we pray God we demand not of him but that which concerns our spiritual or temporal profit If we thanke him 't is but for the good which He hath don us or those of our family this is to love our selves and our salvation this is good but not perfect If we are perfect Christians and loving Disciples of IESUS we will love him more than our own selves be concern'd in his interests and pray God his Father for the exaltation of his glory and the accomplishment of his designes We will thank Him often that He revived his Son and restored Him the life which our sins had taken from him that He elevated him and placed him at his right hand 7. Secondly God shews in this Mistery his Goodness also to us for as his Son was incarnated for us as He liv'd and died for us so He is raised to life again for us We are quickned with him are raised-up with him and his Resurrection is an assurance and pledg of ours If there be no resurrection of the dead neither 1. Cor. 15. Christ is risen again says S. Paul But now Christ is risen again from the dead the first fruits of them that sleep by a man death and by a man the Resurrection of the dead and as in Adam all die so also in Christ all shal be made alive We shal all indeed rise again says the same Apostle But we shal not all be changed to witt into a better and more glorious state But only such as conform themselves to IESUS-CHRIST who is their Rule mirour and modell 8. He contributed much to his glorious Resurrection He merited it and dispos'd himself to it by his sufferances humiliations patience and other most perfect and heroical acts of vertues which He practised He by dying taught us to dye to sin by rising again to rise to a new life and by dying no more to live profit and persever to the end in sanctity and holiness as his Apostle declares and urges much in his epistle to the Romans Rom. 6. 9. Let not then men deceive themselves Let them not think to be glorifyd in Heaven if they be not Sanctify'd on earth Let them not think to enter into a glorious life any other way then that of sufferances of mortifications and Christian vertues This is the only way which the Son of God prescrib'd which our Saviour beate and which the saints have followed Hear S. Paul and S. Bernahas By many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom Acts. 14. 21. of God they say not that 't is a salutary Counsel 't is a more assured way But we must that 't is necessary to pass not through two or three but through many suffetances to com to the kingdom of God There is nothing more clear more firm and certain then the words of the son of God who says He S. Luke 9. 23. that will com after me Let him renounce himself and carry his cross daily and follow me Now in good earnest will they dare to say that living as they do in the world hanting almost continually balls commedies places of lewdeness banquets other pleasures and pastimes is to renounce one self and to carry daily the cross and to follow Christ He tels his Disciples in the day of his Resurrection what way S. Luke C. 24. He went Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so to enter into his glory Note ought It was necessary that Christ should suffer and that He should enter by this means into his glory into the glory which was his own to which He had so much right and will they think without suffering any thing to tame their passions and without mortifying themselves to enter into the glory to which they have no right into the glory which they have so often demerited and which they have renounced by so many Crimes We cannot have this glory but in quality of the heires of God and coheirs of Iesus Christ and his Apostle declares that to obtain this favour we must suffer with Iesus Christ. Rom. .8 17. We shal not be more priviledged than his Parents favourits and beloved friends all the Saints suffered with him all either were Martyrized or led an austere humble and penitent life S. Iohn Apor 7. 14. in the Apocalips seeing the assembly of them one sayd to him that they came out of great tribulation they are happily arrived they tooke then a good way and we if wise will follow the same and leave the other way 10. We see in the Church two different ways two different lives of those that have any desire to save themselves one is of those who lead a holy life mortifyd devout perfect and fervent in good works The other is of them that lead a life not in the sight of men Criminal but slack negligent and imperfect they commit not great Crimes but they do not also much good and withall they will that selflove be always satisfyd they treat themselves well they pass their time in sports walks superfluous visits and other divertisments which they terme innocent they do no injury to any but they concern not themselves in the necessities of their neighbours All without exception approve and commend the first way not one or very few will have the boldness to warrant the second way this way then at least is uncertaine fallible and dangerous And S. Augustin says when Lib. 1. de Bapt. C. 3. the salvation of our soules is concern'd we fail against the love we owe to our selves if we take not the surest way 'T is a maxime of the Law that we must not leave the certaine for the uncertaine and that we must use the more precaution where there is more danger Common sense and experience shew that by how much a loss is greater we apprehend the danger of it with more fear by how much an evill is more terrible we avoyd the peril of it with more care Does it not seem to you a great loss to lose the kingdom of heaven the possession and the enioyance of a God And is it not a great evill to be burnt a live to be always burning and not consuming 'T is an infinite loss an infinite evill We must then avoyd I will not say the danger but the appearance of danger for we cannot have too much assurance in a matter of so great importance I pray our Lord to give us grace to live so holily that we may be found worthy of this immortall Resurrection and of the happy Eternity Amen DISCOURS VIII OF THE SIXTH ARTICLE He Ascended into Heaven sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty THe Apostles
having taught Christs Victorious Resurrection teach us in this Article his tryumphant Ascension By his Nativity He went forth into the field to fight by his Passion and death He fought the battle By his Resurrection He overcame his enemies and by his Ascension He tryumphs His tryumphant chariot was a thousand thousand of celestial spirits Psal 67. 18. and according to the translation of S. Hierom innumerable thousands He tryumphed not only over enemies of flesh and blood but also over devills sin and death The spoils He carried with him were not flocks of sheep and troops of other beasts but innumerable multitudes of souls which He redeem'd out of Prison and rescued out of the jawes of Hell Thou art ascended high thou hast taken Captivity says the Rayal Prophet to him Psal 67. 10. With all this glorious traine He ascended not carried in a chariot as Elias nor by Angells as Abacuc the Prophet and S. Philip nor did He ascend only by the force and agility He recived in his resurrection but moreover by the power and vertue He had as God 2. He Ascended into heaven There are three Heavens according to the scripture Airy Statry and Emperial and He mounted above all heavens as his Apostle says so passing the Air Sun and all â—phes 4. the heavens He mounted to the most high and sublime place of the world 3. He sits at the right hand of God the Father God is a spirit a pure and incorporeal Being who hath neither side nor hand noâ— part How does He sit then at his right hand And if He sits in a seat or Throne of what matter is it made is it of wood marble gold silver or Diamant I know well 't is answered the Apostles accommodate themselves to our low manner of understanding and of speaking and that by this session at the right hand of the Father they express the equality and consubstantiality of the Father and the Son When we see one speak to the king on knee we conclude he is a Vassall But if we see one sit upon a throne neer the king and at his right hand we say he is a Prince or Sovereign The Apostles say JESUS sits at the right hand of the Father this is to say He is Sovereign Omnipotent and infinite as the Father equal coessential and coeternal with the Father 4. Yes But JESUS as man is not consubstantial nor coeternal with the Father and yet He is at the right hand of the Father not only as God but also as man as S. Leo expresly teaches in his first sermon of the Ascension You will say the humane nature of JESUS is in the Throne of God and at the right hand of the Father becaus being as it were ingraffted and inserted in the Being of God in the subsistance of the Word and making but one Person with him 't is served and reverenced as God 5. You say true but this solues not the difficulty For this holy Humanity is united to the Word and subsisting in his Personality from the first instant of Christs Conception and nevertheless to speak properly it is not but since the day of his Ascension that the Humanity is elevated to the glory of the Father and seated at his right hand as the church says in the Canon of the Mass that day 6. For to clear then these difficulties we must remember that in the Mistery of the incarnation the Son of God communicating his subsistance to the holy Humanity should have made it at the same time participant of all the perfections and Attributes of which a created Nature may be capable For if in a perfect marriage the Woman espouses not only the Person of her husband but also his nobility prerogatives and Honours shal not the sacred Humanity which is married much more perfectly and inseparebly to the Word receive from him the Perfections that are communicable to It A Vegetative soul penetrating the stock of a little tree makes it live with a Vegetative life A sensitive soul informing the body of a Lamb makes it live with a sensitive life An intellectual soul animating the body of a man makes it live with a reasonable life and the divine Word actuating filling and possessing the holy Humanity shal He not make it live with a divine life Ought He not to communicate to it his proprieties and his Attributes since He is united to it more strictly perfectly and nobly than any soul is to her Body or form to its matter 7. Nevettheless the divine Word to procure our salvation and to accomplish the work of our Redempion suspended in his Incarnation the communication of divers of his perfections For if JESUS had been immortall how should he have dyed for us If He had been impassible how would He have suffered for us If He had been independent and sovereign how would have he given us an example of obedience subjecting himself to his holy Mother But in the day of his Ascension He made an entire effusion of himself and of all his excellencies and perfections that were communicable to Humanity 8 This is that which He asked of his Father in the Vigil of his death when He sayd Now glorify me o Father with thy self with the glory which I had with thee before all ages Vpon which S. Iohn 17. 5. Lib. 11. in Io. C. 17. Colloss 2. 9. S. Cyrill of Alexandria says The Saviour asks to be glorifyd not with an accidental glory but with a natural glory and a little after The glory which He always had as God He asks now as man This is moreover that which S. Paul teaches us when he says the plenitude or fullness of the Divinity inhabits corporally in him that is in his Humanity says the same S. Cyrill And this is that wich ought to rejoyce us in this Mistery This is that which renders this Mistery dear and precious to JESUS to the Virgin and to all the Church 'T is in the Ascension properly that JESUS Man God sits at the right hand of the Omnipotent 't is in the Ascension that He was receiv'd into the Throne of God and that He entred into the Glory of his Father 9. He sits that is to say He is no more subject to labours tributary to wearines lyable to humane miseries and infirmities 10. He is at the right hand of the Omnipotent that is He hath the superintendence and the administration of Heaven and earth of men and Angells of spiritualls and temporalls What honor what happiness for us to know and to be assured that a persone of the same nature with us hath the keyes of life and death of Heaven and hell that He governs all and does whatsoever He sees good 11. He is in the Throne of God that is He entred into the real actual and eternal enjoyance of his Empire 12. He is in Glory of the Father that is He is received into a full entire and perfect possession of all the
horrible to fall into the hands of the living God says S. Paul becaus He is always living Heb. 10. â—1 and as long as He shal be living the damned shal be in torments Wherfore the Son of God threatens a long time before He striks He speaks much of judgment before He does justice He never hurls a thunderbolt without making the thunder sound the lightning flash and without covering the air with clouds He sent from time to time Prophets as Heraulds of his justice forerunners of his judgment who always endeavoured to express the terrour of it by the most proper and significant epithets imaginable they call it the day of anguish and tribulation the day of affliction and misery the day of obscurity and darkness the day of outrage and tempest of anger and vengeance the day of the fury of the Lord the day of horror and of slaughter you may see this in Isaiah in Hieremiah in Ezechiel and in Joel Isay 13. and 34. Hiere 16. Ezec. 7. and 27. Ioel. 2. 2. And becaus usually the faithfull only believe the Prophets and as S. Paul says infidells have need of signs and prodiges To the end none may doubt of it God will proclaim it to all the world by most remarkable signs which He will shew in Heaven earth sea and other parts of nature and as at present according to the saying of the Prophet the heavens and the starrs declare the Omnipotence Wisdom and Goodness of God who produced such glorious creatures governs them in so constant and regular an order and designs them for an end so noble so before the judgment the sun moon and starrs shal foretell the justice of God they shal preach it to all people and that in so lowd and intelligible a language that none not the most stupid incredulous and insensible shal doubt the least of it In which we ought to admire and adore the goodness of God who exercising his patience so long time and towards so many persons will exercise his justice as late and against as few as He can He exercises his patience from the beginning of the world He employs in it not one day month or year but many ages He exercised it above six thousand Years and He will exercise it to the end of ages towards all sinners but He will not execute the last judgment the act of his great wrath but at the end of time as late as possible and that He may find but few upon whome to exercise the same He forewarns them of it He frightens threatens and sends Prophets He gives signes in heaven and in earth shewing by this that He desires not to strike that he wills not the death of a sinner but that he be converted and do live and this shews also the great and enormous malice of sin which provoks and irritats so much a God so mild and mercifull 3. The Prophetes Apostles Evangelists and the Apocalyps foretels us many terrible signs which shal be as messengers Matt 24. 30. 2. Pet. 3. Psal 76. 19. and forerunners of the Iudg see here some of them The sun shal be turned into darkness and the moon into blood Starrs shal fall from Heaven and the Powers of it shal be moved The Heavens burning shal be resolved There shal be no light but that of lightning which shal always flash The thunderclaps shal be so great that the Heavens will seem to teare thunderbolts shal be darted Wisdom 5. 22. Wisdom 5. 22 forth as from a bow full bent and shal fall directly contrary to their custome The Water of the sea shal rage against men and the rivers shal run togeather roughly The earth agitated with convulsions and tremblings will open as if threatning to swallow them God will send devouring fire which shal burn the 2. Pet. 3. elements consume Towns and reduce to ashes all the works of men What horrible spectacle to see and feel the air changed into flames stones into burning coals rivers into boiling water houses into furnaces of fire 4. If one only of these prodigies should happen now in what a condition should we be If we should see the sun and moon to lose their light or the earth to tremble a whole week in what a trance should we be how should we cry-out mercy what â—ill it be then to see all the aforesayd things togeather And yet they shal be but signs and presages of what shal follow after they shal be but the commencement of the sorrows says JESUS in the Gospel And if the beginnings are so sorrowfull what shal the progress be if the shadows and the figures are so terrible what will the reality be if it be so tirrible to see the Sergeants and the Apparitors that precede the Judg what will it be to see the Iudg in the heat of his anger and to be struck with the thunderbolt of of his sentence 5. He is now our Advocate He will be then our Iudg not only to reveng injuries don to Orphans Widows Laborours and to the Poor But moreover to reveng offences committed against God his Father He hath infinite obligations to him a passionate love for him a most ardent zeal for his glory is very sensible of that which offends him His interests are dear to him He will have an ocean of enormous sins to condemn and punish I leave you to think with what indignation with what heate of anger He will be inflam'd It will be so great that it will be a horror and a death to sinners I will not say to be condemn'd but to appear in his presence I will not say they will not dare but they will not be able to subsist in the sight of his Majesty they will not be able to think of him who shal he able to think the day of his Advent and who shal stand to malach 3. 2. see him says his Prophet 6. The terrour of him will be so great that the reprobate will desire rather to be crushed ground and reduced to dust then to be presented to the tribunal of this terrible Iudg. they Luke 23 30. will say to the mountains and to the rocks fall upon us and hide us from the face of the Lamb we have abused his meekness we have oblig'd him to becom a Lyon we shal not be able to endure the reproches He will make us rocks fall upon us and crush us to pieces that we may not be forced to appear in his presence hide us from the face of the Lamb they have cause to fear it His presence only will put them to more pain the rocks would but crush their bodys the presence of JESUS will crush their bodys and their souls 7. They know they must now render a most punctual and exact acount of all the Talents and Goods they receiv'd from the liberal hand af God and of all the evills they have ever don 8. They know they must answer not only for mortall sins but
most holy Spirit and the Son likewise is a most holy Spirit But they appropriate this name to him because his Emanation or Procession is so farr above our thoughts and our expressions that there is no language in the world that can express his Person for want of a proper name And becaus we are accustomed to call those things spirits of whose origin and manner of production we are ignorant So we call the wind spectres Angells and our souls spirits and we are likewise very ignorant in the production and procession of the holy Ghost 4. Secondly the Apostles appropriate this name to him because He proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one only Source and not as made or created nor as begotten but produced by the Will by an ineffable way which Divines term Spiration a breathing and impulse of the Will towards the thing beloved 5. Thirdly this name is appropriated to him becaus He is the Spirit of our spirit the Soul of our soul the Life of our life For He is given to the Souls of the just to animate and govern them He is not given so to a Bishop or a Priest in his ordination if he be in the state of sin He is not in him to sanctify him but to operate and act by him Hence it is that a Bishop or a Priest that is in sin and hath not grace gives nevertheless the grace of God by the Sacraments becaus he is the instrument of the holy Ghost as a penne gives to paper characters which it hath not becaus it is the instrument of rhe Writer 6. The Church moreover appropriated to this glorious and holy Spirit the name of Love and Charity becaus He is produced by the Will the authour of Love or by the mutual love and dilection of the eternal Father and the Son 7. From this second name which the Church attributes to the holy Ghost proceeds the third which is that of Gift Donum Dei Altissimi the Gift of the most high For that which is dō by pure love is dō freely and liberally and donation is a free and liberal action The two first names appropriated to the holy Ghost referr him to the Father and the Son but this of Gift relates him to Creatures that are capable to receive him and to enioy him as are men and Angells only and this Gift is the first the most necessary and the most excellent of all gifts that God ever gave or can give to us 8. He is the first and cause of all the rest for there is a great difference 'twixt the love of God and the love of men When we love any one 't is becaus we find in him some goodness some beauty or other Perfection Gods love supposes not its object in any creature but He puts it in them God begins not to love us with a love of Benevolence becaus we are good but we are good becaus He loves us so when the eternal Father gives us his only Son in the Incarnation He gave us first his Love and He gave not to us his Son but by his holy Spirit and by his Love He was conceived of the holy Ghost So God loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son 9. This Gift is so necessary that without it all the other Benefits profit very little the work of creation is appropriated to the Father the Incarnation to the Son the Sanctification to the holy Ghost the two first Benefits are unprofitable to us without the third In the creation God gave us Being He made and design'd for our service all the creatures of this world But our Saviour says to us What profit hath a man if He should gaine the whole world and lose himself and he will lose himself infallibly Luke 9. 25. if the holy Ghost sanctifys him not The Incarnation and the Death of the Son of God would not much availe us without the comming of this holy Spirit the torments of JESUS would have made him die and not have made us live He might have satisfyd without restoring us to grace a king offended by his Vassal may receive from him satisfaction and not receive him into favour nor restore him to his former state and to the priviledges which he had lost When I see the Saviour in the Crib or on the Cross I know not whether it be to satisfy only or moreover to restore us to the rights we lost by sin when He rises up again from death I know not whether it be for recompence of his death or to give us life When He ascends to Heaven I know not whether it be to give a convenient place ro his Body or to prepare also a place for us But when He sends the holy Ghost to sanctify us He ascertains us that we reenter into grace and that He applys to us his merits He hath sealed us and given the pledg of the Spirit in our 2. Cor. 1. 22. 1. Ep. 4. 13. hearts says S. Paul And the beloved Disciple In this we know that we abide in him and He in us becaus He of his Spirit hath given to us 10 What admirable favour and what incomparable grace that God vouchsafs to give us his Spirit Love divine and admirable Heart If one should give to a Philosopher the spirit of Aristotle or of Plato to an Orator the spirit of Cicero or Demostenes to a Phisitian the spirit of Hypocrates or of Galen and to a Divine the spirit of S. Thomas or of S. Augustin would not this be a singular favour God gives you not the spirit of Aristotle Cicero Hypocrates but his own Spirit the Spirit of Verity Wisdom and Sanctity When one hath the heart of a person one hath all If you be in the state of grace you have the heart of God for properly speaking the holy Ghost is the heart of God ô Father of mercies and Father of the miserable how deigne you to give them your heart T is that chosen souls are your treasure and you put your heart upon your treasure Quid retribuam Domino 11. What acknowledgment what satisfaction and what return can we make Love is not pay'd but by love nothing corresponds to a heart but another heart and what heart can correspond to the heart of God What love can answer his Would you not desire to be all heart Would you not wish to have as many millions of hearts as there are drops of water and grains of sand in the sea would you not referr apply and consecrate them to the love of God And what would this be compared to the heart of God which He hath given us It would be less than a grain of dust compared to all in Heaven and in Earth But He desires not so much He demands but only one but He will have it all He commands you to give it him Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart and if you refuse it him He will damn you
account they do ill in believing that they being sinners can by Baptisme wash away the sins of others and do injury to the Son of God by going themselves or by carrying their children to their Ministers to have their sins remitted by this Sacrament since it belongs to the Son of God to wash away sins by Baptisme Heaven declar'd this Verity to S. Iohn Baptist Vpon whom thou shalt see the holy Ghost Iohn 1. 33. descending He it is that Baptizes But who is so weak that does not answer easily that they baptize on the part of God in his Name and by his Command that they go not to their Ministers as men but as God's Deputies and Vicegerents to be baptized I say the same of Absolution we absolve from sins not of our own selves but in the Name of God as his Deputies and Ministers by the Power Authority and Commission which He hath given us 3. Behold the Commissions and Patents of it Whatsoever You shal Matt. 18. unbind on earth shal he unbound in heaven and in Saint Iohn Whose sins you shal forgive they are forgiven them And whose You Iohn 20. shal retain they are retained These words of our Saviour are as clear as the Sun but let us suppose they have need of interpretation To whom shal we recurr for the interpretation of them To one that came a 100 or sixscore years ago or to the ancient Fathers of the first ages when according to Reformers themselves the Church was in her purity S. Chrysostom speaks great things vpon this subject Lib. 3 de Sacerdotio and seems to have foreseen all the evasions of Reformers First he says that the Son of God communicated to his Apostles the same power that He received from his Father and this great Saint speaks so after our Savior himself For in the same time He sayd to his Disciples whose sins you shal remit they are remitted He sayd to them I send you as my Father sent me But our Savior had not only power to declare that sins are remitted by faith but He had power also to remit them In the second place S. Chrysostom says If a king should give to a favourit power to imprison and to deliver prisoners what favour would this be Yet this would be nothing if compar'd with the power of Priests there is as much difference 'twixt these powers as between heaven and earth Thirdly he says that the Priests of the old Law had not power but to judg the leaprosie of the body and to judg of it only not to cure it ours have power to judg of sin which is the leaprosie of the soul and also to cure her of it Aug. hom 49. ex 50. S. Amb. Lib. 1. de Penit. c. 7. S. Austin says let no body flatter himself saying I confess in my heart I confess to God this is not enough and on this account in vain the Son of God would have sayd to Priests All that you shal unbind on earth And S. Ambrose speaking to the Novatians who sayd that men have not power to remit sins says Why baptize you if men have not power to remit sins for Baptisme is the remission of sins and what if Priests attribute to themselves the power that is given them either by Baptisme or by Penance Let us leave Dissenters and consider the wonders of this Power that we may with those in the Gospell glorify God who gave such power to men I confess that there are not many Misteryes in our Matt. 9. Religion which I more admire than this and you will admire it with me if you consider with me the circumstances of it 4. The first is that this Power is Divine it pertains not properly but to him who receiv'd an injury to remit and pardon it It belongs then to God to remit offences against him Wherfore the Pharisees hearing our Savior say to the Paralitick thy sins are forgiven thee and not believing that He was God thought that He blasphem'd What would they have then thought what wouâ—d they have sayd if they had known as we know that JESUS CHRIST would give to men and to sinful men this Power 5. A Power in the second place so soveraign that 't is definitive without appeal The sentences which Priests pronounce and all that they justly ordain on earth is ratifyd infallibly in heaven When you have confest with necessary dispositions if the Priest say to you I absolve thee c. fear not that God will condemn you He cannot fail in his promise and He promised to absolve you if the Priest absolve you legitimatly 6. And this is don with so much Authority and Majesty that this Power is perfectly Royal for the Priest absolves not praying If he should say over you the misereatur only or should pray God to absolve you you would not be absolv'd JESUS-CHRIST wills that he say I absolve thee and heaven and earth shal melt rather than you shal fail of absolution how ever great and enormous your sins may be 7. This is a fourth Circumstance of this Power that it is most ample absolute and general without exception restriction or modification For there is no sin which the Church cannot remit since the Son of God hath sayd absolutely and without reserve Whose sins you shal remit shal be remitted 8. But that which is to be admired most in this Power is the facility and convenience we have to vse it 'T is true that having committed a sin it is not so easy as some think to have a true repentance of it We must ask it instantly of God and indeavour to obtain it of him by good works But when we have obtain'd it what is more easy than to find a Priest who may absolve us Have we not great cause to be astonished and to cry out my God! How have you been so liberal as to give this Power to your Church and to so many Priests If you had given it but to the Pope or to Patriarks or to Bishops or for one only time of the life of each one the excess of liberality would not have seem'd so great but for always for so many times and to so many Priests What excess of love of grace and mercy ô how will a soul that considers well thiâ— Benefit melt with dilection how will she burn with the love of such a Benefactor How often will she kiss those sacred wounds How often will she bless that adorable Blood which purchased her so great a good How often will she say my soul bless thou our Lord. On the contrary What regretts shal we have in hell if we are damn'd for having neglected contemn'd or prophan'd so great a Benefit The devout Rupertus was wont to say he had no pity on Christians that were damn'd and when one sayd to him why have you not if a dog should be so afflicted we should be moved to compassion I have none sayd he for 't is
without it we would not aspire to so high a good and it gives us such assurance of Heb. 6. 19. Heb. 6. 17. Phil. 2. 12. This Good that S. Paul calls Hope the sure and and firm anchor of the soul and yet the same Apostle bids us work our Salvation in fear and trembling But if our hope be so sure how can we fear if so firm how can we tremble 2. To reconcile this and the like apparent Contrarieties we must remember that though our hope be founded upon the promises which God made us through his infinite Goodness and the merits of his Son Yet these promises are not accomplished with out the concours and cooperation of our free Will On the side of the promises of God there is nothing to be doubted our hope is most certain and cannot be deceiv'd but our free will being fragil and inconstant we have cause to fear that being wanting to the grace of God and to what He demands of us we render our selves unworthy of the goods which his mercy promis'd and prepar'd for us The faults which are usually committed in this matter of hope may be reduced to three principal We hope not what we ought to hope or not of whom we ought to hope or not as we ought to hope To avoyd these defects and to practise well this important Vertue I will shew what we ought to hope of whom we ought to hope and how we ought to hope 3. My God you are my Hope sayd the Royal Prophet Note says S. Bernard that the Prophet says not only my God I hope in you but he says You are my Hope when you ask of God health long life prosperity you hope in him but 't is health long life prosperity which is your hope that is to say the object and the subject of your desires pretentions and affections but the holy Prophet made God his hope and in effect God as the Authour of S. Ber. Ser. 9. in qui habit sub sin grace and the object of felicity is the supernatural good of man t is this Soveraign Good which is infinitly to be preferr'd before all other goods This Good then merits to be desires pursued and expected by him and if he should do otherwise he would not only be extreamly wanting to himself but also highly injurious to this Good who only is capable to give him the accomplishment of his last perfection 4. But as faith aides the understanding to believe in God as its prime and principal object aides also to believe many other things that are reveal'd by him as its secondary and less principal so Hope which assists the will to hope God as its prime principal and chief object helps it consequently to hope many other things that proceed from God and which serve to compleat the beatitude of man or as means to attain it 5. Our Lord's prayer is an abridgment of all that we ought to hope as the Symbole of the Apostles is a compendium of all we must believe And in this most excellent and perfect prayer which the Son of God put into our mouths we aske no corporal thing but what is precisely necessary our daily bread we beg not wordly Glory nor earthly riches nor ease or pleasures for our bodys nor the satisfaction of our passions if we hope or beg Conc. in Psal 34 Post med such things of God S. Austin tells us we do injury to him and prejudice to our selves injuriam facis illi damnum tibi for what is all that but desires of the flesh irregular and vicious hopes acts of ambition avarice and sensuality To hope God will accomplish such desires is it not to injure him Is it not to make Him a servant of your ambition a complice of your avarice and a partener of your passions if you should hope in Iupiter if you should pray Mars Venus Cupid if you should pray a Devill you would not ask of him other favour and to ask those things of the true God to demand them in the Name of his Son to hope to obtain them by the intercession of the Saints sensual pleasures by the intercession of the B. Virgin who was so pure and mortifyd riches of the earth by the means of S. Francis who so loved poverty the Glory of the world by the mediation of the Martyrs who despis'd it is not this to mock and offend God should you obtain these things they would prove prejudicial rather than beneficial and one might say to you as to the sons of Zebedee you knew not what you asked God refuses some through benevolence and mercy what He grants others through wrath and reprobation says S. Augustin Ang. in Psal 40. Psal 48. 6. The second fault against this vertue is committed by them who confide in themselves and in their vertue Qui confidunt in virtute suâ The holy Ghost commands us often to put our hope in God and He promises his infallible assistance to them that do it He Psal 16. 7. Psal 17. 31. Psal 21. 5. Thren 3. 25. Hier. 17. 5. saves all that hope in him He is the Protector of all that hope in him In thee our fathers have hop'd and thou hast deliver'd them says the Psalmist Our Lord is good to them that hope in him says Hieremie 7. On the contrary the same Prophet says Cursed be the man that trusts in man These words Dissenters object to us they say that we are cursed becaus we confide either in living or dead men since we invocate them and implore their help But if this curs concerns us then cursed were they who sayd to Samuel pray for thy servants to the Lord thy God cursed was Samuel himself who answer'd far from me be this sin that I 1. Kings 12. 19. Rom. 15. 3. should cease to pray for you and cursed was S. Paul who desir'd them so often to whom he wrote to pray for him 8. Who is he then that according to the Prophet trusts in man 'T is he that neglecting the help of God looks only or chiefly for the help of man this the Prophet himself declares when he adds and makes flesh his arme and his heart departeth from our Lord. 9. You are subject to this malediction if you put such a confidence in your self since you are a man says S. Austin if you confide in your pretended vertue in your firm resolutions in your good nature it is a greater fault then you imagin t is to arrogate to your self that which belongs to God only who is the Authour of all good 't is to be diffident in him and in the sufficiency of his succour 't is to contradict these words which the Church puts into your mouth God you know that we confide not in any of our actions Is not this a strange vanity and a horrible arrogancy that a mortal man whose life is full of miseries whose Spirit and body are so inconstant who is loaden with so
is good and deserves to be loved for God is so good great holy powerfull and worthy to be loved that if He did desire it we should sacrifice our selves for his service though there were neither heaven for those that love him nor hell for those that love him not 11. We should do as the blessed Spirits do it is IESUS that gives the Counsel putting these words into our mouths Your will be don in earth as it is in heaven that is as the Angells do it they do the will of God and obey his Orders with a free pure and disinteressed love all that they pretend is to obey God to do his will all the recompence that they passionately desire is to receive new Orders to be employd again in his service purely for the love of him 12 This is not sayd that a faithfull soul may not hope and keep the commandements for reward or retribution as the Prophet says he did But that it be not the principal yet less the only aime of our love for as S. Bernard says perfect love of God intends no recompence but merits much The loving soul receives from the hands of God ineffable and incomprehensible goods but though she should not though there should be no Paradise nor reward she would not omit to love God serve him and to be pleasing to him and if she practises vertue for reward the reward which she desires is the increase of her love if she is glad to merit to be higher in heaven this is not to have there more of honor and glory but it is to have more of love if I merit much says she I shal see God more clearly and perfectly in heaven I shal glorify him more excellently I shal praise him more advantagiously I shal be united to him more strictly and intimatly I shal love him more ardently and so love is the true salary of love 13. In fine your love must not be idle and paralitick but active to render service to God and to do good works for his glory Charity works great things where it is and where it works not there it is not says S. Gregory S. Iohn 14. 23. 1. Ep. 3. 18. Psai 96. 10. He that loves me will keep my word says IESUS My little children says his beloved Disciple let us not love in word and tongue only but in work and veritie and the Royal Prophet You that love our Lord hate ye evill he says not only commit not evill but hate it He says not hate it in your self but absolutely hate it If you love God you will hate sin wheresoever it is found you will destroy it in your self and in your neighbor also if if you can if one should say I abuse not my friend but is not sorry that another does nor hinders him when he can may one truly say he loves him Let us conclude with a reflexion upon these words of JESUS I Came to cast fire upon the earth and what desire I but that it be inflam'd Luke 12. 49. And does He not move solicit and stir up our hearts to this fire and flame of love by all possible wayes 14. He prevents us with great love He lou'd us more than riches He was made poor for us more than honours He suffered a thousand infamies more than his ease and pleasure He led a life in pain and labor more than his body He depriu'd it of glory and of life more than the Angells He redeem'd them not And though we are so ungratful and unworthy as not to return love for love He tryes yet other means 15. He heaps Benefits upon us and makes us presents to engage our mercenary hearts He practises the counsel He gives us by the Wiseman and by his Apostle Give meat and drink to your enemy Prov. 25. 21. Rom. 12. 20. when he hath need and you shal heap upon him burning coales to heat his love to you so many prosperities that are sent you so many morcells of bread you eate so many creatures that serve you are so many burning coales He heaps upon you to heat your love so many presents He makes you to gain your affection so many baits he laies to catch your heart Et si parva sunt ista adiiciet majora And if it seems to you that all this is too little and that your heart is yet worth more He assures you that all the favours whiich he hath don you and which he does you yet every day are not but gages and pledges of the great Goods He hath prepar'd and promis'd you if you love him Neither eye hath seen nor eare hath heard 1. Cor 2. 9 nor the heart of man can comprehend the things which God hath prepar'd for them that love him says S. Paul 16. But since we esteem not these promises enough and are like those Israelites who contemn'd she desirable land He lifts up his hand He commands us ro love him and threatens punishments if we do not Is not this to be extremly desirous of our love to put as it were a dagger to our throats and say to us love me J will kill you if you will not He does not only say it but he does it he damnes us eternaly if we love him not 17. And when He sees that fear of future punishments doe not sufficiently move our hearts He sends us sometimes afflictions to force our love He takes away all you love in this world becaus you love not well that which ought to be loved above all things He removes from you all that may amuse and employ your heart that it may be in a manner forced for want of other object to unite it self to Him ô great God what can you do more to have this heart which you so passionately desire you besige it on all sides and it renders not neither the preventions of your love nor the attractives of your benefits nor your promises of paradise nor your strict commands nor threats of hell nor constrains of afflictions can open this lockt heart Extremis morbis extrema remedia 18. When a passionate lover hath tryed all wayes and finds them unsuccesfull he coms to the last makes use of a charm composes a love potion JESUS makes use of this artifice to gain our affection He puts himself upon our Altars and into our Tabernacles there he is the charm of love They say that in a charm of love to render it more powerfull the Lover ought to mix with it some of his own substance some drops of his blood and JESUS puts all his blood into this potion not a part of his substance only but all his substance Body Soul and Divinity 19. What think you Judg you not that God ought to have your heart after so many pursuances do they not inflame you to beg that of God which is so necessary and which you cannot have of your own selves Aske it of God fervently humbly frequently aske it of
if he gain the whole world and sustain the damage of his Soul And so if we will be good Christians we ought to love our Neighbors there is nothing that we ought not to lose pleasure riches honor and also if need be life it self for the Salvation of our neigbors And this the beloved Disciple and faithfull Interpreter of his Master teaches us in these clear words In this we know the Charity of God becaus He hath given his life for us and we ought also to give our life for our Brothers He does not say 1. Ep. 3. only that 't is expedient that it is a Salntary counsell but that we must give our lives for their salvation and to move us more He puts before our eyes the example of IESUS-CHRIST S Iohn 13. who made his love of us the rule of our love of others I give you a new commandement that you love one another as I have loved you And lest we should less note it He repeats it again in the Iohn 15. same Gospell This is my Precept that you love one another as I have loved you 7. Though this Vertue be so pleasing to God and so important to our Salvation nevertheless men fail in this the most and to say nothing of all those who live in hatred envie discord contention scandal which are the common pests of the world and the mortal ennemies of charity there are many who seem to have good intelligence who make mutuall visits complements offers of service Yet love but in word and tongue not in work and verity they will not open their purs nor use their power nor apply their pains and labor for the assistance of their neighbor in necessity 8. Others love their kindred and relations but with a natural inordinate and hurtfull love they procure them what is honourable or profitable upon earth though they put them into eminent danger of losing heaven they give them what pleases the senses and satisfys their foolish inclinations though to the prejudice of their souls and their salvation and if they see them desirous to renounce the world and to betake themselves to a vertuous cours of life they call upon them and to shew their love diswade them from it and recall them to the usuall and libertine cours of life so they seem to love but do truly hate to be good friends but are the worst of enemies and the maxim of our Savior is verefyd in them The enemies of a man are his domesticks Matt. 10 9. Others in fine extend their love beyond Relations but to those only from whom or by whose means they expect honor pleasure or profit This is an imperfect love a love of concupiscence and interest and not of charity which seeks not proper interest but loves God and in him or for him or for the love of him all others though they be our enemies becaus they are his images redem'd by the precious blood of IESUS capable to know serve and possess him and becaus it is his Will intimated to us by this general precept to love our neighbors and particularly commanded in S. Matthew I say to you love Mat. 5. 44. your enemies do good to them that hate you pray for them that persecute and calumniate you that you may be children of your Father 10. But the first and most necessary effect of this good will and love which is exacted of us for our ennemies is to pardon them for this is the first mercy and charity that we can doe them and the most necessary alms we can bestow upon them What good can we do them if first we do not pardon them but keep in our hearts odium enmity bitterness and a desire to take reveng of them Wherefore the Son of God who endeavours by all means our Salvation does not only command this charity and mercy but moreover obliges us to it by other pressing motives He promises us his greatest mercy which is the pardon of our sins if we pardon others dimittite dimittemini and he assures us that his Father will treat us most rigorously if we do not Sic Pater meus celestis faciet vobis so my heavenly Father will cast you into the prison of hell if you forgive not others from your hearts And S. Iames tells us judgement Iames 2. 13. without mercy shal be donâ— to them who shal not have don mercy S. Austin praying for the soul of his deceased Mother sayd I know that she led a holy and innocent life but woe to a laudable life if you examin it without mercy Whatsoever life you lead woe to you woe to you if you have enmitie you shal be judged without mercy and woe to a laudable life if judged without mercy What laudable thing do you You pray woe if you have bitterness woe to you notwithstanding your prayer for that he Psal 11â— remembred not to do mercy let his prayer be turn'd into sin says the Psalmist Your prayer condemns you saying our Lords prayer you demand Vengeance against your self you say I pardon such a person but I will not speak to him I will not that he com into my house and after this you say forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us God will hear you He will not speak to you favourably nor admit you into his house and if you be not admitted into heaven whether shal you go What laudable action do you you give alms woe to you if you have malice woe to you notwithstanding your alms S. Paul says if you should give all your goods to the poor if you 1. Cor. 13 have not charity you are nothing and by charity in this place he understands the love of neigbours What vertuous action do you you fast woe to you notwithstanding your fast if you have dissention In Isaiah the Iews Isay 58. 3 complain'd to God We have fasted and you have not regarded us God answers them with all your fasts you do your wills you press your poor debtours you have debates and contentions What laudable thing perform you Sacrifice woe to you if you have malice God says by Osee and twice in the Gospell I love and will rather mercy then your sacrifice And therefore many Osee 6. great Saints offering to God the most meritorious sacrifice that can be offer'd to him the sacrifice of their lives have interrupted it to obey this Commandement of mercy in the hour of their death when they had time little enough to elevate themselves to God to offer and to unite themselves to him they remembred their enemies pray'd for them and desired their good 11. These heroical vertues of the Saints were extracts and copies of those which we admire in IESUS-CHRIST the King of Martyrs and the Saint of Saints He being unjustly and most cruelly nailed to the Cross mock'd blasphem'd did not do as some do they think that they exercise great acts
don to me becaus He esteems more that which is don to his members than what is don to himself let us weigh these words 4. First He says That which you have don to the least of mine He means chiefly the poor since He speakes of those that Matth 52. 40. hunger and thirst T is then a strang folly which displeases him extreamly to give your goods to flatterers to dissolute persons or to employ them to enrich your children to elevate or greaten your parents or to leave them wherewith to live in dilights in dissolutions whilst our Saviour hath not where with to live in the person of the poor is not this a great injustice to give to your child wherewith to live in superfluity and not to give to our Saviour wherewith to sustaine a poor life says S. Austin He says Wherewith to live in superfluity for you may merit if out of the spirit of charity and mercy you leave to your children or to your parents as to the members of JESUS CHRIST goods as alms wherewith to maintaine themselves according to their quality in Christian modesty and frugality not in superfluity and in the ambition of the world 5. You have don to me for the love of me if you give alms out of natural compassion 't is not christian charity but moral vertue if our of ostentation to be esteemed liberal 't is vanity if becaus the poor man is of the same countrey profession or condition that you are that he is a Soldier and you have been that he hath been a marchant and you are 't is to give an alms to a man to a soldier to a marchant and not to JESUS and becaus the poor man is his member Disciple or his Brother likewise if you give it to the end only that God may recompence you by temporal goods JESUS will not say to you you have given to me becaus in effect 't is not for IESUS that you give it but for your selves 't is not alms but avarice You have don to me He says not to my servants my faithfull but to me we must then consider IESUS in the poor and comport our selves towards them with the same dispositions that we would to IESUS and season our alms with all that is requisite to a most vertuous and meritorious action 6. First bestow your alms with tenderness commiseration and with bowells of compassion for mercy ought to make our hearts miserable by a sympathy of charity participating in the sufferances and afflictions of others 7. Secondly with benignity sweetness and affability the testimony of affection and benevolence and abstaine from all reproaches which would make a poor man suffer more by the confusion to which you put him than you pleasure him by the alms you give him 8. In the third place with interiour humility thinking that you are not worthy to give an alms to IESUS and in effect all that we do is nothing in comparison of that we should do and what we give less than our lives is less than that which in occasion we ought to give for God hath given his life for us and we ought to give also our lives for our 1. Ep. c. 3. bretheren says S. Iohn 9. In fine give prompty ioyfully and copiously let your good will exceed your power in giving a penny wish it were a pound an have also a desire to give it if you had it and if it were convenient in giving a mess of broth wish it were the best becaus it is for your best beloved who merits that we should consume the treasures of the world for the service of the least of his members 10i Let us conclude with the fine words of S. Augustine Brothers exercise mercy there is no other band to tye us to the love of Aug. in Psal 102 God and of our neighbor there is no other means to carry us from earth to heaven and a little after he adds Behold what you may buy how much you must give for it and when you must buy it Behold what you must buy Paradise is to be sold you may buy with money the kingdom of heaven eternal life and the possession of God What great favour what incomparable happiness if God did not permit it who would dare so much as to thinke of it ô if men be damn'd they deserve not to be pitied Satan will have good reason to laugh at them and say ô great fools they would give willingly the half of their goods to buy 30. or 40. years of life and of a life full of afflictions infirmities and miseries and they would not give it to buy millions of years of a most happy and delicious life And do not tell me so precious marchandise is not sold at a cheap rate and that you have neither gold nor silver nor means to buy it Bohold how much you must give for it a glass of cold water a little service if you have nothing els may procure you it our Saviour speaking to his poor Apostles sayd you have always poor with you and you may do good to them when you please He says not you may give to them But you may do good to them becaus many cannot give but every one can do good You may viset the sick and imprisoned and though you have nothing to give you may comfort them exhort them and do them other services The Son of God will not say you have not redeem'd me out of prison but you have not visited me that you may have no excuse You are a married woman t is not permitted you to give great alms of your husbands goods But t is permitted and it will be a good alms to serve assist and cherish with respect and tenderness for the love of God the old and infirme of your family You are a chamber-maid it would be theft and not alm◠to give to the Poor the goods of your Master against his will but it will be a Charity if you help this inferior servant if you assist her in the labor wherewith she is opprest You are a Counsellour an Advocate or a Solicitor you have many Children and little means and not able to give alms But you may assist with your credit counsell and service this poor widow this orphan poor man and the like persons whom commonly men neglect You may instruct in the Mysteries of faith and in what is necessary to salvation your domesticks servants neigbors and the poor that beg alms at your door this is the best alms you can bestow upon them an alms more excellent than the corporal so much as the soul is better than the body heaven than earth the grace of God than money or bread You have enemies that do you great injuries if so they are poor in vertue ô what an excellent alms would you bestow upon them if you procure it them and you will procure them vertue if you gain their affection by pardoning them and seeking their
the felicities He promised to the Iews and which seem to us so admirable are but shadows and figures of them 4. But some will say what will these great Promises avail us if we cannot perform the condition under which they are made to us and if we cannot keep the Commandements of God also with that grace He gives us Some indeed have sayd this But the Scriptures say quite the contrary This commandement which I command thee is not above thee says the eternal Father My yoke Deut 30. 11. Matth. 11. 30. 1. Iohn 5. 3. S. Luke 1. 6. is sweet and my burden light says IESUS-CHRIST His commandements are not heavy sayd his beloved Disciple And his Evangelist S. Luke does tell us that Zachary and Elizabeth were just and walked without reproof in all the Commandements and justifications of the Lord. And we also may do as they Els God would be unjust imposing impossible commands upon us cruel in punishing us for not keeping them and a mocker in promising us his heaven if we shal observe them 5. We ought also to keep these divine commandements not with a servil fear but with a filial love as S. Austin says so often not as slaves but as children for we have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear But we have received the spirit of adoption of children says S. Paul And this David did yet in the old Law repeating so often I have loved your Law I have affected your commandements they are the ioy of my heart I have loved them more than millions of gold more than the Topase and other precious stones more than all the riches of the world they are to me more sweet than hony I take more pleasure in keeping them than à Conquerour in burdening himself with spoiles And to see clearly that they are most reasonable most just and most amiable let us make a supposition that there are but two Townes in this world and that in one of them all the inhabitants keep exactly the commandements of God and that to the other God hath not given any commandements but permits every one without punishment to live as he list Is it not true that the former City would be a terrestrial Paradise a garden of delights a place of peace and tranquillity an image of the state of Innocency and a foretaste of Felicity There would be no envy no detraction no quarrel no enmitie no injustice no fear or diffidence there would be no need of bolts upon doores nor locks upon coffers nor of guards nor sentinells but upon the frontiers But the other City where no body should be oblig'd to keep the commandements of God would be a forrest peopled with robbers who would pillage one another a den of Lyons who would tear and eate each other a Sty of hoggs who would wallow in all sorts of ordures 6. Have we not then cause to thanke God for giving us commandements so holy so just so saving and so amiable ought we not to submit our selves with much respect to the orders of his soveraignity The Epithetes which the scripture gives them ought to perswade us to it It says that they are Testimonies because they testify to us and certify us of that which God requires of us That they are Iudgments becaus they will condemne us if that we transgress them That they are justifications becaus they justify us and render us just before God when we keep them That they are wayes and paths because we go to Heaven by the observance of them which God of his mercy grant us Amen DISCOURS XXVIII Of the first Commandement I Am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of egipt and out of the house of bondage Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven thing nor any similitude that is in heaven above or in earth below or of things that are in the waters under the earth Thou shalt not adore nor serve them I am the Lord thy God strong and iealous visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation and shewing mercy to thousands of those that love me and keep my commandements Exod. 20. Some also of the Ancient put only these words r◠Thou shalt not have strange Gods or as other Versions have other Gods before me in the first commandement And they begin the second from the following words Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven thing and lest that by so doing they increase the number of the commandements which are called ten Words in the scripture they comprise these last words Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife Thou shalt not desire his house or other goods in one commandement But we divide these last words into two commandements and the first words which others divide we unite in one becaus this hath been more generally receiv'd aprov'd for the better division by S. Austin and is also more conformable Aug. Quest 71. in Exod. concl 1. in Psal 32. Ep 119. ad Ian c 11 lib. 15. cont Faustuns and els where Deut 5 to reason for the exteriour octs of adultery and theft being forbidden by two precepts should not the interiour acts or desires be prohibited by two commandements since these are as different as the other Nor does it make against us that the interiour acts seem in Exodus to be indistinctly and promiscuously prohibited by one precept since in Deuteronomy which is a repetition revision and an explication of the Law they are distinctly and severally prohibited and that the 70. Interpreters put these Precepts in both places as distinct and divers Since then we find divers prohibitions and divers acts prhibited in the last words and that the correspondent exterior acts are forbidden by divers precepts we have more reason to divide the last words than the first which forbid in substance but one kind of Sin and make one compleat and perfect prohibition of Idolatry which will yet more appear by the explication of them though this controversy raised by Calvin seems not to be of great importance since it imports not much how these words are divided provided that ten commandements be admitted and all the words acknowledged and observed 2. Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven thing nor any similitude God forbids not to make a statue Image or a representation absolutely either for ornament memory instruction help of devotion or for any good use or purpose whatsoever For He commanded soon after Images similitudes and representations of divers things to be made Images of Angells to wit Cherubins Exod 25. the similitude of a serpent Numbers 21. Representations of oxen and Lyons and other graven things 3. of kings 6. and 7. And therefore Protestants themselves Scruple not to have and make such things No Presbiterian or Puritan is so precise but he will engrave carve print and paint them
that deserves it from us But seeing that the holy Fathers declare all Nations acknowledg and nature it self does teach that the honor or dishonor don to an Image is referr'd to the Prototype or thing represented and is don by the Image to it We do not with the Iconoclast Hereticks break them trample them under feet and deface them as prophane or scoff at them as Idolls But on the contrary we reserve them lodg them decently make good uses of them and in occasion we kiss them we put off our hats and bow or kneell before them for to adore IESUS-CHRIST and honor his Saints by them And surely all this practise is some part of Christian duty since neither common sence reason nor religion will permit us to do less in this behalf to our Saviour and his friends in heaven then that which others do to honor and to shew their love to men on earth 9. Is it not then very strange that some will hold that to honor IESUS-CHRIST by his image is forbidden And is not this as unreasonable as that is strange to conclude from a fasly supposed prohibition that the worship is therefore terminated upon the image and is Idolatrous We have shewn that it is not forbidden by the Law to honor CHRIST by his image but to honor the image it self for CHRIST or instead of CHRIST And now we add that in case it were indeed forbidden yet it would not be Idolatry it would be stil the worship of the true God it would terminate upon Him as well as the offerings of the blind and lame which God had forbidden and yet complains that the jewes by them polluted Him It would terminate upon him as well as blasphemy Malac. 1. and other crimes which He forbids It would be then disobedience or some other sin But not Idolatry by which one gives Gods honor to a creature 10. oh your ignorant people at least do adore images themselves they pray to them and demand succour from them as from God and therefore it is better that the use of them should be abolished than that it should be the occasion of Idolatry It is very hard to judg that any are so ignorant since they cannot learn the first Article of the Creed nor the first of the Commandements but they must know that images are not Gods nor to be adored and since they must be as senseless as the images themselves that will pray to them or demand help of them But suppose there happen some abuse this must be very rare and easily removed and therefore is to be amended by instruction not by the abolishing of the adundant good use of images They go on to make us Transgressours of this commandement and Idolaters They say that we honour the Saints with divine worship and do them Soveraign homage that we do not only implore their inâ—ercession but pray the Saints to give us the things which we desire that we build Temples erect Altars and offer Sacrifice to them for we name the Church of S. Steeven the Altar of S. Peter the Mass of our B. Lady 11. These are great mistakes for we believe that God alone iâ— the Authour and the Giver of all good things this is our publick Doctrine set forth in the Councel of Trent inculcated to the faithfull in Catechismes and put often into the publick prayers SS 25. de Invoc Sanctorum of the Chruch Lord who art the Authour and Giver of all good things God from whom all good things com God the Giver of all good things When we say then sometimes to the Virgin help the miserable strengthen the weak comforr those that mourne and use these and the like expressions after S. Austin himself our sense and meaning is no other but to desire her to obtain for us of Aug. ser 18. de Sanct. in med God the blessings which we desire and which we believe that He alone can give 12. Nor is there a less mistake in the other part of the objection For we build no Churches erect not Altars nor offer Sacrifice to Saints For as S. Denys says the Temple is for the altar the Altar is for the Priest the Priest is for Sacrifice and Sacrifice is for God only And when we name the Church of S. Steeven the Altar of S. Peter or the Mass of our Lady We understand that the Church is dedicated the Alter consecrated and the Mass offered ro God in thanksgiving for the favours He hath don to the Virgin to S. Peter or to S. Steeven as when we name the Mass of the dead of marriage of peace of Travellers It is becaus we offer the sacrifice to God to demand of him rest of soules benediction of Mariage peace between Princes and a good journey for Travellers See what the Councel of Trent who knew best the faith and practise of the Church does say of it Though that the Church celebrates sometimes Masses in the honor and memory of Saints she ss 22. 3. teaches nevertheless that it is not to them that she offers sacrifice but to God alone who hath crowned them whence it is that the Priest says not S. Peter S. Paul I offer to you this Sactifice but to God to whom he gives thanks for their Victories imploring their intercession And so S. Austin teaches answering Faustus the Manichean Heretick who made the same objection against the Catholicks S. Aug. lib. 20. cont Faust of his time Some perhaps will say they cannot understand how we can offer Sacrifice to the honor of a Saint and not sacrifice to the Saint for whose honor it is offered 13. Know then that honor is but a signe a testimony or protestation of some excellency and that thanks given to God by words or Sacrifice for the gifts or graces bestowed on such persons is a testimony or protestation of such excellencie in those persons and therefore for their honor though both words and Sacrifice be directed to God and not to them If Protestants should keep a solemn day of thanksgiving to God for the wit and zeal their Doctor hath shewn against Popery this would be much to his honor though the thankes be given to God and not to him 14. Let us learn then by the unfortunate failings of others not to blaspheme that which we understand not Let us not fear Idolatry or fals worship following the general practise of that Church which alone does labour to extirpate Paganisme to ruine Idolls and Idolatry and to put in vogue this commandement But Let us beware to make other Idolls in our selves and to our selves which are harder to be extirpated and as pernicious to Salvation as those of Pagans For if we prefer our judgment before that of the Catholick Church we make an Idoll of our fancy or opinion and adore it If we affect a Creature disordinately against the commandement of God we erect an Idoll in our heart and adore it If we are intemperate subject
this Vertue another Saint Charles the Cardinal Boromeus honoured so much the holy scripture that also studying it he read it always kneeling and uncover'd The seraphical Saint Francis commanded that papers which had the name of God written in them should not be Prophan'd but plac'd in decent and convenient places S. Lewis forbid painting and graving of the Cross upon the pavement for fear the people should tread upon it On Festivalls and Vigills in honor of the Saint celebrated or of the Mistery solemnized he gave dinner to two hundred Poore and serv'd them at the table He fasted all fridays of the yeare and in those of Advent and Lent he eate neither fish nor fruit becaus these two Times are consecrated to God 6. If these great Saints were now on earth what would they say what would they do seeing the comportment of men What thinke they now in heaven seeing the irreligion of those who will not allow them any honor though God does honor them and honor be a due salary of their Vertue who count it superstition Luke 15. 6. Luke 16. Apoc. 5. 8. and 8. 4. Matth. 18. 10 to implore their intercession though they have credit and favour in the sight of God do hear our prayers do know our necessities have experienced our miseries and have Charity and affection for us as the scriptures tell us What thinke they seeing the indevotion of others who rise in the morning and go to bed at night as beasts who sit down to table at noon as Epicurians and pass over the day as if there were no God who even fear to assist often at the Sacrifice to frequent the Sacraments to adore God and pray him as they ought lest men laugh at them and call them devotes or hypocrites though they are not ashamed to do ill in open street What do they think in fine seeing such irreverences of men towards holy things They employ the time of holy days in playing in visits and drunkenness if they discours for pleasure and recreation it seems not well seasoned if it clash not upon Priests or Religious Persons if they com to the Church it is not to appease God but to offend him to see and to be seen They prophane the holy scripture and use it in their jests meriments and Scurrilities 7. Si Ego Pater ubi est honor meus If I am the Father where is my honour He might have sayd if I am King If I am Iudg. If nature teaches the most barbarous to honour their father who is more worthy of honor than He from whom we have received not Body only but also Soul and All 8. If we honor the King and also the Courtiers for his sake should we not honor the King of kings so great powerfull and Soveraign that all the Kings of the world are his Uassalls and are but wormes in respect of Him 9. If we honor Iudges becaus they have some Power in this world ought we not to honor him who is infinitely powerfull and from whom all power is dereiv'd And give also an inferiour honour to the Saints whom God does so much honor that He makes them our Iudges You shal sit says our great Iudg upon S. Matth 19. 28. 1. Kings 2. 30. seats judging the twelue Tribes of Israel Let us remember then what God says to Samuel whosoever shal glorify me I will glorify him and they that contemne me shal be base If we neglect the service of God if we respect not his friends and althings that specially appertain to him sooner or later we shal be contemn'd coâ—â—r'd with shame dishonour and infamy But if we honour him as we ought we shal be replenished with glory either in this world by the good odour of our reputation or in the other by the crown of justice which God reserves for us in Heaven Amen DISCOURS XXX OF THE SECOND COMMANDEMENT Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in Vaine For the Lord will not hold him innocent that shal take the name of the Lord his God in Vaine Exod. 20. THe royal Prophet representing to us the name of God as holy represents it at the same time as terrible and dreadfull Holy and terrible is his name Let us confess to thy great name becaus it is terrible and holy And he joy ns Majesty and power with Sanctity to imprint in our hearts reverence and to stricke terrour into us lest we should at any Psal 110 Psal 98. time dishonour him And God assures us in this Commendement that he will punish us for it that we may not pretend ignorance to be any caus of it The Lord will not hold him Innocent that shal take the name of the Lord his God in vaine In other sins the mercy of God pleads in favour of sinners demands pardon strives S. Iames. 2. 13. with justice and sometimes overcoms it and mercy exalteth it self above iudgment says S. Iames But in this sin the Verity of God joyns it self to justice and obliges God to punish the prophaner lest his word do fail Is it not then a misery which de serves to be deplor'd with teares of blood to see that there is nothing so licenciously and frequently prophan'd and abus'd by Christians as the name of God by pronouncing his holy name irreverently violating Vowes unworthily swearing falsly or prophanely Cursing or blaspheming detestably 2. But some will say Oathes are they essentially naught Is it not permitted to swear sometimes Yes 't is lawfull since the Scripture permits and approves it Saints have practised it and God himself vouchsafes to sweare The Prophet Hieremy permits us Hierem 4. 2. Psal 62. 12. Apoc. 10. 6. Gen. 14. 22. 3. kings 17. 1. Rom. 19. 2. Cor. 1. 23. Gal. 1. 20 Gen. 22. 16. Hier. 22. 24. Luke 1. 73. Psal 109 to sweare in the name of God provided it be with all necessary circumstances David praises those that sweare by the true God not by fals Deities as Pagans did Angells Patriarks Prophets and Apostles have sometimes sworn An Angel in the Apocalyps lifts up his hand to heaven and sweares by him that lives for ever and ever that after judgment there will be no more time In the book of Genesis the Patriarke Abraham says to the King of Sodom I lift up my hand to the most high Majesty of God who possesses heaven and Earth In the third book of kings the Prophet Elias sayd by the living God in whose sight I stand S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans God is my witness that without intermission I make a memory of you In the second to the Corinthians I call God to witness upon my soul that sparing you I came not any more to Corinth And in the Epistle to the Galatians Behold before God that I ly not God himself whose least word is more firm then heaven and earth having nothing greater then himself vouchsafes to sweare by himself and by
his life And the Psalmist says expresly The Lord hath Sworn 3. It is true then that absolutely speaking an Oath that is accompanied with all its circumstances is neither mortal nor venial sin on the contrary it is a vertuous and meritorious action It is an Act of the vertue of Religion which hath for its object the payment to God and his divine Perfections the honour and homage that we owe him When an oath is well made we honor the Immensitie Science and Veracity of God Calling him to witness what we say we acknowledg him to be in all places present with all his creatures to know all that passeth in this world and to be the Soveraign and infallible Verity Source and Origin of all verity who authorizes by his testimony all truthes 4. There are divers sorts of oathes But that I may not burden your memory I will distinguish them into 3. kinds only which Divinity calls Assertory Promissory Execratory 5 First the Assertory is when you ascertain any thing that is past or present calling God to witness what you say calling him I say either by himself as when you say by God before God I say this in the presence of God or by some creature S. Matt. 5. that hath relation to him as when you say by my soul by this light by this fire so JESVS-CHRIST says in the Gospell that to sweare by heaven is to sweare by the Throne of God to sweare by the earth is to swear by the footstool of his feet 6. Secondly the Promissory is when you promis under oath to do or not to do any thing And You commit perjury and offend God mortally if you have not an intention to do or not to do what you promis or if you know that you cannot do it or if afterward you voluntarily fail to do what you promised in a matter of importance 7. In the third place the Execratory or oath of imprecation is then when to assure any thing you call God not only to witness what you say but you call him moreover to reveng the ly in case you say not true as when you say God punish me may I die presently never may I go out of this place Never may I see God the Divell take me if this be not true it is as much as if you sayd if I say not true I will that God permit that I die that I never depart from hence that the Divell carry me away c. 8. And it happens sometimes that God takes such swearers at their word and sends them the evill which they wished Niceforus Calixtus says that three Calumniators accusing the Bishop Narcissus of Adultery one of them sayd that he would dye if what he affirmed was not true another that he would be burnt the third that he might never see The first died suddenly the second was burnt with his house by a spark of fire that fell from his lamp the third having seen the punishment of his complices repented of his fault and wept so bitterly that he lost his sight 9. The Prophet Hieremiah above cited marks out to us the conditions wherewith an oath must be accompanied that it be not vitious but vertuous and meritorious Iurabis vivit Dominus in veritate in justitia judicio He permits you to sweare by the life of God or other oath provided that it be with truth with justice and with discretion 10. First with truth this circumstance is so absolutely necessary to an oath that if you swear an untruth or are not sure of what you sweare it is a perjury though it should be about the vallue of a pin I say though it should be upon the matter of a pin for it is not in this sin as in other kinds of crimes wherein the levitie of the matter makes the sin to be but venial here the levitie of the matter diminishes not the sin but encreases the malice of it for it is a greater contempt of God to abuse his authority and to call him to witness an untruth for a thing that is friyolous and of little consequence 11. And we must not only not sweare to assert an express and formally But not also to confirm a disguised and palliated untruth I call palliated lyes equivocations ambiguous words and of a double meaning for these deceive men they are subtil and crafty cheats And is it not a great evill to make use of the name of God and his credit to cheat and deceive men S. Isidore and S. Bernard tell us that what ever artifice of equivocation we use in swearing God who sees our conscience S. Isod lib. 2. sent 6. 31. S. Ber. lib. de mod bene vivendi ser 32. Aug. Ep. 224. ad Alipium takes our words according to the sense that he to whom we sweare does understand them S. Augustine concludes the same I doubt not says he but you ought to keep the fidelity of your promise according as he to whom you swore did understand it and not according to the ambiguity of your word whence it follows that those are perjured who contenting themselves to perform their words according to their own concealed sence of them have deceived the thoughts and expectations of him to whom they swore and consequently shal not be saved since the Prophet says that to go to heaven one must not in swearing deceive his Neighbor Qui jurat proximo suo non decipit 12 Secondly you must sweare with justice that is to say you must not sweare but that which is just and lawfull And therefore they sin grievously who swear to reveng themselves or to do any thing displeasing to God They are not at all oblig'd to keep such oathes since nobody can be oblig'd to do ill Nay they are oblig'd not to keep them becaus the Law of God obliges them not to do such things 13. In the third place it must be with judgment that is with prudence and maturity for things necessary and of importance and by reason of some obligation grounded in a vertue as charity justice or obedience For to sweare lightly rashly without just cause or necessity though it be for verity is a sin and moreover the cause of many inconvenients It is an irreverence and a dishonour of God to call him for witness in things that are frivolous or of little or no importance 'T is as if Lackeys playing in the court of Whitehall should call the King to be Arbitrator in all their childish disputes and differences 14. But take the inconveniences which do follow this accursed language from Ecclesiasticus or rather from the holy Ghost A man that is given to swearing shall be filled with iniquity and Ecclus. 33. 12. his house shal be always afflicted He shal be filled with his own sins which he commits by swearing lightly and also with those of others who will learn to sweare by his example and through the force of custome forsweare also themselves
us after this not unprofitable digression return to the definition 5. Dictum vel factum a word or action In this word Action is couched Omission when you can do an action which would hinder the offence of God and you do it not IESVS being required to pay tribute declares himself not oblig'd and nevertheless he pay'd it lest He should scandalize the farmers So the Virgin circumcised her Son and submitted herself to the law of purification for fear of giving ill example So S. Paul says the Ancient Philosophers having known the true God by the light of nature and having not communicated this knowledg to the rest of men to draw them from Idolatry incurr'd the anger of God and were guilty of all sins the people committed for want of that knowledg We are then culpable when we ought to correct reprehend or punish the defects of others and do not we scandalise them for they say there is no ill in this my Parents Confessor Superior say nothing to me of it 6. Minus rectum This word teaches us that if an action be good and laudable commanded by God or his Church we ought not to omit it though our neighbor be scandalized by it if one is scandalized when you say the truth 't is better to permit scandal then to oppose Verity says S. Gregory T is a Pharisaical scandal a S. Greg. hom 7. in Ezec. passive scandal not an active a scandal taken not given 7. And if the action be good and laudable but not of obligation ought we to omit it if one will be scandalized by it S. Thomas answers learnedly with a distinction either our neighbour is scandalized maliciously and out of a spirit of contradiction 2. 2. q. 43. ar 7. or is scandalised through ignorance or infirmity if he be scandalised maliciously we ought not to omit our good worke for 't is his own fault and not ours He does as the Pharesees who were scandalized maliciously by the predications of IESUS But IESUS contemn'd their scandal and left not off his preaching If he be scandalized through ignorance or through weakness 't is better to do your good worke in private or to omit it for a time than to give an occasion to your neighbor to fall into any sin And with much more reason if the action be of it self indifferent neither good nor evill charity obliges us to omit it when it would be an occasion of sin or temptation to our neighbor If you offend your neighbor giving him occasion of sin through his weakness you offend our Lord and therefore If I know my brother is scandalized to see me eate flesh I will never eate it lest I scandalize my hrother says S. Paul 1. Cor. 8. 12. Rom. 14. 15. 20. And again do not with thy meat destroy him for whom CHRIST dyed Destroy not the worke of God for meat Though then an action be permitted if it be not commanded we must abstain from it if it be a snare or stumblingblock to infirme and weak soules 8. Prebens alicui giving occasion to our neighbor Some may imagin that 't is not to be scandalous if they do not a publick action which is manifest to many But our Saviour says if you move Matt. 18. to sin but one only you are scandalous You say they are simple and weak people that are tempted by such an action or such a word the wise and well grounded in vertue are not moved by it IESUS says you must not scandalize one of the lesser ones unum de pusillis and S. Paul tells us that in scan dalizing the weak ones we sin against IESUS-CHRIST And the Son of God adds Voe mundo a scandalis Woe to the world for scandalls He Speakes so becaus the world is full of them and becaus they destroy so many souls so dear and precious to him 9. It seems that soules are more dear to IESUS than his innocent blood He willed it should be prophan'd and trod under feet for the ransome of these beloved soules I leave you to think what punishment and what reproches we shal receive from him if by our bad exemple or by our negligence we let any one of these soules fall into sin and damnation Believe that in the houre of your death nothing will cause you more regret nor afflict you more than the sight of the soules which by your fault are lost You will acknowledg this truth and feel the weight of these dreadfull words Vae homini illi per quem scandalum venit woe to the persone by whom Matt. 18. 7. Scandal coms You will see all the graces God had given to soules through your fault lost all the merits they had gotten all that our Saviour did and suffered for their salvation and you will with sorrow and sighing say Ha! I have destroy'd soules for which JESUS CHRIST dyed how shal I restore to him the blood which He hath shed vae homini illi wo be to that person It were better for you one had tyed a milstone about your neck and thrown you into the Sea You will see the excellency and the value of the soules you have cast away and this will oppress you with griefe as if you had a milstone upon your heart You will see that those who learnt of you the vanities of the world will teach their children them these will derive them to their descendents unto the third or fourth generation all which will be imputed to you this sight will cast you even into despaire Will you avoyd this miserable condition Do not by bad examples indiscreet words or negligence destroy a soul for whom IESUS CHRIST dyed But if you have been so unhappy do judgment and justice punish your fault by true penance repair the loss as much as lies in you bring back the lost sheep to IESUS or if you cannot gain another in his stead by prayers instructions aâ—d good examples so you may be confident of pardon God hath promised it Amen DISCOVRS XXXVI OF THE SIXTH AND NINTH COMMANDEMENTS thou shalt not commit Adultery Thou shalt not couet thy neighbours Wife Amongst all the irregular motions of a man there is none more contrary to his nature nor more abominable to the Creatour than the unhappy vice of carnality It is contrary to mans nature becaus it is beastly terrestrial and unworthy of a man In anger envy pride ambition there is some kind of spirit But luxury clouds the understanding depresses the faculties of the soul renders her unable to elevate her self above the objects of sense and impaires all that is manly in us 2. This vice is abominable to God who repented to have made man and sent a deluge to drowne the earth who consuin'd by fire four of the most florishing cityes of the world and slautered 24 thousand of his people at one time and 60 thousand at another in punishment of this sin Though this vice be so contrary to a man and
shal henceforth dare to doubt of it And He affirming and saying This is my blood who is he that shal doubt of it saying 't is not his blood Heretofore in Cana of Gallilee He changed water into wine is He not worthy to be believed changing wine into into blood Vnder the species of bread the Body is given and under the species of wine the blood is given his Body and his blood is receiv'd into our members That which seems bread is not bread though the taste preceives it such but the Body of Christ and that which seems wine is not wine though the taste represents it such but rhe Blood of Christ S. Cyrill of Alexandria who assisted in the third general Councel held at Ephesus in his 13. book upon Leviticus in the middle says Lest we should have horour of flesh and blood put upon our Altars God condescending to our weakness infuses into the things we offer to wit into bread and wine the vertue of life converting them into the verity of his own flesh S. Crysostome preaching to the people brings in our Saviour speaking thus to them Many Parents give their children to others Chrysost ham 61. ad pop Antioch to be nourished But not so I with my own flesh J nourish you and set my self as meat before you J took upon my self flesh and blood for you and the very same flesh and blood I deliver again to you Let vs ioyn to the Golden mouth to the Ambrosian mouth that is to say S. Ambrose to S. Chrysostom This bread before the Sacramental words is bread but when the consecration is don of bread is made the flesh of CHRIST by what words of IESUS CHRIST by the word which made althings the Heaven was not before the creation the sea was not the earth was not but He spoke and they were made He commanded and they were created so I answer you before the Consecration this was not the Body of Christ but after Consecration J say to you that 't is the Body of IESUS IESUS hath spoke the words In Africa they Spoke as they did in Italy becaus they had there the same faith which made S. Cyprian or the Authour of the supper of our Lord to say the bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being changed not in appearance but in nature was made flesh by the omnipotency of the Word In fine great S. Augustine in a sermon upon the Title of the 33 Psalm admiring these words And He was carried in his own hands sayd this cannot be understood of David nor of any other than of Iesus CHRIST for who is he that can carry himself in his hands But IESUS CHRIST carried himself in his hand when He sayd to his Disciples take eate This is my Body If you will weigh with me the circumstances of the Institution of this Sacrament you will have no difficulty to embrace the faith of these holy Doctors and you will see the great injury they do our Lord who say that He gave to his Disciples but only bread as the figure and the memory of his Body 4. Let us consider first who He is that says these words This in my Body T is the Son of God who is all Power â—isdom Goodness We may well comtemplate in Him these Perfections since He himself considers them to accomplish this Mistery T is S. Iohn that says it JESUS knowing that the Father gave athings into his hands Iohn 13. that He came from God and goes to God whereas he had loved his that were in the world unto the end He loved them IESUS in the last supper considers that his Father gave althings into his hands that He had an infinite power and nothing was impossible to Him He considers that He came from God that He is the increated Wisdom produced by the Father by way of understanding and knowledg He considers that He had excessively loved men making himself man for them that it was the property of his infinite Goodness to Communicate it self to them more and more and to love them unto the end Ought He to consider all these things to give them a morcel of bread And is this a Donary beseeming such a Donor In the second place to whom does He speak Saying This is my Body To his beloved Disciples to whom He had sayd I will not call you servants but my friends becaus I have made known to you all that I have received from my Father He speaks to his Apostles to whom He was accuâ—â—omed to speak clearly without Parable or figure or if He proposed any to them He explicated the same presently He sayd to them You have the priviledg to know the secrets of the kingdom of God but to the rest I propose them in Parables He speaks to his Embassadors whom He sends to instruct the world Is it not to Embassadors that a King is wont to discover his designes to open the secrets of his heart to give particular Instructions that they may negotiate the better his affaires And IESUS saying that He gives his body saying it I say to his Friends Apostles Embassadors shal He â—ave deceived them and instead of his precious Body shal He have given them a morcel of bread Let us Consider in the third place the Circumstance of Time He eates first the Paschal Lamb with them and afterward to mount up to a higher Misterie to pass from the figure to the reality from the image to the verity from the promise to the accomplishment and from the shadow to the Body He gives them his precious Body If the bread that He gave them were not his Body but a figure only it would be in vain that He gave it it would be an unprofitable and superfluous repetition not of word but deed since the Paschal Lamb was a figure more express more distinct and more significant of his Body than a morcel of bread In giving it to them He sayd with desire I have desired to eate this Pasche with you before I suffer This desire was not only to eate the Paschal Lamb with his Disciples since He had eaten it so often with them and that He had had this desire lo long with desire I have desired says He that is J have long since vehemently desired and this desire of IESUS this great desire of IESUS this desire which the amorous heart of JESUS hath had so long shal it not have had for object but to eate with his Apostles a morcel of bread He sayd before I suffer and S. Paul in which night He was betrayd 1. Cor. 11. 23. to make vs know that being neer his death He made his Will and Testament and He declares it in express words This Chalice is the new Testament in my blood A wise man who loves his children making his Will speaks as clearly as he can if any one makes it in doubtfull and ambiguous words 't is becaus he is little intelligent in
good will for us that He desires nothing more than to fill us with goods to embrace us and to unite himself to us for ever we must cast our selves into his armes as an infant into his mothers put into his hand with great confidence our affaires afflictions salvation and our family ô God! I trust in you you are infinitely good you give your self to me you will give surely that which is much less 7. The third conformitie of the Eucharist with milk is in the manner of their operation First this is proper to milk amongst other nourishments that it is the whole feast and the entire refection of the infant it Satisfys hunger and thirst and serves him for meat and drink And this is also proper to the Eucharist that in one only Species of it is contain'd the whole refection of the Soul you are as well communicated and spiritually fed in taking the Host alone as in receiving both Host and Chalice 8. Here Dissenters think that they have a great advantage of us declaming against our communion in one kind But I see not how they can except against it For whatsoever the protestant people do in receiving of this Sacrament Catholicks do or may do too and what more ought to be don the Catholick Church does it and the Protestants do it not must one feed upon Christ Crucified by Faith Catholicks do it must the Eucharist be taken in remembrance of Him and his Death and Passion they do it must the people drink wine out of a Cup Catholick people do the like and over and above this they communicate the very Body of their Redeemer animated with his Soul full of blood and hypostatically united to his Deity this ought to be don to the end we may have life in us and Dissenters do it not But since they desist not to cry out and say that we deprive our people of the necessary means which Christ hath left them for their Salvation I must make you see that the holy Scripture the Fathers and Antiquity do authorize our practise 9. What pretend you in communicating Is it not to have eternall life you will acquire right to it in receiving but the Host for IESUS CHRIST sayd in most clear words He that eates Iohn 6. 51. and 58. Aug. tr 27. in Ioan of this bread shal live for ever And before the murmuration of the Capharnaits He spoke not of drinking his Blood but of eating his Body only He spoke not then of drinking his Blood but to answer to the gross thought of the Capharnaits and to tell them that they were not to eate his flesh separated from his blood dead cut and mangled as S. Austin says they thought but to eate his living Body full of blood Nor did He command all men to drink of the chalice or cup when He sayd in S. Matthew Drink ye all of this For these words were not spoken to all men nor to all the Faithfull But to all the Apostles and to them all only which is manifest out of the text it self for what S. Matthew says was commanded to all S. Marke relates to have been answerably perform'd by all they drank all thereof the second all is restrain'd to all the Apostles to whom only He spoke these words as also the other before and after and who were then made Priests what reason then is there to extend the former words farther then the Apostles Christ himself gave most S. Luke 24. probably the Eucharist under one only species to the Disciples that went to Emaus for He vanished says S. Luke as soone as they knew Him in breaking of the bread which S. Hierome S. Austin 5. Hier. in Fp. Paulae ad Eusto S. Aug. lib. 3. de consen Evang. c. 25. Et Ep. 59. ad Paulinum S. Paulinus V. Bede and other Doctors do understand and also prove to have been the holy Eucharist And 't is evident in S. Ambrose in Eusebius in S. Cyprian and in Tertullian that the primitive Church which would do nothing against the express command of Christ did give it often to the faithfull did carry it in journeys did send it to the absent and to the sick in one only kind or species and therefore they also held it to be as milk a whole and entire refection 9. Milk is given to an infant to nourish and make him grow and the Eucharist was instituted to make the children of the Church to increase and thrive in Christian perfection and therefore t is institituted under the species of bread which nourishes fortifys and causes groweth S. Ambr. orat de fratre suo Satyro Euseb lib. 6. c. 36. S. Cyprian de lapsis Tertull. lib. 2. ad uxor 10. Milk hath this property that it communicates often to infants the humours and the complexion of the Nource when the Poets describe a cruel man they are not content to say a rock hath brought him forth but they add that Tygars have given him suck And the holy Canons counsell mothers to nourse their own Children as much as may be for fear that giving them to vicious persons they suck with milk the ill humours of the nources The Son of God is not content to bring us forth in Baptisme He himself gives the brest He nourishes us with his own flesh that He may communicate his own inclinations to us He after communion sayd to his Disciples That the world may know I love my Father rise let us go to suffer for his glory So after communion we must examin our selves what service can I render to God what can I do that may conduce to his honor what is that in me or mine that displeases him and which I may correct if we use so this precious milk it will make us grow in perfection it will make us like to Him who nourishes us with his own substance it will give us his complexion and resemblance and if we resemble Him on earth in the life of grace we shal resemble Him in heaven in the life of glory Amen DISCOURS XLVI Of the Eucharist as a Sacrifice SAcrifice is a worship so noble and so proper to the Almighty as none either in heaven or in earth may partake with him in it So due to him and so necessary for men that every Law and Religion hath been stil anexed with a correspondent Sacrifice and Christians have all the reasons to honour God by it the Iews and those of the Law of nature ever had We are an externe and visible Congregation as they were We have the passion of the Messias to be represented before our eyes now with us past as with them it was to come we have the same God with the same worship to be honoured for received benefits to be praised for our sins to be appeased for favours to be invocated 2. Wherefore God promised us a Sacrifice by his Prophet Malachias Malac. 1. 10. where rejecting the ancient Sacrifices and
7. Exod. 22. 28. Them whom God himself calls Gods becaus they are his Vice-Roys Officers of his Crown His Ministers of state Secretaries of his commandements Iudges of his people Embassadors of his Majesty Mediators between God and men who announce the will of God to men and who present the desires of men to God We respect Embassadors also those of barbarous and infidell Kings with much more reason those which the king of Kings does send to us sayd S. Chrysostome 5. To create in our hearts a great respect to Priests Some alleadg the example of wise Salomon who sayd to Abiather the Priest you are guilty of death but I will not condemne you becaus you have carried the Arke Or the Example of Constantine the Great who in the Councel of Nice would not sit down but after all the Bishops and upon a little seat below them all And when one presented to him papers of complaints against some Priests he burnt them without reading them and being angry with the persone that gave them to him sayd it belongs to Priests to judg Emperours and not to Emperours to judg and condemn Priests and should I see a Priest commit a sin I would cover him with my Royal cloak for fear that any one should see him Other propose the example of S. Antony This great Saint this Patriarke of so many thousands of Anchorets that lived like Angells This great Antony of whose amity Emperours made so great account This Antony whome wild beasts obeyed at whose Name Devills trembled whose life converted so many Souls to God This great S. Antony I say honoured so much Priests that if he met the least of them he fell upon his knees and rose not up till he had received his benediction Or of the Seraphicall Father S. Francis who sayd that if he should meet an Angel and a Priest he would rather kiss the hands of the Priest than of the Angel Or of S. Catherine of Sienna who kissed the wayes and paths in which Priests had past 6. Is it not pity to see now that some Christians neglect them or contemne them under pretence that some of them are vicious If it be so does it pertain to them to speak of their vices are they judges of their Judges are they wiser than Salomon greater than Constantine more devout than S. Antony more fervent than S. Francis more innocent than S. Catherine and more zealous of the honor of God than God himself Who sayd by his Prophet Touch not my annointed Psal 104. 15. 7. Let us take heed Venerable Priests and honourable Fathers that we be not the cause or at least the occasion of this temerity that by our indevotions and immodesties by our irreverence in the Chruch and our conversations with the world we be not the cause of the little respect now given to our character and vocation How is the gold darkned and the best coulour changed says the Prophet Hieremie What 's becom of that splendour that luster Thren 4. and glory which heretofore shin'd in Clergiemen of that honor respect reverence and filial fear which they had for Ptiests in the primitive Church How is all this so decayed and obscured T is becaus then they saw not Priests but at the Altar in the Confessional or in the pulpit and now they are seen in Taverns in playhouses and in worldly companies IESUS says to us you are the light of the world we must shine so then that men may see our good workes and may be moved to glorify our Father which is in heaven But if our light be darkness if we falsify by our actions Christs Doctrine and maxims this ill example of one of us will ruine more the piety of the Faithfull than many other by their doctrine and good examples will be able to repair You are the salt of the earth salt is drawn out of water but if it be reunited to it it disolves and loses the propriety it had to prevent corruption a Priest is seperated from the people by his consecration if he rejoyn himself to them by a worldly conversation he loses the authority which he had to preserve them from the corruption of sin We are judges of others we must not be criminall God will examin us more axactly judg us more severely and punish us more rigorously SAVIOR IESUS high Priest and Pastor of our sols permit not that we give you caus to do it permit not that it may be truly sayd as the people so the Priest you are our inheritance our Lot and our Portion permit not that our inheritance pertain to others more than to us Make that our mouthes be not employed but to resound your praises that our comportment and our manners do express and represent your actions that our hearts be not enflam'd but in your love Amen DISCOVRS LI. of Matrimony 1. THe Mistery of the Incarnation is an alliance so advantagious and pleasing to the holy Humanity of IESUS that He would have not only in Churches but also in particular houses a continual image and a lively representation of it This is the legitimate alliance of man and woman of which I have three things to shew First that 't is a true and a great Sacrament secondly the Dutys to which it does oblige you Thirdly the honour you owe to it 2. If we weigh holy things not by the ballance of the opinion of Dissenters But By the weight of the sanctuary and by the judgment of the Church We shal avow that the legitimate Edhes 5. 32. S. Ambr. c. 7. S. Aug. de bono conjug c. 18. c. 24. alliance of man and woman is one of the most holy great and mysterious Sacraments of the Church 'T is a true Sacrament For besydes that the Apostle says in the Epistle to the Ephesians This is a great Sacrament the Fathers of the Church teach it S. Ambrose speaking of an Adulterer says he loses the grace of the heavenly Sacrament S. Austin tels us in the marriages of Christians the sanctity of the Sacrament is of more value than the fâ—cundity of the womb And againe amongst infidells marriage hath for its end propagation and fidelity but amongst Christians it hath moreover the sanctity of the Sacrament Not only these but other holy Fathers the Councills and the Tradition of the Vniversal Church ever taught the same hence it was that in the Instruction of the Armenians given in the Council of Florence it is numbred with the other Sacraments Trid. ss 24. can 1. hoth Grecians and Latins consenting to it And that the Councill of Trent pronounces anathema against those that shal say marriage is not a proper Sacrament instituted by IESVS CHRIST 3. Let us say then that 't is a true Sacrament nay let us say that 't is a Great one Great in its Caus Great in its Mater and Great in its Effects S. Austin very indiciously did say that as in the primitive Church the holy