more secure to go by the way of Innocencie than by the way penance to everlasting life Amen DISCOURS XLII of the Oblgations we contract in Baptisme I Will poure out upon you clean water and you shal be cleansed from all your contaminations I will give you a new heart and a new spirit sayd God by Ezechiel Which words the holy Fathers and the Interpreters of Scripure understand unanimously of Baptismal water He had reason to make this promise with so great pomp and majestie of words for if we cosider attentively we shal see that after the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Redemption of manking He never more oblig'd humane nature than by the institution of the Sacrament of Baptism which purges us from all sin makes us adoptive children of God members of IESUS CHRIST coheires of Heaven and Temples of the holy Ghost What honor what dignity and what admirable prerogatives They that are members of IESUS CHRIST and the children of God ought they not to lead a life conformable to this dignity thy that receiv'd the Spirit of God in Baptisme should they not act and speak according to this divine Spirit T is is that to which all Christians are oblig'd by Baptism It obliges them to die a morall and vertuous death and to lead a new life conformable to rhe excellencie of this birth as shal be shewn in this Discours 1. Before I proceed to the proofs of these important Points I explicate my self By the sin of the first man and by our own crimes we deserve to die effectually the death of soul and body and to be bâ—ried in hell eternally But the Son of God out of his infinite mercy to the end we might live and merit the crowns of heaven changes by Baptisme that horrible and eternall death into a morall and vertuous one He will that we die to sin to the world and to our selves To sin that is to all sorts of vices To rhe world and its pomps that is you must not set your heart upon the pride riches and passtimes thereof you must reject superfluities and content your self with necessaries and not according to the rules of the world but according to christian frugalitie modestie and humilitie To our selves this is that we call dying to the old Adam that is you must die to ill humours irregular passions vicious inclinations to the love of your own selves which we contracted by our carnal birth and extraction from the first man for by his sin our nature hath been so corrupted that if we follow it we have no other object of our thoughts words actions and affections than our selves and our own interests To all the aforesayd things we are oblig'd to die and see here the proofs of it 2. For when S. Paul says in the 6th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans that we are dead and buried with IESVS CHRIST Rom. 6. by Baptisme It is to prove what he would perswade us in the whole Chapter that we are oblig'd to kill in our selves sin with all its appurtenances and for ever so he says since we are dead to sin how shal we live therein We know that by Baptisme our old Rom. 6 man hath been crucifyd with IESUS CHRIST that the body of sin and the mass of evill inclinations may be destroyed And to the Galatians they that pertain to Christ have crucified their flesh with its vices and Gal. 5. concupiscences Can we be good Christians and not appertain to IESUS Nevertheless the Apostle of JESUS says that we appertain not to him if we crucify not our flesh He says not they that appertain to him in the quality of Religious or Priests But all they that appertain to IESUS CHRIST Crucify their flesh And S. Chrisostome Baptisme is to us that which the Cross and Sepulcher was to IESUS 24. hom 10. in ep Rom. C. 6. it ought to have in us the same effects it ought to crucify us to make us die and to hide us from the world 3. It imports much to note what is the Grace of each Sacrament and what charg it puts upon us for each sacrament conferrs a special grace and to this grace some charg is annexed to which we oblige our selves T is a Talent given us with a strict obligation to employ it The grace of Confirmation is a spirit of Fortitude which obliges us to make profession of the Faith in Presence of Tyrants also with perill of our lives The grace of Confession is a spirit of Penance which obliges us to satisfactory workes to fasts alms prayers and other actions which S. Iohn Baptist terms Fruits worthy of penance the grace of Baptime is a spirit of the Cross and death which obliges us to die to sin to the world and to our selves if then we have any voluntary affection to the Pomps of the world to the delights of the flesh to the satisfaction of unruly passions if we are wedded to our own conduct to our proper judgment and not to that of our Superiours we are wanting to the grace of this Sacrament for we are baptized to be made Christians that is Disciples of Christ and He says to us expresly He that renounces Matth. 16. Luke 9. 23. not himself note himself his unbridled passions bad humours his own judgment and self love and carrys not his Cross daily cannot be my disciple 4. But this death is like to that of the Phenix which dies not but to acquire a new life 'T is as that of IESUS who was spoyled of a mortal and fading life to resume a glorious and immortal We die not to sin to the world and to our selves but to live to God and to his grace we are not crucifyd with IESUS CHRIST but to rise again to a new life we devest not our selves of the old man but to put on the new For we are buried by baptisme with IESUS to die to sin that as the Son of God is risen by the glory of his Father So also we may Rom. 6. Ephes. 4. 24. walk in newness of life says S. Paul to the Romans And to the Ephesians Put ye on the new man which according to God is created in justice and sanctity When the Apostle commends to us a new life he demands of us a great change and an admirable metamorphosis says S. Chrysostom Then he adds I have great S Chrysost hom 10. in ep ad Rom. 6. Gal. 5. 3. caus to groan and weep abundantly considering on the one side the great obligations we have contracted in Baptisme and seeing on the other our great negligence For as S. Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians says every man that circumcises himself engages himself to observe all the law of Moyses So whosoever receives Baptisme obliges himself to keep the law of Christ Now since Christian Religion is a profession of penance mortification sanctity and perfection these things are not indifferent to them that
not been redeem'd by IESUS-CHRIST sayd to them Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy foul and with all thy forces what ought Christians to do after the Incarnation Redemption and Passion of our Saviour Ought they not to burn with love should they not if it were possible love JESUS above all their forces thoughts and activity of their hearts If I owe my self wholy to him for making me what shal I add now for repairing me and repairing me in such a manner 14. Let us love him then since He so loved us let 's not love him only in words and compliments let us not content our selves to say I honour much my Saviour I love him with all my heart But let us love him in worke and Verity in doing in giving and in suffering for him for so He loved us And since his goodness is so infinite and his love to us so excessive that He preferred us not only before Angells but also before himself it would be a horrible blindeness to preferr any other good before him it would be a strange folly to offend him to disoblige his goodness to lose his amity and his favour for honour pleasure profit or satisfaction of a Passion Do not so if you be wise Say rather with S. Austin all abundance all honour all felicity that is not you my God is but poverty vanity and misery say as S. Francis did my God You are my All Love him with all your heart since He his all your good love him with a sovereign love since He is sovereignly good love adore bless prayse glorify him now and ever Amen DISCOURS VII OF THE FIFTH ARTICLE He descended into Hell the third day He rose again from the dead IESUS appli'd himself so earnestly to our Salvation that whilst He was on earth He let not a moment pass without labouring for it And for this effect whilst his Body lay'd in grave He descended into Hell This world Hell signify's an inferiour and low place And therefore the holy Church makes use of it in divers occasions to signify divers inferiour places By this word she most often understands the place of everlasting damnation And so our Saviour called it in 1. Luke 36. S. Luk. where speaking of the unfortunate rich man says he was buried in hell Other times she uses this terme to signify Purgatory where they are who died in the grace of God but having not fully satisfyed the divine Iustice are further to be punished so in the Mass of the dead she prayes free ô Lord the souls of the faithfull departed from the paines of hell She makes use of it also to signify the place whither the souls of holy and just persons who were not subject to purgation or had duely satisfyd for their offences went before the death of the Saviour of the world expecting He should open them the gates of Heaven by his Passion 2. He descended not only by effect into these two last places making his power and goodness to appear by delivering the soules in them detained But in substance He descended into them his soul was really in those places and He honoured the soules that were in them and made them happy by his presence The third day he rose again from the dead He rose no sooner for to testify that He was truly dead and to fulfill the figure of Matt. 12. 40. him As Ionas was three days and three nights in the belly of a whale so shal be the Son of man in the bowells of the earth He would be three days subject to the law of death to teach us mystically that by his death and Passion He had satisfyd the three Persons of the B. Trinity for the sins committed in the three states of the world in the Law of nature in the Law of Moses and in the Law of grace And to shew us that his Passion was the cause of the delivery of the ancient Fathers out of hell of the Redemption of men on earth and of the reparation of the Angelical thrones in Heaven He rose again By which words the Apostles teach us that He S. Iohn 10. return'd to life by his own power He sayd also in the Gospell I have power to lay down my life and to take it up againe and in another place I will raise up my Body in three daies after death 3. I know well that S. Peter and S. Paul teach in many places that his Father raised Him up to life because this miracle S. Pater is an effâ—ct of the omnipotency of God which thô common Ast. c. 3. 26. and c. 5. 30. S. Paul in the 4. 8. and 10. to the Rom. Phil. 28. and 9. to all the 3. Persons of the B. Trinity yet is attributed commonly to the Father 'T is true then that He rose up by his own Power and 't is true also that the eternal Father raised him to the end He might shew his goodness both ro him and us 4. First to him that his Body might receive the Glory which He merited by his labors humiliations and sufferances For He humhled himself says the Apostle being obedient unto death for the which thing God hath exalted him Note exalted him for his Resurrection was not a simple return from death to life but an entrance into a glorious life That Body which He layd down passible and mortall He receives impassible and immortal that which was inglorious now is glorious which was infirm now is powerfull which was a natural Body now is becom a spiritual These are the excellent qualities which S. Paul attributes to every 1. cor 15. matt 13 43. glorifyd Body But that of Glory or clarity delights me most for the body of every saint shal shine by it as the sun fulgebunt justi sicut sol and nevertheless one shal differ from another in this Quality as much as he exceeded him here in good works or as S. Paul says as one starr differs in glory from another What glory then what admirable splendor what ravishing beauty was given to the adorable Body of JSUS in recompence of his merits And what satisfaction and felicity will it be to see it when our eyes shal be able to behold it as hereafter they shall be by their impassibility These four qualities belong to the Body of the Son of God as a body glorifyd But as a Body Deifyd as subsisting in the Divinity it hath yet a farr other Glory Jt hath a supereminent ineffable and incomprehensible Glory as we may see in the next Discours 5. Wherfore the Son of God thanks his Father for that He brought his soul out of hell and his Body out of the sepulcher and that He raised him up again Exaltabo te Domine quoniam suscepisti psal 29. me Eduxisti ab inferno animam meam And He esteems so much this favour that He exhorts us to thanke God to praise and glorify
contrary Parties do confidently affirm that they have the true sense and understanding of the Scriptures and that consequently they make to themselves Faiths Religions and models of Government to the utter destruction of Vnity Peace and Charity it self Is it not then Necessary for the avoyding of Heresies and Divisions and for the preservation of Vnity and Peace to harken also in this part to the Church and to adhere to her sense of the holy Scripture Wherefore the Apostles oblige us to follow her and to rest in her judgements to dispute against whom S. Austin with great reason tells us is Ep. 1 insolent madness And lest we might doubt which among all the Societies of men in the Christian world is the dwelling place of Faith the spring of truth an the true Church of the living God the Apostles mark her out to us by three evident Notes which are proper to her and distinguish her from all other Churches they teach us that she is One Holy Catholick 6. First they teach us that She is One for they make us not to say I believe Churches but I believe the Church which is the kingdom of the Son of God his flock and mystical Body You never find in the Gospell that the Son of God hath many kingdoms many flocks many mystical Bodys But always one kingdom one sheepfold one mystical Body In S. Matt. 4. 23. Ch. 13. 41. Iohn 10. 16. Rom. 12. Ephes 4. v. 4 Matthew JESUS went about preaching the Gospell of the kingdom And again He says in the Same Gospell that He will send his Angells and they shal gather all scandalls out of his kingdom There shal be made one fold and one Pastor We being many are one Body in Christ One Lord one Faith One Baptisme 7. I demand now the Church of England is it the true Church if so the Protestant Church in Holland is not that in Germany is not that in France is not there is but one true Church and these are many they have nothing that unites them they depend not one of another they have not the same Superiour But among Catholicks many Bishopricks many Republicks Nations and Kingdoms are one Church becaus they are united in the same Spiritual Head or supream Pastor 8. You will say that which unites us is Faith we are one Body by the Vnity of Faith But besides that this Vnity which also excludes not Schismaticks is not enough to make one Church We need not but look into the books of Luther Calvin Zuinglius to know the war they make with one another We need not but to read the Works of their successours to see their disagreement in Points of the greatest importance There is nothing for example so important to Faith as to know which are the Canonical Books in which we ought to learn the Christian Verities and they agree not as we have seen in them And if they agree not about the prime Principle How can agreement be expected in the things which are drawn from thence Many differences might be named about most important matters their pursuit also of those differences demonstrats they do not judg them light which stretches to the condemning one another for Hereticks and Schismaticks and sometimes to breaking into open arms one against another 9. But Catholicks however divided by countrey language particular interest civil dissentions or war Yet agree exactly in all points of Faith If you go to France Spain Poland Italy or the Indies You will see that they teach the same Doctrine that they make every where the same Catechismes 10. And are not there some will say to me Thomists Scotists And other Parties who dispute continually Yes but this is not but in school difficulties in Philosophical Points in Questions grounded upon humane reason as concerning Articles of Faith All agree in them not one contradicts not one questions them 11. Secondly the Apostles teach us that the true Church is holy I believe the holy Church This is not to say that All that are therein are Saints For she is the field of the husbandman Matt. 3. 21. Matt. 13. 47. Ron. 9. 21 where the Cockle is mixt with good corn She is the net which takes and holds bad fish with the good She is the house where there are Vessells of ignominy with those of honour She is the Arke of the true Noah where there are clean and unclean animalls Gen. 7. 2 But the true Church is holy becaus she hath means to Sanctify her self and many obtain it by those means We ask it there and obtain it of God by Sacrifice It is given by Sacraments conserv'd by the observance of the commandements of God increased by the practise of good and vertuous works 12. But Reformers have forbidden all these ways they have abolished among them the only sacrifice of the Mass they have diminished the Sacraments of seven that CHRIST instituted they retain but two Baptisme and the Eucharist which also they have made almost unprofitable For they say that Baptisme is not necessary for their children and so deprive them often of this remedy to the exclusion of them out of the kingdom of Heaven according to the express words of the Son of God They have used yet wors the Eucharist instead of the real Presence Iohn 3. 5. of our Lord and Savior Source of all sanctity who sanctifys our souls and bodys in this Sacrament they have not in their supper but a morcel of bread an inefficatious and empty Sacrament which contains not what it signifiys 13. As concerning the Commandements besyds that they preach but those which Moses gave and not those which JESUS-CHRIST added to sanctify his Church they say that they are impossible also with the grace of God And what man will undertake to execute that which he judges to be impossible 14. As touching good Works they deny the worth and merit of them And who will undergo difficulty to practise good works when he believes that they have no worth or merit that faith only justifys and suffices to salvation if these principles do not usher in the neglect of all good works it is not becaus the Doctrins do not afford it but becaus they act by some other motives What Sanctity then may one expect where there is no Sacrifice to obtaine it of God No efficatious Sacraments where by to receive it No possibility to obey the Commandements of God to preserve it no good works to increase it So they say not S. Luther S Calvin S. Beza as they say S. Gregory S Bernard S. Bonaventure whom they confess to have been of the Roman Church and experience shews that there are none so holy so vertuous so perfect None so devout towards God charitable towards their neighbor so sober chast modest and humble as are innumerable Souls who live entirely according to the maxims and the instructions of the Catholick Church 15. Thirdly the Apostles teach us that the true Church
account they do ill in believing that they being sinners can by Baptisme wash away the sins of others and do injury to the Son of God by going themselves or by carrying their children to their Ministers to have their sins remitted by this Sacrament since it belongs to the Son of God to wash away sins by Baptisme Heaven declar'd this Verity to S. Iohn Baptist Vpon whom thou shalt see the holy Ghost Iohn 1. 33. descending He it is that Baptizes But who is so weak that does not answer easily that they baptize on the part of God in his Name and by his Command that they go not to their Ministers as men but as God's Deputies and Vicegerents to be baptized I say the same of Absolution we absolve from sins not of our own selves but in the Name of God as his Deputies and Ministers by the Power Authority and Commission which He hath given us 3. Behold the Commissions and Patents of it Whatsoever You shal Matt. 18. unbind on earth shal he unbound in heaven and in Saint Iohn Whose sins you shal forgive they are forgiven them And whose You Iohn 20. shal retain they are retained These words of our Saviour are as clear as the Sun but let us suppose they have need of interpretation To whom shal we recurr for the interpretation of them To one that came a 100 or sixscore years ago or to the ancient Fathers of the first ages when according to Reformers themselves the Church was in her purity S. Chrysostom speaks great things vpon this subject Lib. 3 de Sacerdotio and seems to have foreseen all the evasions of Reformers First he says that the Son of God communicated to his Apostles the same power that He received from his Father and this great Saint speaks so after our Savior himself For in the same time He sayd to his Disciples whose sins you shal remit they are remitted He sayd to them I send you as my Father sent me But our Savior had not only power to declare that sins are remitted by faith but He had power also to remit them In the second place S. Chrysostom says If a king should give to a favourit power to imprison and to deliver prisoners what favour would this be Yet this would be nothing if compar'd with the power of Priests there is as much difference 'twixt these powers as between heaven and earth Thirdly he says that the Priests of the old Law had not power but to judg the leaprosie of the body and to judg of it only not to cure it ours have power to judg of sin which is the leaprosie of the soul and also to cure her of it Aug. hom 49. ex 50. S. Amb. Lib. 1. de Penit. c. 7. S. Austin says let no body flatter himself saying I confess in my heart I confess to God this is not enough and on this account in vain the Son of God would have sayd to Priests All that you shal unbind on earth And S. Ambrose speaking to the Novatians who sayd that men have not power to remit sins says Why baptize you if men have not power to remit sins for Baptisme is the remission of sins and what if Priests attribute to themselves the power that is given them either by Baptisme or by Penance Let us leave Dissenters and consider the wonders of this Power that we may with those in the Gospell glorify God who gave such power to men I confess that there are not many Misteryes in our Matt. 9. Religion which I more admire than this and you will admire it with me if you consider with me the circumstances of it 4. The first is that this Power is Divine it pertains not properly but to him who receiv'd an injury to remit and pardon it It belongs then to God to remit offences against him Wherfore the Pharisees hearing our Savior say to the Paralitick thy sins are forgiven thee and not believing that He was God thought that He blasphem'd What would they have then thought what wouâ—d they have sayd if they had known as we know that JESUS CHRIST would give to men and to sinful men this Power 5. A Power in the second place so soveraign that 't is definitive without appeal The sentences which Priests pronounce and all that they justly ordain on earth is ratifyd infallibly in heaven When you have confest with necessary dispositions if the Priest say to you I absolve thee c. fear not that God will condemn you He cannot fail in his promise and He promised to absolve you if the Priest absolve you legitimatly 6. And this is don with so much Authority and Majesty that this Power is perfectly Royal for the Priest absolves not praying If he should say over you the misereatur only or should pray God to absolve you you would not be absolv'd JESUS-CHRIST wills that he say I absolve thee and heaven and earth shal melt rather than you shal fail of absolution how ever great and enormous your sins may be 7. This is a fourth Circumstance of this Power that it is most ample absolute and general without exception restriction or modification For there is no sin which the Church cannot remit since the Son of God hath sayd absolutely and without reserve Whose sins you shal remit shal be remitted 8. But that which is to be admired most in this Power is the facility and convenience we have to vse it 'T is true that having committed a sin it is not so easy as some think to have a true repentance of it We must ask it instantly of God and indeavour to obtain it of him by good works But when we have obtain'd it what is more easy than to find a Priest who may absolve us Have we not great cause to be astonished and to cry out my God! How have you been so liberal as to give this Power to your Church and to so many Priests If you had given it but to the Pope or to Patriarks or to Bishops or for one only time of the life of each one the excess of liberality would not have seem'd so great but for always for so many times and to so many Priests What excess of love of grace and mercy ô how will a soul that considers well thiâ— Benefit melt with dilection how will she burn with the love of such a Benefactor How often will she kiss those sacred wounds How often will she bless that adorable Blood which purchased her so great a good How often will she say my soul bless thou our Lord. On the contrary What regretts shal we have in hell if we are damn'd for having neglected contemn'd or prophan'd so great a Benefit The devout Rupertus was wont to say he had no pity on Christians that were damn'd and when one sayd to him why have you not if a dog should be so afflicted we should be moved to compassion I have none sayd he for 't is
the second to the Corinthians We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of CHRIST that every one may receive the proper things of the body according as he hath don either good or evill For justice requires that we be recompenced and chastised in the same things which have contributed to good or evill But the greater part of sins are caused or Committed by the body 't is then reason that it rise again and feel the punishments due to them It concurrs likewise to vertuous actions 't is mortifyd by holy souls subjected to rigours of penance and to labours of a christian life it sufferrs prisons and punishments in Confessors torments and death in Martyrs 't is deprived of its pleasures in Virgins and in Widows and crucifyd in all true Christians it is then very just that it should participate in the satisfactions pleasures and recompences of Heaven The flesh says Tertullian is the Tertull. de Resur Carnis hinge of our salvation and if the soul be united to God 't is it that gives her capacity the flesh is washed to the end the soul be cleansed the flesh is annointed that the soul be consecrated the flesh is shadowed by imposition of hands that the soul be illuminated in Spirit the flesh is fed with the Body and Blood of JESUS-CHRIST to the end the soul be nourished by God they cannot then be seperated in recompences having been so joyn'd in actions And 't is vain to alleadg against this Verity the low condition of the flesh for the same Father says the flesh which God form'd to the resemblance of a man-God which He animated by his breath to the resemblance of his life which He fortifyd with his Sacraments of which He loves the purity approves the austerity and esteems the labours and the sufferances shal it not rise again It will never be that He leave in eternal death the works of his hands the care of his Spirit the tabernacle of his Breath the heir of his Liberalities the keeper of his Law the Victime of his Religion and the Sister of his CHRIST It will then be raised up again and in this God does as a Potter who seeing his Pot ill made breaks it to repair it better so God having form'd man of earth and finding him deprav'd by sin broke him by death to which he doom'd him but with design to repair and make him better in the day of the Resurrection 2. But if any one should aske me how that which is withered and rotten can becom living and flourishing again He needs not but to consider the Omnipotency of the Creator or with S. Paul the grain of corne which rots to rise again Foole 1. Cor. 15. Cgrysol Ser. 59. it first do die All things in this world according to S. Chrysologue are images of our Resurrection the Sun sets and rises the day is buried in darkness and returns months years seasons fruits seeds die in passing and rise again returning and to touch you with a sensible example as often as you sleep and wake you die in a certain manner and rise again Let us now reflect upon the words of this Article 3. The Apostles say not The Resurrection of the man though this he true But of the flesh for to teach us that when the man dies his soul dies not and therefore in the Resurection is nor raised-up again but reunited only to the body since nothing can be raised again to life unless it first be dead 4. They say not the Resurrecton of the body but of the flesh becaus the holy Ghost would afford us a means to Confute the errour of certain Hereticks who would sustain as in the first ages of the Church some did that we should rise not in a body of flesh but form'd of air 5. They use moreover these terms to convince orhers who in the time of the Apostles thought that the Resurrection of which the Scripture speaks signifys not that of the body but only that by which the Soul is raised out of the death of sin to the life of grace 6. In fine this word Resurrection makes us understand that we shal receive the same bodys which we had for since rising again signifys returning to life again It must be the same flesh which was dead that rises and returns to life 7. We All then shal have the same bodys which now we have but intire and perfect without want or superfluity without the imperfection of youth or the defect of old age None shal rise blind or purblind deaf or dumb lame or crooked too great or too little nor with any other defect or imperfection Becaus 't is God alone whose works are perfect that will raise us up He will not in this work make use of natural causes from which all defects proceed 8. Nevertheless the Resurrection of the Elect and that of the Reprobate will be very different The blessed Souls shal receive bodys like to Christs endowed with Light Subtility Agility and Impassibility that will shine as clear as Starrs that will penetrate and pass through althings as beams of the Sun through glass that will move as swiftly as lightning That will be impassible and immortal so that nothing in the world can hurt them They will enter into their bodys with great joy and gladness with many benedictions and congratulations ô my body such a soul will Say ô my dear companion and most faithfull friend receive now with ioy the fruit of thy labours mortifications and pains in the works of holiness thou hast been in miseries and in sufferances be thou now in felicity and in happiness and let us praise together the Authour of our good but the reprobate Souls will reenter into their bodies with great a version rage and many maledictions of those members which they go to animate for to render them sensible of ineffable and eternal torments Domine quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo aut quis requiescet in monte sancto tuo Lord says the Royal Prophet who shal dwell in thy tabernacle or who shal rest in thy holy hill He answers Psal 14. Qui ingreditur sine macula operatur justitiam He declares that two things are absolutely necessary to avoid evill and to do good one without the other suffices not Quis habitabit who shal be that happy that fortunate person that shal com to the glorious Resurrection and shal dwell amongst the Blessed O what happy lot attends him happy a thousand times the womb that bore him and the breasts which He did suck happie the paines taken to bring him up ô how well was it employd happie earth that he tramples under feet one ought to strew with flowers the paths which he honours with his steps happie air that he breaths one ought to sweeten it with all the perfumes of Arabia happie the bread which he eates one ought to nourish him with all that is most precious in nature and what deserves
he not who is Wisdom 3. 5. worthy of God Invenit illos dignos se Blessed a thousand times his holy and vertuous life which disposes him to such a glory blessed his happy death which will be to him as a door to enter into an immortall life Blessed his understanding which shal see one day openly and face to face the divine Essence his Will that will love God and enjoy him for all Eternity Blessed a thousand times his head upon which the holy Trinity will put a Crown of Glory in the presence of the Vnivers Blessed and happie his hands which shal carry always palmes as the ensignes of his Victories Blessed his feet and his steps since he shal walk upon the celestial Glob in the company of Angells Blessed and happy a thousand times all the members of his body and the powers of his soul which shal be filled and satiated with all sorts of delights joys glory happiness and with eternall Beatitude What I say of this elect Soule I say to every one that shal do violence to himself to rise out of the state of sin to overcom his passions to keep the commandements and to live according to the maxims of the Gospell Violenti rapiunt illud the Matthew 11. 12. Violent beare heaven away they that do violence to themselves to their vices and their passions obtain Heaven God grant us the grace to whom be honour glory praise and benediction for ever Amen DISCOURS XV. OF THE TWELFTH ARTICLE Life Everlasting Amen IN this last Article is declar'd to us the End for which we were created for which we were made Christians and to which all Laws Sacraments Vertues and other things are directed we ought then to believe firmly and to ruminate often that after the Resurrection there shal be in the Vnivers two conditions the one most happy the other most miserable and that neither of them shal ever end that every one of us shal be either of the one or of the other of the right hand or of the left of the number of the good or of the bad of them that go to heaven or of those that go to hell And that 't is now the time to look to our affairs fitting our selves to be of the happy side for after this there shal be no more time for us This doubtless we shal do if we consider and ponder well What is Eternal Life and how great are the goods of it 2. S. John in the Apocalyps speaking of sinners says their Apoc. 28. 8. part shal be in the pool burning with fire and brimstone which is the second death The second or everlasting death then is when the soul and the body are depriv'd of their Beatitude and confind to the fire of hell And on the contrary eternal life is when they are freed from those and all other evills and do enjoy the eternal Goods of heaven 3. These are so great that the Apostle who was rapt up into heaven would not describe the Greatness of them he speaks not of them but with astonishment neither eye hath seen says he nor eare hath heard nor hath the heart of man conceiv'd what God â—ath prepar'd for them that love him Nevertheless for to attain to some knowledg or rather to some slender conjecture of their greatness fourt hings shal be considered 4. First the liberality of God towards all men in this life cast the eyes of your consideration with S Austin upon the extent of the Vnivers see what stately buildings there are what chambers richly furnished what beauteous gardens what pleasant medows what odoriferous and coloured Flowers what sorts of savory fruits what delicious meats what delicate wines what sweet odours what melodious voices what sumptuous garments what dogs for chase what birds of prey for recreation It is God that gives all these things to men But to what men And who are they that more usually enioy them Atheists Infidells and others that forget him and incessantly offend him Now if He do so much good to his enemies what will he reserve for his friends If He be so liberal to give how much more to recompence if He be so charitable to those that offend him how much more to those who love him if He be so magnificent to those He owes but punishments how much more to those to whome He hath made so many promises Run through in your mind all that you have ever seen heard or imagin'd all that is great rich magnificent precious pleasant and desirable all that is nothing if compar'd with that which God hath prepar'd for you if you love him for all that may be seen recounted or desired and it is impossible to see decipher or desire the great goods which God hath promiss'd and prepar'd for those that love him 5. To have a second conjecture of them you need not but weigh and consider the iourneys and toyles of Apostles the torments of Martyrs the watchings and austerities of confessors the temptations combats and Victories of Virgins the alms and charities of Widdows the heroical vertues of other Saints and that after so many toyles so many sufferances penances mortifications good works services merits the Apostle says that Rom. 8. 18. the very sufferances and afflictions themselves of this life are little in comparison with the glory of heaven And again the tribulation which at present is momentary and light works above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory in us note above measure exceedingly 2. Ior. 4. 17. 6. Nevertheless a third consideration will make this weight of glory to surpass yet much more all value and esteem of it For Heaven is not only the Salary of the Saints but also the recompence of the merits of JESUS Consider what He is in his divine Person what He is with God his Father the ardent love He had for him the Zeal which He had for his Glory the great services He did him what He suffered for his honour what his pretious Blood is worth the Glory of Heaven is the Salary of all that given by a King most liberal in his gifts and most magnificent in his recompences 7. Hell also though very low may serve us for a footstool and a step to mount up to Heaven by contemplation and to make a guesse at the felicities of it What is hell 't is an abyss a Collection a Rendevow of the most excessive sorrows bitternesses and afflictions imaginable What is it to be damn'd 'T is to be eternally in a prison most deep most obscure and most incommodious to be eternally in captivity under a Tyrant most insolent most cruell and most barbarous not to have one mite of bread in an eternal and most ravenous hunger not a drop of water in a most burning thirst not a ray of light in the greatest darkness not a moment of rest in an unsuportable and eternal weariness to be eternally afflicted with all the miseries a humane body is
if he gain the whole world and sustain the damage of his Soul And so if we will be good Christians we ought to love our Neighbors there is nothing that we ought not to lose pleasure riches honor and also if need be life it self for the Salvation of our neigbors And this the beloved Disciple and faithfull Interpreter of his Master teaches us in these clear words In this we know the Charity of God becaus He hath given his life for us and we ought also to give our life for our Brothers He does not say 1. Ep. 3. only that 't is expedient that it is a Salntary counsell but that we must give our lives for their salvation and to move us more He puts before our eyes the example of IESUS-CHRIST S Iohn 13. who made his love of us the rule of our love of others I give you a new commandement that you love one another as I have loved you And lest we should less note it He repeats it again in the Iohn 15. same Gospell This is my Precept that you love one another as I have loved you 7. Though this Vertue be so pleasing to God and so important to our Salvation nevertheless men fail in this the most and to say nothing of all those who live in hatred envie discord contention scandal which are the common pests of the world and the mortal ennemies of charity there are many who seem to have good intelligence who make mutuall visits complements offers of service Yet love but in word and tongue not in work and verity they will not open their purs nor use their power nor apply their pains and labor for the assistance of their neighbor in necessity 8. Others love their kindred and relations but with a natural inordinate and hurtfull love they procure them what is honourable or profitable upon earth though they put them into eminent danger of losing heaven they give them what pleases the senses and satisfys their foolish inclinations though to the prejudice of their souls and their salvation and if they see them desirous to renounce the world and to betake themselves to a vertuous cours of life they call upon them and to shew their love diswade them from it and recall them to the usuall and libertine cours of life so they seem to love but do truly hate to be good friends but are the worst of enemies and the maxim of our Savior is verefyd in them The enemies of a man are his domesticks Matt. 10 9. Others in fine extend their love beyond Relations but to those only from whom or by whose means they expect honor pleasure or profit This is an imperfect love a love of concupiscence and interest and not of charity which seeks not proper interest but loves God and in him or for him or for the love of him all others though they be our enemies becaus they are his images redem'd by the precious blood of IESUS capable to know serve and possess him and becaus it is his Will intimated to us by this general precept to love our neighbors and particularly commanded in S. Matthew I say to you love Mat. 5. 44. your enemies do good to them that hate you pray for them that persecute and calumniate you that you may be children of your Father 10. But the first and most necessary effect of this good will and love which is exacted of us for our ennemies is to pardon them for this is the first mercy and charity that we can doe them and the most necessary alms we can bestow upon them What good can we do them if first we do not pardon them but keep in our hearts odium enmity bitterness and a desire to take reveng of them Wherefore the Son of God who endeavours by all means our Salvation does not only command this charity and mercy but moreover obliges us to it by other pressing motives He promises us his greatest mercy which is the pardon of our sins if we pardon others dimittite dimittemini and he assures us that his Father will treat us most rigorously if we do not Sic Pater meus celestis faciet vobis so my heavenly Father will cast you into the prison of hell if you forgive not others from your hearts And S. Iames tells us judgement Iames 2. 13. without mercy shal be donâ— to them who shal not have don mercy S. Austin praying for the soul of his deceased Mother sayd I know that she led a holy and innocent life but woe to a laudable life if you examin it without mercy Whatsoever life you lead woe to you woe to you if you have enmitie you shal be judged without mercy and woe to a laudable life if judged without mercy What laudable thing do you You pray woe if you have bitterness woe to you notwithstanding your prayer for that he Psal 11â— remembred not to do mercy let his prayer be turn'd into sin says the Psalmist Your prayer condemns you saying our Lords prayer you demand Vengeance against your self you say I pardon such a person but I will not speak to him I will not that he com into my house and after this you say forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us God will hear you He will not speak to you favourably nor admit you into his house and if you be not admitted into heaven whether shal you go What laudable action do you you give alms woe to you if you have malice woe to you notwithstanding your alms S. Paul says if you should give all your goods to the poor if you 1. Cor. 13 have not charity you are nothing and by charity in this place he understands the love of neigbours What vertuous action do you you fast woe to you notwithstanding your fast if you have dissention In Isaiah the Iews Isay 58. 3 complain'd to God We have fasted and you have not regarded us God answers them with all your fasts you do your wills you press your poor debtours you have debates and contentions What laudable thing perform you Sacrifice woe to you if you have malice God says by Osee and twice in the Gospell I love and will rather mercy then your sacrifice And therefore many Osee 6. great Saints offering to God the most meritorious sacrifice that can be offer'd to him the sacrifice of their lives have interrupted it to obey this Commandement of mercy in the hour of their death when they had time little enough to elevate themselves to God to offer and to unite themselves to him they remembred their enemies pray'd for them and desired their good 11. These heroical vertues of the Saints were extracts and copies of those which we admire in IESUS-CHRIST the King of Martyrs and the Saint of Saints He being unjustly and most cruelly nailed to the Cross mock'd blasphem'd did not do as some do they think that they exercise great acts
say that God does not require of us all the good that He enables us to do and this is the ground of works of superero gation and doing more then is commanded Now if God do not require all but only thus much to do well then the doing better then well is a stock which God gives us to offer Him liberal services beyond the band of duty And what pride is it for man to acknowledg this sweet providence of his Creatour and to pâ—aise his mercifull indulgence in not exacting so much as He might and giving him a way and meanes to shew his voluntary and unexacted love to him We give surely by this more honor and glory to God then they who say that God requires of us all that He enables us to do yea and more commanding things impossible and then punishes us for not doing them Far be such a thought of God from a Christian heart God commands nothing but what is honourable profitable and also easy with his grace That which He demands to save us is that we do good workes conformable to our supernatural Being and to the high end to which we are designed that we do them in a competent and convenient Quantity and that we do not abuse or lose the Talents which He lends us but use these well in the practise of them as shal be seen God Matt. 3. 10. aiding in this Discours 6. Now the axe is put to the root of the tree every tree therefore that brings not forth good fruit shal be cut down and cast into the Matt. 7. 19. Matt. 20. fire says S. Iohn Baptist And our Saviour himself in the Gospell confirms the Sermon of his Precursor and repeats his words Every tree that beares not good fruit shal be cut down and shal be cast into the fire It is not then enough for to be saved to have only the Psal 61. 13. Matt. 16. 27. Rom. 2. 6. 2. Cor 5. 10. Apoc. 2. 23. leaves of Saintlike words or only the flowers of holy and good desires or only the rinds and the exteriour of good fruit but we must have good and perfect fruit which are the workes of Vertues And in S. Matthew He calls the Elect not Speakers not designers not complementers but Workemen Voca operarios So in divers other places of holy Writ it is sayd God will render unto every one not according to his designes or fine discourses but according to his workes He that made you without you will not save you without you sayd S. Augustine And explicating these words of David I sought God with Aug. Ep. 21. ad Prob. c. 13. Psal 76. 2. my hands since God hath no body sayes he how can one seek him with the hands he answers that is to say with good workes And this is not that God is hard to bestow his gifts and to do good to his creatures but 't is that He would do it reasonably and decently according to the rules of his providence and infinite Wisdom He hath united his glory and our interests in procuring our Salvation He will exercise and make seen his adorable perfections his Power Wisdom and incomprehensible Goodnesse The glory of his power shin'd more when he overcame Egipt by an army of flies when he defeated Holofernes by the hand of a woman than when He made use of powerfull armies Erit memoriale nominis tui cum manus feminae dejecerit eum And this same power shines yet more gloriously when He ruines the empire of Satan beates down the reigne of sin and of the world conquers heaven and beares away the Crown of glory by feeble instruments He shews his Wisdome which demands that his goods and gifts be not undervalued that one give them not to the unworthy who contemne them 't is to have little esteem of them and dispise them if we will not labor to obtaine them He makes his goodness seen in that he vouchsafes to make use of his creatures in an employment so honourable and so glorious We hold it a great honor to be employed by a King in the regency and the government of a Kingdom how much more honor is it to be associated with a God in his more great and noble actions to conquer the kingdom of heaven to sanctify our soules and to enrich our selves with christian Vertues 7. The Scripture speaking of the glory of heaven sayes it is a salarie a harvest a crown for to teach us that if we will be saved we must necessarily labor sow fight Each one shal receave his reward according to his labor says S. Paul to the Corinthians 1. cor 3. 8. Gal. 6 7 2. Tem. 2. 5. and to the Galatians a man shal not reap but what he hath sown And to Timothy No man shal be crown'd but he that hath fought legitimatly A servant that should not have don any evill but should have held his armes closed all the day and year would he have the impudence to demand a salary a labourer that shouâ—d neither have sown nor planted would he hope to gather or reape any thing A Soldier that hath play'd whilst that others fought would he have the boldness to desire to be crown'd The Son of God who is our modell was not contented to desire our Salvation and to demand it of his Father He laboured for it and to succeed in it we must apply our selves to vertuous workes efficaciously and seriously and in the second place as good trees we must produce these good fruits plentifully 7. The Son of God saies in S. Iohn I am the Vine you the Iohn 15. 5. branches He that abides in me and I in him he brings forth much fruit He sayes not simply fruit but much fruit then He adds if any abide not in me he shal he cast forth as the branch and shal wither and shal be thrown into the fire He was so much concern'd for the fecundity of his branches that He suffered death to merit grace for them to produce an abundance of good fruit He delivered himself sayes S. Paul that He might redeem us from all iniquity and might cleanse to himself a people acceptable a pursuer of good workes Wherefore the Apostle ceased not to pray for the Collossians Ep. ad Tit. 2. 14. Colloss 1. 10. 2. Thess 2. 17. that they might walke whorthy of God in althings pleasing fructifying in all good workes And in like manner prays God to exhort comfort and confirme the Thessalonians in every good worke and word But he makes us see yet more the necessity of this fecundity or abundance of good workes in the second Epistle to S. Timothy for behold how he deciphers there an elect soule who aspires seriously to the happy life and who shal obtaine it she is sayes he a Vessel unto honor sanctifyd and profitable to our Lord ready and disposed to every good worke He sayes ready or prepared 2. Tim. 2 21. because every
objection which the Catholicks de Ieiunio C. 1. 3. 13. cont Psychicos made against him who would have had them to keep three Lents the Apostles sayd they imposed no other Lent common to all then that in the time when CHRIST was taken from the Church his spouse by his death and Passion S. Hierome in Europe speaking of the Novelty of the Montanists says they observ'd three lents as if three Saviours had suffered but we observe but one of them according to the Tradition of the Apostles And the same holy Father writing to Marcella tels her the Ember dayes as well as the Lent were instituted by the Apostles In Asia S. Gregory of Nazianzen reprehending a Perfect named Epist 74 Celusius sayd to him you dispensing with your self from fasting do injury to the Lawes how will you keep humane lawes since you contemne divine 4. You wiâ—l not thinke the precept of fasting too severe if you consider the reasons which moved the Apostles to institute the Lent It was first to commemorate and honor the retreat and the penance of our Saviour in the desert to honor it I Rom. 8. 26. say by imitation according to our power For S. Paul says his servants must follow and imitate him to be one day with him In what must they follow and imitate him Not in preaching and in working miracles but in fasting or suffering for the love of him his Apostle declares it in these express words Let us shew that we are the Ministers or servants of God by our fasts our watchings our labors and other practises of 2. Cor. 6. 6. vertue Note in Fasts not in fasting once or twice a year as many do when they form some designe but many dayes as our Saviour hath given us example In the second place the Lent was instituted for the conversion of souls to purify our consciences from the ordure of sin by the practise of penance and by this sanctification to dispose us to receive worthily the Eucharist For the Prophet Ioel says fasting conduces much to a true conversion that it is one of the parts of penance convert your selves to me in fasting Ioel. 2. 14. The Lent is moreover fasted to make the anniversary funerall of our Saviours death But sorrow and funeralls are incompatible with good cheer for the holy Ghost distinguishes and opposes them to one another It is better says He to go to the house of mourning then to the house of banqueting 4. S. Paul tels us that many have their Belly for their God for this reason they are very eloquent and zealous to plead its cause they fight for their God with many arguments With some they would shew fasting to be superfluous or superstitious with others hurtfull or pernicious If you are predestinated will you not be saved say they without your fasting do you thinke God did expect your fasting to predestinate you Answer God did not expect our fasts but He foresaw them and other good workes for which He predestinated us to glory or this He did predestinate and this He does decree that by these means we shal obtaine that end not otherwise CHRIST fasted for you to deliver uou from this labor Why do you then afflict your selves in vain by fasting as if Christs fast did not suffice for your salvation without your little fasts Answer CHRIST also would be baptised and indeed for us not for himself and yet it follows not that I ought not to be baptized so though He fasted for me yet I ought to fast by his Example He suffered for us says S. Peter leaving us an example S. Peter 1. 2. Rom. 8. 17. that we may follow his footsteps and S. Paul if we suffer with Him we shal be also glorifyd with him Since you are resolv'd to fast why do you not chose rather to fast voluntarily than necessarily Have you not read in the Psalmist I will Sacrifice to you voluntarily Answer a fast commanded by the Church is better than that we take up by our own election for this proceeds out of one vertue to wit Temperance that from two Temperance and Obedience And if a commanded fast should proceed from obedience obly yet it would be so much better and more Excellent than the other how much the vertue of obedience is better than that of Temperance Obedience is I. Kings 15. 22. better than Victimes sayd Samuel to Saul And obedient Souls fast not as you suppose unvoluntarily with regret and sorrow but voluntarily with alacrity and gladness 5. The Epicurians and the Advocats of self love urge as they imagin yet more forcibly and to justify themselves make this remonstrance We must love our bodys as well as our souls for God created both and loves both and wills that we do love them But fasting and other austerities hinder sleep punish the body and weaken it prejudice health and shorten life and consequently by fasts and other austerities we act against the will of God the law of nature and are injurious to our selves Answer a fool according to his folly lest he seem to himself wise God Would have us to love our Body True but He wills us to love it truly and to love it truly is to procure it by the means of fasting prayer and other exercises of vertue true perfect and everlasting health What does it profit the flesh that You nourish it delicately if you nourish it for hell If you feed it so that it becoms the fuel of eternal fire would you not love it better if you curb it and afflict it here a little with hunger and with thirst to have it sound and glorious for all Eternity This is that which our Saviour says Qui amat animam suam perdet eam et qui odit in hoc mundo animam suam in vitam Eternam 1. Iohn 12. custodit eam He that loves this temporal life and therefore permits not his flesh to be molested nor afflicts it with fasting watching and other vertuous labors does not keep it to everlasting life Fasting hinders sleep I believe it and it was also instituted to hinder too much sleep that so you may have more time for prayer spiritual reading and other exercises of a Christian Fasting punishes and afflicts the body I doubt not of it if well practised And do you thinke it was instituted for other purpose than to punish it you will not then go to heaven if the way be not easy and pleasing to the flesh if it be not strew'd with flowers and sweet herbs And where then is the law of christianisme which is a law of mortification and of the Cross And what will becom of these words of our Saviour Strive to enter by the narrow gate You say fasting does prejudice health and shorten life The Church the Canon law good Phisitians and experience Quicqd Etc. legimus de Consecra dist 5. say quite the contrary the Church in the Collect of
don to me becaus He esteems more that which is don to his members than what is don to himself let us weigh these words 4. First He says That which you have don to the least of mine He means chiefly the poor since He speakes of those that Matth 52. 40. hunger and thirst T is then a strang folly which displeases him extreamly to give your goods to flatterers to dissolute persons or to employ them to enrich your children to elevate or greaten your parents or to leave them wherewith to live in dilights in dissolutions whilst our Saviour hath not where with to live in the person of the poor is not this a great injustice to give to your child wherewith to live in superfluity and not to give to our Saviour wherewith to sustaine a poor life says S. Austin He says Wherewith to live in superfluity for you may merit if out of the spirit of charity and mercy you leave to your children or to your parents as to the members of JESUS CHRIST goods as alms wherewith to maintaine themselves according to their quality in Christian modesty and frugality not in superfluity and in the ambition of the world 5. You have don to me for the love of me if you give alms out of natural compassion 't is not christian charity but moral vertue if our of ostentation to be esteemed liberal 't is vanity if becaus the poor man is of the same countrey profession or condition that you are that he is a Soldier and you have been that he hath been a marchant and you are 't is to give an alms to a man to a soldier to a marchant and not to JESUS and becaus the poor man is his member Disciple or his Brother likewise if you give it to the end only that God may recompence you by temporal goods JESUS will not say to you you have given to me becaus in effect 't is not for IESUS that you give it but for your selves 't is not alms but avarice You have don to me He says not to my servants my faithfull but to me we must then consider IESUS in the poor and comport our selves towards them with the same dispositions that we would to IESUS and season our alms with all that is requisite to a most vertuous and meritorious action 6. First bestow your alms with tenderness commiseration and with bowells of compassion for mercy ought to make our hearts miserable by a sympathy of charity participating in the sufferances and afflictions of others 7. Secondly with benignity sweetness and affability the testimony of affection and benevolence and abstaine from all reproaches which would make a poor man suffer more by the confusion to which you put him than you pleasure him by the alms you give him 8. In the third place with interiour humility thinking that you are not worthy to give an alms to IESUS and in effect all that we do is nothing in comparison of that we should do and what we give less than our lives is less than that which in occasion we ought to give for God hath given his life for us and we ought to give also our lives for our 1. Ep. c. 3. bretheren says S. Iohn 9. In fine give prompty ioyfully and copiously let your good will exceed your power in giving a penny wish it were a pound an have also a desire to give it if you had it and if it were convenient in giving a mess of broth wish it were the best becaus it is for your best beloved who merits that we should consume the treasures of the world for the service of the least of his members 10i Let us conclude with the fine words of S. Augustine Brothers exercise mercy there is no other band to tye us to the love of Aug. in Psal 102 God and of our neighbor there is no other means to carry us from earth to heaven and a little after he adds Behold what you may buy how much you must give for it and when you must buy it Behold what you must buy Paradise is to be sold you may buy with money the kingdom of heaven eternal life and the possession of God What great favour what incomparable happiness if God did not permit it who would dare so much as to thinke of it ô if men be damn'd they deserve not to be pitied Satan will have good reason to laugh at them and say ô great fools they would give willingly the half of their goods to buy 30. or 40. years of life and of a life full of afflictions infirmities and miseries and they would not give it to buy millions of years of a most happy and delicious life And do not tell me so precious marchandise is not sold at a cheap rate and that you have neither gold nor silver nor means to buy it Bohold how much you must give for it a glass of cold water a little service if you have nothing els may procure you it our Saviour speaking to his poor Apostles sayd you have always poor with you and you may do good to them when you please He says not you may give to them But you may do good to them becaus many cannot give but every one can do good You may viset the sick and imprisoned and though you have nothing to give you may comfort them exhort them and do them other services The Son of God will not say you have not redeem'd me out of prison but you have not visited me that you may have no excuse You are a married woman t is not permitted you to give great alms of your husbands goods But t is permitted and it will be a good alms to serve assist and cherish with respect and tenderness for the love of God the old and infirme of your family You are a chamber-maid it would be theft and not alm◠to give to the Poor the goods of your Master against his will but it will be a Charity if you help this inferior servant if you assist her in the labor wherewith she is opprest You are a Counsellour an Advocate or a Solicitor you have many Children and little means and not able to give alms But you may assist with your credit counsell and service this poor widow this orphan poor man and the like persons whom commonly men neglect You may instruct in the Mysteries of faith and in what is necessary to salvation your domesticks servants neigbors and the poor that beg alms at your door this is the best alms you can bestow upon them an alms more excellent than the corporal so much as the soul is better than the body heaven than earth the grace of God than money or bread You have enemies that do you great injuries if so they are poor in vertue ô what an excellent alms would you bestow upon them if you procure it them and you will procure them vertue if you gain their affection by pardoning them and seeking their
to drunkenness or to gluttony S. Paul says to us that our belly is our God if we are avaricious he declares to us that Philip. 3. 19. Colloss 3. 5. Ephes 5. gold and silver are our Idolls if we are unchast we adore an Idoll of flesh If it be our designe to greaten our selves and to make our fortune at what rate soever our idolls are the world and its vanities or our children If we cloath our selves excessively our Idolls are our bodys in a word all that weighs most in the ballance of our affections is our God says S. Austin Banish then all such inordinate affections honor and adore the true God only give your selves to him without reserve love him bless him fear him serve him with all your heart refer to him all that you do all that you say all that you are He only is your treasure your refreshment your life and your glory He alone is your honour prosperity and felicity in soul and body in time and in eternity upon earth and in Heaven where He will satiate and make you perfectly happy by the enjoyment of his eternal glory Amen DISCOURS XXIX OF THE FIRST COMMANDEMENT Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me c. AS by this commandement God excludes vnjust worship and adoration of fals Gods So by the same He demands just honor and homage which we owe to the only true God It is by the Vertue of Religion that we acquit our selves of this obligation For this vertue moves us to give to God the honour worship and adoration due to him by reason of the infinite Excellence of his nature and sovereignity over althings It teaches us to honor him by our Vnderstanding and our Will with our Body and ouâ— goods and moreover to honour althings that are specially referr'd to him And this is that which is exacted of us by this Commandement and which we shal shew in this Discours 1. The Vertue of Religion hath this Excellency amongst other moral Vertues that we may practise it in all occasions and in all times We have always the object of it great reason and Power to do it The object God is always near us we are in his presence He is always great and worthy of honor Great reason He obliges us incessantly we receive from him continually Being Preservation Motion we should think of him as often as we breath if we could and He did require it of us we have always Power to exercise this Vertue for there is no need of riches strength of body fine words It is practised by the motion of the heart by the affection of the soul by the acts of the understanding and the Will 2. By the understanding we must conceive a high and great esteem of his Greatness and Excellence of his Power Wisdom Goodness Iustice and other Perfections apprhend lively believe firmly profess humbly that He is infinitely Powerfull Wise Good that whatsoever He does He does it most wisely justly holily that all that we can think all that the Angells can conceive of his Greatness is nothing to that He is We must acknowledg before God that he is our Creator Beginning last End soveraign Good true Treasure only Beatitude that He is our legal Lord soveraign King that He can dispose of us more justly and absolutely then a King of his Vassal then a Master of his slave then a Potter of his earthen Vessel that if He should take our Children from us our goods honor life without having given Him any occasion of offence He would not do us injury would use his right would be in so doing most just amiable and adorable By our will we must resolve to do promptly all that we know conduces to the service of God and to the advancement of his glory and to avoyd all things which displeas Him To desire and beg frequently the things that are convenient to be asked of him that so we may honour and reverence Him by submitting our selves to him and by acknowledging that we have need of him and totally rely on him To adore him often professing subjection to his divine Will in acknowledgment of his excellency and infinite Majesty and our subjection and dependance on Him 3. And becaus we are composed of soulw and body and receive them and all other goods from him we owe him not only the interiour but also the exteriour acts of Religion such is Sacrifice by which we honour him as our God and Soveraign professing his supream Dominion and a dependency of all things on him we thanke him for Benefits satisfy his justice and implore succour of our necessities such is the use of Sacraments by which we tacitely protest that God is the Sanctifier and the Authour of grace which subjects to him more and more our Souls Such are genuflections prostrations to testify by these signes the high esteem we have of his Greatness and our submission to him Such in fine are thankes Vocal prayers prayses and other like tributes of honor and homage which we pay to him We ought more over to employ our labour and to use our goods for the service of him Yea to contemne our honor and sacrifice our lives in a just occasion 4. And since all that is in God is God and consequently amiable honourable and adorable we ought also to honor and adore all his divine Attributes and Perfections cheifly in occasions when it pleases him to practise them When he sends prosperities to vertuous people or to their children adore his fidelity who promised to favour the vertuous when He gives goods to ill men adore his Goodness who does good to his Enemies when He calls a just man out of this life who seem'd necessary in this world adore his Independence who hath not need of his creatures when He preserves in life the Vicious adore his Patience and Longanimitie When He sends afflictions adore his justice 5. In fine the Vertue of Religion obliges us to reverence God not only in himself and in his divine Perfections But also in his Friends and Servants in the Times and Places which are particularly consecrated to his service and in all that hath a special respect and relation to his Majesty It was by this disposition that Iosuah 5. Gen. 48. 16. Psal 138. Or. 139. Apoc. 1. 4. Iosuah honoured the Angel that appeared to him That Iacob prayed an Angel to bless his Children That David honoured very much the friends of God And that S. Iohn Evangelist implores the assistance of Angells to obtain grace and peace from God It was by the same Vertue that great S. Antony honoured Priests as Ministers of Christs Inheritance Officers of his Crown and Dispensers of his treasures and that meeting even the least of them he fell upon his knees and demanded his Benediction By this Vertue S. Charles the Great entred into Rome and visited a foote the Churches of it embrased and kissed with devotion the Pillars of them By
so abominable to God Yet fails it not to be most general For t is the source of an abundance of sins of an abundance in regard of the divers Species of it of an abundance in respect of the individuums or particulars 3. There is no kind of vice that hath so many Circumstances which chang the Species or kinds as this The other commonly have but three or four at most this hath seven which we must express in confession if we have fallen into them either in effect or will The first species or kind is simple Fornication when you are not married and do ill with a persone that is not bound neither by Vow nor marriage And though this be the least crime amongst the species of this vice 't is nevertheless a mortall sin for S. Paul declares to us at least three times that this sin excludes 1. Cor. 6. Gal. 5. Ephes. 7. 5. us out of the kingdom of Heaven 5. The second is Stupration when yon defloure or dishonour a Virgin you ruine in her soul the grace of God which is the greatest good she can have in this world and in her body a precious treasure the loss of which is the more deplorable becaus it is irreparable 6. The Third is Incest when 't is with any of your Relations by blood or by affinity unto the fourth degree inclusively 7. The fourth is Adultery when you are married or do ill with a persone that is bound in marriage a sin which violates divine natural and humane Lawes a sin which Pagans ot Infidells themselves have punished with death or exquisite torments some by fire others by wild horses some by the halter others in pulling out their eyes cutting off their noses and in the law of Moses it was punished by stones so great appears this disorder by the light of nature and so enormous in the sight of God 8. Nevertheless this sin is now incomparably more black and criminal than it was in the law of Moses or in that of nature For you break as much as lies in you the indissoluble bond of marriage you violate a bond which represents the Vnion of IESUS CHRIST with his Church 'T is as if you sayd that JESUS â—ath divorsed the Church his Spouse or that his Spouse hath quitted him notwithstanding his promises to the contrary More yet the bodyes of Christians are worthy of honour and ought to be treated with respect and reverence not only becaus they are the members of Christ and Temples of the holy Ghost but moreover becaus they have been sanctifyd by Baptisme by the sacred Chrisme in Confirmation by the most holy Body of JESUS in Communion by being the matter of a Sacrament which S. Paul calls Great and by the nuptial benediction when they married And they soil them by adulteries prostitute them as prophane things to black infamous shamefull and abominable actions Wherefore the Emperours Constantine Constantius and Constance sons of the great Constantine published an Edict against adulterers condemning them to the punishment of paricides which was to be butnt or drown'd becaus say they such are sacriligi nuptiarum abusers and prophaners of marriage 9. The fift Species of this Vice is Rape when you force one or you draw consent by deceits lyes promises or perswasions so powerfull that they are equivalent to constraint 10. The six is Sacriledge when you commit an impurity being a persone sacred by solemne or particular Vow or by holy Orders or when you permit such a persone to take carnal pleasure in you 't is in some manner to rob him if it could be of consecration 't is the highest pitch of malice in the matter of fornication sayes S. Chrysostome S. Chry. Hom. 76. in Matt. 11. The seventh in fine is the sin against nature which is so abominable that we name it not and which nevertheless is committed sometimes also amongst married persones Remember that S. Briget did see in extasie many married people in hell for having abused marriage Remember what S. Austin sayes that you may be drunk with your own wine as well as with anothers S. Aug. ser 14. de diver Gen. 38. 10. Remember that in Genesis Onan was grievously punished by God becaus he offended him in marriage eo quod rem detestabilem faceret Confessours are very reserv'd and ought to be so in this matter of carnality Preachers and good Writers treat sparingly of such subjects lest the very articulate sound or characters in this matter should offend chast eares or cause wors effects in the hearts of others if than you do not help your selves if you confess not these ordures unless you be examin'd you may remain in them ' til death 12. These are the seven heads of this Monster seven heads by which we may sin by this Vice But the Individuums or particulars of it are infinite There is no kind of vice wherein men commit so great a number of mortal sins as in this vice of Luxury a Drunkard is not drunk but once or twice a day a Robber robbs not every day a murtherer kills not very often But he that gives himself over to impurity commits dozens of mortal sins a day it happens very often that he takes delight interiourly ten twelve or twenty times a day in impure objects and the voluntary delectation is a sin though he has no will to do it in effect 13. Wherefore I would counsell him that is a slave to this Passion to make to himself the same reply which heretofore the Buffoon or Iester of Francis the first of France did make The King having assembled his Counsell to deliberate what way was best to go to Pavie some sayd one way others another and others a third the Buffoon who heard all behind the tapestry when they were gon cryed-out they have all consulted by which way the King shal go but they have not consider'd by what way he shal return And the event made appeare it had been an important counsell for the King was there made prisoner When temptation flatters the hearts of them they consult not but of the means to content it and how they may find a fit occasion to satisfy their passion But they consider not how they may get out of the inconveniences which they bring upon themselves by it they consider not the certaine loss of spiritual life the danger of the temporall and of their fame and that by begetting illegitimate children they deprive unjustly the legitimate and oblige themselves to restitutions which will be very hardly made These things well consider'd will be a bridle to their passion and make them also fly those conversations dispositions affections and occasions of falling into a snare so prejudicial and into a labyrinth so inextricable for we must fight in this war as the Parthians flying and therefore S. Paul bids us not to struggle or graple with this vice but to fly it fugite fornicationem 14. Consider in the second place
he does wish it otherwise if his consent be any ways extorted either by force or fear it excuses you not from robbery for there is nothing so contrary to a free consent as force or fear He then is a robber who to do justice to a Party that hath right receives a bribe or present He is a robber who wearyes another with suits and expences to the end he quit that which he may pretend to justly He is a robber who makes his dependents to do him services to which they are not oblig'd wâ—thout paying them well for them He is a robber who forces his Creditors to composition for fear of inconveniences which he may bring upon them becaus the consent to these and the like actions is not free and voluntary so far these palliated injustices are from being justifiable in the sight of God that on the contrary they add to simple theft a circumstance which changes the species of it and which is called Rapine 9. To have a horrour of these and the like disorders Consider that this vice engages you in an ocean of sins and precipitates you in a manner-irreperably into eternal damnation For t is not so in this sin as in others You are not quit of it by repenting confessing and doing penance for it it obliges moreover to Restitution And see here what Divines say of it 10. They teach us in the first place that restitution is an act of commutative Iustice and consequently that there must be an equality between the dammages which you have caused and the reparation which you make of it In Vindicative Iustice if mercifully you relax a little the rigour of the Law if you make not the greatness of the pain precisely equal to the grievousness of the crime the mercy of God excuses easily your fault But in Commutative Iustice if having stolen 50. shillings you restore but 48. you are stil a theef 11. Secondly they assure us that Restitution is necessary to salvation that without it sorrow confession and absolution are unprofitable that nothing can excuse you from it but only impossibility to make it 12. But to restore all must I fall from my estate and Condition You are oblig'd to it having built your fortune upon the ruine of your neighbour it is most reasonable you repair that of your neighbour by the ruine of yours ought not the condition of the Innocent to be better then that of the Criminal 13. But I cannot make restitution without defaming my self for he to whom J shal restore will see that I have injured him and will decry me You must give it in this case to your Confessor or to a faithfull friend who may render it without naming any personne take an acquittance of him and shew it to you that you may be sure of your discharg from this obligation an obligation so strict that no power on earth can free you from it Death it self which dissolves consummate marriage delivers you not from it and if God should raise you up again you would not be oblig'd to retake your wife but you would be to pay your debts and your heires ought to do it in your defect 14 Divines inform us further that not only he who does an injury but moreover all that cooperate or concurre to it are oblig'd to Restitution as Receivers fals Witnesses makers of antidates and fals contracts Counsellours who counsell you to prosecute a suit which they know to be uniust or they who by notable negligence make their Clients lose a just one and Notaries who by ignorance or malice change the intention of the Testatour 15. Infine they conclude that this commandement obliges always and incessantly becaus it is not an affirmative precept only that commands us to restore but also a negative that forbids us to retaine and as such it is expressed commonly by negative terms in the Bible 'T is the property of negative commandements to oblige always and for always and therefore we sin at least so often as the thought of paying satisfying restoring coms into our minds if having power we neglect it 16. Do better injure no man commit not sins which oblige to restitution for you will make it or not if you make it you will have contracted sin and obligation to punishment without receiving the profit of it since you must restore the principal and make good all prejudice and dammage and if you make it not being in capacity to make it you are undon you are lost for ever 17. If then you have been so unfortunate as to oblige your selves to it doe as a rich man of our age who going from a Sermon distributed his goods to those he had injured saying Pereant mihi ne ego Peream may I lose these goods lest I lose my self these goods are for the earth my soul is for heaven these goods are perishable my soul is immortal these goods will stay here my soul will go with me they will be the possession of my heires my soul will be my owne these are not true goods however great and abundant they be since they make not good so many bad men that possess them they are not true riches since they make not rich nor content those that are flaves to them I must leave them one day necessarily and without merit t is better then that I quit them now voluntarily and with merit 18. This good man did very well to cure his wounds But I advise you by flying avarice which was the cause of them to prevent all wounds Hear then what the holy Ghost hath sayd of it Nothing is more wicked than to love money Hear our Saviour Eccli 10. 10. mark 10. 24. Tim. 6. 9. How hard it is for them that trust in money to enter into the kingdom of God! Hear also his Apostle They that will be made rich fall into temptation and hurtfull desires which drown men into destruction and perdition For the root of all evills is avarice Root out then covetousnes says S. Austin and plant charity the root of all good This will make you feed Christ in the hungrie refresh him in the thirsty harbour him in the stranger cloath him in the naked visit him in the sick comfort him in the prisoner and this will make you one day hear this most joyfull word which will put Matth. 25. 34. you in Possession of all good com yee blessed of my father possess tâ— kingdome prepar'd for you from the foundation of the world Amen DISCOVRS XXXVIII OF THE EIGHT COMMANDEMENT Thou shat not bear fals witness against thy neighbour IF the fifth commandement ougth to be much respected becaus it forbids us to assault the life of our neighbour and the sixth which forbids us to dishonour his wife and the seventh which prohibits us to steal or to hurt him in his goods with more reason the eighth commandement ought to be looked upon as of the greatest importance since it forbids fals witness which
this fall makes him very humble and that by his humility he is more pleasing to God than you by your proud Innocence and when nothing of all this should be how know you what will becom of you and what will becom of him there is inconstancy and weakness enough in your heart to make you one day one of the greatest sinners in the world and there is power and mercy enough in the heart of God to make this sinner becom one day a most great Saint in heaven 9 The second sort of falsities which this commandement forbids are those of the mouth and men are accustomed to speak them in three manners First in injuring their neighbour as when they testify that he hath rob'd or kill'd and this lye is called hurtfull or pernicious secondly in pleasuring your neighbour as when you ly to deliver him out of some perill and this is called a serviceable or officious ly Thirdly in neither hurting nor ayding and this is called a vain or idle ly There are many also of those that make profession of vertue who detest fals witness and pernicious lyes but make no difficulty of idle and officious they consider not that the holy Ghost distinguishes a ly from fals-witness and says that both displeas God Prov. 6. 16. 2. 2. q. 110. S. Greg. lib. 18. mor cap. 4. S. Thomas concluds that we ought not to ly for to save a man S. Gregory sayd the same speaking of officious lyes S. Augustine who wrote whole books upon this subject goes farther yet and says that one ought not to ly for to procure the salvation of our neighbour ad sempiternam vitam nullus ducendus est opitulante mendacio And to the objection which some propose of the Egiptian midwives who kylled not the Children of the Israelites as Pharo had commanded and excused themselves by lyes the scripture adding that God rewarded them S. Gregory answers that they were not recompenced for their ly but for their Piety And as to the Patriarke Iacob and other Saints who seem in the scripture to have spoke untruths the hoy Fathers answer that they were mysteryes not lyes becaus they spoke not in their own persone but in the personne of those of whom they were the figure 10. Officious lyes oblige us to the paines of Purgatory but pernicious to the paines of hell The mouth that lyeth kills the soul says the holy Ghost it brings damnation most due to them who are so injurious both to God and man 11. In fine the third sort of falsities forbidden are frauds circumventions dissimulations and hypocrisies These are so common in the world that if the Prophet Hieremie were in this age he would say of it what he sayd of his That our houses are fall of guile In the houses of great ones what chringing suppleness and treachery to supplant others in the Courts of justice what injurious judgments what superfluous delayes what unjust appeals In the shops of marchands and tradesmen what frauds what fals weights and measures what fals coyne what corrupted and sophisticated marchandise To be short in the Churches themselves what counterfeit devotions what disguised confessions what hypocritical communions 12. This Vice is so detestable that the sacred Text joyns it with homicide God will abominate the murtherer and the the Deceiver says the Royal Prophet And you will not find Psal 7. that the Son of God sayd a word so sharp and nipping of any absent persone as He did of Herod saying that he was a fox becaus he was a Deceiver Dicite vulpi illi 13. Let us end this discours with three powerfull passages of of Scripture and three reasons against these vices Against the first out of S Matthew Iudg not that you may not Matth. 7. 1. be judged For in what judgment you judg you shal be judged and in what measure you mete it shal be measured to you againe There is notâ—hing so terrible as the judgment of God the greatest Saints have reason to fear it a thousand times happy he who shal not feel the severity of it you shal be the person if you will the Judg himself assures you of it Iudg not and you shalt not be judged if you judg your neighbour with sweetness and mercy God will judg you with sweetness and mercy Against the second Vice S. Paul says to us away with lying let every Ephes. 4. 25. one speak truth with his neighbour becaus we are members of one another he then that will be a living member of that Body where of IESUS-CHRIST Verity it self is Head must not by pernicious falsities hurt his neighbor but love and cherish him as a member of the same Body Against the third Vice the Son of God having sayd that we shal not enter into the kindom of heaven unless we becom as little children S. Peter teaches us in what we must be like them be yet as children newly born without guile with out malice 1. Epist 2. without dissimulation Holy Iob who was but in the Law of nature practised perfectly this advertisement the first praise which God gave him was his simplicity Have you considered my servant Iob that there Iob. 1. 8. is not his like on earth a man simple and just and fearing God and departing from evill happy he that imitates him he walks confidently Prov. 10. 9. Prov. 20. 7. Prov. 3. 32. Wisd 1. 1. says the Wiseman he fears not to be taken in a ly as often impostors are the children which he shal leave behind him â—hal be blessed he shal have the honor to have communicationâ— with God for his Communication is with the simple And for the accomplishment of his happiness he hath God for his inheritance For to find God we must seek Him in simplicity of heart 'T is the most precious treasure a man can possess a treasure which makes him glorious rich content and happy for ever and ever Amen DISCOVRS XXXIX OF THE EIGHTH COMMANDEMENT Thou shat not bear fals witness against thy neighbour AS detraction is a very dangerous and common Vice so it seems commonly forbidden Some say that 't is forbidden by the fift commandement Thou shalt not kill becaus it takes away our civill life by which we live in the good opinion of men Others say that 't is forbidden by the seventh Thou shalt not steal becaus it robs men of their fame and good name Others in fine will have it forbidden by the eighth becaus this say they forbids all injuries that we do to the goods to the honor and reputation or the person of our neighbour by our unruly tongue all which does shew what a pernicious sin this is which kills robs and injures so much our neighbour And yet as I sayd 't is a most common vice becaus Detractours want not specious pretexts nor excuses which seem legitimate to palliate and plaister it Wherefore in this discours I first lay open the nature of it
are baptized but they stand obliged to follow them Which made great S. Basil say whosoever hath receiv'd the Baptisme of the law of grace is oblig'd to live according to the Gospell and hath oblig'd himself by an irrevocable contract to imitate IESUS CHRIST 5. I know well than to excuse your selves you say if I live not according to the world if I cloath not my self gorgeously if I lead a retired and mortified life I shal pass for an extravagant person they will not esteem me they will say I am an abhorrer of society and a man of another world You say true but what is this to say It is to say they will esteem you a christian that you will pass for a Disciple of IESUS This is that which you have promised in Baptisme T is in this the perfection of Christianity consists in declaring war against the world and its pomps in opposing its maxims and customs contradicting flesh and blood Take courage then says S. Chrysostom fight valiantly consider what Chrysost To 3 ser de Martyr you have promised under what condition you were made a Christian and in what war you are enrolled Think not to tryumph without Victory to be victorious without fighting to fight without enemies that are contrary to you 6. But some do say where are pastimes delights and pleasures forbidden in the ten commandements or in those of the Church If those frequent and almost continuall pastimes delights and pleasures are not against the first and chiefe of the commandements Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul with all thy mind and with all thy forces they are at least against the second which our Saviour says is like to it For is this to love your neighbor as your self to employ in superfluous delights that which might deliver him out of great inconveniences and miseries you know that so many orphans so many other poor who are the children of God members of our Saviour are eaten with vermin for want of a little linnen that they are starved with cold and that they dye with hunger for want of assistance and the money wherewith you might succour them you spend in superfluities what insensibility is this where is the fraternal Charity or the Christian Compassion or the bowells of mercy which the elect ought to have The Prophet Amos 6. 6. Amos weighed well how much Charity was by this violated when he sayd Woe to you who seek exquisite meats and delicious wines and yee have not pity on the miseries of the people 7. S. Denys says that in his time if one desired Baptisme the c. 2. Eccle. Hier. parag 2. et 3. first thing he did was to intreat a Christian to be his God father the Christian on the one side desiring the salvation of the Petitioner and on the other weighing the weakness of a man with the weight of the affaire was troubled with fear and seized with apprehension to conduct him to the Bishop Nevertheless in fine he led him to the Prelate Who sayd to him that his designe ought not to be imperfect but entire and with all his heart as approaching to God who is entirely perfect and having declar'd to him the forme of life he ought to lead to live godly receiv'd from him promises and protestations to aspire with all his force to that perfection And that he might not undertake such a charg lightly and inconsiderately he made him pass 2 or 3 years in Catechumenate which was the Noviciate of Christianity where he exercised himself in fasting prayer and other penances to make tryal if he could apply himself to the austere and vertuous life of Christians By which you see that the answers made for you in Baptisme are not ayrie words they are according to this great Saint and other holy Fathers promises and protestations which oblige us By the same you see also what life the Christians of those times did lead to satiâ—fy the obligations contractd in their Baptisme 8. Do as they did renounce the Devill and all his pompes works and suggestions renounce the World with its vanities follies and maxims renounce your selves your flesh sensualitie selflove particular judgment and all the inclinations of the old man separate your will from his and turn to IESUS your God and the Source of your salvation Acknowledg the excellencie of your Dignitie the noble and divine Allyance to which you are elevated to whom you pertain by Baptisme Remember that you have the honour to be the members of IESUS-CHRIST not improperly nor metaphorically but really and truly Let us remember that he is our Head and that we must conform our selves to him otherwise we shal make a great deformitie in his body and dishonour him extreamly Would not this be a monstrous and unnatural deformitie if to the head of a handsom man were joyn'd the body of a beast the paws of a Lyon the belly of a hog the tail of a serpent IESUS is the Head of the Church we are the members of it what dishonor should we do him what unnatural deformitie should we make in his Body if we should be unlike to him if He being as meek as a lamb as pure as the sunbeam and as simple as a dove we should be cruel like lyons unclean like hogs and deceitfull as serpents Let us assure our selves that He will not suffer such deformitie in heaven and that to be associated to him in the life of glory we must be like to him in the life of grace Amen DISCOVRS XLIII Of Confirmation AS the eternal Father hath shewn effectually the ineffable love which He had for the world in giving his only and beloved Son in the Mistery of the Incarnation a love so wonderfull and prodigious that though admiration be the daughter of ignorance and IESUS be the infinite and eternal Science He speaks not of it but with astonishment and admiration Sic Deus dilexit mundum So IESUS hath shewn effectually the infinite love which He had for his Church in giving Her his holy Spirit who is equal coeternal and consubstantial with Him and his Father 2. But as in the distribution of graces where of the Apostle 1. Cor. 12. 10. speaks the holy Ghost is communicated to divers persons for different operations to some to worke miracles to others to interpret the holy scripture and the like so in Sacramental grace the holy Ghost is given for divers intentions to produce divers effects according to the difference of the ends for which IESUS instituted the Sacraments In Baptisme the holy Ghost is given us to be the Soul of our souls the life of our life and the Spirit of our spirit to create in us the spiritual and Christian life make us Children of God Members of IESUS CHRIST and Heirs of the kingdom of heaven In Confirmation He is given us to make us Souldiers of IESUS CHRIST to enrole us in his warfare and to
affairs or will leave suits not goods to his heires if my Father had left me a house and you would contest with me saying 't is a paper or painted house he means what Judg would hear you what impartial Arbiter would not condemn you would you not injure me and yet more my father if he had meant a paper house would he not have declared his intention IESUS our celestial Father makes his Testament He declares his last Will He says that He leaves me his precious Body and you say 't is not his true Body 't is a figure of his Body goe you are a mocker if it was not but his figure would He not have sayd so as well as you would He have sayd This is my Body instead of saying this is my figure He is upon his departure in his last supper He goes to death and afterward to the imperial heaven when a loving husband is vpon his deathbed or bids farwell to his dear spouse for a journey somewhat long is it not then that he opens his heart to her and discovers to her his secrets is it not then that he speaks to her without ambiguitie that he gives her testimonyes of his greatest affection and leaves her the more precious presents And JESUS being in the vigill of his death giving his farwell to the Church his Spouse and depriving her of his Visible presence shal He have spoken obscurely and equivocally to her shal He shal He have deceived her in a matter of so great importance and for all nuptial presents for the gage of his amity for the testimonie of his tender affections for a supplement of his absence shal He have left her only a morcell of bread The manner also in which He accomplishes this Mistery ought to be considered if this be but a morcel of bread Why promises He it so long before why speaks He of it with so much pomp Why prayses He the effects and necessitie of it so much Why prefers He it before the Manna the bread which I will give you is my flesh he that shal eate of this bread hath everlasting life If you eate not my flesh you shal not have life in in you This is not as the manna your fathers have eaten If that which He gives is but a mite of bread the manna was to be prefer'd before it It was the figure of the Body of IESUS CHRIST as well as Calvins bread and much more express for it was mouldedâ— by hands of Angells the bread of Calvinists by the hands of men that came from heaven and their bread from a bakers oven that had all sorts of tasts their bread hath but one After He had promised it so long time and so solemnly He gives it but washes first the feet of his Disciples He makes them a long and sublime sermon He recommends to them puritie and charitie He makes to his Father a very long prayer and if all this tended but to give them a piece of bread I make you judg 5. Let us consult moreover the practise and the Pietie of the primitive Christians and we shal see that their faith and the religious S. Ambr. lib. 3. de Spirit Sto. c. 12 S. Crysos hom 24. in 1. ad Cor. Et in orat de Philogonio Ceremonies which they practised in respect of the Eucharist were-very contrarie to the error of the Calvinists they adored the holy Sacrament upon the Altar with the worship of Latria which cannot be given but to God only we adore the flesh of CHRIST yet this day in the sacred Mysteries says S. Ambrose S. Augustine upon these words of the Psalme Adore his footstool sayd Christ hath given us his flesh to eate but nobody eates this flesh but after that he hath adored it S. Chrysostome Let us imitate at least the Mages who seeing Christ but in a manger adored Him with great fear and you see Him not in a manger but upon an altar 6. They feared extreamly to let fall upon the ground the least S. Aug. lib. 50. hom hom 26. Origen hom 13. in Exod. particle of the Eucharist or one drop of the chalice as S. Austin and Origen do testify They required not only purity of body and sanctitie of soul to touch or receive this Sacrament but they demanded sanctiâ—ie to see it and to look upon it as appears in the first epistle S. Chrysostome wrote â—o Pope Innocent where he complains that soldiers sent by his enemies had entred in a tumultuous manner into the Church and he exagerats as a bold attempt that many of them who were not yet baptized had seen the holy Hosts They exposed not also to the Catechumens the secret of this Sacrament it was the secret of the Church which was not revealed but to her Children and it was a crime to speak of it in the presence of Catechumens or of Infidells this is seen in the epistle which the Synod of Allexandria wrote to the Catholick Bishops where the Council complains that the Arians were not asham'd to speak of the Mysteries in the presence of Catechumens and what is wors before infidells 7. Now I appeal to your consciences if the Christians of the primitive Church did believe that the Eucharist is but a morcel of bread which minds us of the body of IESUS would they have adored it with supream worship would they have thought it so great an incongruitie to let fall the least crum of it would they have required such puritie of body and soul to receive it to touch it or to hear or speak of it 8. All the Articles of our faith are equally true but there are none of them so express in scripture none taught so clearly by the holy Fathers less opposed in primitive times confirmed by so many miracles received so unversally in Europe in Asia and in Africa as this For amongst all Catholicks Hereticks Schismaticks amongst Grecians Latines Hebrews Abyssins or Ethiopians which have been and which are at present Calvin only with his Partie hath obstinately denyed it I leave you to thinke with whom you should chuse to rise and appear at the day of judgment either with S. Cyprian S. Ambrose S. Augustine S. Chrysostom and all the other holy Doctors of the east west south and north who florished in the time when the Church was in her greatest puritie and vigour or with Calvin who came fifteen hundred years after the institution of this Sacrament 9. Follow the counsell which the holy Ghost gives you by the Wiseman Ne transgrediaris terminos antiquos quos posuerunt Patres tui Passe not the bounds which your Ancesters have put hold the beliefe of those primitive Christians and the doctrine of these holy Fathers who were taught by the Apostles or by their Successours who read the holy Scripture day and night who meditated upon it seriously who were particularly assisted by the holy Ghost to understand it well who were desinteressed and free from passion for
46. 16. and should burn in Sacrifice all the beasts that feed on it in acknowledgment of Gods Benefits all that would not be enough He sayd true but he sayd not all for we may add if we should make a fire with all the fewell in the world and all men and Angells should be therein consum'd for the honor of God all that would not suffice to acknowledg worthily the favours He hath don us But when we offer to God the precious Body of his Son we render him that which doth counterpoise all Benefits He hath don not only to poor sinners upon Earth but moreover to Saints in Heaven 8. This Host of praise being presented to God in thanksgiving for favours obtaines other If you shal aske says our Saviour any Iohn 16 23. thing of my Father in my name He will give it you We cannot better ask of God any favour in the name of IESUS then having Him with us upon our Altars in our hands and within us The Clemency of God will have regard to the love He hath for Him to the sacred Oblation you present to him and harken to the petitions you make by him Have you much offended God deserv'd his justice and his anger Do you fear the effects of his vengeance Dare you not appear in his presence by reason of the enormity of your crimes Take into your company the Heire of heaven the beloved of the eternal Father assist at Mass devoutly offer to the Father the precious Body which is there Sacrificed the blood which there is poured forth the Passion which there is represented and you will appease his anger and He will harken to your requests For it was for this chiefly that Christ instituted this Sacrifice to be the sacred Victime which appeases the wrath of God as he declares in Saint Luke when you are in the state of sin if mass be sayd S. Luke 22. 20. for you or if you assist at it this obtaines of God actuall graces lights and good motions to enter into your selves to quit the sin and to convert your selves to God if you resist not the Summons of his graces when you are in the state of grace Part of the merits sufferances and satisfactions of IESUS CHRIST are applyed to you to acquit your debts and to deminish the pains due to your sins 9 But suppose you are not indebred to the Iustice of God the poor souls in Puâ—gatory are and you may help them much by making a mass to be sayd or by hearing one for them For 't is not in vaine says S. Chrysostome that the Apostles ordain'd that in the dreadfull Misteries we make a memory of the dead for they knew that by it arriv'd to them great benefit And S. Cyrill of Hierusalem S. Chry. tom 3 in Ep ad Philip. S. Cyrill Catech. Mystag 5 Paulo ante medium Aug. lib. 9. Confes C 35. we beseech God for the dead believing the obsecration of that holy and dreadfull sacrifice which is put upon the Altar to be a great kelp to the soules for which 't is offered Wherefore S. Augustine in his Confessions prayes God to inspite the Bishops and the Priests of his acquaintance to remember his Father and Mother at the Altar 10 Having then seen how acceptable and glorious this Sacrifice is to God how beneficial both to the living and the dead fail not to assist at as many masses as you may hear them as devoutly as you can Offer them in the first place to God to do homage to your Soveraign to render him your respects and humble submissions to pay him the tribute of honour and service which you owe him Secondly to thanke him for an infinity of most great and inestimable benefits you have received from him benefits in soul benefits in body benefits of nature grace spiritual and temporal Thirdly to appease Him and to ask pardon of Him for jnnumerable sins you have committed and to gaine his favour represent to Him the love which his Son had for Him the zeal which He had for his glory the service He hath don Him offer and lay before Him the Mysteries of his Incarnation Nativity Circumcision his life labors and Passion this is that which S. Paul calls obsecrations Fourthy beg light and guidance in your actions succour and assistance in temptations love and grace to keep his commandements and all that is necessary as well for the spiritual as the temporal and you should do all these dutyes not only for your family but also for others If you assist at mass so you will not receive only the many and great advantages of it in this life but moreover reap the fruits of the Mysteries which the Mass represents to you and which glory discovers to the Blessed in the other Amen DISCOURS XLVII OF THE THREE PARTS OF PENANCE 1. AMongst many expressions which the holy Ghost vses in the scripture to make us conceive the maligne and monstrous nature of sin one of the most natural is the comparison of an impostume An impostume is a corruption of flesh and blood in our bodys which makes a stinking smell sin is a corruption of reason and of vertue in our souls which cause a stink unsupportable to God and his Angells They are corrupted and made abominable says the Royal Prophet All Surgeons will tell you and daily experience Psal 13. 1. shews it that to cuâ—e an impostume three things are necessary First it must be cut with a lancet secondly the corruption must be forced out in the third place it must be bound up oyls and unguents being applyed to it Such like are the three parts of penance so often repeated and so ill practised Contrition is the cut of the lancet Confession is that which brings out the corruption Satisfaction is the application of the unguents and binders These are the 3. Acts necessary to cure the spiritual but horrible impostume of sin of which I shal treat in this Discours In which omitting the Questions of Scholasticks I propose only Verities drawn out of Scripture and Councills of the Church 2. First then it is certain that 't is absolutely necessary to repent after sin that without repentance there is no pardon no grace of God no hope of salvation whatsoever Confession or Satisfaction you do make whatever absolution is given you Whatsoever indulgence or Iubily is granted you If you want this repentance also without your fault though also you think you have it if you have it not in effect there is no Sacrament nor absolution profitable And certainly Absolution is not more efficacious and requires not less disposition than Baptisme But to receive profitably Baptisme if we be in mortal sin we must have sorrow for it for in the second and third chapter of the Acts S. Peter having made a powerfull predication and his Auditours being moved inquired of him what ought we to do to obtain pardon of our sins He answered do Penance and
and suffers those torments voluntarily she knows how disagreable she is to the Sanctity and Purity of God that she is a debtour to his justice and that she deserves those torments she desires the justice of God should have its cours and as she loves God more than her own self she is glad the injury don to his Majesty is revenged also at her own cost she will remaine in that prison untill her debt be entirely payd either by her own sufferances or by the satisfactions and suffrages of others 4. For we may ayde those poor afflicted soules they are in communion of spiritual goods with us they are members of the same mystical Body children of the same Church Citizens of the same City and there is such an union such a simpathy and communication betwixt members of the same Body children of the same family inhabitants of the same City that we cauterize a member that is well to cure that which is ill that the labour of a child of a family profits his brother who labours not that one citizen ss 25. in Decret de purg can pay debts and satisfy for another We can then help these souls especially in three manners First by Prayers as the Councel of Trent declares For a good and devout praier is not only meritorious to him that makes it but also impetratory and satisfactory for others Secondly by the Sacrifice of Mass for this is the most See Dis XLVI n. 9. Tobie 4. 18. profitable suffrage that can be offered to God for the help of the dead as not only the aforesayd Councel but also the Fathers of the primitive Church declare Thirdly by Alms. Venerable Toby sayd to his son Put your bread and wine upon the Tomb of the just becaus in that time the Poor assembled in Cemeterys or Churchyards and alms of bread and wine were given them for the souls departed He sais upon the Tomb of the just becaus alms gâ—ven for souls that are in hell avail them not but those that departed out of this world in the state of grace they profit much wherefore S. Austin reproved the avaricious who excused themselves from such alms by the great Aug. lib de decem cordis c. 12. number of their children when we sayd he reprehend you for your auarice you say that if you give not so much as you desire 't is becaus you have many children It is a fals pretence wherewith you maske your avarice For if one of your children dye are you more charitable than you were if you keep your goods for them you would send a part to him he hath now more need of it then ever But if you have not means to give alms for the poor souls succour them by other workes 5. All vertuous actions don in the state of grace and especially the painfull if Offered for the dead give them great refreshment But those confort them most of which they are the Cause either by their instructions or by their good examples For Divinity â—eaches us that if we are the cause of any good as often as 't is don after our death our accidentall glory in heaven is increased and if we are in purgatory our torments are diminished as on the contrary our paines there are augmented if any sin be committed by our bad example 6. Let us give eare then to the dolefull lamentations of those poor souls who implore our help Meseremini mei Miseremini mei Saltem vos amici mei Have pity on me have pity on me at least you who are my friends she says twice Have pity on me Have pity on me Lest you increas my paines Have pity on me to ease me in my sufferances Have pity Be touched with compassion of so great miseries For judgment without mercy shal be don to him who shal not S. Iames 2. 13. have don mercy But on what will you exercise mercy but on misery and what greater misery then that of a poor creature who owes very much and is pursued and pressed by a rigorous Iustice and hath not wherewith to pay What greater misery then that of a poor soul upon whom the revenging hand of the Omnipotent is layed then of a poor soul in torments so Excessive that if a dog should be so tormented it would move you to compassion Of me a soul created to the image of God redeemed by the precious blood of IESUS marked with his character embellished with his graces designed to his glory He will say in iudgment I have been thirsty and you have given me drink I have been Matt 25 35. in prison and you have visited me I have been naked and you have clothed me I have been a stranger and you have received me into your house You do all these good workes of charity if you deliver a poor Soul out of Purgatory you are the caus that she is satiated with a torrent of pleasute you redeem her out of a very obscure and painfull prison you cloth her with the stole of glory and you make her to be received and lodg'd in heaven At least you who are the caus or occasion that this soul is in pain have pity on her you have made her to offend God by your impure words by your bad examples or by your sollicitations having so great part in the debt will you not contribute to the satifaction At least you friends what is becom of the affection you testifyd to your friend where are the offers of service where are the protestations so often made that you would never abandon her forget you her becaus she is seperated from you and turne you your back to her when she hath the greatest need of Succour It appears now that you were a friend of fortune only and the afliction of your friend is the touchstone which shews the falness of your friendship At least you my friends your Ancestours have made themselves debtours to the justice God by the sins which they committed to leave you goods will you be so ungratefull and so cruell as to refuse them a little part of them you swimme in delights and they are in torments you rest in feathers and they lie in flames You complain not of a large refection you give to J know not whom and you refuse your afflicted mother a little dinner which you might send her by the poore In fine if you be so mercenary as to seek your interest in all your actions remember that these poot Souls are in the gtace of God must go to heaven and you must one day succeed in their present place and if you shal deliver them they will not be ungratefull Blessed are the mercifull for they shal obtaine mercy If you give an amls for a soul in Purgatory you do at once two workes of mercy corporal mercy to the poor in want and Spiritual to the soul in paines you make the poor man your friend and the poor soul your debtour when you
friends who may receive you into the eternal Tabernacles Amen DISCOURS L. Of Holy Orders HItherto we have treated of Sacraments which were instituted to sanctify men in particular now we speak of the Sacrament of Order instituted for the General good publick Order Government and Ministery of the Church And becaus Dissenters deny it to be a Sacrament we will shew in the first place that 't is a true one Secondly we will consider what this sacred Signe does signify and in the third place the Documents we ought to draw from thence for the glory of God the Salvation of our Souls and the guidance of our lives 1. A Sacrament is an exteriour and sensible signe by which grace of the holy Ghost is given him that receives it worthily Now the Apostle S. Paul and after him the general Councell of Calcedon say expressly that grace of the holy Ghost is conferr'd in Ordination by imposition of hands Neglect not the grace that is in 1. Tim. 4. 14. 2. Tim. 1. 6. Concil calced an 451. Act. 1 5. can 2 thee which is given thee by Prophecie with imposition of the hands of Priesthood I admonish thee that thou resussitate the grace of God which is in thee by the imposition of my hands Hence the Councells and ancient Fathers have always acknowledged Ordination for a true and proper Sacrament and therefore in the general Councell of Florence this is numbred with them both Grecians and Latins approving it I might Fill pages with Citations of the holy Fathers But this of great S Austine will suffice He in his second book against the Epistle of Parmenean proves against the Donatists that the Sacrament of Order cannot be lost becaus Baptisme cannot Let them Explicate says He how the Sacrament of the the Baptized cannot be lost and the Sacrament of the Orderer may be For if both of them be Sacraments of which nobody doubts why cannot that be lost if this may be Here he calls Orders a Sacrament He shews it to be a proper and true one by comparing it whith Baptisme He assures us that nobody doubted of this Verity and if S. Austin may be credited not only all the Writers of his time but also all the Faithfull did believe the same 2. This external and sacred signe expresses two singular favours which Ecclesiasticks receive from God in their consecration The first is the highest dignity in the World For to a Priest is given Power over the natural Body of IESUS CHRIST to consectate and offer and distribute it and over his myistical Body which is the Church to remit sins administer Sacraments and to do the sacred functions of the characters imprinted in him A Power so much more excellent eminent and higher than other Dignities as the Spirit than the Body Heaven than Earth Divine things than humane and as Eternal than temporal S. Paul says 't is certaine by the consent of all the world Heb. 7. 4. that he who hath right to give his Benediction to another is more noble and high than he sine ulla contradictione quod minus est a meliore benedicitur But a Priest gives his Benediction to Princes Kings and Emperours his Dignity then is more high S. Chrysostome exhorting Priests to refuse Absolution and Communion S. Chry. Hom. 3. in Matt. Hom. ad 60. pop Antioch to all that are unworthy though they be Princes or Kings says to them you ought to do it and you can do it you ought to do it otherwise IESUS CHRIST will exact of you an account of his Blood and will punish you most terribly You can do it for your Power is greater than that of Princes of this world If you suspect the Testimony of this Saint becaus he was a Prelate of the Church hear the Prince of the world The Emperor Basil in an oration he made to his people in the eighth general Baron An 869. nn 55. Councell It belongs not to us Laymen to medle with the things of the Church it belongs to Priests and Prelats who have power to sanctify us to open heaven to us and shut it against us to bind us or els to to absolve us Our condition is to be fed as sheep to be sanctifyd conducted and unbound You will not thinke the words of these Great men strange or that they exagerate the Greatness of Priestly Power if you consider that it surpasses the spiritual Power as well as the temporal divine as well as humane For popes who excell in Authority and Grandeure if considered not as as Priests are less in Power than these For the Power of Priests extends upon the natural Body of IESUS CHRIST and that of Popes upon his mystical Body only which is his Church and therefore as much as his natural Body exceeds his mystical so much the Priestly Power surmounts the Papal S. John Baptist who surpassed all men who was the greatest that had risen among the sons of women for his sanctity Yet was less in Power than the least Priest of the Church He shewed with his fingar IESUS CHRIST But Priests produce Him in their hands and give Him for nourishment to others He only diposed the people to penance and Priests absolve them from their sins The Angells who though they can do great things upon creatures of the world they cannot put Christ at their Will upon the Altar but are content to adore love and admire Him there And Priests by vertue of their character have this Power and can offer Him in an unbloody Sacrifice for the salvation of the Living and the Dead 3. This Power of Priests being so great God out of his goodness adds in their ordination another favour to it He whose workes are perfect giving power gives likewise those things that are requisite for the legitimate and convenient use of it He replenishes Priests with abundant grace to make them worthy of their Character to exercise well the functions of it and to rendet them capable to sanctify the faithfull Noli negligere gratiam quae data est tibi per impositionem manuum Presbiterij Idoneos nos fecit Ministros 4. These particular favours which IESUS does to Priests admonish us of the Honour we are oblig'd to render them Honour God with all thy soul and honour Priests says Ecclesiasticus And S. Paul Priests that do well their duty deserve double honor 'T is by them says S. Hierome that we are converted and made Christians by them we are received into the Church by them we are delivered from our sins we reenter into the grace and favour of God by them we receive his blessings enjoy the precious Body of IESUS and offer to God the dreadfull sacrifice by them in fine the Sacraments are administred and the imperial heaven is opened to us We must not neglect them who are the Judges of Kings in the process of eternity them who the Prophet Malachy says are the Angells of our Lord. Malac 2.
Ghost descended visibly upon those that were confirm'd so JESUS assisted visibly in the marriage in Cana to make kown that He is always invisibly in the marriage of the Faithfull 'T is He that gives your wife to you 'T is He that gives your husband to you 'T is He that ioyns and associates you together This is not an airy conceit 't is a certen Verity since the Scripture teaches it in saying That which God hath ioyn'd let not man seperate Matt. 19. 6. 4. The Matter of this Sacrament is not a little water oyle balme or other inanimâ—te creature 'T is your Bodies sanctifyd by Baptisme and consecrated in Confirmation your Bodys the Members of JESUS CHRIST Temples of the holy Ghost are employd to make this Great Sacrament 5. In fine 't is Great in its Effects It conferrs very great graces and in great number if it be received worthily with the dipositions and sentiment of piety that it deserves The ancient Israelites had the liberty to repudiate their wives if they did not please them Poligamy was permitted them they had sacrifice and the water of Iealosy to try the fidelity of their wives All these things having not been tollerated but by condescendence to that rude people IESUS CHRIST abrogated them and in this rendred marriage much more burdensome and aggravated the yoke Now since his Law is a Law of grace and sweetness since He says his yoke is sweet and his burden light it concern'd Him to recompence and ease married Christians by the abundant graces which He gives them in this Sacrament Yes in vertue of this Sacrament God gives you in the rest of your daies in divers occasions most great and powerfull graces if you put no obstacle to resist temptations to conduct well your family to bring up your children in the fear of God to endure patiently each others imperfections and to support the other burdens and inconveniences of marriage and they depriue themselves of all these graces who marry in an ill state in the state of mortal sin 6. This Sacrament being a symbole and a representation of the marriage of Iesus with his Church must imitate and express it In consequence to the alliance of JESVS with his Church there is betwixt them mutual tradition and communication of Bodys of Spirit and of Fortune IESUS as the Espouse of the Church gives her his precious Body and takes ours He ioyns them to His and makes of them his Members The Calvinists say that IESUS CHRIST is not in the Eucharist they say true He is not in their Eucharist He gives not his body to their pretended Church He delivers not his precious flesh to any other but his Spouse 'T is only the Romane Church 't is this true and legitimate Spouse 't is this only one and well beloved that enioys this Priviledg infallibly only and perpetually 7. The Lawyer sayd and it is true that a wife ought to lege adversus Cod. de crimine explicatae hered enter into society with her husband not only in humane things but moreover in divine socia rei humanae divinae And IESUS contents not himself to give his humane body to the Church but gives his divine Spirit the holy Ghost and you know that the holy Ghost is love and charity by the propriety of his Persone and by the condition of his emanation S. Paul then hath reason to say Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the Church and delivered himself for it that He might Sanctify it A husband then must love his wife as JESUS loves his Church with a sincere and cordial love speaking to her with an open heart communicating to her his designes associating her in his enterprizes as IESUS hath revealed to his Church all that Ho received from his Father and associated her to all his operations also to the production of grace A wife must love and also reverence or honor as the Apostle says her husband as the Church loves and honours IESUS CHRIST she must love and Ephes. 25 honor the parents and friends of her husband as the Church loves and honours the Virgin Mother of her Espouse S. Iames and other Saints his friends Husband and Wife must love mutually one another with a true and pure love not with an inordinate sensuall or worldly love as they do who procure each other what is honourable or profitable upon earth though with eminent danger of losing heaven who espouse the passions reveng the quarrells please the senses and satisfy the foolish and inordinate inclinations of each other to the great prejudice of their souls and their Salvation 8. Christ loved not so his Church He loved not so his Mother his Apostles Martyrs Confessors and other friends but loved them in order to everlasting life Wherefore if you will love well love as Christ hath loved us love in order to everlasting life cut off occasions of sin seek occasions to do each other good to make one another vertuous and procure by prayers exhortations and good examples the salvation of each other 9. S. Paul desires that the man be so holy and give so good example to his wife that he convert her if she be an infidell and that the wife in like manner by her holy conversation do sanctify her husband though he should be a pagan and idolater 1. Cor. 7. 14. This will never be don by dunning him with complaints reproaches invectives or with other outcryes but as S. Monica converted her husband enduring patiently his injuries supporting his inperfections never answering him when he was in anger speaking to him of God more by her good example than by her words shewing him to the end a sincere faithfull and constant love 10. IESUS CHRIST sayd to the persecutors of his Church why do you persecute me so much He participates in the afflictions of his Church The Church partakes also in the sufferances of IESUS she is sorrowfull afflicted mortifyd when she considers Him in his Death and Passion so all ought to be common amongst married persons good things and bad joy and sorrow pleasure and displeasure and this will much conduce to the honor of so great a Sacrament which S. Paul says is worthy of all respect 11. Honorabile Connubium in omnibus Marriage honourable in all This is not to say among all men as Dissenters translate Els Heb. 13. 4. the marriage of a Brother with his Sister would be honourable and that of those who have vowed continence to whom the same Apostle says 't is damnable But in all things that is in all its Parts Circumstances and Appurtenances Honor it in the intention you have to marry for if it be bad and vicious all the sequel will be corrupted will you know why God is not in the marriage of many T is becaus they married not for the love of him they married for carnal or fond love for sensuall pleasure through ambition to have this man who