Hierusalem that this bread which is seene by vs is not bread although the tast esteeme it to be bread but that it is the body of Christ Many mothers saith (i) Chrysost hom 83. in Matt. S. Chrysostome put out their children when they are borne to be nurst by others but Christ our Lord would not doe soe but doth nourish vs with his owne body and so doth conioyne glew vs to himselfe O miracle (k) Chrysost l. 3. de Sacerde tio O benignity of God sayth the same S. Chrysostome He that sitteth aboue with the Father at the same instant is handled by the hands of all and he deliuers himselfe vp to such as will receaue and imbrace him And in (l) Chrysost hom 24 c. 10.1 Epist ad Corinth another place he sayth thus That which is in the Chalice flowed out of his side and of that doe we communicate This indeed as sayth S. (m) Saint Ephrem who was familiar with Saint Basil the great lib. de natura Dei non serutanda cap. 5. Ephrem exceedeth all admiration all speach and all conceipt which Christ our Sauiour the only begotten sonne of God hath done To vs who are clad with flesh he hath giuen fire and spirit to eate namely his body and his bloud My bread sayth (n) Ambros l. 4. de Sacra menâ—is S. Ambrose is vsuall bread but this bread is bread before the words of the Sacrament but wheÌ„ the coÌ„secration once doth come of bread it is made the flesh of Christ. Let vs therfore settle this point how that which is bread can be made the body of Christ By consecration This consecration of what speach and words doth it consist Of the words and speach of our Lord Iesus For all the rest which is said is either prayse giuen to God or there are particular prayers made for the people and for Kings and others But when he comes to the tyme of making the B. Sacrament the Priest doth no longer speake in his owne words but in the words of Christ The speach therfore of Christ is that which makes this Sacrament What speach of Christ Thevery same wherby al things were made Our Lord commaunded and the heauen was made Our Lord commaunded and the earth was made Our Lord commaunded and the sea was made Our Lord commaunded al the creatures were made Thou seest therfore how effectually the speach of Christ doth work If (o) Note this consequence then there be such power in the speach of our Lord Iesus as to make those things be which were not how much more effectually will it worke towards the making of them be which are and to make them be changed into other then what they were Therefore (p) Marke well the expresse authority of this Saint that I may answere thee I say That it was not the body of Christ before the consecration but after the consecration I say to thee that then it is the body of Christ. Christ was carried sayth (q) Aug. in Psal 33. Conc. 1. Ibid. S. Augustine in his owne hands when commending his body to his Apostles he said Hoc est corpus meum this is my body for then he carried his body in his hands And agayne Our Lord would place our saluation in his body and bloud But how did he commend his body and bloud to vs In his humility For vnlesse he were humble he would not be eaten and drunke The good Pastour sayth (r) Greg. in hom 14. in Euang. S. Gregory the great laid downe his life for his sheepe that he might turne his body and bloud into our Sacrament might feed the sheepe which he had redeemed by the nutriment of his flesh Vnder the species of bread sayth S. (s) Cyril Ierosol in Catech. Myst 4. Cyrillus Ierosolymitanus the body is giuen thee and vnder the species of bloud the wine that so thou maist become participant of his body bloud So shall we by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Carryers of Christ when we shall haue receiued his body and bloud into our body and so as S. Peter saith we shall be made consorts of the diuine nature And according to that of S. (t) Cyril l. 10. in Iohn c. 11. Cyrill if any man shall mingle wax which is melted by fire with other wax which is also melted in such sort that they both doe seeme to be but one made of both so by the coniunction of the body and bloud of Christ our Lord he is in vs and we in him S. (u) Greg. l. 4. Dialog c. 58. Gregory doth surther say What faithfull soule can doubt but that in the very hower of the Sacrifice the heauens doe open at the voyce of the Priest and that in this mystery of Christ Iesus the Quires of the Angells doe assist the highest and the lowest things doe meete Terrestriall and Celestiall things are ioyned and there is made one thinge of things which are visible and inuisible Heere then we are taught by the holy Fathers of the Church whome I might haue cited to this purpose both more at large and more in number the inscrutable loue of our Lord IESVS to mankind expressed in these high mysteries of the blessed Sacrament and the holy Sacrifice of the Masse But how shall we be able to disingage our selues for being euen ouerwhelmed with the huge weight therof since the superexcellent Humanity of our (x) The incompable dignity of the person of Christ our Lord. Lord IESVS consisting of that pretious body which first was framed out of purest bloud of the all-immaculate Virgin by the only hand of the holy Ghost and of that glorious soule which in the first instaÌ„t of the creation therof was hypostatically vnited to God the sonne the second person of the most B. Trinity and the same person being indiuisible from the other two of God the Father and God the holy Ghost that this person I say of Christ our Lord should be communicated to all the Priests of the holy Catholike Church to be offred daily ouer all the world and to be receiued into the brest both of them and al the other faithfull children of that mother as often as theÌ„selues should desire What Cherubim is able to discouer the greatnes of this benefit and what Seraphim hath his hart hoat inough to breath out such ardent flames of loue as grow due to God vpoÌ„ this account How full of reason was the exclamation and admiration of holy Dauid when he said Psalm 34. 9. That there was none like to God in the cogitations which he interteyned for our Good No man no creature could euer haue aspired to such a happines or so much as to haue conceaued that euen the diuine nature it selfe had bene able to expresse such goodnes But God is God and God is loue and the loue euen of Creatures is full of (y) How full of Inuention great loue is inuention for
therof as shortly vvill be shevved more at large And since our blessed Lord vvas content to repeate the selfe same prayer thrice vve are to pitty the poore men vvho vvill needs be our aduersaries vvhilst they laugh and scoffe at vs for our often repetition of the same (f) That Repetitiō of the same prayers is commended by the example of Christ our Lord. Prayers Indeed if vve did but say them vvith the lips and tongue alone as they impose vpon vs tooke not care to accompany them vvith the application and attention of our minde they might still laugh on and the deuill vvould keepe them company therin But othervvise vve see by this mystery of the Garden that Repetition of Prayers is no ill custome if vve vse it as vve ought And then if still they vvill needs be laughing at as for the vse therof they vvill be faine to doe it alone for the deuill is not such a foole as to doe so too since he knovves he looses by the bargaine A heauy Agony to our Lord IESVS that vvas but a happy one for vs since he offred it to the eternall Father for the obtayning of comfort and strength not (g) That Agony of our Lord got cōfort for vs both in our afflictions of mind and diseases of body only in all the distresses of minde as vvas said before but in all the deadly diseases of body also vvhich might come to carry vs out of this life And it is in vertue of this Agony that vve see the seruants of God so full of patience and courage and sometymes euen of ioy vvhen they are vpō that bed euē as it were in the very iavves of death Nor vvhen they are abandoned by the help of the vvhole vvorld and vvhē their corporal strength is entirely gone can yet all the proud deuills in hell vvho are then imploying all the force and fraude they haue to their perdition disquiet their conscience or disturbe their peace What griefe it must needs cause to our blessed Lord to be estranged from feeling comfort in God CHAP. 55. BVT vvhat might that be the very apprehension vvherof vvrought so impetuously vpon our blessed Lord vvhome nothing had bene obserued to distemper in the least degree through all the course of his holy life vvhat kind of thing I say must that be vvhich durst assault his hart vvith sorrovv Or of vvhat had he bene ignorant till then the knowledge wherof at that tyme might be able to put the powers of his mind into that appearance of disorder His knowledge was still the same but his loue in some sort was not the same for it seemes as if euery minute of his life he had bene adding new feathers to those wings wherby his hart was flying towards the comfort of ours And knowing of how great aduantage to vs his humility and patience would be in the sight of God (a) Our Lord was pleased to suffer much for vs whom he loued so much it was only his pleasure at that tyme as hath been sayd to hide the comfort of his diuinity from the inferiour part of his soule wherby those apprehensions and reasons of griefe and desolation were of vnspeakeable torment to his minde Which so long as it was feeding vpon the cleere and sensible vision of God could not so much as once distract it from incessant ioy Whereas novv he vvas so very farre from ioy that vve see him as if he had been halfe ouercome with griefe To let vs knowe by the way that as all our burthens are light when they are carryed vpō our backs by the help of God so when he retyreth his holy hand there is not the least of thē which may not trouble the strongest Saint that liues But the obiect which caused such excessiue anguish to our Lord IESVS which wrought so farre euen vpon his sacred body as to make it vtter a prodigious svveat of very bloud and that not by drops but as it vvere by streames and flood Luc. 22. vvhich did not trickle but run downe a maine from the heauenly earth of his body to the terrestriall earth wheron he kneeled which was made a kind of heauen by drinking vp that quintessēce of life was (b) The dishonour of God and the perdition of man was the two edged sword which cut our B. Sauiours hart in funder the glory of God which he saw prophaned by the sinne of man and the soules of all mankind wherof he loued euery one a million of times more then his owne pretious life addicted to the eternall torments of hell fire For this was that sword with a double edge which did as it were cut his soule in sunder Who is also able to imagine what a sad affliction it must be to him to be depriued for one moment of the feeling of that soueraigne delight ioy wherewith he did so abound from the very instant of his Conception by the sensible shining of his diuinity vpon his whole soule which now in part was abridged thereof The want of any communication of Almighty God to a hart which hath seen light in light is of so great moment how little soeuer it be that it wōds that hart with much griefe which doth well discerne that nothing of that kind is little To know any thing of God by way of sensible experience doth kindle in the spirit a very furnace of desire to enioy the rest And how much sorrow then must it feele to be depriued euen of what it had The liues of Saintes are full of the sweet and sad complaints which they haue made to God vpon such occasions and in particular you may see store of this in the life of that great woman Blessed Mother Teresa of Iesus which was written by her selfe vpon the commaundement of her ghostly Father And not only did this holy Passion raigne among such soules departed as the Church esteemeth to be Saints but by the goodnes of God we haue met with some amongst the creatures who are yet in flesh and bloud who seruing God in great purity in conformity therof hauing bene admitted to some deere imbracemēts of that heauēly spouse of their soules haue gone lamētably mourning and that for a long tyme together like so many Turtles for the absence of their beloued through the wāt of that infinite Good wherof before they had beene admitted to take a taste They (c) The great sorrow which is felt by the spouse of Christ vpon any hiding of himselfe from a soule or euen by liuing in this Pilgrimage are so deeply wounded with loue that to be hindred from inioying him is wont to giue them excessiue griefe They feele it so much as they know not how they shall endure that want since the only remedy of all their other paines is the certaine (d) By often thinking vpō God meanes to increase this one paine of theirs For as a sore is most felt when it
thanks and ardent sighes as cleere and pure as God himselfe had sent them downe without the sticking of one graine or crumme of dust to her And therefore now if she were so absolute in that inward and profound contēpt of herselfe we shall cease to find it strange that so intirely she contēned exteriour things And yet of it selfe what a wonder was it for the Queene of heauen and earth to be so ioyfully deliuered of the euer liuing God in his misterious Natiuity as we haue seene before with all the circumstances of disaduantage dishonour that could be thought But the want of all worldly things was that sumptuous banquet vpon which the soule and body of the B. Virgin loued to feed for loue of him who had emptied himselfe into that Humanity for loue of vs and which obliged vs therby to discharge euen the lawfull loue of all other things wherin the height of purity doth consist Of the inexplicable Conformity of the will of the B. Virgin to the holy will of God in all thinges how deere soeuer it might cost her CHAP. 91. FROM hence did also grow that entyere Conformity of her will with the holy wise will of God which as she had neuer ouershot in the prosperous part of her life as at the salutation of the Angell and S. Elizabeth when her Sonne was adored by the three kings in his royall throne of her lap so did she neuer fall short of it to the breadth of a hayre in any affliction or tribulation We saw before in part what her Humility was and how profoundly low it layd her owne account and how pure she kept her hart frō any cōplacence in her self vpon those highest prayses wherwith the Angell and S. Elizabeth did adorne celebrate her grace greatnes We (a) How deeply true humility abhorreth prayse know withall both by the cleere light of truth and by the faithfull records of Saints liues that an ambitious person cannot more greedily hunt after prayse then a soule truly humble will shrinke in and auoyd and abhorre the same And if euen a man who is but moderatly vaine will not easily be induced euen for very shame to prayse himselfe very much and with deliberation what an vnspeakeable auersion must needs that most humble of all humble soules haue had from all extolling of herselfe But yet since the will of God was such Luc. 1. and that the holy Ghost was pleased to vse the instrument of her tongue which of it selfe was so truly a louer of holy humble silence towards the proclayming of her owne prerogatiues and greatnes she did most ioyfully concurre to prayse herselfe and to avow that God hath done great things to her and that for them all Generations should call her blessed It was the will of God that her Sonne should fly as by the wings of her armes into Egipt for feare of that Kite King Herod and she went vpon a minutes warning with a Conformity (b) How a will which is in a conformity to the will of God must be both supple and stifie as stiff as any rocke withall as supple and gentle as any wax with a resiguation so profound as not so much as to aske when she should be freed from that Crosse It was Gods will that S. Ioseph should haue the honour of the Angels visit Matt. 2◠that she should obey a mā whose incōparable Dignity did much consist in this that he was admitted to take the care of her and to do her seruice yet behould she did punctually obey all his orders in her delight to be complying with the commaundement of our Lord God as if she had bene the beggar he the King And that we may see how many businesses the holy Ghost is able to do at once and how by commāding some one thing he giueth matter for many soules to persorme the acts of most heroicall vertue at the same tyme Vt reuelentur ex multis cordibus cogitationes it will not be a misse to consider as infallibly the thing is true in it selfe that as it was a point of most humble and pure Conformity for the B. Virgin to take law from (c) How holy S. Ioseph was mortified in being obliged to giue orders to our B. Lady S. Ioseph so was it matter of excessiue mortification to his most holy most wise and most faithfull soule to giue directions as by meanes of reuelation to that superexcellent mother of God whome so profoundly he did reueare and admire sauing only that he also would obey the diuine will therin But to returne to the Conformity of the B. Virgin and to make short in this particular and to say the chiefe of that which can be said in a word It was the will of our Lord God that his Sonne and hers being both God and man and euen as man being the most innocent and most excellent holy person that euer was should be put to the grieuous and most ignominious death of the Crosse And she saw that he had bene buffeted and dragged and hoodwincked and scourged Crowned with thornes pierced with nayles and defiled with spittle defamed with slaunders and profaned with blasphemies exposed starke naked to the view of the world vpon that top of a hill and placed betwene a coople of murdring theeues and so he continued till at last he parted with his pretious life being all dissolued into a very fountaine of bloud This I say she saw and because his death was agreeable to the will and the manner of it to the permission of our Lord God she resolued with ineffable strength of minde to will all that part of his death which God would and to permit all that which he (d) The vnspeakeable cōformity of our B. Ladies wil to the will of God permitted And she laid her selfe so wholy aside as not only not to giue it the least impediment but not so much as once to harbour the least thought that way And notwithstanding that she grieued at it more then all the creatures of God togeather could haue grieued though all their griefe had bene summed vp into one drop of griefe since she loued him more then they all could do and the griefe tooke measure by the loue she yet looked on whilst this was done and she stood vpon her feete which is the posture of strength and she turned her hart vp to God by way of offering vp euen that Sonne in vnion of his owne diuine oblation and she endured all that torment with inuincible patience And whilst (e) What a miracle of grace was this Luc. 1. the sword of sorrow which S. Simeon had foretold and which for the space of so many yeares she had with a most steady eye foreseene with the point still turned towards her and with a most carefull hart considered and which she was then in the very act of Feeling to passe and transpierce her
contynue his generall custome in speaking softly but cryed out with a loud voyce and he did it vpon the last day of the feast of the Tabernacles which was a tyme of great solemnity that so he might be heard by the greater number of people and he inuited them all Ioan. 71 to drinke of that water of life with a full mouth Confess l. 12. cap. 10. For he indeed is the true fountaine of life Hunc bibam tunc viuam saith S. Augustiue Let me drinke of him and I shall liue What (f) His ardēt sighes groans scalding sighes what profound internall groanes would that flaming hart be often sending out by his sacred mouth to the Iustice seate of God wherof we finde some expresly to be recorded in the holy Texte that so the diuine Maiesty Marc. 71 beholding the sorrowes of his soule might be obliged to forgiue the sinnes of ours How deere (g) The charming accent of his voice and how delightfull must the ordinary accent be of his heauenly voyce since the accent euer carrieth a kind of neerer coniunction to the mind and which euen for that cause can hardly be described by any words And now the nearer it was to the incomparable soule of Christ our Lord who can doubt but that needs it must be so much the fuller of delight and grace But especially how beautifull were those holy happy (h) The inestimable pure and perfect beauty of his eyes Gen. 49. eyes of his those heauēly Orbes And what felicity was theirs who might at leasure glasse themselues therin they being so full of latent Maiesty but yet sweetned by such Humility and Charity Those eyes which are pulchriores vino as the Patriarch Iacob saith speaking literally of Christ our Lord for the quality they had to inebriate with being looked vpon farre more powerfully and more sweetely then any most pretious wine can doe the man who drinks it With what kind of modest grace do we thinke that he vvould now be raysing them vp Ioan. 11. towards heauen beholding the Creatures in Almighty God and then returning them downe to the earth Ioan. 8. to see God in his Creatures And what kind of fountaines do we thinke they grew to be when they did so often swymme in teares through the compassion of our miseries Haebr 5. ◠Luc. 19. and the remission of our sinnes at the raysing of Lazarus for the ruines of Ierusalem at the giuing vp of his soule into the eternall Fathers hand and those many tymes more which are not set downe in the sacred text How sweetly would they lay themselues to sleepe being folded vp in those liddes the only sheets which any part of him did vse for the releese of that frayle nature which for our sakes he had assumed And he lent them rest with so much the better will because (i) Christ our Lord did negotiate our saluation with God as well whē he was sleeping as waking Ioan. 2. Matt. 4. sleepe gaue no impediment to the working of his minde for our good the knowledge of which mind was no way as hath beene said else where dependant vpon his Fancy as ours is How were they able when he was pleased to do it to pierce the hartes of men by way of terrour when for the zeale of his Fathers glory he punished the buyers sellers in the Temple vvithout their daring once to bring him to the least account for that supposed excesse And by way of powerfull mercy when seing his Apostles he called them at once from the world to his eternall seruice And looking afterward vpon S. Peter in the tyme of his passion by only looking (l) The lookes of Christ our Lord did moue S. Peeter to contrition Luc. 72. Luc. 7. he retyred him at an instant from his sinnes as wil be seen more at large afterward And not only did those eyes so full of maiesty and modesty and humility suauity captiue those hartes which they beheld but others who beheld them were as inseparably also captiued therby as if there had beene no place left for election whether they would be takē prisoners or no. The enamoured (m) How the diuine presence of Christ our Lord did most chastly captiue the soule of S. Mary Magdalen Penitent S. Mary Magdalene who formerly was so abandoned to the pleasure of sense found her soule so maistered by this diuine obiect of our B. Sauiours presence that her former honny did instantly turne gall and she was so ingulfed into a sea of chast and pure delight that in the life tyme of our Lord she did euen as it were nayle her selfe to his sacred feet Nay she forsooke them not in his very passion when they were nayled to the Crosse She was in chase of them till his Resurection and after his Ascension she confined her selfe for all those thirty yeares of her suruiuing to a rude and most retyred desert disdayning with a holy kind of scorne that her eyes should feed vpon any other obiect then that which her memory would euer be sure to help her to of her most beloued and most beautifull Lord. His sacred presence had not any superficiall or glearing beauty belonging to it but (n) The Beauty of Christ our Lord was so aboundāt as to make a mā despise all temporall riches a beauty which conteined a Mine of plenty S. Mathew shall witnes this and he shall do it better then by words For instantly vpon our Lords commaundement and their mutuall sight of one another he followed him and that for euer and he discouered in our Lord Iesus another mannor of beautifull abundance then all the whole world could helpe him to And perhaps there is not a better proofe of the rich beauty and excellency of our Lord nor a stranger conuersion of any man recorded Luc. 54 then of this Apostle Who was as we may say in flagranti crimine in the very seate and chaire of sinne beseiged by the company of others who were likely to be as much depraued as himselfe He was in the exercise and occasions of new extorsions and yet (o) The Cōuersiō of S. Matthew was most heroicall he left all without taking so much as an howers tyme to cleere his bookes of account which could not choose but be intricate And all this vpon the single sight hearing the voyce of a meere man as Christ our Lord appeared to be And yet I say so rich was our Sauiours beauty and so attractiue was his manner of speach that instātly it was able to draw that Publicā though he were besotted by desire of gayne to follow him who through his pouerty seemed withall to be the owner of no earthly thing but only of his owne indiuiduall person But the Maies̄ty and splendour of the diuinity though it lay hid Cōment in Matth. c. 7. did yet shine so brightly in his face of flesh bloud as S. Hierome
in the Temple With how vnspeable loue both to God and man did our Lord IESVS dispossesse himselfe for a while of the greatest ioy and comfort that he could receaue in this world which was the sweet society of his sacred mother wherein although through the eminency of grace which had beene communicated to her happy soule in the very first instant of her Immaculate Conception he could neuer haue found the least distraction from the immediate and most perfect seruice of Almighty God yet because the parents of his disciples and seruants would not all be such but would often be diuerting and diswading vs from corresponding with his inspirations and our obligations he was pleased not only to giue vs an example at large but euen to impart the very expresse words themselues wherby we might ouercome their intreaties And rather then we should not be instructed to forsake all flesh and bloud when once there should be question of Gods seruice and rather then we should not be armed well agaynst those temptatioÌ„s which might grow to vs from our Parents he was content to exemplify the case in his owne sacred person with a seeming diminution to his B. Mother For this it was that when the all-immaculate virgin spake to him in these tender words Sonne why hast thou so done to vs Lâ—â— 2. behold thy Father and I sorrowing did seeke thee Our B. Sauiour answered thus not in the way of reprehension as certayne course-harted people will needs conceaue but (e) In what sense our Lord Iesus spake to his B. mother out of compassion to them and out of instruction to vs Why is it that you sought me did you not knowe that I must be about those things which are my Father And to show that his meaning was but to benefit vs by that expression of himselfe and not to cast the least aspersion of imperfection vpon his most holy mother and S. Ioseph he caused his holy spirit to record it instantly after in holy Scripture that he departed from the Temple with them and came to Nazareth was subiect to them And heere let him that can consider and admire the vnspeakeable dignity and excellency of our B. Lady to whom the God of heauen earth would become a subiect And let him much more adore God for the infinite humility and Charity of our Lord IESVS (e) The incomparable loue of Lord in being so subiect to our B. Lady and S. Ioseph who vouchsafed by this stronge example of his to procure the quenching of our pride and the kindling of our loue by making himselfe a subiect to flesh and bloud for our sake he who was the superiour and soueraigne Lord of all the creatures both in heauen earth He shewed well what he was whilst yet he sate in the Temple amongst the Doctours Of whome he heard what they could say and he asked them to see what they would answere And many other things he also did at the same tyme though holy Scripture by wrapping them vp in silence doe rather leaue matter for our soules then for our senses to worke vpon For he did both pray his eternall Father for their conuersion to his diuine Maiesty and for the manifestation of his glory not only in their hartes vvho vvere present then but in as many as by their meanes should aftervvard come to knovv vvhat had passed there The sacred Text affirmes How all that heard him were aslonished at his wisedome and answeres and that seeing him they wondred And vve may vvell assure our selues that theyr admiring his diuine presence theyr being astonished at his vvisedome vvas to that holy soule of our Lord Iesus an occasion of much mortisication which nothing but ardent Charity could haue made him so willingly imbrace For he was then but twelue yeares old and he had bene bred in a poore and plaine appearance and he dwelt in the very depth of profound hamility And humility when indeed it is profound doth make a soule much more abhorre admiration and prayse then any hart which is vayne can appreh end and hate to be despised The vvhile if all they were so amazed by hearing him vvho vvere the Doctours of the law and vvho vvere likely to despise all the world in comparison of themselues and if the very sight of him made them wonder vvhose eyes vvere euen almost put out by the dust of Enuy and Hypocrysy vvhich the mind of pride had raysed into them which our Lord IESVS by the dropps of his diuine grace vvas procuring them to lay in a farre higher manner must (f) We are particularly bound to admire the wisedome and grace of our Lord Iesus we vvho are Christian and vvhome our Lord instructs not only at some certaine tymes as he did that people in the Temple but to vvhose harts he is euer preaching in a most particular manner happy are they who apply the eares therof to his sacred mouth adore the Maiesty of his wisedome and power and admire the dignity and beauty of his humanity and be inflamed and euen consumed with the sense of his eternall prouidence and ardent loue But yet withall we must consider that howsoeuer it be said and that most truely Thâ—it he proceeded in wisedome and age and grace with God and men this is only to be vnderstood of that kind of wisedome which might grow through experimentall knowledge by way of the senses which he had like vs though yet with this difference as (*) Cap. â—â— hath bene shewed that euen therin he was free from all possibility of errour which we are not For his wisedome otherwise was so great as not to be capable of any increase as nether was his grace wherof in the instant of his Conception that diuine soule of his had receiued all absolute fulnes But he may be truely said to haue increased dayly with God and men in Grace that is in Fauour because euery day more more his soule was beautified by new acts in the sight of God and daylie he made more and more discouery of himselfe to men according to the rates of their Capacity and they would not haue bene men but beasts and blockes if they had not bene taken by such an obiect We are taught withall by his growing thus in grace before God and men to performe our actions in such sort as that we must nether procure to please God alone by not caring for the edification of men nor yet men alone through Hipocrisy or want of purity in the intention but they both must goe together hand in hand as daily our Lord when he grew afterward to mans estate did effectually teach vs more and more Of the excessiue loue which our Lord Iesus shewed to vs in that he would vouchsafe to be Baptized CHAP. 21. VVHAT thought of man or Angell can reach to that humility which Christ our Lord being longe since growne to be a man and now vpon the poynt of
infallible truth we might be beaten blind with seeing and starued with surfetting as we see many others are and the very vastnes of those misteries which are opened to vs for our cōfort by Christ our Lord would make vs halfe doubt whether they were or could be true or no. The beloued Apostle and Euangelist S. Iohn had lodged himselfe so long so neere the hart of our blessed Lord that he was easily able to discerne and declare how excellently he loued vs from the beginning and that withall his loue continued towards vs to the end Iesus autem Ioan. 13. cùm dilexisset suos in finem dilexit eos Nay the motion of the loue of his diuine hart towards man hauing bene so naturall in him it is no meruaile if it vvent more violently in the end of his sacred life then at the beginning All the passions of that happy soule were intyrely subiect to the commaund of his reason and he held it to be a thing agreable to the dignity immutability of the God he was to speake of all things as was toucht before after a positiue manner and wonderfully as we vse to say within compasse Superlatiues and Exaggerations vsed to be thin sowed in the blessed mouth of our Lord IESVS Nor is he in effect euer found to haue said any thing as seeming to haue bene transported with any extraordinary or passionate desire or care but (b) When he came towardes the passiō our Lord did seem to breake his pace only concerning that which he was to suffer in his sacred Passion and that which he was to doe in the night precedent to the same When formerly he was aduising his Apostles to haue great confidence in the prouidence of God by letting them see what a care he had euen of sparrowes and inferring therby that he would incomparably more haue care of them he exaggerated not the matter Matt. 10. but did only aske If themselues were not to be more esteemed then many sparrowes Wheras yet one soule is more in the sight of God not only thē many sparrowes but then al the whole material world put together When he had a mind to tell them what a misery it was for that wretch that he would make himselfe the betrayer of the sonne of man Matt. 8◠he only said wo be to that man it had been better for him if he had neuer been borne which was but a very plaine and positiue manner of expression For as much as not only this greatest sinne which euer was perhaps conceaued but the least mortall sinne that can be imagined without repentance doth make a man much more vnhappy then if he were vtterly depriued of being When he professed the omnipotency of his eternall Fathers power to deliuer him out of the hands of them who tooke and tyed him he told them only Matt. 26. that if he should pray for any helpe of that kind his Father would send more then twelue legions of Angells to his succour Wheras he might as good cheape haue said twelue thousand as twelue legions But our Lord IESVS was not wont to vse any superlatiue manner of speach and he hath had many seruants who haue carefully imitated him in this as in the rest But yet neuer thelesse whē he reflected vpō the thought of that passiō which he was resolued to vndergoe for the Redēption of mā the very desire of the approach of so happy a day made him cōfesse that he was in paine till it did arriue Luc. 12. Baptismo habeo baptizari quomodo coactor donec veniat Or rather he did not so much say that he was in paine as by words of interrogation in the way after a sort of seeming impatient he asked himselfe this very question in effect How much am I payned how straitely am I imprisoned til I haue my fil of suffering for the loue of man Iust (c) Our Lord did long for the tyme when he might institute the B. Sacrament so may we see that when the time of celebrating the feast of the Paschal lambe was come he grew euen greedily desirous to eate it in the company of his B. Apostles before his Passion And for their comfort he would not choose but say Luc. 22. Desiderio desider aui manducare vobiscum hoc Pascha antequam patiar That he desired it and that with desire vpon desire and such desire as could neuer be appeased till he were satisfied till that tyme of the last supper were past wherin he had resolued to impart vnspeakeable tokens of his loue to them and so the other tyme of his Passion wherin he was to endure the depth of all torments and affronts for the same loue were then immediatly to come In the euening therfore and within few howers of his Passion this enamoured Lord of ours hauing all the parts and passages therof in his eye and looking as it were in the very face of death and such a death he yet (d) Our Lord kept the shew of all his sorrow to himselfe Ioan. 13. laid vp all the sorrow in his owne hart and would discouer to his Apostles no other semblance then of ioy and comfort least his griefe might be a cause of theirs He conuersed with them after his ordinary and familiar manner he disposed himselfe first to eate the Paschall lambe with them After that he sate downe with them to a common Supper He kept his diuine countenance full of quietnes and peace He tooke them close about him on all sides He cheered them vp with his gratious eyes and he carued them with his liberall hands Nay with those hands to the dispēsation wherof his eternall Father had cōmitted all things he disdayned not then to wash the vncleane feete of those poore Apostles For which purpose first he put of his vpper garment as any hired seruant was to haue done Ioan. 13. and by the force of his owne armes he tooke a big vessell full of water out of that he silled a lesser He girt himselfe with a towell into which he tooke their corporall vncleanes as a figure of how he would purify their harts by his sacred Passion For then he was to beare the deformity of their sinnes vpon the shoulders of his body which was a kind of winding sheet to his soule When our Lord had thus performed this act of religion in eating of the Paschall lambe and of incomparable suauity in his conuersation of vnspeakeable humility in the Lotiō of his Apostles feete he returned to the table and amazed all the (e) The Angells might well be amazed to see the sonne of God giue his owne body in food to sinners Angells of heauen whose vnderstāding did euen agonize in seeing him performe that supereminent act of Charity when he instituted the blessed Sacrament of the Altar and ordeyned the holy Sacrifice of the Masse which was so worthy of an infinite God This was done by diuine
diuine Soule of Christ our Lord through the high endowmentes wherewith it was enriched by the eternall Father Wherein no passion did euer once presume to lead the way to reason but was glad of so much honour as to follow it And though whatsoeuer concerned the vegetatiue and sensitiue powers of the soule may seeme little in respect of what is sayd concerning the reasonable which inuolueth both those others yet since nothing is little which is able to do seruice and homage to him who is so truly great it may deserue to be considered how those (k) The vegetatiue and sensitiue powers of the soule were wholly in the hand of the will of Christ our Lord. Vegetatiue and Sensitiue powers were wholy in the hand of his will And so he could haue chosen whether his body should grow or whether his meate should nourish or whether his flesh should feele or whether his bloud vpon the inflicting of a wound should follow or whether his person should send out any such images or species of it selfe as whereby it might become visible to the eyes of others And (l) The body of Christ our Lord though it were a true and naturall body yet was it wholly in his power to determine how far it should be subiect to the conditions of such a body more or lesse in fine in his choice it was whether he would let himselfe be lyable to any of those propertyes and conditions to which the rest of man is subiect And now because the graces and perfections of his sacred body doe contribute to the excellency of his diuine person I will also procure to describe the supereminent beauty and dignity of that sacred flesh and bloud For thus we shall grow to haue a perfect notion of his whole person which will conuey such an influēce of valew vpon euery act of loue which afterward he will be shewed to haue expressed as I hope will make vs wholly giue our hart to him by way of homage for his incomparable benefits The dignity of the pretious body of Christ our Lord is declared wherby the excellency of his loue is magnified CHAP. 4. THE Spirit of God in his holy Scripture doth prophetically delineate the beauty dignity of the sacred Humanity of our Lord Iesus I meane of his sacred flesh and bloud It speaketh of him thus Psalm 44. speciosus forma prae filijs hominum A (a) The beauty of the body of Christ our Lord. person indued with another manner of most excellent beauty then was euer to be seene in any other Creature And indeed euen abstracting from what is reuealed to vs by way of faith concerning his beauty in particular what kind of admirable thing must that Humanity needs be according to all discourse of reason On the one side let vs consider that this sacred body of his was compounded of no other matter but that purest bloud Royall of his al-immaculat virgin mother Royal (b) The dignity sanctity of his descēt it was by her discēt from so many kings Sacerdotall and Propheticall by her being also deriued from the Sanctity of Prophets of Preists Great prerogatiues were these but yet they are the least of them wherewith this holy body of our Lord was endued For it was much more dignified in that before it came to be his the body of the sacred virgin did cohabite with her owne most happy most accomplished soule Wherby (c) How sublimly spirituall the B. virgin was her very flesh was gowne after a sort to be euen Spirit as we see the very soules of sensuall persons to participate as it were the very nature of flesh Much more aduantage did it yet receiue in that the holy Ghost did frame this body of our B. Lord out of the bloud in the wombe of our B. Lady And most of all was it aduanced by this That in the instant when she conceaued his incomparable soule was infused and both his soule and body was Hypostatically vnited to the diuinity Of the happines of that soule already we haue spoken and euen by this little which heere is touched we may behould his body as the prime maister-peece of all visible beauty Amongst (d) Why the body of our B. Lord must needs be admirably beautiful the Children of this world we see indeed that euen they who are borne of handsome through the disorder which naturally accompanieth generation and besides it also growes sometymes through a disconformity which nurses haue to the mothers But his body was framed by the neuer erring hand of the holy Ghost heere the mother and the nurse were one and the same most holy Virgin Mary The excellency of Corporall Beauty doth consist (e) The conditiōs which are required for the making vp of perfect Beauty either in complexion for as much as concernes coulour or in feature or shape for as much as concernes proportion or in facility and grace for as much as concernes disposition and motion We see how any one of these partes of beauty if it be eminent doth affect the eye and hart of a beholder although such a person do either want the other two or haue them at the most but in some moderat degree And the perfection of any one part pleads the excuse of wanting any other And whether therfore shall we be so bold as to thinke that Christ our Lord was not endued with them all in all perfection or els so blinde as notwithstanding such vnspeakeable beauty as his was not to be enamoured of him It is not inough that a body haue only beauty for the perfection therof but (f) For the complemēt of Beauty there are requyred health strengh withall it must haue health and strength Now what want of health could the body of our B. Sauiour haue whose soule was not onely free but so infinitely farre from the curse both of Actuall and Originall sinne the true cause not only of sicknes but of death And what infirmity or weakenes could that Humanity be subiect to vnlesse he had would Isa 63. as indeed he would for our greater good which not onely was not obnoxious to any distemper of humours but withall it was made to be one person with allmighty God himselfe And now let him that can conceaue heerby the sublimity euen of his Corporall beauty Quis est iste saith the Prophet Esay Who is he that commeth out of Edom with his garments dyed from Bozra this beautifull one in his robe walking on in the multitude of his strength This S. Denis affirmes Decael Hierarch c. 7. to haue beene spoken in person of the (g) All the Angells in heauen were amazed to see the beauty of the body of Christ our Lord. Celestiall Spirits they being possessed with an admiration of the vnspeakable Beauty of Christ our Lord Whose diuinity was vested with our humanity as with a robe which once was white though it grew to be
loue wherwith our Lord did make the way thither so easy to them We may well be assured of the truth of that testimony of S. Iohn Baptist when he said Ma. That he who should baptize after him would doe it in the holy Ghost And we may safely say that it was the holy Ghost which could eleuate such a poore peece of nature as common water is to an immediate instrument as now we find it for the washing saÌ„ctifying of all our soules For instantly after the Baptisme of Christ our Lord and the prayer which was made vpoÌ„ it he saw that the very heauens did open which had beene shut till then by the sinne of Adam Ibid. and the holy Ghost descended on him in a visible forme Which our Lord IESVS obteyned not for himselfe who was already full of it Ioan. 1. beyond all measure but he obteyned it for vs for of his fulnes we all receaue and so there is none of vs baptized vvhose soule is not highly visited by the holy Ghost And no meruaile if heauen hauing neuer bin seene open before that time such an aboundance of the holy Ghost vvere then communicated to the vvorld vvhich till then vvas little knovvne The promises and blessings of that old lavv vvere temporall terrene and a land slowing with milke and hony vvas (b) The seruile coÌ„dition of the people of God vnder the old law the fairest Lure vvherby that Carnall people could be made to stoope to any obedience to the commaundements of God But novv the earth vvas grovvne too poore a token for his diuine Majesty to send to then vvho vvere so beloued by his only begotten sonne that sonne vvho in contemplation of their good had performed such an act of heroicall call vertue in this holy Baptisme of his And therfore heauen vvas set open and the most pretious treasure therof Confes l. 13. cap. 7. sent dovvne to dravv men vp For the vncleanes of our spirit as S. Augustine sayth dissolueth it selfe downeward through a loue of cares and the sanctity of Gods spirit doth rayse vs vpward by a loue of secure repose That so our harts may ascend vp towards thee O God where thy spirit is carried ouer the waters and that we may arriue to that supereminent rest when our soules shall haue passed through these waters wherupon we can ground no rest But euen in respect of Christ our Lord himselfe though his soule vvere then already so full of grace as not to be capable of addition yet vvas it most agreable to the vsuall stile and the infinite iust goodnes of God that the humility of this action should be ansvvered and acknovvledged vvith vnusuall glory And therfore that he vvho had so abased euen as it vvere buried himselfe vp in vvater Ioan. 1. and submitted his head to one who was not worthy to vnty his shoe should be auovved from heauen vvith the Curtaines open dravvne To be the beloued sonne of God Matt. 3. And so a certaine and solemne instance vvas giueÌ„ of that truth vvhich may goe for the dayly and standing miracle of the Christian Catholike Church That as soone as a soule shall haue truly humbled it selfe for the loue of God euen then it receaues and feeles a revvard from heauen vvhich fills the hart full of ioy Glory then I say vvas due to his humility and for as much as nothing can pay loue but loue the attribute of Beloued was also due and best deserued by his loue And because his loue for the loue of God was so immense to man the holy Ghost it selfe which is the al and only infinite loue was sent downe vpon him in a visible manner by whome it was afterward to be conueyed to men And euen the very shape wherin God was pleased that it should appeare may serue to make vs know that all the actioÌ„ did begin end in loue For it was of a doue (b) The fruytes of the holy ghost are figured fitly in a Doue what creature is more apt for loue then this What creature is more fruitefull more speedy more sweet more stronge more honest and yet more amourous then this Deteyning her mate when he would depart with more desire and expecting him when he is absent with more ioy The doue was therfore the signe of the holy Ghost which descended vpoÌ„ Christ our Lord as soone as he was baptized to shew that his hart was ouerwhelmed with loue both to God and man Whilst for the pure glory of the one and the perfect good of the other he submitted himself to paine and shame for the sanctifying of sinners and that by a most sweet easy means to vs he cared not though he were accounted one himselfe Yea not being content to be only thought so heere by men the restlesnes of his loue did worke so fast vpon him as to make him not disdaine to be mistaken therin by the diuells also and to be tempted in the wildernes by the Prince of darcknes as the next discourse will declare Of the vnspeakeable Loue to vs which our Lord Iesus shewed in his being tempted in the wildernes by the Diuell CHAP. 23. IT is full of truth which hath bene said Omnis Christi actio vitâ—e nostrae est instructio Euery action of our Lord may serue for an instruction to vs in this life of ours Or rather it is most true that there is no action at all of his which instructs vs not many wayes (a) All the actions of Christ our Lord are as a hidden Manna to our soules which is not a kind of hidden Manna deliuering to euery hungry and thirsty soule a tast of that particular vertue which it needs That Christ our Lord would be baptized was to be enroled in the list of sinners according to the iudgment of men but in sine they were men who would make that iudgment with men he loued and he was come into the world to procure their good and at last he knew that he would deliuer them from that errour But for the sonne of God who was also God to abase and as it were forget himselfe so farre as to submit that superexcellent soule of his which was adored by al the Angells of heaueÌ„ to be subiect for the manifold benefit of man so farre as to be tempted by that damned spirit doth betoken such a strange loue to vs as puts all discourse to silence and the best created vnderstanding that euer was may be halfe excused if it shall loose the very witts with wonder If the difference be great betwene one man and another euen amongst good men homo homini quid praestat if it be great betwene a good maÌ„ a bad if it be yet greater between a most wicked man a most glorious Saint what difference shall we thinke there is betwene God and the diuell And what scales can haue the strings long enough to giue scope that one
doth fall farre short to expresse the beauteous brightnes of his face for if (a) The beauty of all glorified bodies any one of the glorified bodies shall be as bright as is the sunne then is it certain that if all the starres in heauē should be so many seueral s̄ns they would al be but as mud or inke in cōparison of the splēdour of Christ our Lord of what brightnes then must his face haue been His garmēts were said to haue byn as white as snow Ibid. that no dyer vpon earth was able to arriue to such a height of whitenes To shew that both art and nature may haue some little resēblance but are able to carry no full proportion with things of the other world They were ouershadowed with a cloud but euen that very cloud was bright For as the brightnes of this world is indeed but a kind of light-coloured blacke so that which in the other is least bright doth infinitely exceed whatsoeuer we can heere conceaue to be so most At the thundring of that voyce they were indeed strucken with feare yet we may safely say that they were more afrayd then hurt And (b) They are happy and glorious frightes which grow vpō soules vpon such supernaturall occasions 2. Pet. 1. howsoeuer for the tyme the high Maiesty of the mistery did ouerwhesme them yet withall it strucke such a deepe roote of most reuerent admiring loue into their harts as they neuer knew how to forget And S. Peter and S. Iohn could not faile in their seuerall Epistles to produce the Record of this Transfiguration of our Lord vpon the holy hill as a principall euidence of his glory and their ioy I imagine this terrour of theirs to haue bene resembled in some sort by that state of mind which the diuine S Augustine had found in himselfe though incomparably after an inferiour manner when he spake these wordes Confes l. 11. cap. 9. Quid est hoc quod interlucit mihi percutit cor mē sine laesione inhorresco inardesco Inhorresco in quantum dissimilis tui sum inardesco in quant̄ similis tui sum What is that o Lord which so brightly shootes in vpon me and which strikes my hart through without hurting it And I tremble with horrour and yet I burne with loue I tremble for as much as I am vnlike thee and for as much as I am like thee I burne with loue So did the Apostles tremble and so and much more then so did they burne with loue through the fire wherwith our Lord had inflamed them first But the same loue which wrought vpō them in this mistery by way of heare might also worke vpon them in that extaticall ioy which they receiued therby by way of light to make thē see of how sublime glory he was content to depriue his sacred humanity for loue of them both from his holy Natiuity till that tyme and from that tyme vntill his death For the superiour part of his happy soule from the very first instant of his conception and euen in the bottome of his bitterest passion did continually and as certainely enioy the (c) Our Lord Iesus was still indued with the Beautificall vision Beatificall vision of God as now it doth at the right hand of his Father So also did it in Iustice belong to his sacred flesh and bloud to inioy al the priuiledges of a glorified body as Clarity Immortality Subtility and Impassibility And because these indowments were incompatible with those dolours and death which he designed through the excesse of his loue to suffer for our more copious Redemption he did therefore suspend those influences of glory vpon his humanity So that the miracle falls out to be not to find him thus for a short tyme transfigured towards glory vpon that holy hill but to find him in this valley of misery throughout all those three and thirty yeares of his life transfigured towards humility and contempt and paine him I say who ought in right to haue regorged in complete glory The inferiour part of his soule that is to say the sensitiue appetite therof ought also to haue bene glorious intirely and at all the instants of his mortall life And yet for loue of vs he suspended also the glory due to that to the end that in his loue he might haue the larger leaue to suffer for vs. And that he might feele all those afflictiōs of mind for our sakes for the propitiation of our sinnes and for the purchase of grace from God which we find him to haue endured throughout the rest of all his sad dayes and nights and particularly to haue cost him once so deere as to haue made him pay a sweate of bloud Yea and for as much as concernes this feeling part of his soule we are not so very certaine that it was not suspended in him Luc. 22. euen for this short time of his trāsfiguration Nor was it necessary that it should feele the same ioy for those reasons vpon which his body was trāsfigured But of this we (d) in the middest of that glory the loue of our Lord carried him to speake of his passiō with Moyses and Elias are sure that euen then his speach was of the passion he was in contemplation of the causes why it was to be indured that might wel affect his mind with great sense of griefe Nay euen that very glory which his B. body might thē enioy may rather in some respects go for a surcharge to him of misery then for any accesse of felicity For that ease in suffering disgrace and difficulties which if he had would he might haue gotten as a man may say by the long contynued practice therof was now remoued by this glimse and tast of glory And he (e) The griefe which our Lord felt afterward must needs be the more paynfull to him for his hauing felt this glory soone before was after it to beginne the same lesson of feeling griefe againe as if he had neuer learnt it before And if a Prince falling into extreme calamity would feele it incomparably the more through that riches and abundance wherin he had liued till then how much more painfull to our Lord must those afflictions and persecutions needs be which came to him after his transsiguration then if the Transfiguration had neuer bene So that vpon all these reasons and by all these meanes he doth admirably expresse his tender loue to vs for as much as he would not only liue so long without that glory which was his due but moreouer because whē he would enioy it yet he would doe it but for so short a tyme againe because he sought our ioy comfort and not his owne therin Nay for as much as concerned himselfe his then future paine and scorne was perhaps to be felt by him with a quicker sense then if neuer he had admitted of that glory and ioy The
most excellent instructions which our Lord through his loue did giue to man in this mistery of the Transfiguration CHAP. 31. I Should enlarge my selfe too much if I would particularize and presse those instructions which our Lord did giue to all his disciples both liuing then and succeeding afterward in that silent sermon of his Transfiguration and we haue reason to take them all as so many tokens of his tender loue to vs. But because they may seeme so rather by inference and reflection then by way of lineall and direct expression I will content my selfe briefly to point them out In the first place we are told that he assumed those holy and happy disciples of his vp the hill and therby we are taught that we cannot clymbe but when he takes vs by the hand By telling vs also that he would not be transfigured before them but vpon the hill he tells vs that vnlesse she aspire towards (a) No solide and sublime gust in God with out a serious study of perfection Perfction we must content our selues without tasting the delicious fruites of ConteÌ„plation Againe we are heere expresly told that Christ our Lord went vp to pray and that whilst he was in prayer this rapt of Transfiguration came vpon him So that as it was by prayer and coÌ„uersation with God that Moyses came downe from the hill with such a deale of light in his face by prayer also it is that we may receaue innumerable graces and may grow to be transformed in minde which imports vs more then to be transfigured in body By letting vs know that he was transfigured only for that tyme he giues vs to vnderstand how he hid his excellencies both till then and euer afterward and therby he proclaimes to vs by a loud voyce how (b) The more we hide our selues froÌ„ the view of men the more open shall we be to the gracious eyes of God Ibid. carefull we must be to hide our faâ—ours and priuiledges from the eyes of men And the same was also taught yet againe when our Lord IESVS commaunded afterward that they should not speake of that vision till he were risen from the dead By mentioning the Passion when he was in the midst of the Transfiguration we are instructed how to carry our selues in the varieties and changes of this life For in the winter of distresse we must keep our selues aliue by the memory or hope of some consolation eyther to come or past And in the spring or Sommer of spirituall ioy we must free our selues from growing vayne or giddy by thinking of some approach of desolation By the feare of the holy Apostles we may see the misery of mans nature Confel lib. 11. cap. 9. which was so ill drest by Adam that as S. Augustine saith Sic infirmatus est in egestate mea vigor meus vt non sufferam bonum meum So is my vigor taken downe in this infirmity of my condition that I cannot so much as indure mine owne good as heere the Apostles were frighted euen by the fight of so much glory as attends the speaking of a word from heauen And how then must we reuere with a most profound internall awe that God of inaccessible light and infinite Maiesty whose essence is wholly vnconceaueable since his words cannot be heard without extreme apprehension by such wormes of misery as we are By the coÌ„ming of that voyce which was so soone to breake off the vision whilst they were in the midst of those celestiall ioyes by which voyce our B. Lord was declared to be the beloued sonne of God and that they were comaunded to heare him they we are made to know that we are not in this world to looke for a state of contynuall inioying but of labouring The (c) This is a world of sowing and the other of reaping seeing of God and the being to doe so eternally belongs to heauen in this life we are not to looke for seeing but we must attend to hearing and which is meant therby to obeying Heerby he also tells vs that we must not demurre euen in the most spirituall gusts which we may haue when obedience or charity commaunds the contrary Especially since our Lord himselfe made such hast to giue ouer his Transfiguration that he might descend and so proceed first to preaching then afterwards towards his pasion For there was his hart because his loue was euer looking towards vs and had not that same very loue of vs obliged him to be glorious at that tyme for our sakes since the members could not partake of any such influence which came not first from the head yea and euen if they could haue done it yet would it not haue bene so full of sauour to them vnlesse first it had passed from him it appeares well inough both by the antecedents and consequences of his sacred life that he was not eyther greedy after pleasure or weary of taking paines for vs. Loue and pure loue it was which kept his glory all that while in silence Loue it was which made him mortify himselfe as a man may say with taking into his mouth that only tast of ioy And lastly an euerlasting loue it was which carried him in such hast from Mount Thabor to Mount Caluary where he was to be transfigured a fecoÌ„d tyme but after a far other manner For (d) How our Lord Iesus was Transsigured the second tyme vpoÌ„ mount Caluary insteed of glory he was to be all clad with a kind of Leprosy His face was not to be resplendent but loaden partly with impure spittle and partely vvith his ovvne pure svveat and pretious bloud which made a strange kind of marriage together in that sacred and most venerable Temple of the diuinity His garments were no more to be white but spotted with dust and filth the souldiers were to dispose of them by lotts He was not to be placed betwene a Moyses an Elias but to giue him the more solemne bitter scorne he was to be lodged betwene two murthering thecues No bright shyning cloud was there to appeare to doe him honour but the Sunne would be ashamed to behould the soÌ„ne of man so lewdly treated and darknes would couer the whole earth Since therfore we see such deadly signes of loue in his pretious hart towards vs we may haue the honour to be taught by him how to guide our liues let vs dispose our selues with supreme reuerence to giue our eares and hartes (e) Our Lord Iesus is declared our Doctour from heauen to the diuine words of his mouth since he is made our Doctour by no lesse then a voyce which comes from heauen it selfe and that in the name of the eternall Father saying That Christ our Lord is his beloued sonne in whome he is so highly pleased and that him we must be sure to heare We will besides adore him for presenting vs with this admirable vision wherby he hath so aboundantly
into his And (e) No wonder is strange where God is the worke man Psalm 111◠what meruaile can it be that such wōders as these be wrought in man since it is the Creatour of man and of all things els who descends so low as to liue in him he of whom it is sayd that Gloria diuitiae in domo eius What meruaile is it if we be made so glorious and so rich since he vouchsafes to make pure and humble soules the house wherin he desires to be intertayned and euen to be the very couch wherin he delighteth to be enloyed by the most chast but yet most strayte imbracements of diuine loue What meruaile I say if such as receiue this food with pure affections doe lead euen in this world a life which is not of this world since the selfe same God who feeds all the spirits of heauen hath contryued (f) In some sort we are equall to the Angells euen in this life a way how to giue himselfe for the same food to mortall men The same food I say though it be dressed after a different māner and serued in vnder a disguise of the accidents of bread and wine as betwene two couered dishes according to the custome amōgst great persons Euen this of the disguise was also done out of an admirable diuine loue to vs who had not bene able in this fraile state of ours to see God and liue And besides we grow thus to haue a meanes of exercising most heroicall acts of Faith towards him To which acts of beleeuing in this life doth correspond the rewards and glory of perfect seeing in the next But the substance of the food is still the same both heere and there Apoc. 22. And (g) Our food in the blessed Sacramēt is the very same wher with the happy soules are feasted in heauen therfore S. Iohn according to the obseruation of Doctour Auila relates that it was one and not diuers Trees which he saw on both the bancks of that riuer which flowed out of the throne of God Vpon the one of which bancks being the tryumphant Church in heauē Christ our Lord doth sustaine them there and on the other bancke which is the militant Church wherof we haue the honor and happines to be members the same tree of life doth feed vs heere We are also taught this very truth by the sacred mouth of Christ our Lord himselfo Iohn 6. who said That he was the bread that came downe from heauen If therfore he be the bread of heauen he is the food of the inhabitāts of heauen and if that food be thus imparted to his childrē in this world it must be only their fault if they lead not euen heere a life of heauen We (h) How man ennobleth other food by eating it but he is ennobled by this see that in the case euen of common food how base soeuer that be it is raysed by being eaten to the dignity of becōming a part of him who eates it because the man is nobler then the meate and he assumeth it therfore vp to himselfe And what should then become of such as doe worthily feed vpon this bread of life this nourishmēt of heauē which is Christ our Lord but that for as much as this food is infinitely of better quality then our selues by eating it we should be transformed into it and of terrestriall in our conuersation should become celestiall and resemble the Angells in purity since we carry resemblance to them in the food we take which is the God and King of glory An infinite and of it selfe an incredible thinge this is that such creatures as we should be sublimed to such a height of dignity euen in this life But to the end that it might astonish vs the lesse when it should arriue and that our wonder might be all conuerted into loue it (i) The banquet of the B. Sacramēt was fortold by many Figures before it came was the good will of God to foretell vs of it long before and to reprosent it as it were to our very eyes by way of figures and shadowes that so being accustomed to consider those shadowes we might with more facility imbrace the body when it should be come For this is the accomplishment of al those figures of the (1) Exod. 11. Paschall lambe of the (2) Psalm 77. Manna of the bread of (3) Exod. 25. Proposition of the Banquet which King (4) Hester ◠Assuerus made of many others And as it was a body in repect of those former shadowes and figures so may it be accounted in some respects but as a figure in respect of the celestiall Banquet of eternall beatitude which shall be serued in hereafter as the second course of our delicious fare when we are to feed for all eternity The Sacramentall presence of our Lord IESVS doth stay no longer then the species of bread and wine remaine but the ayre vertue thereof doth still contynue till it be driuen thence And (k) The wonderful effects of the B. Sacramēt so great effects they are which grow vpon it in such as are carefull to comply with God as giues them aboundant testimony that no lesse then omnipotency it selfe is there Nay it is most certainly true that the blessed Sacrament doth worke and that very often in the soules of such as dispose themselues deuoutly to it so many and so wonderful effects sometimes in giuing strēgth of body where it was wanting before sometimes in the vtter extirpation of some passion sometymes in the infusion of some great vertue sometymes in changing at a very instant the whole sense of the soule making it all tryumph with ioy wheras immediatly before it was halfe dead of griefe as doth much declare and proue the diuinity of Christ our Lord. Yea and theyr soules doe feele it so as that if there were no other argument or authority in the whole world but what they find within themselues it might serue to giue them great assurance that Christ our Lord is no lesse then God A (l) The great life vigour which growes to the soule by the B. Sacrament Minerall this is soe full of Spirit that it leaues a liuely tincture in the violl wherinto it hath bene powred It perfumes the whole soule if it be well dissolued by acts of loue But then we must doe as we vse whē a roome is well perfumed to keepe the doores and windowes shut Recollection in this case doth euen import a man as much as his life Which yet if God bid him giue ouer and that his diuine Maiesty doe for the reasons of (m) Spirituall comforts must giue place to the exercise of charity obedience 2. Cor. 2. Charity or Obedience require him to open and impart himselfe to others he shall be still A good odour of Christ our Lord to God but withall he hath so much strength as not to be dissipated in
content for loue of vs to be spit vpon to be buffeted stript stareke naked scourged crucified blasphemed for the loue for the good of man I find it not so strange that a Iew who called Christ our Lord Impostour and Traytour should deny this Doctrine of the blessed Sacrament because he beleeues him to be a Traytour and a Lyer who said That the bread was his body I find it not so strāge that a Pagan or a Morisco should deny it for he also denies to beleeue that God did make himselfe man and dye But that a Christian who saith that Christ is God and who acknowledgeth those words of Hoc est corpus meum to haue bene spoken by his owne sacred mouth and that so immediatly before he dyed and besides in the nature of a last will and Testament which no ordinary wise man would haue penned in doubtfull and ambiguous termes that a Christian I say should cut himselfe out such a motly kind of faith at this and argue against Gods power by saying that his body must needs be subiect to all the qualities of other naturall bodyes whether he will or no and against his infinite mercy by not beleeuing that he would submit himselfe though he sayd he did to such indignities as they conceaue him to be subiect to by this kind of communication of himselfe this I say is strāge and I say agayne that it deserues to be eternally deplored with teares of bloud For in (g) The denyall of this doctrine doth shoot at the disgrace of Gods omnipotency or infinite wisedome or infinite loue in fine all the arguments which they bring against the probability of this diuine truth are but so many arrowes shot vp by them against his omnipotency And all those reasons wherby they would taxe it of any absurdity or inconuenience are but so many teeth which offer to carpe and teare away some part of his infinite wisedom And all those charges wherby they would lay aspersion vpon it of indignity are but so many protestations that they are not capable of the supereminent science wherof the blessed Apostle speakes Ephes 3. cōcerning the infinite goodnes and loue of Christ our Lord to man Of the Obligation which we haue to God for so great a benefit and who are most bound to be deuoted to it and why and how happy they must needs be who frequent it with deuotion CHAP. 51. LET the same loue of IESVS Christ our Lord intercede with the Eternall Father that they may not for euer be depriued of this food of life Without which it is no meruaile if they be dayly more and more disposing themselues to dye that fearfull double death both of body and soule And for our parts we who are Catholikes let (a) The great obligation which Catholiques haue to God for the blessing of our faith vs adore that excellent Maiesty for this high mistery and especially for that light of faith and grace wherby he hath enabled vs to beleeue it to loue him for it Nay let vs do it so much the more as there are too many in the world who dishonour and blaspheme him euen for this very excesse of his goodnes Which though he designed to all mankind yet to vs alone he hath giuen efficacious helpes wherby to gather the true fruite therof And so let (b) We must procure God amends for the faults of others vs double our deuotiō to this bread of Angells as that we may make Christ our Lord a kind of amends as I may say in respect of the much loue which he hath wholy lost vpon the vnbeleeuers blasphemers of this mystery so that we must pay not only our owne but others debts Especially it will concerne such of vs to be entirely deuouted to it as haue much dishonoured or prophaned this diuine Sacrament either by any notable want of preparation before the receauing it or of recollection afterward and much more if when they came to this Table they examined and looked vpon their conscience through the false spectacles of selfe loue and passion and not through the cleere pure christall glasse of the law of God For thus they taught themselues to beleeue grosse lyes insteed of truth and to walk in the darke through the most intricate and obscure waies of sinne and thereby they haue come to pollute themselues and prophane the holy thinges of God and to commit as many sacriledges as they receaued Sacraments and they would infallibly and most iustly haue dropt downe into hell if our Lord had not been infinitely mercifull towards them Such persons as these and there are too many such in the world when they communicated or celebrated in such a state of mind in mortall sinne as this did deserue to be strucken with suddē death at the Altar where they stood or before which they kneeled and there to haue made their entrance into the eternall torments of hell fire It (c) Our Lord might haue inflicted great punishmēts for this great fault and yet still haue been full of mercy had bene mercy and infinite mercy in God if giuing them grace to repent their sinnes afterward he had but strucken them at the present with some signe from heauen in the face of the world according to some such examples of his Iustice as were seen sometymes by the testimony of S. Cyprian and others in the primitiue Church Or els if he had depriued them of the vse of reason and made them mad and franticke for a while Or els if towards the sauing of their soules he had permitted them for a tyme to be possessed with Legions of deuills in their body and to be subiect to their rage by tearing their flesh with their owne hands and throwing themselues into fire and water and foaming and vttering dreadfull cryes and wandring by night in darke woods or els amongst the sepulchers of dead men as we find in the holy Ghospel that possessed persons did vse to doe This more then this seuerity might our Lord haue vsed against the prophaners of this mystery yet haue shewed excessiue mercy if withall he had giuen them grace to repent at last But these sinnes are frequent though the exemplar punishment be not so For our Lord expecteth vs to penance that so he may not be forced to take reuenge and this he doth in the bowells of his owne charity and the inuinciblenes of his patience for which let all the Angells prayse him But for this very reason of his infinite goodnes euen abstracting from the double trebble dangers which either delaies of our conuersion or relapses from grace doe vse to bring it will be tyme for vs all to turne the leafe that the good may be better and the bad may procure to be growing good For (d) Euen the excellency of the food makes the not digesting it the more daungerous but as for this food by grace we may digest it
is most toucht so is their paine augmented by speaking or thinking of things which concerne Almighty God whose breath they smell but vpon whose substance they are not suffered now to seed and yet all things els are a torment to them They thirst and pine they euen consume and melt and they cry out to our Lord and there is none but only himselfe who can comfort that swelling and gasping soule of theirs And though they seeme to be neere him yea and so they are in very deed yet they find themselues to be as in a prison out of which they know not how to breake Such affects as these doe raigne in the harts of some choyce seruants of God vpon the consideration which they haue of wanting certayne feeling communications of his diuine Maiesty in this woefull pilgrimage wherin they liue Yea it is not many yeares since one who was sicke of this sweetly sad disease was so happy as to dy of a flux of teares and another whose hart strings brake and he instantly dyed in exercising some acts of the loue of God and so it was found when he was opened Measure (e) The incomparable griefe of our Lord Iesus then by this what depth of sorrow it must cause in the hart of our B. Lord to be absented so from the feeling fruition of God whome he knew so well whom he loued so much and whome so perfectly he had inioyed before In comparison of whose knowledge and loue and ioy in God the knowledge and loue and ioy of all the other creatures put together is not so much as one single moate compared to the whole body of the earth And yet wheras they with all this griefe of theirs for wanting God haue yet through his goodnes some such kind of feeling of him still as makes it to be in the midst of paines a kind of most ioyfull sufferance our Lord was pleased to take the bitter without the sweet for himselfe and only to feele and penetrate the want vvherin he vvas of that good vvithout enabling the inferiour part to reflect vpon that same very good in the vvay of conceauing any Comfort by it The incomparable sorrow of Christ our Lord through his consideration of the dishonour of God and the sinne and misery of man togeather with the sight of what himselfe was to suffer CHAP. 56. NOVV if it vvould be of such vnsufferable paine for Christ our Lord to be only absented or estranged from Almighty God vvhich abseÌ„ce is no sinne but only a punishment and vvhich is not many tymes ' of any offence at all to the diuine Maiesty but serueth only for a probation of vertue and for a preparation to an increase of grace hovv may vve thinke that it vvould pierce his hart from side to side to see as hath been sayd that God prophaned his glory disgraced his lavv transgressed and all those creatures vvhom he had created after his ovvne Image to enioy heauen vvith eternall felicity to staÌ„d novv so neere vpon the tearmes of being damned to euerlasting misery He savv vvhat Adams happy state had beene and vvhat a miserable a state it vvas grovvne to be He savv that reason vvhich vvas a Queene vvas novv become the drudge of PassioÌ„ The sinnes of the vvhole world were to passe vpon his account nor was the least of them to be pardoned by the Iustice of God but in vertue of the sacred Passion which then he was about to vndergoe They were (a) The true cause of our Lords excessiue sorrow all represented to his dolorous afflicted mind as distinctly as they were distinct in their being coÌ„mitted and a million of tymes more cleerly then the men who coÌ„mitted them did euer see them Let a man but thinke how many sinnes he alone may haue committed in some one day of his life and then how many daies he hath liued how many of his sinnes he hath forgotten how many of his actions words thoughts are accounted sinfull in the sight of God which yet did not seeme so to him Let him thinke how many men there are in the towne where he may chance to be how many in the Prouince how many in the kingdome how many in all Europe how many in all the world at this tyme. Let him thinke how many there haue bene in the whole world throughout all the ages therof since the begining and how many there may be before the end And who shall now be able once to conceaue of the innumerable sinnes which haue bene are are to be coÌ„mitted by all this race of maÌ„kind Prouer. 14. since the iust man sinneth seauen tymes a day by veniall sinnes and many who goe for Saints with vs will be found to haue committed many and many Mortall What shall we therfore say of such wicked men as drinke iniquity vp like water Iob. 15. whether they be vicious Catholicks or blasphemous Heretiques or disobedient Schismatiques or perfidious Ievves or Prophane Pagans or bestiall Turkes and Mores What Legions what millioÌ„s what worlds of sinnes must there haue been presented to the soule of Christ our Lord to suffer for since for as much as concerned him he accepted the punishment of them all and that by so exact scales of diuine Iustice as that if any one of all those sinnes had not be committed the Passion of Christ our Lord had bene so much the lesse grieuous And it was to be their fault vvho vvould not by Faith Penance apply that Passion to their soules if they were not saued therby and not any defect of the Passion it selfe of Christ our Lord who savv knevv and counted and accepted euery one of their particular sinnes and made for as much as coÌ„cerned him oblation of an inestimable paymeÌ„t in discharge of the same particular sinne Not (b) Our Lord Iesus suffered not only for all the sinnes which were coÌ„mitted but for all those others also which would haue been committed without his grace only did he see and suffer for all finnes which already are and are heâ—reafter to be coÌ„mitted but also for all those other which vvould haue bene committed by them all if they had not bene preuented by the Grace vvhich grevv from God in contemplation of the Passion of Christ our Lord. For no lesse vvas his pretious bloud to be the Antidote preseruatiue against all sinnes vvhich might haue byn coÌ„mitted then it vvas to be the remedy and cure of such as vvould be committed indeed So that euery man did add somevvhat to this sorrovv of our Lord both good and bad past and present and to come vvithall their sinnes vvhether they vvere great or small of thought vvord or deed vvhether the vvere mortall or veniall of omission or commission vvhether actually they vvere or would haue been committed if they had not bene preuented by this costly meanes And if (c) Other considerations which do open the sight of the soule to discerne the loue and
wee are in greatest straites And as for the vse of prayer since it is an eleuation of the mind towards God a treaty of the soule with him Since he admits vs whensoeuer we apply our selues to haue audience Since not only he receaues vs if we come but he loues vs so deerly much as to inuite vs and commaund vs yea and to be highly offended if we refraine Since he inclynes himselfe to enrich vs with al heauenly graces vpon the only price of being desired by vs that he will make vs rich and that the more we aske the more we haue Since he is of so excellent condition as neuer to cast his benefits into our teeth which temporall Princes who are but dust and ashes otfen doe and yet the fauours which they cā afford are but trash and toyes and euen they are often tymes denyed and yet all men are glad to be their suytours Since according to the persons vvith whome we are accustomed to conuerse vve sucke their qualities into our selues therfore by negotiating the busines of our soules with that fountaine of Sāctity it is not possible but that we should improue our selues therin Since howsoeuer in other things the Saintes of God haue bene of different gust one excelling in exteriour penāce another in mortificatiō of himselfe within one addicting himselfe to action anotherto contēplation and the rest best to a life mixt of both yet there was neuer any Saint vnlesse some perhaps who haue bene conuerted and canonized both at once with some Martyrs Crowne who hath not bene diligēt in the vse of Prayer And lastly chiefely since we find it to be recommēded both by the Doctrine exāple of our Lord IESVS throughout the whole time of his holy life especially now in the garden whē he was to treate of the great affaire of our redemption And when after a sort it was put to a kind of question whether he should liue til the next day leaue his life vpō the crosse by the hands of others or else to dye that night of the pure griefe of his owne distressed and wounded hart Since we see him at an instant become victorious ouer al the powers of earth and hell And that he who immediatly before was so defeated immediatly afterward was so full of courage as to say to his Apostles in the third visit which he made thē at euery of which tymes he found them sleeping Rise vp Matt. 26. behold the man who is at hand to betray me Since by this example the practise of our blessed Lord both mentall and vocall prayer are set out vocall in few words though thrice repeated the mentall as being much the more excellent taking vp a farre longer space of tyme for when he fell into that Agony it is expressed by the Euangelicall history as hath bene said already that he persisted long in Prayer Ibid. Since the Apostles who were commaunded by our Lord to watch and pray least els they might enter into Temptation did for the present fall a sleep through their negligence in the vse of that holy exercise when they should haue waked and shortly after did forsake their Maister when they should haue accompanied him to his crosse Since these things I say are so and not only these but a thousand more which appeare in their workes who write of Prayer and much more in their harts and liues who vse it much What Christian soule is that which will not apply it selfe to this holy happy exercise Which howsoeuer it be a guift of God and depends vpon the liberality of his holy hand yet as he worketh in all things sweetly so doth he also in this particular and he is pleased to vse some men towardes the instruction of others the former exercising their charity and the latter their humility It (b) It is necessary to take counsayle in the vse of mentall Prayer of some good spituall maister wil therfore be wholly necessary for him who will study this art of arts to betake himselfe to some well experienced guide Though in regard that it is not so much a busines of the head as of the hart the best maister vnder heauen will be a pure and vertuous life For prayer and practise of vertue are very circular depēdant vpon one another And he who prayes deuoutly will liue vertuously and he who procures to lead a vertuous life will quickly be able to praye deuoutly And we see the effects of this happy exercise as hath been said by what it wrought in the wounded soule of our Lord IESVS and how it raysed him vp into so much strength as to enable him to goe and meete those enemies of God and him in the face whome not long before he besought his eternall Father that he would auert Wherby yet we must not vnderstand that we are authorized to thrust our selues into imminent and certaine danger of death whē without any disseruice to Almighty God or disaduantage to his cause we may auoyd the same But (c) How we are to carry our selues in the flight of persecution more or lesse only that when our Lord doth call vs to it and when the hower is come which he in his eternall prouidence hath prefixed we are to encounter to imbrace the Crosse with alacrity In former tymes the malicious Iewes had a minde to haue apprehended so to haue precipitated him downe from a hill Ioan. 7. but he made himselfe inuisible to their eyes and the cause is there assigned because his hower was not then arriued And so he could also heere haue as easily made himself insensible to their hands if it had not bene that the same hower of his which was not come before was come now And with vnspeakeable loue he was pleased that that other should be said to be no hower of his because it vvas not appointed for him to suffer in Luc. 22. But this vvas his hovver and it vvas also the hovver of those perfidious Ievves and of the Prince of darkenes by reason of the povver vvhich then vvas giuen them ouer Christ our Lord. The apprehension of Christ our Lord and a iust expostulation with the Traytour Iudas for that hideous treason of his togeather with a description of mortall sinne and the danger which we are put into by all voluntary veniall sinnes CHAP. 58. THE Traytour Iudas who made himselfe the keeper of that clocke for that tyme had woone it vp and set it so by the men vvhome he had put to vvorke that it vvas grovven ready euen then to strike For behould he came vvith a band of Pagan souldiers a great svvarme of Ievvish Officers to apprehend and sell his Mastier ouer into the possession of death Whosoeuer had seene those two troopes encounter one another might (a) Christ our Lord and Iudas did leade the two kingdoms of God the diuell haue beheld a most liuely picture in little of
man would exhibite a spectacle wherby the lookers on were to be moued to loue that man would take care to giue it all those aduantages of grace and beauty which were any way to be attractiue of loue If he were to present an obiect wherby the spectators were to be strocken with feare he would not faile to accompany it with such instruments and demonstrations of terrour as might affect and afflict their mindes with feare And so heere since Pilates care and study was how to winne those implacable Harpies from that hungar and thirst after the destruction and death of Christ our Lord no doubt can be made but that he would adorne and dresse him in the most lamentable attyre of torments which he could deuise that so by the sight of that excessiue misery he might conuert their perfect malice into some little mercy This designe of his he was obliged to communicate with the Executioners who were to be his souldlers for els he had not bene true to his owne end And then I will leaue it to the reasonable imagination of any creature if such an insolent race of people as that vseth many tymes to be hauing receaued an expresse direction from their Commaunder for the execution of such a cruelty vpon a prisoner who was so persecuted by all the principall men and Magistrates of his owne profession were not likely to shew cruelty inough vpon that pretious body of our blessed Lord. Of the cruell Scourging of Christ our Lord and how with incomparable patience and charity the endured the same CHAP. 64. THEY strip thim therfore into the same nakednes wherin he was borne wherin he had neuer bene seene but in his infancy nor then but by the sight of the Angells and those farre purer eyes of the All-immaculate virgin mother They stripped him I say who in all the daies of his blessed life had neuer seene so much as any part of himselfe discouered naked but only those hands which were still imployed in shewing mercies There are millions of men and women in the holy Catholike Church who in their high loue of purity do neuer so much as looke euen vpon their owne face in a glasse and much lesse vpon any naked part of their body excepting only in the occasions of meere necessity when they shift their cloathes yea and then they do it very sparingly and with a kind of horrour euen to see themselues But from those necessities Christ our Lord was still exempt who in all his life did neuer shift or change his cloathes And that * Euthym. in cap. 27. Match Maldonat in cundem loium omnes recentiores cōmuniter Garment which was wouen without any seame at all by those pure hands of his sacred Mother did miraculously grow togeather with the body it selfe Now in the loue of mortification and purity all the Saints of the Church must not compare with him wherin he exceeded them all more then heauen doth excell the earth If therfore there be amongst vs so many thousands of sacred virgins who would rather giue vp their liues then they would once expose their naked bodies to open view Let vs beg of our Lord by his owne supreme purity that he will giue vs to vnderstand make vs sensible at the very rootes of our hartes of how (a) The excessiue affliction which it must giue to our B. Lord to be striped naked great a torment it was to him in the way of shame to be stript stark naked before those Pagan souldiers and to let that pretious banquet of his pure humanity be fed vpon deuoured by those petulant prophane eyes of theirs How great a torment was it to thee O Lord in the way of shame and yet withall how meekely didst thou endure it and how much ioy did it giue thee to be sacrificing the merit therof to the eternall Father for the impetratiō of all that Angelical purity which hath florished since that tyme in so many mortall bodies of flesh and bloud They tyed him then to a piller as naked as I haue heere bescribed as if there had beene danger that either like some slaue he would haue run away or els like a child he would be shrinking declining the strokes wherwith they had resolued to load him But he was inwardly bōd so fast Ose 12. with such cords of Adam which were chaines of loue as that in comparison therof those outward cords were but as threds of a spiders webbe which would haue bene farre from holding him to that piller against his will him who makes the foundations of the earth tremble the pillars of the world shake with the least breath of his Nostrills whensoeuer he thinks fit to worke vpon the world by way of terrour They began then to scourge our Lord Ioan. 1◠with excessiue cruelty And as a violent tempestof hayle would destroy a fruit tree which were in flower so did those cruell men not only blast that diuine sweet beauty of our Lord by breathing vpō it with the filthy ayre of their lasciuious and scornefull tongues but they brake through it with those scourges They clasped and circled him in with euery blow as so many snakes would doe some pretious and odoriferous plant which yet were so medicinall withall as to be able to cure a whole world of men of a whole world of diseases It is able to grieue any ciuill noble hart to see in Italy and especially at Rome how the barbarous Goths and Vandals when like an inundation they ouerflowed those florishing fields of the world did leaue the markes of their long nayles behind them in the ruines of so many sumptuous buildings and curious statues But what hath any sumptuous building or any curious statue to doe by way of comparison with that pretious humanity of our Lord. That Temple of the holy Ghost which the fulnes of the diuinity did substantially inhabite Colos 2. and that superexcellent Image that double Image of the eternall Father For an image he was of God euen as he was but man but then againe as God he was an Image begotten not made by the increated vnderstanding of the eternall God And what comparison thē cā there be betwene the barbarousnes of those Goths and Vandalls with these men of bloud who drew this holy house into such decay They did not only (b) How the house of Gods humanity was handled vnfurnish it but they procured to beate downe the walls and they made so many wide windowes in it with their rude hands as by which the soule would infallibly haue flowne out and forsaken it if it had not bene held fast perforce by the tye of loue that so it might liue to endure the rest of torment which was prouided for it A strange kind of ornament it was for that garment of his pretious humanity being hypostatically vnited to the diuinity to be so thicke ouercast and imbrodered with stripes insteed
her and the whole world For he gaue this blessed mother of his to be the mother of S. Iohn and in his person of all mankind by these words of his Woman behold thy Sonne And he gaue to S. Iohn and to all the world in him a tytle of calling and knowing the sacred Virgin by the name of Mother when he sayd to him Behold thy Mother Ibid. So sweet a songe did this dying Swan of ours deliuer so rich did he make his holy Catholike Church when departing out of the world he left it such a legacy as this wherof heerafter I shall speake a part Of the darcknes which possessed the world and the excessiue desolation which our Lord endured with incomparable Loue whilst he was saying to his eternall Father Deus Deus meus vt quid dereliquisti me CHAP. 72. ALL these former seuerall words so full of diuine consolation and instruction were vttered with vnspeakeable loue by our blessed Lord soone after the rearing of his Crosse with himselfe vpon it And then did a kind of darkenes ouerspread all the earth Matt. 17. Marc. 15. It was not possible that it should grow at that tyme by any naturall cause of an Eclipse for then it could not haue lasted so very long that is to say three whole howers Ibid. Ab hora sexta vsque ad nonam Besides that the Sunne Moone were then in such relation and position in respect of one another as that the Sunne could be no way Eclipsed then And in fine if this darknes had growne by an Eclipse it could not haue reached to be vniuersall ouer the whole earth as yet the holy Scripture saith it was and so it hath bene testified and proued not only by the EuaÌ„gelists whose word is of all authority with vs Christians but also by S. Denis Areopagita See this Apud Bell. de 7. verb. Dom. Lucianus the Martyr Tertullian others who wrote therof at once in seuerall parts of the world Besides that Phlegon a Pagan which may serue for the confusion of Iewes and Atheists in this point affirmeth how in that yeare and vpon that very day and hower when our Lord did suffer The day was turned into so expresse night as that the starrs were then seene in the firmament This (a) The reason of that miraculous darcknes which did ouerspred the earth darkenes was drawne vpon the world by the miraculous power of God to declare the perfect innocency of our Lord IESVS and the enormity of their sinne who had condeÌ„ned him whose sentence he reuersed after this omnipoteÌ„t manner And as in some respects it could not but be of excessiue terrour to see a Noone day turne Mid-night as it were at an instant and that without any naturall cause at all so yet it was an effect of the infinite loue of God and of the former prayer of Christ our Lord when he beged the forgiuenes of their sinnes For this was then a meanes of the conuersion and of the pennance afterward of all that troope of people as S. Luke affirmeth wherby the greater part of them is only to be vnderstood who continued till the end of the Passion Luc. 27. For they saw the wonderfull things which happened and they returned into the citty beating euery one his brest through excesse of sorrow And so euery one of them went raysing a Trophey to the infinite mercy of our Redeemer (b) The infinite mercy of our Lord God who gaue such abundance of effectuall grace euen to theÌ„ who had made theÌ„selues his deadly enemies and that before he was taken downe from the Crosse as if it had bene euen in reward of all their wickednes and cruelty agaynst him But as now the whole world was ouer-wrought with a material darkenes by the miraculous hiding of the sunne which did such homage to the Creatour of all things as by absenting it selfe to make a kind of veâ—â—e wherby his nakednes might the lesse appâ—â—â—e so also were the harts in effect of the whâ—â—◠〈◊〉 â—â—orld and especially of those cruell persoâ—â— tours growne spiritually darke by the abundance of sinne which puts out the light of grace whersoeuer it enters Now to these two kinds of darkenes which were at that tyme in the world and worldly men another kind of obscurity did correspond in Christ our Lord in such sort as that we may securely affirme that since the world was created and inhabited there was neuer any such generall darkenes as that For by the light as a man may say of that darkenes euen halfe an eye would easily discerne how mightily the Power the Wisedome the Sanctity the Angelicall beauty the Princely Maiesty the diuine Dignity and the incomparable Felicity and glory of the true and naturall Sonne of God (c) The darcknes of desolation of Christ our Lord and how his supreme dignity was also obscured was obscured at that tyme. The sunne was doubly gone for besides the darkning of the materiall Sunne himselfe who was the true Sunne seemed no more a Sunne but rather a moone and that all Eclipst For as the Moone when she is Eclipst though she haue her globe all bright towards the heauen yet is it all blake towards the world iust so Christ our Lord though in the superiour part of his soule he saw God and was as high in glory as now when he is raigning in heauen yet in the inferiour part therof there was a most profound darkenes and desolation This drew out of his mouth those words of the Psalme wherof it seemes he was in coÌ„templation at that tyme. Matt. 27. Psalm 21. Deus Deus meus vt quid dereliquistime My God my God why hast thou for saken mee Misterious words which were vttered to shew the vnspeakeable affliction of Christ our Lord. Who for the greater glory of God the Father and through the excesse of his loue to vs and for the more abundant propitiation and satisfaction of our sinnes for the more complete crowning of his owne humility patience and supreme purity of mind was pleased to want all kind of prorection which might be of any comfort to him In other respects he was as hath bin said so conioyned and vnited to Almighty God as that it was wholy impossible that euen for any one instant he should euer be separated or abandoned by him For as God he was vnited by way of Essence to the Father as man he was vnited to the Diuinity by hypostaticall Vnion Bell. Ser. de sept verbis as a soule which saw the face of God from the very first instant of his Conception he was vnited to him by the Vnion of glory And as that vessell of sanctity which was not only all filled but ouerflowed by the holy Ghost whose guifs he receiued not according to any set or limitted measure but beyond all measure I say as he was this vessel of sanctity he was vnited to God by will and
Grace And from any one of these Vnions not only could he neuer be separated indeed but not so much as doubt that he might be so To say therfore that he was forsaken by God in respect of any of those former wayes of Vnion is grieuously to blaspheme the God of heauen and earth and to prophane the dignity and Maiesty of the soule of Christ our Lord and impiously to interprete and attribute that excesse of his diuine charity to the deepest dishonour which he could receâ—ue as that most wicked (*) Caluin Lib. 2. Instit. cap. 26. §. 10.21.12 in harm mc. 27. Matth. Sectary hath presumed to doe Affirming that our Lord despayred of Gods mercy vpon the Crosse when he vttered those words And that he felt the very paines of the damned in his soule the greatest wherof is the knowledge and feeling of hauing lost Almighty God And although he will pretend that he exalts the mercy of God heerby since God suffered his Sonne to endure the very paynes of hell for the reliefe of man yet besides the hideous blasphemy which these words doe euen of themselues inuolue the wretched Heretique is so blind withall as not to know or so wicked as not to confesse (d) A demonstratioÌ„ wher by that blasphemy is defected that the dignity of Christ our Lord was such in regard of the hypostaticall vnion with the diuinity that any one single sigh alone of his being applyed by faith and charity had bene of merit to saue innumerable millions of worlds of meÌ„ though euery of them had bene as wicked as that most wicked man himselfe If therfore one only sigh had beene inough for the redemption of the world then certainly those other many and most sublimely accomplished acts of vertue which that happy soule of Christ our Lord did worke through the whole course of his diuine life being accoÌ„panyed by those vnspeakable torments which he endured with a kind of infinite loue to vs in his sacred passion before his death will make his redemption of vs most superabundantly copious without needing to haue recourse to any such impious and hereticall blasphemy as that miserable man suckt from the authour of lyes to be dispersed by the disciples of his lewd Doctrine The Catholike Doctrine the truth is that which hath already bene declared That our Lord IESVS was content to be depriued of all sense feeling of diuine comsort which he expressed by those dolorous words of his And his pleasure also was that we should be told that he vttered them with a loud voyce Ibid. To (e) Why our Lord spake those words with a loud voyce the end that euen from the most remote corners of our hard harts we might heare theÌ„ and adore him for them And now as he asked not that question with a lowd voyce as if the eternall Father could not haue heard him if he should haue spokeÌ„ softly so neither did he aske it at all as not knowing or needing to be certified why he was so forsaken by him since our Lord knew all things And how should he be ignorant of that which so much concerned himselfe he who knew the secrets of all harts and how the eternall Father would dispose therof Colos 23 and in whome the all treasures of knowledge wisedom were heaped vp But he asked that question to the end that we might seeke for the Answere of it and seeking it might find it and finding it out might learne to know both the grieuousnes of sinne therby which was so sharpely punished vpon Gods owne only Sonne the infinite torments from which we are to be deliuered by such a costly meanes the inestimable value of grace for the purchase wherof to our vse Christ our Lord was content to sel whatsoeuer he could part withall both in body and reputation euen in the inferiour part of his very soule the vnspeakeable glory of the kingdome of heauen which was only to be opened thus by the Golden maister-key of the infinite loue of Christ our Lord. For vpon the only turning of this key towards vs those lockes do all fly open wherin the eternity of selicity is treasured vp for vs in the house of God Of the excessiue loue which our Lord Iesus did expresse by the silence and solitude wherwith he endured those vnspeakeable torments vpon the Crosse and how the whyle he was negotiating our cause with God CHAP. 73. THIS Passion opens the doore of eternall felicity to vs but heere we see how for the tyme it did shut the gate of comfort against our B. Lord. For betwene the end of his three first speaches and this complaint which he made to his eternall Father which was the first of his fower last there passed vpon the point of three full howers during all which tyme this Sonne of the Virgin did not once so much as open his blessed mouth O that our Lord would heere graunte the suite of his humble seruants whilst they desire to haue some sight and tast of that dolorous condition wherin then he was lodged for our sinnes O that we might partake some little part of that amazement wherwith al the quires of heauenly spirits did abound when they saw their Creator planted in the ayre vpon a Crosse deformed from head to foote with torments prophaned with blasphemies attended in sileÌ„ce by darkenes yet withall so far from taking reuenge of any dishonor that had bene done him as that he suffered still with entire submission and with inuincible loue both of God and man But that which still me thinks makes the rest more strange and wherin more of the God appeares is that straÌ„ge kind of silence (a) The admirable silence of our Lord and how he did not once coÌ„plavne either of his paynes or our sinne wherof I spake before and that totall absence of expressing any manner of complaint by so much as any one word yea or euen sigh or groane It was said before that our Lord himselfe had inuited the world to behold the case wherin he was and if we were content to do so vpon the summons of Pilats Ecce homo how much more are we to six our harts vpon this tragicall figure of our owne making now that we are called to it by Christ our Lord. I cannot thinke of this strange spectacle what me thinkes I would nor can I yet say what I thinke but in weake and cloudy manner Our Lord giue vs grace to thinke and say heerof as we ought and that we any doe as he deserues But certainly since he hath giuen vs such faculties of mind as wherwith to wonder at strange things his meaning is that we should imploy them vpon such an obiect as is his bottomles hart in this tyme of his hanging vpoÌ„ the Crosse For then was he sacrificing himself vpon that Crosse as vpoÌ„ the Altar of whole world at once Then (b) The infinite affaires our Lord did
to match with one another yet that rule had no place in these two but the Sacerdotall and the Royall often matched togeather her exteriour beauty was such as became the mother of that Sonne Psal 44. Ambr. de instit vir c. 7. S. Thom in 3. distinct 3. q. 1. art 2. quaestiuncula 1. ad 4. of whome it was said Speciosus forma prae filijs hominum Beautifull beyond the most beautifull of the Sonnes of men And yet a beauty it was of such an admirable holy kind as that according to the testimony of antiquity it had the property to quench all flames of lust in the behoulders Blessed be our Lord who hath prouided so sweet a remedy for our misery For knowing as Father Arias noteth in his booke of the Imitation of our B. Lady that one of our greatest enemies was the inordinate loue of women to men and men to women he hath for the redresse of this inconuenience giuen a man to the world who is his owne only begotten sonne and whome women might both loue and euen by that very louing they might become pure and chast And so also hath he bestowed a most beautifull womā vpon the world which is this glorious Virgin Mother by the loue of whome men might deliuer themselues from sensuality and become the Disciples of her high purity For by louing this man and this woman men are spiritually as it were conuerted into them and doe giue ouer after a sort to be themselues And from hence it hath proceeded that since God became man and was pleased to be borne of the blessed Virgin the feilds of the earth haue produced innumerable roses of virginity both in men women And the Church hath bene filled with this rare treasure wherewith the world in former tymes was not acquainted There (b) Diuers reasons of congruity which cōuince the B. Virgin to haue been free from all kind of spot Damase ser 1. de Natiuitat Virg. could be no such defect of power wisedom or goodnes in our Lord God but that since he was pleased to take his whole humanity from one Creature he would also be carefull of that excellent creature in strange proportion Since the diuinity it selfe would vouchsafe to be hypostatically and indissolubily vnited to the flesh which he would take of her body in her wombe that wombe of which is elegantly and most truely said that it was Officina miraculorum the very shop and mint-house of miraculous things how can it be that he should not preserue her from all those sinnes and shames which the rest of mākind was subiect to He would not liue so long in that holy Tabernacle of hers where she was euer imbracing him with her very bowells and then haue a hart so hard as to goe away as it were without paying her any house-rent out of his riches He came into the world to dissolue the workes of the diuell 1. Ioan. 3. euen in the greatest enemies and rebells to him that could be found and therfore he would be sure to preuent the soule of that body which was but the other halfe of his owne with such store of benedictiōs as wherby the very ayre and sent of any sinne whatsoeuer might be farre from breathing vpon her Christ our Lord descended from heauē to aduance the kingdome and glory of God and he could not then giue way that the hart which had conceaued him with such faith which had adored him with so much loue in her imaculate wombe which had so liberally fed him at the table of her sacred brest lodged him in the bed of her holy bosome and couered him with the robes of her pretious armes which had so diligently attended him in that Pilgrimage of Egipt Matt. 2. and had serued him so purely both with body and soule in all the rest of his life death that this hart I say should euer be in case to giue consent to sinne wherby she should of the spouse of god haue become according to her then present state a lymme of Sathan and be in fine the mother of Christ our Lord yet a Traytour to him and both at once Nay she was not only voyd of sinne but abounded (c) The sublime sanctity of our B. Lady Luc. 1. Cant. 7. in sactity whose sacred wombe was foreseene foretold to be Aceruus tritici vallatus lilijs A rich heape of corne compassed in with a faire and sweet inclosure of Lyllies And as those Lyllies of her purest body gaue him a body of such beauty so did that bread of heauen abundantly feed and euen feast her soule with his plenty The Prophet Ieremy was sanctified in his mothers wombe and she was therfore to be much more sanctified who was to apparaile Sanctity it selfe with a pretious body made by the holy Ghost of her purest bloud And being sanctified then farre and farre beyond that holy Prophet that priuilege must needs serue her afterward to so good purpose as that hauing bene holyer in her mothers wombe then he she grew afterward when she came into the world or rather whē she had brought the Sauiour therof into it to be incomparably much and much more holy S. Iohn (d) The great aduantage which our B. Lady had aboue all pure creatures Luc. 1. Baptist also was sanctified in his mothers wombe at the presence and vpon the very hearing of our B. Ladyes voyce as S. Elizabeth doth expresly say he was freed from his Originall sinne and indued with the vse of reason and he exulted and did exercise the operations of his soule which was the ground and foundation of all the admirable sanctity which florished in that Precursour afterward according to the high office to which he was called So as this mother of God himselfe who was the meanes of those benedictions to S. Elizabeths house by her presence must euer infallibly haue bene as farre beyond S. Iohn Baptist in sanctity Psalm 1. as she was in dignity For of him it is said that he was not worthy to vnty the latchet of our B. Sauiours shoo though yet he were the greatest Matt. 11. amongst the Sonnes of mē wheras she had ben made worthy to giue him all the flesh bloud he had It is a most certaine rule of what we are to belieue concerning the proceeding of Almighty God which S. Augustine giues vs in these words lib. 3. de lib. arb c. 5. Quicquid tibi vera ratione melius occurrerit id scias fecisse Deum whatsoeuer thou canst conceaue to be best according to the dictamen of rectified reason know that so it is done by Almighty God Now who sees not that it was fitter better that the mother of God should haue bene humble then proud discreet then rash beleeuing then incredulous and in fine a perfect Saint then a grieuous sinner Her glorious person is high inough out of reach assumed to heauen and
God forbid that now any creature should coÌ„tinue to crucify her in her honour and in the fame of her sanctity or in the effects of her mercy The Iewes crucified the Sonne but let no man be so wicked as to crucify the mother Let no maÌ„ now be like those Heretiques of auncient time who thinking belike that the sword of sorrow Antidico marianitae apud Ephiphan haer 78. Luc. 2. which was foreseen foretold by holy S. Simeon and of which it was said that it should pierce her hart from side to side at the crucifying of our Lord did not make the wound wide inough and therfore they would needs procure to keepe it open with their venemous teeth and tongues Let men I say be like them so much the lesse as the Turks themselues in their AlcoraÌ„ haue bin coÌ„uinced so far by the certaine and cleere truth of the purity and perfection of our blessed Lady as in seuerall places by way of exclamation and admiration to say thus of her Alcor Mahom. Azoar 5. 75. O Maria c. O Mary thou art more pure and right and cleere then all other men or women who doth perpetually attend to please God alone There is none borne of the children of Adam free from sinne but Mary and her Sonne There is none amongst the children of Adam whome SathaÌ„ hath not defiled excepting Mary and her Sonne If any wicked man would needs haue a spight to any other euen of them who are recorded in holy writ they might haue more colour for there are few who were not subiect to some apparent fault 2. Reg. 11. 3. Reg. 11. There was a time when Dauid committed a most inexcusable murther Salomon fell away to Idolatry the Prophets and Apostles had their defects And such as were free from fault were yet found to execute some seuerity which howsoeuer Matt. 26. in it selfe it were iust and good yet such persons vse to be lesse attractiue of the loue of others If any man should be incestuous I would meruaile the lesse although he should cry out against S. Paul because he deliuered ouer one of that confraternity to the deuill by excommunication 1. Cor. 5. Or if he would breake his promise made to God though he rayled against â— Pâ—eter Act. â— because Ananias Saphira were strocâ—â—Ì„ dead in the Apostles preseÌ„ce for that finne Or being wholy giuen ouer to frequent Taâ—ernes and playes to worke his vnbridled will whatsoeuer it may cost if he haue no mind to S. Iohn Baptist whome he counts to haue bene a melancholy kind of man that he was no good Courtyer Matt. 14. in reprouing Herod for his faults to his face Or being a Prophanour of the worship of God I should not woÌ„der so very much though he maligned the very fountaine of sanctity Christ our Lord himselfe because he whipt such offeÌ„dours as those out of the Temple Ioan. 2. But in this sacred Virgin as on the one side there was neuer the least defect at all of which any creature could iustly taxe her so on the other she had no such Office as might oblige her to the executioÌ„ of any seuerity vpon the pretence wherof they could grow to be auerted from her Of her excellency otherwise I shall say somewhat afterward but for her discharge in point of Innocency I would but aske the sowrest Critiques of the world What action of hers they did euer note what word they did euer read or heere or what (e) The excessiue suauity of our B. Lady coppy of her countenance they did euer take in a true light which did not eueÌ„ smell with sweetnes and goodnes Yet peraduenture this will not serue because themselues will not be such as they ought They loue not to see the sensuality and pride of theirowne liues reproached by the example of her high purity and most holy humility And they conceaue her to cast more shame vpon them then euen the example of Christ our Lord himselfe would doe From the imitation of whome they would excuse themselues because he was God aswell as man wheras she was no more then a mere creature though most eminently inspired by the grace of God which yet they also in their proportions may be But if they would once procure to imitate this Queene of heauen in her vertues Note there is no soule capable of reason which could euer detaine it selfe from becoming the trumper of her prayses If any narrow-harted man be inclined out of ambition to enuy such as aspire to temporall Greatenes his Enuy must looke after another obiect since she was poore and priuate and loued to be so If he hate all cruelty of condition he may better imploy that hate vpon what other creature he will for in this sacred Virgin he could neuer see any thinge which might offend him vnlesse he will be angry with her for hauing neuer resented any indignity that could be done her in this life If he loue to be reuenged of such as doe him any wronge that passion can haue noe place vpon this Queene of Heauen who neuer did him or any any other wrong then to giue her flesh and bloud to God that he might spend and shed it for the redemption of man But (f) How we are obliged to pitty to admire and loue this Queene of heaueÌ„ if on the other side there be any thinge which he can resolue to pitty in her he may see a world of paine for the Crosses of her sonne supported by him for the finnes of vs his wicked seruants If there be any thing which he can be content to admire in her he sees nobility of bloud dignity of calling and sanctity of life all met in one If he be not so fierce but that there is some thing which he may be induced to loue in her he may behould most incomparable beauty of body with an vnspeakeable suauity of minde who neuer in all her life gaue any one crosse-answere nor shewed so much as a strange eye to any creature nor complayned of any incommodity nor refused to be subiect to any impertinency nor fayled to succour any misery But if we will looke vpon her story with vntroubled eyes we shall find all the traces of her pure feete to haue bene full of a kind of diuine profound perpetuall humble suffering sweetnes which at last will oblige men to be her slaues Of the incomparable sanctity which is implyed to haue beene in our Blessed Lady by the consideration of the high dignity of her calling and how that maÌ„ner of speach is to be vnderstood in holy Scripture wherby our Blessed Lady doth seeme in the eye of some to be disaduantaged CHAP. 82. AND how indeed could it be chosen but that her externall actions should leaue behind them an admirable odour whose soule did so regorge with the most sublime perfection of sanctity which might be agreable to the dignity of
prerogatiues prayses of this most gratious most glorious Queene of heauen the ornament both of this and the other world wherby she is delineated in the old Testament may be well content to vanish in the sight of those others which are most perfectly declared in the new The wonderfull excellencies of our B. Lady which are declared in the new Testament be heere set forth CHAP. 86. LET therfore that be first remēbred which was touched before vpon other occasiōs that the holy Scripture is wont to expresse it self in few words that they vse to be deliuered in a very positiue māner least otherwise the earnestnes of asseueration might derogate from the authority of that infallible spirit of truth wherby they are written Let it be also considered that little is said in the whole Euangelicall history of Christ our Lord himselfe in the way and vnder the Tytle of expresse prayse For he was to giue himselfe for a perfect patterne of profōd humnility which permits not a man either to prayse himselfe or to like that it be done by his next fellowes His resolution was that his workes should speake of him and so they did and this was also the case of our Blessed Lady who as she was next him in grace so was she also next him in humility But yet neuerthelesse as it was necessary that Christ our Lord should be declared to the world for the Sauiour of it and for the Sonne of God and of the Blessed Virgin wherby the incomparable excellency of his person was to be discerned and the admirable perfection of his actions discouered so by a necessary consequence of that relation which runs betwene a Sonne and his mother the dignity of her person who was the mother of God must also needs be incidētly not only incidently but expresly also shewed and the matchlesse sanctity of all her actions and operations therby inferred For notwitstanding all the reseruation which I haue said to be vsed in holy Scripture let vs see if it haue bin able to containe it selfe from magnifying our Blessed Lady euen in other termes then by only saying that she was the Mother of God Which word alone had yet bene sufficient to aduance her as farre aboue al the world of creatures both in heauen and earth as a single figure being placed before a whole million of Cyphers would expresse a number which would scarce be told I will first in a word point out the priuiledges and prayses of this perpetuall Virgin which are mentioned in holy Scripture in effect as they ere raunged togeather by Canisius lib. 1. c. 2. that deuout and learned seruant of hers And from thence I will proceed to a short consideration of those diuine vertues which were imparted to her togeather with those prerogatiues which were necessarily to be supposed to be in her by those prayses For of her and to her it was said by the Archangell Gabriel and note that he said it not as in his owne person but as in the person of God himselfe whose Ambassador he was All haile O thou full of Grace Luc. 2. Our Lord is with thee Blessed art thou amongst women Thou hast found grace with God Thou shalt beare a Sonne and thou shalt call his name Iesus That Sonne of thine shall be great and he shall be called the Sonne of the most High Our Lord God will giue him the seate of his Father Dauid He shall raigne in the house of Iacob for euer and that kingdome shall haue no end Vpon thee shall the holy Ghost descend and the vertue of the most high shall ouershadow thee And so therfore that which of thee shall be borne holy shall be called by the Sonne of God Vpon her presence also it was and vpon the first sound of her sacred voyce that S. Elizabeth was indued with the spirit of Prophesy and ful-filled with the holy Ghost Luc. 1. that her Sōne did spring in her wombe with ioy as hath bin said which supposeth the vse of reason then imparted to him Vpon her Visitation it was that S. Elizabeth was not able to containe her selfe but cryed out to this effect with an extaticall kind of loud voyce Is it possible that this poore creature should receaue such a fauour as not only to be saluted by the mother of my Lord but that she should preuent me with such a painefull visit How come I to be capable of such high honour Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruite of thy wombe Happy I say art thou who hast belieued for whatsoeuer our Lord hath sayd to thee shall be performed And heerupon the humble and loyall soule of the sacred Virgin when she found that her Cosin had receaued a reuelation of the diuine mystery which had bin wrought in her◠lent her tongue to the holy Ghost Luc. 1. who therby pronounced that holy Canticle of the Magnificat And so farre was she (a) The holy Ghost did force the sacred tongue of our B. Lady to giue her selfe due prayse ouerruled therby as prophetically to foretell her own excellency and not only to say That our Lord had done great things to her but that all generations of men should call her blessed It is but reason O Queene of heauen that those Generations should call thee blessed by whose only meanes vnder God his curse is to be remoued from them And if the good (b) A consequence which cānot be denied Luc. 11. womā in the Ghospell vpon the seeing and hearing of Christ our Lord when he was teaching did proclaime the blessednes of that wombe which had borne such a Sonne and of the breasts which had giuen him sucke and if according to the iudgmēt of antiquity she was inspired therin by the holy Ghost Beda l. 4. c. 4◠in Luc 11. she of whome our Venerable Country man S. Bede affirmes that by the example of her faith and deuotion whilst the Pharisies were tempting blaspheming Christ our Lord she did both confound the slaunders of those principall Iewes who then were present and the persidiousnes of those Heretiques who would spring vp in tyme which was then to come how much more are we to blesse her who haue so much more knowledge of her excellencies then the other had For she did but conceaue her at that time to be mother of some great Prophet or man of God wheras we are taught by the light of faith that she was no lesse then the mother of God himselfe How miserable therfore are they who do their best to giue both the holy Ghost and her the lye whilst they acknowledge her not to be truly blessed for as much as they make her subiect both to originall to actuall sinnes An incomparable dignity it was for thee O sacred Virgin to be made the mother of the euer-liuing God And if we with our misty sight discerne that dignity to haue bene so great what did those pure sweet
dispatching vp to that throne of Maiesty in whose light so inaccessible to other folkes she did so cleerly see the bottomlesse pit of nothing from whence the sweet strong hand of God had brought her and the worse then nothing of sinne from which he had preserued her by his first abundant Grace and that afterward he had inriched and sublimed her so farre as both in dignity and sanctity to make her the very top and Crowne of all meere creatures If (e) A most excellent affect of S. Augustine Confes l. 11. cap 2. S. Augustine could say to God with incredible internall ioy of hart Et intrem in cubile meum c. Let me enter into my most retyred chaÌ„ber and let me singe Loue-songes to thee sighing out certaine vnspeakeable groanes in this pilgrimage of mine And calling the heauenly Ierusalem to remembrance with my hart enlarged and turned vp towards it Ierusalem which is my Country Ierusalem which is my mother And I will remember thee who art the ruler of it and the illuminatour the tutour the Father the spouse the chast and stronge delight the solid and sincere ioy and all vnspeakeable good things put togeather because thou art the only true and supreme good What kind of notes and songes of Angelicall and Seraphicall loue do we thinke that this spiritual Nightingall this Turtle this both euer-liuing and dying Swanne would still be singing and sweetly mourning out to God In respect of whome although S. Augustine being set not only by other men but eueÌ„ by many other Saints were as a furnace of fire being compared with some single coale yet the same S. Augustine in respect of her was no more then a single sparke in respect of a whole sphere of fire An inexplicable thing it is to consider the (f) Profound rest perpetuall motion were coupled in the soule of the sacred Virgin profound rest togeather with the perpetuall strife and motion of her soule of loue which was both continually inioying God and yet coÌ„tinually earning towards him CoÌ„tinually labouring to doe him most faithfull seruice and yet continually feeding vpon the pretious fruits of those very labours But because she foÌ„d that Man was the thing which he most loued next to God as being his Image by Creation and his owne purchase by Redemption and that she most actually most purely cleerly saw the Sonne of God and her at that tyme in such labour and pursuite of mans good with so much forgetfullnes as it were of his owne Maiesty and glory and that afterward he left his life vpon a Crosse for our Saluation it (g) The incomparable and most ardent loue which our B. Lady beares to â— all mankind is not to be declared nor yet conceaued by vs what an vnquenchable loue she also had to the good of men Imploring God for all that mercy which their misery did need and by her owne excellent example giuing them patternes which they were to follow and procuring both increase of comfort to them who had store and the accesse therof to such as she found to be in want therof This may euidently appeare by those two excellent patternes of that whole peece of her loue which haue so often bene produced and which she deliuered at S. Elizabeths house the mariage of Cana. Especially if the circumstances be pondered well both of the difference in Dignity betwene her person and theirs and the hast that she made to be communicating her fauours to Gods creatures Towards whome the ardour of her affection was so great that it seemed by the much hast she made in those two mysteries as if she had not bene able to containe it The impenetrable profound Humility and the perfect supercelestiall Purity of our B. Ladies both body and soule and wherin the height thereof consisteth CHAP. 90. I Come froÌ„ the Theologicall to some chiefe Morall vertues behould how deep she â—aid the foundatioÌ„ of Humility that her building might reach vp as high as heauen She considered with perfect clarity of vnderstanding that from all eternity she had bene nothing as was touched before till the omnipotent mercy of God did preuent her with those first vnspeakeable vnconceaueable graces without any merit on her part She knew well as hath bene said that (a) The ground of our B. Ladyes most profound Humility she was no more then a meere creature of the race of the sinfull Adam and that she might haue fallen into as many as grieuous sinnes as the rest of mankind was subiect to if the sweet goodnes of God had not preuented and presered her still with most particular fauours By the light of this knowledge the most sacred Virgin did esteeme her selfe as the meanest creature of the world and she cordially despised herselfe as a thing in herselfe who deserued to be of no account at all Not but that she well knew what guiftes she had receiued of our Lord God or that she tooke herselfe into contempt as thinking meanely of them for them she esteemed and she reueared God for them as she had cause but she esteemed herselfe in herselfe no more for them then if she had not had them at all She was yet further from conceauing that she was to contemne herselfe as if she had comitted any sinne for true (b) True Humility is euer grounded vpon Truth Humility is grounded euer vpon certaine truth and therfore as indeed she did neuer sinne so neither could she think that she had sinned but she despised herselfe because she cleerly saw that of herselfe alone she had nothing which was good but that all was of God and that to him all thanks were due as they also were for his preseruing her from all those sinns into which she might haue fallen if our Lord had not preuented her by his grace This meane conceipt of her selfe the most sacred Virgin made appeare when she was told by the Angell in the name of God that she was elected to that highest Dignity of being the Mother of the Sonne of the most high which was the greatest Dignity wherof any meere creature could be capable But yet she was so far from taking complacence in her selfe vpon that reason that the text affirmes her to haue bin troubled at them So that the Angell thought it his part to giue her comfort afterward by letting her know that it was not he but God himselfe who did her that honour But (c) How our B. Lady was troubled and in what seÌ„se she was not so the while we must not thinke that this trouble of hers was any such thing as could depriue her of the cleare discourse of reason or of the peace of that immoueable soule though for as much as it was a motioÌ„ of holy feare modest shame to find herselfe so much esteemed it shewes what an impenetrable sort of humility she had in that deepe sweet hart of hers how profoundly she thought
herself vnworthy of honour So that finding her selfe at the very instant to be sublimed to such a height as that she did not yet esteeme her selfe one graine more worthy in her selfe then she did before Whervpon she tooke no titles which might then beloÌ„g so her present state as of Queene of Angells Lady Mistris of the world or elected Spouse of the holy Ghost Nor did she prefer herself before theÌ„ meanest creature of the earth but setling her soule in the lowest meanest place of theÌ„ all she gaue her self the stile of a hand-mayd or slaue In c. 1. Lucae S. Ambrose wonders at this Humility I woÌ„der not at him for so woÌ„dring for the Angells theÌ„selues are not able to do it as it deserues This vertue she also discouered in straÌ„ge maÌ„ner when vpoÌ„ those great prayses which S. Elizabeth proclaymed to be her due both for the prerogatiues which she had in her selfe for the wonders which had bin wrought in S. Iohn vpon the only hearing of her voyce this sacred Virgin refused out-right to accept therof and instantly running into her most humble hart she fell into that diuine Canticle Luc. 2. wherin she ascribes all the glory of her greatnes and of that felicity of hers which was to be celebrated for euer by all the Generations of the faithfull to the only omnipotent mercy of our Lord God Of the soueraigne Purity Greg. Niâ—â— in Orat. de humana Christi Generat Aug. de S. virginitate c. 4. Beda hom de Eest Annunt Anselm hom Intrauit Iesus Bern serm de Natiuitat Mariae apud Canisium l. 2. c. 14. of this sacred Virgin as it were a most blasphemous sinne to doubt so were it simplicity to dilate the consideration of a thing so cleere into any great length She imbraced Chastity she vowed it though formerly both in the law of nature euen in the written law there was little notice of it lesse practise And as fecundity was much esteemed by the Iewes so was the want therof a note rather of reproach infamy then otherwise The people of flesh bloud do often choose rather to be infamous with the losse of virginity theÌ„ glorious by the preseruation therof But this Queene of Virgins did loue not only to be contemptible in the eye of the world but euen to excuse her selfe from accepting to be the very mother of God rather theÌ„ she would endure to thinke that the flower of her virginity should once be touched Yet touched it was but first that was by the holy Ghost himselfe then instantly afterward by the increated Sonne of God who reposed so many moneths in that Angelicall Cradle of her sacred wombe But that touch was so farre from blasting it as that it indued it with most pretious odours which haue perfumed the world And if before that tyme her Virginity were but in flower it was now growne to be both in flower fiuite being highly sanctified sublimed by that Elixir (d) The sacred humanity of Christ our Lord. of heauen which turneth whatsoeuer it toucheth into gold The integrity of her sacred body was the least part of her diuine Purity for her soule was that which did excell That extended not only to the absence of any thing which was contrary to Chastity but (e) This indeed is true and perfect Purity to a forbearance of taking the least contentment or delight in any thing created but only in God for God No thought no care no desire or ioy did euer presume so much as to solicit that superexcelleÌ„t soule but only how to coÌ„ply with her vnspeakeable obligatioÌ„ to Almighty God by perpetuall working and yet profoundly contemplating those diuine attributes of his vpon which froÌ„ the first instaÌ„t of her Immaculate Conception till that other of her most glorious Assumption her mind as hath bene said did beate and boyle in continuall acts of most ardent loue This indeed was to be Chast in the most eminent degree To be doing that on earth which the Angels are doing in heauen Whose incessant actuall loue S. Augustine doth thus expresse Confes lib. 12. c. 11. Quod perseuerantissima castitate DeÌ„ hauriant that they are sucking vp God himselfe with a most perseruing Chastity and purity of minde When the Sonne of God and her was sucking at the sacred fountaine of her breast for the reliefe and maintenance of his pretious life how would that diuine Virgin (f) A happy exchaÌ„ge Mother be sucking the while at the fountaine of his Diuinity for the delighting inebriating of her soule How instantly did she vpon all occasions giue backe all prayses and attributes of estimation and honour to God though they had bene sent down to her by the TrÌ„pets of heauen and by tongues of truth it self as hath bene said When other creatures are praysed they seldome send the prayses backe as cleane as they come but their mindes being moystned by selfe-loue are still retayning some impression therof more or lesse Lumen siccum optimae anima It is an excellent choice soule which so flameth vp towards God as not to be softned or steeped in humaine affections It was with our B. Lady in the case of the prayse or honour which was done her as it would be with a wall of Diamond towards which some ball were sent and the harder it should be driuen the more forcibly and quickly it would returne againe What ball could be stronger driuen then that she should be proclaymed the Mother of God by an Archangell and what more stiffe repulse could be made to the prayse which did result therby then that instantly she should prostrate and protest her selfe to be no better then his slaue If such were the perfection of her Purity of hart at that tyme which I would to Christ we did not want words so much as to name what would it grow to be after so long cohabitation with that God her sonne for the space of tree and thirty yeares He (g) The power of the presence of Christ our Lord. whose presence euen for one minute in such sort as he was pleased to affaord it to her were able to make any dissolute and disordered hart become Saintly and pure and indeed to make a kind of heauen of hell it selfe I adore God in his B. Mother and I admire the perfection of her happy soule and in the least of her actions and words I see another manner of Abysse without a bottom then in all the Saints and Angells put togeather but that which most amazeth me is the plentiful RegioÌ„ of her purity the incorruptible fidelity of her soule towards God Which was so perfectly dead to it selfe and so full of springing life and motion to him as (h) The Non-plus vltra of the Purity of the B. Virgin that instantly shee did euer returne his graces back againe wrapped vp as in so many Loue-letters of adoring
Charity Patience at the Crosse are trāsplanted out of the desert of this world into that gardē of God in heauen For thither is she assumed both in soule body to the fruition of more glory then is possessed by all the Angells and Saints There is she ingulfed in the bright vision of God where she sees and in whome she loues all the soules which haue recourse to her with incomparable Charity and care And if S. Augustine could truly say of his deceased friend Nebridius who was gone to God Confes l. ◠c. ◠I am non ponit aurem ad os mē c. He doth not now lay his eare to my mouth but he applyes that spirituall mouth to that spring of thine and he drinketh wisedome after the vttermost rate of his owne greedy thirst being happy for all eternity Neither yet doe I thinke that he is so inebriated with thee as that he can forget me since thou O Lord whome he is drinking art mindfull of vs. If S. Augustine I say could thus reflect vpon Nebribius who shall be euer able to expresse the perpetuall memory or rather the euer presēt sight and care of vs which the mother of our Lord God now raigning in such glory as becometh such greatnes hath incē parably more tēderly more liuely of vs then S. Augustines Nebridius could haue of him So much more as she was made our mother heere so much more as now that she is there she drinkes whole seas of God for any one drop which Nebridius could drink consequētly as she is more perfectly happy trāsformed into that Abisse of charity God himself whose loue desire care of our eternall good is infinite Proceed therfore O thou glorious Queen in being glorious raigne thou for euer vnder God alone ouer all his creatures Proceed in being gracious to vs thou who wert so ful of Grace euen before thou wert made the mother of God Thy soule did magnify our Lord at the visit which thou gauest to S. Elizabeth with (c) The princely gratitude of our B. Lady expressed in the Magnificat to our Lord God more delight ioy thē euer had bene cōceaued by any creature And thou didst thē most diuinely expresse his goodnes to thee in a māner of Court so choice noble as might wel declare that thou wert born a Queen thou didst singe Magnificat to our Lord for hauing respected as it were cast an eye of fauour towards thee And how truly indeed wert thou as good as thy word therin when thou saidst that thou didst Magnify or make great our Lord. For whilst he was bestowing those great fauours vpon thee according to those other words of thine Fecit mihi magna qui potēs est sanctū nomē eius Our Lord hath done great things to me and his name is holy thou wert euen very then returning those great things againe to him with the additiō of thine owne most humble thāks So that the greater he made thee the more great and glorious he was also made by thee And besides how couldst thou mak him shew more glorious and more great then in saying that with the cast as it were but of an eye he had made such a mother for himself as thou This Magnificat of thyne is celebrated with diligent and dayly deuotion by the holy Catholike Church in memory of that high ioy which thou hadst in thy Angelicall hart when the holy Ghost expressed it selfe by that well tuned Organ of thy tongue But now O soueraigne Lady that thou art all transformed in God thou art singing it out in a far higher straine Thou canst not say any more that he but casts an eye of fauour towards thee for now he lookes vpō thee with a full face and thou art able to see him as thou art scene 1. Cor. 13. And since the more thou seest of him the more dost thou also see of vs. Vouchsafe to implore his mercy towards the reliefe of our misery which thou canst not but find to be extreme Behould vs who are children of thy soule since by Faith thou becamst the mother of all such as were to liue by Grace And intercede thou for vs with that Sonne of thy sacred wombe whose lawes though we haue transgressed and whose Passion though we haue renewed and whose grace though we haue quenched by our innumerable sinnes yet for as much as frō our soules we are sory for thē that there was mercy in store for his very Crucifiers let it not be wāting to vs who are procuring as thou knowest to be his seruants Since we fly to the sanctuary of thy feete for succour since with the most reuerend of our thoughts we take hold of that Altar of thy purest wombe wherin the Iudge of the quicke and dead did make the first Sacrifice of himselfe to his eternall Father for the redemption of the world defend vs by thy prayers O Queene of pitty from that sword of Iustice which is ready to fall vpon our heads Thou saidst that all Generations should call thee Blessed and we are a part of them withall the powers of our soules we blesse both thee and God for thee and we vow our selues to belieue whatsoeuer excellency may be ascribed to a meere creature And we make this protestation withall that so farre we are frō derogating therby from the worship of Latria which is only due to God as that we know not in this world how to do him more high honour and seruice then by offering him first to himselfe and next by honoring and praysing thee For the greater thou art the greater do we acknowlege him to be who made thee what thou art or nothing Obtaine of that holy Spirit who ouer-shadowed thee heere which doth as it were ouerwhelme thee there in that region of eternall blisse that we also may be quickned inspired by it so may be walking on towards heauē by those paces which thy pure feete haue traced out I cannot beseech thee to obtaine wine for vs as thou didst for them of Cana for we want no wine since we are nourished by the milke of thy maternall loue which is better thē the best most pretious wine And we may also be inebriated as oftē as we shall wel dispose our selues by that Vinum germinaus virgines Lach. 9. that pretious bloud in the body of thy Sonne our Lord in the venerable Sacrament of the Altar But the misery is that our soules want mouths wherwith to tast it or rather they are all crammed with the corrupted food of delight in creatures and our blindnes is such through the mist of passiō which ouergrowes vs that we see not what we eate and much lesse can we discerne the sad effects which it works within and amongst them this one that it depriues vs of gust in heauenly things It is therfore O Queene of heauen that we cast our selues humbly
Blessed Lady was figured in the old Testament after Eue vnder (a) The principall figures of our B. Lady Gen. 24. Indith 13. the person of Rebecca as a fit and choice spouse for the true Isaac which was found out and adorned by God himselfe he being the Father She was figured by Iudith who by cutting of the head of Holofernes that type of the Diuell gaue victory to her people as according to Gods first prediction our Blessed Lady was to do it in a higher and nobler manner by bruizing the head of the Serpent And the honour which once the people did to Iudith by that Elogium of theirs was incomparably better and more authorizedly fulfilled by the Angell Gabriel himselfe and by the holy Prophetesse S. Elizabeth and now dayly by the whole Church of God and vpon the person of our B. Lady She was also figured by Hester for she found so much fauour with the great Assuerus according to the Angells asseueration of Inuenisti gratiam apud Deum as to discharge the decree of death which had bin published against the world by her conceauing bringing him forth Ester 8. who tore the hand-writing which was so full of preiudice to vs. She was that excellent creature whome Moyses saw figured in the Bush Exod. 3. which was not blasted by the fyer Which Aron saw Num. 17. Exod. 37. in the rodd and flower which the Israelites saw in the Arke of the Testament which was made of incorruptible wood Shee was foreseen by the Prophet Isay in the root of Iesse Isa 11. Ezech. 44. which was neuer bent By Ezechiel in the Orientall gate which was euer brightly shining and euer shut By Gedeon in that Fleece of Wool which was moystned with dew from heauen Iud. 6. she being fulfilled by the descēt of the holy Ghost and the obumbration of the vertue of the most high Num. 24. She was that Starre which sprunge from Iacob and from whence that beame did flow which serued to illustrate the whole world She was the mysticall Arke of the Testament cōteyning the celestiall Manna Ad Hebr 9. Exod. 37.3 Reg. 7. which is the bread both of men and Angells She was the Propitiatory of gold who by bringing vs a Sauiour of the world did appeale the diuine lustice which was so incensed against it She was the Temple and the Sanctuary of God the very Way of Saints because by her as through a Triumphall Arch the Saint of Saints made his entry into the world in flesh and bloud and appeared vnder the eyes of mortall men She in (b) Certaine Allusions Appellations of honour which set forth the excellēcy of our B. Lady fine was that pretious and choice Spouse and friend of God whome Salomon being then full of the holy Ghost did foresee and celebrate after a most eminent manner in that mysticall espousall of all holy soules to the King of heauen but particularly and especially of hers which was so much more holy then they all Nor could that Propheticall diuine Poet content himselfe with any one single allusion But he calls her what he can Cant 2.6 Immaculate most faire worthy to be crowned perfect doue A woman who for her excessiue beauty did resemble Ierusalem that most beautifull and most goodly citty A woman whome the daughters of Sion did see and prayse and Queenes themselues did proclayme her to be more happy Cant. 4. then they And not content with this he compares her to a most pure fountaine to a most cleere well and to a most delicious garden but most carefully shut He falls then into exclamations as not being able to expresse himselfe home after a positiue manner and he askes Cant. 3.8 Who that is which riseth vp as a perfume could doe out of most pretious and odoriferous gumms Who that is which ascendeth out of the desert euen drowned as it were in most pure delights and leaning so vpon her beloued These I say are Salomons descriptions of this Queene of heauen although he call her not in those places by her proper name And (c) The same passage of holy Scripture hath many true sense◠although those passages of holy Scripture are capable of many seuerall sēses which are all true as S. Augustine proueth at large that all the holy Scripture is yea they containe a litterall an historicall an Allegorical an Analogicall sēse yea there are euē of the very selfe same places of holy Scripture diuers senses which are litterall and all which are true and intended to be vnderstood by the holy Ghost as appeares by what was said in that discourse of the Doctrine of Christ our Lord. And (d) The seuerall senses of the Canticles do all most particularly set forth the sanctity of our B. Lady although some doe in some sense take these places of the Canticles to be spoken of the Church of God and others of any soule in state of grace yet if it should be but so what Christian would doubt but that euen out of these very Tytles they most properly must belong to the All-immaculate Virgin Mother of God whose soule being so deere beyond all others in his sight must needs haue bin espoused to him in a manner so sublime as no Angell is able to conceaue For who is so eminent a part of the Church as shee De symb ad Catech. l. 4. c. 1. S. Augustine sayth of her Mulierem illam Virginem Mariam significasse quae caput nostrum integra integrum peperit quae etiam ipsa siguram in se sanctae Ecclesiae demonstrauit The woman mentioned in the Apocalips at whose child-birth the dragon that is the diuell watched to deuoure the Infant did signify the Virgin Mary who being entyere brought forth our head namely Christ our Lord intyere and who also in her selfe did declare and beare the figure of the holy Church But besides the weight of this consequēce which yet is ful inough of force we see that numbers of most learned wryters Vide Canis l. 1. c. ◠doe apply many passages not only of these Canticles the Prouerbes and Apocalips to this blessed Virgin but euen the Rabbins of the Iewes themselues haue affirmed that they were to be vnderstood of the Mother of the Messias And the Catholike Church of IESVS Christ our Lord which is taught by the voyce of the holy Ghost doth in the Lessons and Responsories and Antiphonies which are vsed in the festiuities of our B. Lady resort for her honour to those books and texts We may therfore heere in some part discerne by the figures which did foreshew our B. Lady and by the allusions which set her forth to be admired by resembling the most pretious and delicious things to her that she was is the most excellent pure creature which can be thought of But yet figures and shadowes do not fall so far short of bodyes substāce as the