must make that to be which we beg he must gives us grace since we are all one in Faith to be all of one minde in the operations of that belief which works by charity that knows not thine and mine but gives all to God and takes onely from his Holy Hand what he pleaseth to give back again Next we pray that we may love what God commands which in this case was to the Apostles that they might love to leave our Blessed Lord for so God had commanded That they might desire what he promised which was the coming of the holy Ghost That amongst worldly varieties there they might fix their hearts where onely true joys are to be had O! what a taking off their mindes was this even from himself whose departure was one of the worldly varieties he would not have to trouble them but that they should upon the loss of the happiness they had in his society fix their hearts on a greater happiness who but the holy Ghost could make this good upon the joys of heaven which are true joys indeed and this also shews we are still sliding down the Channel of the Resurrection too in this Prayer as hath been said Blessed God! how good art thou to man who hast made him a happiness greater then the company of thy sacred Son whom yet we know is God and man too the reason was his Humanity here did shade his Divinity but in heaven his Deity shall outshine his Humanity and so make us love man in him for Gods sake whereas here the Apostles did love God but for Christs sake as he was man and therefore this Prayer as it speaks the Apostles parts bids them fix their hearts upon true joys indeed those onely that are in heaven being greater then any they could have in the society of Jesus Christ himself so long as he was upon earth not that his Glory was less here then in heaven but that man is less capable to see God on earth then he shall be to see and enjoy him too when he comes to heaven and therefore hee ought not to fix his heart upon any content whatsoever upon earth but still to keep it moving towards a greater and a truer Joy And thus having made way for the Application of this Prayer unto our selves by seeing how in the Apostles sence we ought to say it let us close with our accustomed Application of it to the Epistle and Gospel of the day or rather of them both unto it which are as it were eminentially contained therein And first there is nothing so cleer as that it is a gift of God to make us thus resigned hence the Epistle breaks out into that acknowledgement saying every good and perfect gift is from above descending from the Father of Lights with whom there is no transmutation nor shadowing of alteration and who by his own sacred word hath ingrafted in us a filiation that makes us be a beginning of his creature that is willing by our resignation to be made through his holy Grace his better creature then by nature we are And so in brief to be those Saints which St. Iames in his Epistle sets before our eyes and consequently those which the Apostles were when our Saviour had prepared them for his departure from them and told them they were not inquisitive enough after the heavenly joys whilest they doted too much upon his Humane presence after he had made them believe it was expedient even for themselves that he left them and that the holy Ghost came to them in his stead to all those purposes that are recited in the Gospel following and to all which purposes we shall finde this Prayer availing us if in this sence we say it often and thereby take as in a little Cordial the whole substance of the Epistle and Gospel of this day The Epistle Iac. 1. v. 17 c. 17 Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above descending from the Father of Lights with whom is no transmutation nor shadowing of alteration 18 Voluntarily he bath begotten us by the word of Truth that we may be some beginning of his creature 19 You know my deerest Brethren And let every man be swift to hear but slow to speak and slow to anger 20 For the anger of man worketh not the justice of God 21 For the which thing casting away all uncleanness and abundance of malice in meekness receive the engraffed Word which is able to save your Souls The Explication 17. IT is prodigiously strange to see how much the Apostle here speaks in Little under these two terms of best gift and perfect gift for though the simple and literal meaning be that all which is good amongst men is given them from God and all which is bad amongst them comes from the Devil and from their own concupiscence yet there is a far deeper sence couched also here and first under best gift is understood not onely the goodness of the thing given but the excellent good will of the giver and even that being as good as the gift adds much to the value thereof for indeed as man hath nothing of his own to give so he hath no will of his own nor desire to give any thing that is good but even that good will is Gods and comes from God inspiring man to do good unto his neighbour but the sence is yet deeper by the reduplication of perfection upon the goodness of the donation or giving and of the gift given as who should say Gods gifts are not onely goodness in themselves by being communications of his infinite goodness to us but they are also most perfect both as their intrinsecal goodness makes them so and as their extrinsecal operations and effects do make us so likewise unto whom they are given since the end for which they are given is that man by means thereof may be perfect as Christ was perfect again many men give oftentimes that which obligeth others and yet is not either perfect in it self or properly their own to give neither of which can be wanting when God is the donation the gift the perfection and all that can be imaginable to render a gift or the donation of it good and perfect best indeed and most absolutely accomplished Again by all gifts are here understood those of Nature Grace and Glory whereof each is from God so immediately as none of them can flow from any other fountain since he is Natura naturans as Divines call him and we Natura naturata he is the Fountain Origin and first Principle of all Natures he is a simple and perfect Nature in and of himself so fecund or fertil as he is able to branch himself out into an infinity of other Natures which yet shall all be as distinct from his own Divine Nature as Creatures are from their Creator and from one another too But the very truth is the Apostle here reports to the two latter sorts of gifts namely
to supplant their neighbour and to reâ—r their own monuments upon anothers ruine As for pardoning it was esteemed folly by them who thought revenge the sweetest thing in nature and as for our Lord God they so little knew him that his pardoning nature was no motive to their vindicative dispositions which yet Christians that know God and beleeve that in his sacred Son he hath pardoned the offences of the whole world cannot pretend but must as taught by him or pardon others or not hope for pardon of their own sins 14. But above all that is to say it sufficeth not for a Christian to forgive an enemy but he must also love him too for Charity is the band of perfection not onely the life of every Vertue but the link that chaineth them together and binds them all up in one bundle to make a present of them to Almighty God as of so many particulars necessary to make one accomplisht Soul nay not only binding up all vertues together in one man but also uniting all men together as making so many members to integrate one Mysticall Body of Christ his holy Church so that no one Vertue can subsist alone without the help of another to support it For instance modesty is lost unless patience help to bear it self modestly against those who are injurious againe Patience cannot subsist without Humility inabling us to bear patiently the proud comportment of others and their provocations to impatience and the like is of all Vertues whatsoever for we shall find no one can stand alone without it lean upon another but this is singular in Charity that she is not necessary as a particular support to any single Vertue but is further the common Soul or life unto them all insomuch that without Charity there can be no Vertue at all in any Soul For as Saint Paul sayes 1 Cor. 13. If I have Faith to remove Mountaines if I speak with the tongues of Angels and have no Charity I am become as sounding Brass and a tinkling Cymbâ—ll making a noise but no Harmony nor Musick in the hearing of Almighty God and here the same Apostle calls Charity the band of all Vertues thereby to shew us we are but loose Christians unless tyed up together in the Band of Charity whereby we are made to love God above all things and our neighbour as our selves and in so doing are by this Band of perfection rendred perfect Christians Chosen holy and Beloved children of Christ Iesus 15. Out of this mutuall love followes an effect of peace which is here recommendeâ— to us in no less degree than it was in our Saviours own heart even that similitudinarily not identically which Christ had with the Jewes when on the Cross he besought his Father to be at peace with his enemies that peace and no less the Apost e desires should exult he would say abound in our hearts too his meaning is we should rather recede from our own rights than seek to recover them by losing the peace and quiet of our minde or then be at variance with any body whatsoever to which purpose Cardinall Bellarmine had an excellent axiome which he was known by saying often upon occasions of disputes or oddes between party and party One ounce of Peace is worth a whole pound of Victory and this Cardinall was not alone of this opinion for Saint Austine sure taught it him in his twelfth Sermon upon this verse of the Apostle where he speaks thus I will not have with whom to strive it is much more desireable to have no enemy than to overcome him But the Apostles sense in this place is yet deeper for he so recommends peace unto us as he leaves it for the commandant in our Hearts the ruler of them and of all our actions indeed the crown of them besides as who should say what ere you doe see it be peaceably done see you may after it is past say you have thereby made no breach of peace either in your own or your neighbours minde but that you goe towards God hand in hand with all the world rather following them who siâ— not than by breaking from them though upon your own perhaps better designe cause a disturbance amongst others And indeed if we be at any time necessitated to a war the Christian and reall end thereof being peace argues how much this Vertue is requisite to abound in every pious Soul And eace is here called Christ his Vertue because it was the speciall gift he brought from Heaven when the Angel told us his nativity brought Glory to God above and peace to men of good mindes upon earth Luke 2 ver 1â— and at his parting he left it himself as a legacy amongst us saying immediately before his ascension up to Heaven John 14. ver 27. My peace I leave with you my peace I give to you and for this reason the Apostle sayes We are all called by Christ in one Body that is made up peaceable members one with another of his own sacred and Mysticall Body the holy Church Bee therefore thankfull is the close of this Verse to shew it is a benefit infinitely obliging Christians to receive by Grace so admirable a gift as peace amongst us that are made up by nature of many contradictions not onely externall but internall also though there want not thâ—t instead of thankfull expound this place as to import being gracious or pleasing to each other for so are all peaceable men acceptable to everybody wheresoever they come and truly however the Rhemists translate it Thankfull yet the expositours especially Saint Heirome incline to think gracious to be the more genuine sense of the Apostle in this place 16. True it is by the Word of Christ is here meant as well the written as the preached Word of God but in regard ignorant persons are more apt to misconstrue than rightly to understand the written Word therefore holy Church is sparing to give leave to read the Bible and liberall to advise us to hear it Preached or explicated by the Priests But if it please God we have it once expounded unto us that we may understand it in a safe and sound sense then not to read it will be a fault whereas till then to read it may prove a danger to us and in very truth one reason why I have undertaken to set forth this book was to give the Lay-people a little liberty in reading at least all the Epistles and Gospels throughout the Sundayes of the year when they were laid open to them in a safe sense such as might nay must needs edisie and can no wayes offend or cause dangers to the reader so to read and possesse themselves of thus much Scripture as is here delivered in the flux of a year unto then must needs be highly commendable and hugely profitable unto every one that reads and makes it their study indeed their Prayer from one end of the year to the other for so shall they have
common practise of the devill when he cannot tempt to open sin to flatter by pretence of sanctity and so to draw us into the trap of selfe-conceit and dangerous vaine glory thus he in vaine attempted Jesus Christ thus he deludes the soules that he tempts to sin by telling them they are Predestinated to be sav'd and cannot finally be damn'd do what they will the least humility is remedy to this vaine glorious disease Thou shalt not tempt thy Lord thy God our Saviours way to kill that devill of vaine glory Saint Paul hath such another Hee that thinks he stands let him beware he fall not Religious feare and trembling is the firmest footing to hold us fast upon the highest Pinnacles of Grace 3. The latter end of all Temptation shewes the Temptors aime the ruine of the tempted soule This is designed under faire pretexts such as doe tickle natures appetite Riches pleasure honour and command but see the choaking Hooke arm'd with alluring baites behold Idolatry coucht under Gratitude It seemes a reasonable homage to adore the giver of so great a gift as all the wealth and pleasure of the world but 't is a huge injustice to receive them from the hands of an usurper who hath as little power to give as we to take the stolen gift And mark how this usurper then pretends to give when the right Owner takes away by a command of Abstinence Christ came not here to raigne but to bestow on us a Crown of glory to rob us then of heaven the devill proffers us the scum thereof the rubbige swept away from thence and cast into the common shoare the sinke of nature Earth O how sordid earth appeares when I behold the beauty of the heavens thus holy David thus we ought to say and more with Jesus bid the fiend avant so shall we by religious adoration of Almighty God accompany'd with holy Poverty this time of Lent forbear to covet riches and by them to Idolize unto the devill adde then these good workes to the Fast they will accomplish So shall we render our selves the Purified soules we pray to be by fasting On the second Sunday in Lent The Antiphon 2 Cor. 17. v. 9 c. THe vision which thou hast seene thou shalt tell to none untill the Sonne of man doe rise from death Vers To Angels God hath c. Resp That in all thy wayes c. The Prayer O God who doest behold us voyd of all strength guard us we beseech thee exteriorly and interiorly that we may be defended from all corporall adversities and purified from evill cogitations of our soules The Illustration THe last Sundayes Prayer laid our Lenten Fast for the chiefe ground of all the Prayers in Lent This fixed on that ground lookes to the end of the aforesaid Fast our purification of the whole creature which we are and so confessing here first that we are void of all strength to guard our selves we begge of Almighty God a guard both for the exterior and interior man that thus our bodies being outwardly defended from all corporall adversities particularly sicknesse to tempt us from our Fast our soules may be purified from all inward evills of filthy cogitations and this with regard to what Saint Leo told us last Sunday was required for the integrity of a Fast namely to withdraw our minds from sinne lest in vaine we did else take meat from our mouths and hence we shall finde little excuse by what casuists tell us the end of the precept is no precept to us though the meanes to that end be of absolute command for example in this present case they say t is no breach of our Lenten Fast to commit a sinne in Lent though we are commanded to use the meanes of fasting to the end we may avoid sinne and so render our selves the purified creatures which holy Church intends by this forty dayes Fast to make us for truly casuists in this may seeme to favour us but yet upon reflection it is no favour because sinne being at all times prohibited under strict command we never sinne mortally but we breake some precept of Almighty God greater then this of the Church by any other kind of mortall sinning which at all times is forbid us and then much more strictly when we are actually under a wholesome cure for sinne the holy Fast of Lent so it will not be to render soules scrupulous but religious to tell them that sinnes are aggravated at least when committed at that time we are commanded to take Physick for preventing sinne as now when holy Church injoynes a Fast expressely for that purpose But to our maine designe let us see how this dayes Prayer suits to the Epistle and Gospell of the day as well as to the season of Lent why truly very well to the former because this Lenten Fasting is one of the Apostolicall precepts mentioned here by Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and in regard Fasting is one of the best of remedies against that carnall sinne which this dayes Epistle dehorteth from as also it is the best step to that walk recommended to us from vertue to vertue that we may by abounding more and more therein please God by the fulfilling of his holy will which is as Saint Paul to day calls it our Sanctification and that particularly by the gift of chastity of purity both in body and soule which altogether comes home even to the letter and full sense of this dayes Prayer nor is the Gospell of the Transfiguration read to day for any other end then to mind us of being spiritually transfigured from Polluted to Chaste bodies from Sinful to Sainted Soules for so shall we appeare to our Saviours eye with faces shining like the Sunne and bodies pure as the whitest Snow as himselfe appeared on Mount-Tabor to his Apostles and as the expositors conceive Moses and Elias did appear so too thus to shew we cannot by our vertuous lives approach neer to God without being Transfigured to the world and made mirrours of admiration to men and Angels and such indeed ought to be our Lenten Fasters How exactly then is this dayes Prayer set to the other service of the day when by saying it in order to performe our Lenten Fasts it brings forth in us the effect of Sanctification which the Epistle aimes at and that of our Transfiguration from Sinners to Saints which the Gospell points unto The Epistle 1 ad Thes c. 4. v. 1 c. 1. For the rest therefore Brethren we desire and beseech you in our Lord Iesus that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God as also you do walk that you abound more 2. For you know what precepts I have given to you by our Lord Iesus 3. For this is the will of God your Sanctification that you abstaine from Fornication 4. That every one may know to possesse his vessell in Sanctification and honour 5. Not in the Passion of lust
bred up and not far from Capernaum where he wrought his most Miracles high to shew heaven is hugely elevated from earth and that as in heaven the glory of God shall be so in Thabor the glory of Christ was manifested to those who were like the Elect amongst many chosen singled out for eternal happiness in the next and for testimonies here of Christ his Deity shining through the cloud of his humanity as the next verse describeth 2. His Transfiguration consisted not in the change of his humane shape nor in his giving his body all the gifts of glorified bodies in heaven impassibility agility subtility clarity but in shewing to the Apostles the last onely of these gifts and that so far forth as their weak eyes were capable of which clarity Christ was fain to suppress whilest he lived here that he might be seen and conversed with by all men for else it was at all times due to him as all the other gifts of glorified bodies were by reason of his Divinity united to his humanity Note though there be special mention made of a change in his face onely shining like the Sun and his garments become white as snow yet this clarity or glory was general over all his blessed body and as the brightness of the Sun in his face was a type of his Deity so the whiteness of his garments did represent the purity of his humanity and withal it shewed us how the grace and glory of God renders our Souls as white as snow and by that means transfigures the Saints from their Aethiopian blackness of sin into so many garments of whitest lillies as it were bedecking the body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 3. These two were summoned as Witnesses to testifie that whatsoever the Law or Prophets said of Christ should be verified Moses standing for the first Elias for the second as also to reward them for their forty days Fast which each had undergone the one to be worthy thereby to receive the Laws the other to ascend the Mount Horeb and farther yet because he would take away the doubt which people had that he was Moses or Elias or some other Prophet and again lest Moses should appear to have been injured when Christ did abrogate the ancient Law as also lest Elias should be valued equal to Almighty God in glory which some conceived of him finâ—lly to shew he had full power of life and death to call Moses dead thither and to summon Elias alive from the place where he was kept till his second coming To both of whom Christ communicated a splendor something like indeed to that of his own garments white as snow that so they might be more worthy of the honour done them to confer and talk with him but far inferior to the whiteness of his own 4. All Expositors say this was a speech of a man half beside himself drunk as it were with the present glut of contentment and not forecasting future things besides that it was impertinent to build Tabernacles for those whom he saw in glory as also it was to fix Christ upon earth and in Thabor who came to purchase heaven for all the world by his passion which by his remaining here had been prevented and to hope for heaven before himself had laboured to deserve it or to think eternal Beatitude consisted in the glory of Christs humanity and not in the beholding of his Deity which here they did not see 5. The interposition of this Cloud upon this speech argues a check given to the speaker thereof by depriving him of that alluring sight which he knew not how to make right use of but not separating them from a due distance both to see and hear whence they fell as S. Luke sayes into a present fear yet this Cloud was clear to shew the difference betwixt the Old Law and the New That being delivered to Moses in a dark cloud This avow'd to be delivered by Christ before Moses Elias and these three Apostles in a clear resplendent Cloud out of which was heard the voyce of God the Father saying This is my beloved Son c. Some think Moses and Elias were gone before this voyce was heard lest the Apostles might doubt to which of the three it was spoken but since they were to be both eye and ear-witnesses too 't is probable they might see to whom the address was made and questionless God did make this testimony such as could not be lyable to doubt since he was pleased to have these Witnesses of the thing as he made them saying Hear him that is Hear my beloved Son for from his mouth not from the mouth of Moses and Elias shall proceed all Truth and Salvation to Mankind The reason why this command of hearing him was not added when he was stiled by the like voyce from heaven to be Son to the same Father at his Baptism was because then he was onely shewed to be the Messias whom men before conceived the Baptist to have been But here he is in presence of Moses and Elias preferred in point of Doctrine before them as if all they had said or done was but to prefigure him but that what he sayes reports to none beside himself as having vigour in it to make him known to be the Illuminator of all the former Prophets and so of himself the true Doctor of Nations and Law-maker thereunto whence he for his own sake is to be heard others for respect onely to him and there was reason to say Hear him that comes to abrogate the Old and to make a New Law to dye for the sins of his people in such excess of ignominy as he and Moses did but now talk of to rise from the dead himself and thereby to impower all men to rise again after they are dead to the Judgement Seat where those that till then believe it not shall finde there is a Hell and those who are believers shall know there is a Purgatory and a Limbus Patrum since Moses was from the latter summoned hither to this Mystery of Transfiguration which was exhibited as an undoubted testimony of the Truths that were preached by him whom we were then commanded to hear and consequently to believe 6. They feared at the shrilness of the voyce though sweet at the loss of the sight they had before of Moses and Elias whom they might suspect were sent away to fulminate vengeance from God upon the people who had abused his beloved Son and hence fearing they fell upon their faces to shew they were themselves ready to adore him 7. And Jesus pitying the fright they were in came presently to comfort them and raise them up again from the posture of their prostration thereby to shew we cannot sooner humble our selves to God then he is ready to raise a comfort in us 8. The reason why they then see none but Jesus was because now all things were given up to his cure no more rigorous Law
shield before her against all Adversity whatsoever to be firm in her belief of the most Blessed and undivided Trinity Say then the Prayer above and see how well it suits unto this doctrine thereupon The Gospel Matth. 28. v. 18. c. 18 And Jesus coming neer spake to them saying All power is given to me in heaven and earth 19 Going therefore teach ye all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and behold I am with you all dayes even to the consummation of the world The Explication 18. THe Evangelist in this Chapter recounts the apparition of Jesus in Galilee to a great number of Disciples and friends as well as unto the Apostles amongst them who were now so far fled from Jerusalem where formerly they had seen him after he arose from his grave and so confirmed them in the truth of this mystery that though in the precedent verse St. Matthew sayes some of them doubted of this truth that Christ was risen yet the meaning is not that any of the Apostles doubted thereof but some others to whom Christ had never appeared before as now he did to confirm the truth of his resurrection And Jesus coming neer not to those doubting persons but to his Apostles saying as this dayes Gospel begins All power c. But we are to observe though S. Matthew seems in this chapter to conjoyn the power of Mission given by Christ to his Apostles unto this story of his Apparition to them and above three thousand more in Galilee since he resolved to end his Gospel in this eight and twentieth chapter and write no more yet the very truth is those words were not spoken by Christ consequently to this apparition but afterwards upon the Mount Olivet when at his Ascension he gave the Apostles Mission over all the world for his valediction or last farewell unto them and in testimony that this was an Act of high Jurisdiction he tells them at the same time All power is given unto him both in heaven and earth so they need not doubt but he that gave them this Mission to all Nations this commission to preach unto them and to Baptize them had ample authority for his so doing and would by his grace from heaven second their labours over all the earth and make them fruitful to the final salvation of all Nations which was a convincing testimony of his being plenipotentiary between God and man or having plenitude of power both in heaven and earth But we are further here to note that this plenitude of power was not now so given to Christ as if he had not had it before for the Word was no sooner Incarnate then this power was begun in him though he was not pleased to mention the accomplishment or perfection thereof untill by his death and passion he had merited the same and therefore suiting to him not onely as he was God but as he was man the Messias or Saviour of the world and to him alone for to no man else was the amplitude of this power competent nay the very participation thereof is above all merit of any pure humane creature however to Christ the fulnesse of it was but due by reason of his being one person with God who as Creatour of heaven and earth had consequently full power over them both so as he could by the Ministery of his Apostles preaching subject unto himself all the Nations of the earth as stooping to the power of his Faith and Doctrine and afterwards in heaven reward this their Faith this their subjection to Christian discipline with crowns of eternal glory to shew he was chief commandant in heaven also having purchased the same by his bitter death and passion and so being able to make eternally happy in this his glorious Kingdom whosoever he pleased 19. We are here to observe when Christ bids go it is not nay it cannot be in the power of any mortal man to forbid the Ministers of Christ from going to convert nations So this Mission is Divine not humane and gives Commission to execute Gods Lawes maugre all mens prohibitions Go saith he to shew us labour pains travel diligence are the marks of those who preach the word of God nor is this labour limited to any one time or place but extends it self to all times to all nations Go sayes our Saviour teach all nations nay he adds therefore go that is to say Go because I send you that have all power both in heaven and earth go teach ye all nations as I have taught you Whence it followes the command of learning was imposed upon the people while the precept of teaching was laid upon the Apostles and their successours for in these latter it is indeed that Christ after said he would be with them unto the end of the world that is in assisting their Successours he would be with them And very great reason it is that an obligation of hearing should fall upon the people when a command of preaching was imposed on the Priest for a Schollar is acorrelative to a Master as a Son is to a Father since no man can be an actual master unless he have an actual Schollar nor can any man be a father that hath not a child And that it was a command given with an obligation to be put in present execution see how Christ tyes himself to an actual assistance thereof even to the worlds end And as he bids them go and teach all nations the principles of Christian doctrine namely those of the Catholick Church so he bids them Baptize all those whom they instruct and teach in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost to shew them the true mark of a Christian is his belief in the Blessed Trinity which is one onely God and three Divine Persons distinct each from other called Father Son and holy Ghost Nor can there be indeed a more succinct method of this deep mystery then is here expressed when the command of Baptizing in the name and not in the names shewes the unity of God and denyes the plurality of Divine nature or essence and yet the specifying of the Father Son and Holy Ghost shewes the Blessed Trinity which is in that sacred unity Whence we see the word Trinity doth import a Triunity or an Unity of nature in a Trinity of persons whence our Saviour saying by the mouth of his Apostle 1 Epist Joh. c. 5. There are three that bear testimony in heaven the Father the Son and Holy Ghost adds immediately and these Three are all one that is to say these distinct persons are one indistinct and undivided nature essence deity so as though there be three divine persons yet is there but one onely God And no marvel if upon Trinity Sunday both the Epistle and Gospel report unto this sacred mystery for it
Columnes that are marked with the denote the number of the Psalmes Those that are marked with the * declare the numbers of the Keys whereunto every Psalme is appropriated and in what sense it ought to be understood according to the meaning of the Royall Prophet David * 1 7 2 6 3 8 4 7 5 9 6 7 7 8 8 5 9 3 10 3 11 6 12 7 13 5 14 10 15 5 16 3 17 8 18 6 19 7 20 5 21 5 22 7 23 5 24 7 25 8 26 3 27 8 28 6 29 8 30 7 31 7 32 2 33 3 34 5 35 3 36 7 37 7 38 3 39 5 40 5 41 10 42 1 43 4 44 6 45 6 46 6 47 6 48 7 49 9 50 7 51 8 52 9 53 7 54 3 55 8 56 8 57 3 58 8 59 8 60 5 61 7 62 8 63 7 64 6 65 6 66 6 67 6 68 5 69 8 70 7 71 5 72 9 73 7 74 9 75 3 76 4 77 4 78 6 79 5 80 7 81 7 82 6 83 10 84 5 85 7 86 6 87 7 88 6 89 2 90 3 91 2 92 6 93 10 94 5 95 5 96 9 97 6 98 5 99 1 100 7 101 7 102 7 103 2 104 4 105 4 106 3 107 8 108 5 109 5 110 6 111 7 112 3 113 4 114 7 115 5 116 6 117 6 118 7 119 7 120 3 121 10 122 7 123 3 124 3 125 7 126 3 127 7 128 6 129 7 130 7 131 5 132 7 133 1 134 1 135 2 136 4 137 7 138 3 139 10 140 6 141 8 142 7 143 8 144 1 145 3 146 2 147 6 148 2 149 6 150 1 FINIS THE Christian Sodality On the first Sunday of Advent The Antiphon LUKE 1. v. 30. FEar not Mary for thou hast found grace with our Lord Behold thou shalt conceive and shalt bring forth a Son Vers Drop dew ye Heavens from above and let the clouds rain down the Just Resp Be the earth opened and let it bud forth a Saviour The Prayer ROwse up we beseech Thee O Lord thy power and come away that from the eminent dangers of our sins thou protecting we may deserve to be freed and thou delivering us we may be saved The Illustration of the Prayer SHould a Turk or Heathen ask me what report this Prayer hath to the Epistle and Gospel of the day there being scarce one word of either in it I should not wonder at him but did a Christian ask me such a question I should pitty him as either not well Catechized or at least as not reflecting on what he hath been taught for example that past Mysteries are by Holy Church presentiated unto us as now actually flowing namely that Advent represents the time when the Blessed Virgin Mary was near to her delivery of her Sacred Son the Messias our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into this world and for respect unto this time the Antiphon of this day is taken out of the 1. of Saint Luke not out of the 21. as the Gospel is because that 1. Chapter puts us in minde of the time which this Prayer reports unto so doth the Versicle and Responsory and so doth the last Antiphon of Advent being one of the great Os as we call them importing the exclamations used by the holy Patriarchs in their Prayers calling upon our Saviours Birth as near at hand and consequently the Prayers of Advent must be adapted to the times past to the voices of the Ancient Patriarchs and Prophets looking up to Heaven with their Predecessours and their own wearied eyes for four thousand years together all crying out as if they durst not believe their own eyes but would awake as it were the sleeping God that had so long left the world under the lash of a Triple Tyranny which they did groan beneath of Death Sin and Damnation and speaking by the dictate of the holy Ghost like men to God as if there were more or lesse of power in his Omnipotency beseeching him to hasten away with all his Rowsed power and by his protecting grace to free them from the eminent dangers they were in that had slept so many years in the night and trance of sin that is to say in the guilt thereof and next to deliver them from all future punishment due unto them for that guilt by a saving sentence in the latter day of Doom and so briefly praying to be secured from all dangers they were liable unto either of Guilt or pain of Sin He I say that looks upon the present Prayer with this reflection which is but due unto it will soon perceive the connexion it hath by beseeching God to Rowse up his power and come away to the Epistle specifying the greatest roots of Sin from the guilt whereof we desire protection and freedom by the coming of Christ the source and fountain of all Grace and to the Gospel telling us we are then before all the world finally truly and most absolutely delivered from the due penalty of Sin which is eternall damnation when the Devil and all his accursed crew shall see us called at the latter day of Doom unto an everlasting Bliss and Glory by the happy sentence of Salvation passed upon us For though we are protected here and by the Grace of God set free from the guilt of Sin yet we are then most properly delivered from all danger of punishment for the same when we are declared which God grant at the latter day maugre the Devils malice to be saved Souls But that all this may more clearly appear see both the letters of the Texts in Epistle and Gospel with the Expositours senses thereupon suitable to this Illustration of the Prayer as above and then confess there is more depth of sense and spirit in the Churches Prayers being all dictates of the holy Ghost than at first sight men will imagine or without deep meditation ever find out and believe The Epistle ROM 13. 11. ANd knowing the season that it is now the hour for us to rise from slâ—ep for now our salvation is nearer than when we believed 12. The night is past and the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of Darknesse and put on the Armour of Light 13. As in the day let us walk honestly not in Banquettings and Drunkenesse not in Chamberings and Impudicities not in Contention and Emulation 14. But put ye on our Lord Jesus Christ The Explication 11. THe Apostle in the immediate Verse before had told them That the fulness of the Law was Love and supposing them thereby prepared to fulfill the same by loving one another he now adds the convenience of the season and happiness of the present hour to encourage them to perfection But we must note he applies his speech both to the Jewes and Gentiles in this place to the former alluding unto the time when they did onely believe the Messias was to come whom now they can see with their own
corporall eyes to the latter that their time is now come also of awaking from the sleep of infidelity and of their other enormious sins being the Redeemer of all mankinde was actually come though even the Jewes also after Christs Birth were fast enough asleep in their infidelity most of them and so were capable of this speech to them even in that sense too 12. By the night is here meant the time before Christs comming made dark as night with infidelity By the day the time after our Saviours Birth rendered bright as day with the light of the Gospel the works of darkness are Sin because they shut out the light of grace from our Souls the Armour of Light are acts of Vertue works of Grace and in these words Saint Paul minds us that our life is here a spiritual warfare since we know Armour is necessary for Warriours though the Greek Text imports by Armour of Light a kind of habit proper to the day and this is not inconsistent with the other sense above for Armour is a kind of habit too 13. This Verse seemes to begin with prosecuting the last sense in the former as if it were indecent to appear in the day without our Armour of Light as above but if it be taken as independent thereof it imports not for the sense is full in it self Aâ— in the day of Grace as in the day of the illuminating Gospel let us walk honestly that is modestly converse religiously and shew our selves to be children of Light by our works shining to the edification of our neighbour and glory of God Not any more in Banquettings and Drunkenness feastings and excesses of Wines These you know are works of the Flesh not of the Spirit or the Grace of God by Chamber-works the Apostle means here plainly Fornication by Impudicities more petulant and wanton actions of Lust even in publick such as indeed may be well called carnall impudencies Not in Contention not striving for vain-glory and popular applause whence followes the forbidden Emulation which is an envie at our neighbours greater good or esteem than our own See therefore here three of the capitall Sins so represented unto us as by all means to be avoided Gluttony Lechery Envy all being acts and deeds of darkness not fit to appear in the day light of the Gospel which now shines bright among us 14. By putting on Christ is here meant being dressed up in such Vertues as may make us appear Christians men clad in the Livery the Sanctity of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ and so abundant the Apostle in this phrase bids our Vertues be that they may hang as full Garments all over us for this difference there is betwixt carrying and putting on of cloathes that when carryed they are cumbersome and not adorning when put on they are light and becoming So to carry Vertue onely wrapt up in the speculation of it is no way graceful but to unfold it by the practice thereof this becomes a good Christian and this is truly to put on Christ not onely to study and speculate but to practice Vertue The Application 1. THe two first Verses of this Epistle are wholly and clearly describing the effects of the Incarnation and do exhort to a due Christian comportment at such a season That is now to prepare our selves for our Deification since therefore God became man that man might become God I have said ye are Gods and all sons of the Highest Psal 82. v. 6. 2. The third Verse tells us how unsuitable all Sin must needs be at this season though indeed it cannot be allowable at any time but especially how unseasonable these three deadly Sins now are which here the Apostle specifies and under them forbids us all the rest Gluttony Lechery Envy For nothing sooner starves a Soul to death than a gluttonous pampering of the Body nothing more odious to our God incarnate than to pollute that humane nature which Jesus could not endure to take upon him but in the sacred womb of his unpolluted Virgin Mother Nothing so unseasonable at this season of love as for a Christian to envy Christ in his neighbour just now when he coming to save us commands us to love each other as he loves us all 3. The last Verse gives us an armour of Proof against all danger of sin whatsoever for as Jesus by taking our sins upon himself did redeem us so we by putting on his Vertues may deserve to be saved that is to say we may be capable of Salvation for other desert we have not of our selves than a meer capacity of Heaven through the merits of our Saviours death and passion applyed to us cooperating towards that which we cannot operate our own Salvations since it is the onely participation of his merits that makes us fit to receive his rewards for those we call our meritorious actions such as Saint Augustine required saying He that made thee without thee will not save thee without thee Yet the same Doctor lest we should presume too much upon our selves says also When God rewards mans works he crowns his own Gifts for even our cooperation whereby we merit is the speciall Gift of God Which we Petition in the Prayer above most aptly set to the Tune of this Epistle The Gospel LUKE 21. ver 25. c. 25. ANd there shall be signes in the Sun and the Moon and the Stars and upon the Earth distresse of Nations for the confusion of the sound of the Sea and Waves 26. Men withering for fear and expectation what shall come upon the whole world for the powers of Heaven shall be moved 27. And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty 28. But when these things shall begin to come to passe look up and lift up your heads for your redemption is at hand 29. And he spake to them a similitude see the figtree and all trees 30. When they now bud forth fruit out of themselves you know that Summer is nigh 31. So you also when you shall these see things come to passe know that the Kingdom of God is nigh 32. Amen I say to you that this generation shall not pass till all be done 33. Heaven and Earth shall pass but my Words shall not pass The Explication 25. THese Signes appearing in the Sun Moon and Stars argue they shall not perish but remain set to another Series or order of being than they were before such Signes in them shall portend the dismall day of Judgement And indeed how can there be other than a sad distress on earth amongst all the Nations thereof upon the confusion of sound that will then be in the boiling Sea and Waves which by the general conflagration fire falling from Heaven shall be far more agitated than ever by any storm or tempest these commonly happening but in some part of the Sea whereas this disturbance shall arise from the very bottom of the channell
have it so but in a way clean contrary then we are not of one minde nor do we speak forth his praises with one mouth which yet we doe when out of severall mouthes we express one and the same will and way to praise Almighty God The Apostle seemes to insert the glorifying God and the Father of Jesus Christ under two severall notions to let us see that as Christ was man he was also truly the Son of God because as the second Person had in Heaven a Father without a Mother so in Earth Christ had a Mother without any Father save onely God in Heaven 7. For the which cause that is to shew you are all of one mind c. receive help and cherish one another being Christians or in order that you may be so as Christ hath received you that were Gentiles unto the honor of God to the same Church with his native and chosen People th◠Jewes and of all severall nations made up one joynt honour and glory to the Divine Majesty 8. True it is Christ was sent by his Heavenly Father with Commission as it were unto the Jewes onely and therefore he did live and die amongst them to verifie those promises which God had made them in Abraham and the Prophets for as the law was onely given unto and kept among the Jewes so the promises and predictions of that law did onely appertain to them and were necessarily to be made good amongst them as indeed most exactly they were by Christ and this in virtue of Cōmission from his Heavenly Father For which cause he is called here Minister of the Circumcision though he abrogated that law in regard he did all his life time administer to the circumcised his labours and pains by Teaching Preaching Curing and infinite other wayes serving the Jewes in order to their Redemption and this directly and principally to prove the veracity of God who had promised to send the Jewes a Messias that should do this and by doing this he was truly and properly their Minister 9. But not to the Gentiles so because he came to them for mercy onely and ultroneously to shew his goodnesse was not limited to the bounds of his Commission to the Jewes but might and did mercifully extend it self also to the Gentiles thereby to amplifie the honour and glory of God in doing more than could be expected of him and that to a people who had no promise nor any hope thereof Though it was not onely foreseen that Christ would doe this act of ultroneous grace and mercy but fore-told by the royall Prophet Psal 17. ver 50 as followes in this nineth verse of the Epistle 10. And as Deut. 32. ver 43. The Prophet sayes of the Gentiles Rejoice ye Gentiles with his People that is with the People of God with the Jewes for your Conversion also and sing forth praise to God for his mercy shewed to you therein 11. Here it is declared that not onely some few Nations of the Gentiles but even all of them shall be first or last made partakers of these mercies and thereby are bound to praise our Lord. 12. By the root of Jesse is here meant a Branch of that root namely Christ Jesus the son of David and of Jesse as Isaias saith in another place There shall spring a rod from the root of Jesse Isai 11. ver 1. which Rod is Iesus descended as above and yet with reason enough Christ is called the root of Iesse too for though as man he was but a branch of David his root yet as God he was the root of David his Creature again David was rather his Seed than his Root because he had not from David to be Redeemer of the World but was himself the Root of Davids and all Mankinds redemption and sprouting forth as from the Root of goodnesse in himself branches of Grace and Glory to David and all those whom he was graciously pleased to predestinate for Heirs to God and Coheires to himself in his Heavenly Kingdome The hope of which Kingdome he hath mercifully given as well to the Gentiles as faithfully by promise he gave to the Iewes 13. The Apostle here calls him the God of Hope as above Verse 5. he did call him the God of Peace and Comfort and prayes he will replenish them with all Ioy and peace as who should say both Jew and Gentile setting aside former distances now are to Joy in this that they are made one in Christ Iesus and therefore must live in peace together as the members of a naturall Body since they are become Members of Christ his Mysticall Body that by so living they may both abound in hope of one reward enough for both the Kingdome of Heaven and this through the Vertue that is Charity or the Grace of the holy Ghost wherein he also prayes they may both abound The Application 1. IF what is here written be to our Instruction 't is to make us be the Saints we are not yet 't is to facilitate the way by shewing us how the Jew and Gentile were both Saincted by Christianity The Roots whereof are the three Theologicall Vertues Faith Hope and Charity which indeed doe briefly summe up this whole Epistle in the last Verse thereof and are given us as the best preparatives to make way for Jesus into our Hearts Faith we see made Jew and Gentile both one Church O may it grow to such an excellence in us to abolish Heresie from Christianity and because it is a speciall gift of God let it be our daily Prayer that he will give it unto all the World Turk Heathen Pagan Jew 2. Hope keeps together those that Faith uniteth and like an Ancre in a storme secures the Ship of Christ in highest seas of Persecution May then the Hope of future mercy inable us to undergo our present Misery may the example of the Saints before us encourage us to be like patterns unto our Posterity as they have been to us that were our Predecessours 3. Charity makes operative both our Faith and Hope sends the Believer with the hazard of his life to propagate the Faith of Christ throughout the World and directs our present actions to such a rectitude of their intentions as may secure a future possession of their Hopes So without Charity in vain we Hope in vain men doe believe and are rather nominall than reall Christians such as cry out at the latter day Lord Lord and shall hear him say I know you not while you professe belief in Jesus Christ and offer dayly sacrifice to the Devill while you pretend a hope of Heaven and doe such actions as can onely merrit Hell while you call one another brethren in Christ and bear a mutuall hatred greater than the Gentile bore the Jew for want of those Heart-raising virtues this Epistle recommends and bids us Pray as above that by the frequent acts thereof we may both prepare the way of Christ and be able by his coming
had each of them some quantity within them wherefore Christ to take away all colour of deceit first bids all those vessels to be filled full of water up to the top that so each person in the room might see the certainty of the miracle and the liberality of God when he pleaseth to open his bounteous hand unto us 8. This done Jesus bids them draw of the vessels full of water a cup full and carry it to the cheif Steward of the feast because he could best tell whether or not he had provided that plenty and such rare Wine as those pots full of water did afford For it was the Jewish custome ever to have some modimperatour or prefect of good order at such feasts so Christ gave him the respect of first tasting this cup of grace and the presence of such a prefect makes the company of Iesus and his Mother more avowable at the feast since where a prefect of good order was there could be no suspition at all of the least excess or disorder 9. This verse shewes us the modimperatour having found Wine come in more than he had appointed and knowing none durst provide any besides himself unless by chance the Bridegroom took the priviledge so to doe which yet was not usuall presently calls to him saying to this effect 10. This is beyond the ordinary course two wayes first that you have more Wine than I was privy too next that you have reserved to the last your best Wine for this is singular good much better than what we had before And yet the bâ—st is alwayes first served in that in case of want worse may suffice at the latter end when the tast being glutted before is not so able to distinguish the difference yet this was so superlatively rare as even to those Palates formerly glutted in a manner it did tast extraordinarily well indeed to admiration nor was it strange since the works of God are ever perfect 11. Many doubt wheither or no this were the first miracle that Christ wrought willing to believe divers former which he did in his youth though in regard Gelasius the Pope hath condemned a fictitious book published by Hereticks intituled The miraculous infancy of Jesus and full of inventions of their own it is not improbable this was the first he did after his Baptisme with any purpose to be noted for the Messias By the manifestation of his Glory here is understood the shewing of his power wherein he was glorified and for which cause the Disciples are here said to believe him to be the true Messias and the true â—amb of God who as John the Baptist had told them was come to take away the sins of the world and this miracle he chose to work at a marriage as alluding thereby to the solemnity he made this day of his own wedding between his Divine and humane nature since now he was resolv'd to discover himself to be as well God as man whence this was done mystically on the Third day after he was published by the Baptist to shew now the Third state of the world was begun The first being hat under the Law of Nature The second that under the Law of Moses and this that under the Law of Grace besides the miracle was done in the Gentiles Cana to shew Christ came to call all Nations it was also done in Cana of Galilee as importing the transmigration of possession that is amongst Christian people who are the possession of Christ as bought by his bloud and therefore are to passe yet from earth to heaven their better and finall possession The Wine he so abundantly gave imports the doctrine of Christ and his holy grace inebriating the soules of the Faithfull The Application 1. LEarn Husbands hence to love your Wives as Christ doth love his Church learn Wives to obey your Husbands as the Church obeys her Head our Saviour Jesus Christ since marriage is a Sacrament representing the union between Christ and his holy Spouse 2. Learn married people hence to moderate excesses both at bed and board for neither Jesus nor his Blessed Mother can behold excesse and they to faintifie your marriage must be there 3. Learn Parents hence to breed your Children rather to supply the Angels rooms in Heaven than for to be your own Successours here on Earth thus will the waters of humane infirmitie be turned into Wine of Christian perfection by grace moderating natures exorbitances and making peace between two fatall enemies the spirit and the flesh As the Prayer to day petitions On the Third Sunday after the EPIPHANIE The Antiphon MATH 8. ver 2. O Lord if thou wilt thou canst cleanse me and Jesus said I will Be thou cleansed Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer OMnipotent eternall God look we beseech thee propitiously on our infirmity and extend to our protection the right hand of thy Majesty The Illustration IT is remarkable to see how negatively Saint Paul in this dayes Epistle minds us of being sinners when positively he exhorts us to be Saints with the Romans for what greater signe that the Apostle found a world of infirmities in the Romans than that he stirs them up so much to Vertues contrary to the vices they abound in and thus the Epistle insisting all upon vertues is well adapted to the Gospell running all upon infirmities mystically representing vices for what else doth the corporall leprosie of the Leper or the paraliticall disease of the Centurions boy purport than the like scurvy latent diseases of sin in our Souls to those which were apparent in these two bodies Whence it was but fitting this dayes Prayer should beg to have the same right hand of God extended over us which was the cure of these temporall diseases types of our spirituall infirmities nor can we hope this will be done unless God of his infinite goodness be propitious to us and therefore we beseech him in the Prayer first to look propitiously on our infirmities and then to extend to our protection the right hand of his majesty that is to say all his power as if our vice required no less than an infinite vertue to cure it our weakness no less than all Heavens forces to protect us And since both the Leper and Paralitick saying this Prayer in effect obtained corporall cure thereby why should we doubt of Spirituall cure if we say with like Faith like Hope like Love the same Prayer to day and truly to say it with less were a confusion to Christianity that Jewes and Gentiles should exceed us in fervour of Piety besides we have yet an easier task than they in hand for their demands were no less than to have a Miracle wrought upon them by a Physicall cure without a Physicall cause unless we shall say the touch of Christs hand was a Physicall cure for all diseases whereas we onely demand a favour not a miracle a little Grace to blot out a great
I of a slight command can doe much by vertue of this power what mayst thou O Christ by thy command who hast perfect and absolute power over Heaven and Earth and art under no command as I am who can deny but this stile was used purposely for our morall instruction that hearing this we should remember if at any time we have command ovâ—r others yet we are commanded our selves by many more above us and again to advertise us that the Soul shall then best command the Body when she her selfe moves not but as commanded by God and moved by his holy grace And if she rebell against God no marvell the body requoiles against her as in Adam and his race was and still is apparent 10. Since Admiration or Wonder is an effect of ignorance and Christ as being God was omniscient and had in perfection all the three Sciences that could render him perfectly knowing as man namely Beatificall Infused and Experimentall certain it is his Admiration here could not be a proper wondring at what he seemes to make exceeding strange of as by professing he had not found so great faith in Israel rather indeed to excite and stir up others to admiration and imitation of the like than that he was or could be seised on by the surprisall of any new notion accruing unto him which he had not before So Saint Austine sayes well These operations in Christ were rather signes of his actions upon others than of his passions from them of his teaching us not of his being taught himself by any thing that could happen unto him new or strange and what followes is to be taken strictly as spoken to those common people who were then present for else it could not be meant of all others or spoken to them that were absent For example when he said to those that followed him I have not found so great Faith in Israel meaning among such as you are that now behold the Faith of this Centurion for certainly he knew the Faith of his blessed Mother of Abraham of Moses and of John the Baptist was greater yet than this of the said Centurion so highly commended so much admired by our Saviour 11. This following Verse illustrates the latter end of the former in the sense as above for here Christ gives Abraham Isaack and Iacob as presidents for singular Faith rewarded with eternall glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and sayes Many shall come from East and West meaning from all corners of the world and share with Abraham c. in the like reward for their like Faith so here our Saviour alludes to the calling of the Gentiles unto the Faith of Christ and gives for their encouragement this encomiastick or superlative praise of the Centurion for the first fruits of the Gentiles vocation or beleeving in Christ Iesus the adoration of three Kings arguing not so much Faith as the Profession did so what he said to his followers in the Verse above may by adjoynder of this unto it be conceived as if Christ had said he never found so great Faith in any Gentile whom he had met with amongst the Israelites as he found in this Centurion for the three Kings were not Israelites admit their adoration could argue like Faith in them 12. He pursues the incitement to like Faith of this Centurion saying Those Gentiles who believe as he did shall succeed in the Kingdome of Glory to be dis-inherited Heirs thereof namely the Israelites or Jewes whom he calls the Children of the Kingdome in two regards first because as descended from the loynes of Abraham they were heires to his promised earthly kingdome of Iudea next as for the same reason they were heires to the Heavenly Kingdome of glory likewise promised to his issue in like Faith to his as who should say the forraign Gentiles shall inherit the two Crowns whereunto the Jewes were born heirs by Promise and this by reason the said Gâ—ntiles shall receive the faith of Abraham which the Jewes had deserted and apostatized from So as the Gentiles shall be saved in reward of their Faith and the Jewes damned in punishment of their incredulity which damnation or hell is here called outward darknes as often elsâ—where in holy Writ it is because hell as it is the most remote part from Heaven so is it the darkest and outmost in respect of the inhabitants in Glory whose Beatitude consisting in their beholding the inward light of the Deity by means of the outward light of Glory argues the damnation of the wicked consisteth in their being deprived of all light either of Glory or of God and consequently are out-casts from Heaven wallowing in the deep hell of outward darkness And as by this darkness is understood their pain of damnation or pain of loss consisting in an absolute privation of the sight or light of God and consequenly of all light so by weeping or gnashing of teeth is understood their pain of sense best expressed by those termes which alwayes betoken sorrow and horrour 13. Christ concludes giving the Centurion all he askes in reward of his Faith so curing his Boy at a distance in vertue of his sole Word as was observed that just when Christ spake those words Be it to thee as thou believest then the child was wel recovered hence we are to learn that according to the firmnesse of our Faith we may measure the greatness of our hope in God and mystically we may apply this passage of the Centurion to our selves who are commanders of our senses and powers which make up a spirituall Militia in this life Iob 7. if therefore any of these languish or grow otherwise diseased let us make our addresses by our Friends the Saints in Heaven and Good men on Earth to God beseeching him to cure that sick sense or faculty which is in danger to let in upon us the death of Sin and look with what Faith with what Hope with what Love we make our applications to Almighty God either by our selves or others we may rest assured our help shall be answerable thereunto The Application 1. CHrist cures the Leper to Day by a touch of his sacred Hand to shew he had cured the leprosie of sin in all humane nature by touching it with his nature Divine in the mystery of his Incarnation 2. Being intreated he cures the Centurions son by saying I will come and cure him however by the humility and faith of the Centurion he was not suffered to goe but desired by his Word to doe it at a distance This argues the power of Christ to be as operative as his Person and that by his Power given to Priests he cures all humble and believing Souls in the Sacrament of Pennance as he did the Centurion whose corporall infirmity was here but a figure of Sin-sick-souls 3. O happy Christians who have against all humane diseases a Cure Divine The touch of all the three Persons of the sacred Trinity in the Blessed Sacrament
in Evang. upon these words of S. Luke Chap. 21. v. 9. When you hear of warrs and seditions be not troubled at such evils because sayes hee many evils must here fore-run that they may put us in minde of evills without end and so make us avoid Temporary lest we plunge our selves into eternall evils confiding in his that wee serve a God who alâ—ne is able to cull good out of evill 30. Hence therefore the Master bids his men let the weeds grow up with the corn untill harvest let the bad men live together with the good till the day of judgement which is the true harvest indeed that brings home the whole crop of nature rectified by grace into the barn of glorie We are here to note that though formerly the word of God were called the seed or good wheat yet here the just are called by the same name as if the cause weâ—e â—xpressed by the effect for Saints are indeed the fruitfull effects of the Gospel the holy word of God On the other side sinners are the ill seed or cockle in this place specified and by the Reapers we may account are here meant the Angels that are to summon all the world to Judgement and in that summons to sever the cockle from the corn the wicked from the just binding up these in bundles as so many piles of fuell for hell-fire and ranging those as stacks of corn fit to be made bread of life for the heavenly Table of Almighty God The Application 1. SInce it is by his protecting Grace wee must hope whilst we are asleep to bee defended from the enemie who then doth machinate our mischief let it be our parts while we are awake not to sow any cockle our selves of ill manners if not of false doctrine in the field of our soules for then no marvell if while we sleep this ill seed sown by us grow up and choak the good corn sowed in our hearts by the seeds-men of holy Church the Pastors of our souls 2. Since wee are not able to avoid the alternate rest of night after a toylesome day let us at least in the day time stand upon a close guard and be sure not to sleep that is not to loose the presence of Almighty God and fall into the trance of transitory pleasures such as pash us in pieces against the Rocks of sin and under pretence of yeelding us a present momentary dâ—light purchase us eternall torments 3. Since we cannot tell even when we doe best whether we deserve love or hatred we have great reason to fear lest we may be separated at the latter day from the blessed as Cockle sit for nothing but hell fire and out of that religious fear let us work out our salvation with trembling by planting in our souls the roots and seeds of vertues and for better doing it Let us pray to day with Holy Church as above to be secured from the danger of damnation by our sole hope in the protecting and saving grace of Jesus Christ our Lord. On the sixth Sunday after the EPIPHANY The Antiphon MAT. 13. ver 33. THE kingdome of heaven is like to leaven which a woman tooke and hid in three measures of meale untill the whole was leavened Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that alwaies meditating those things which are reasonable we may both in our words and deeds doe what is pleasing unto Thee The Illustration I Have met with some prodigious wits of both sexes who conferring with me about this my designe when it was in hand would laughing say I might perhaps as well adjust this Prayer to the Epistle and Gospel of the day as I should be able to perswade them it was other than a meere paradox and if it were possible for men alwaies to meditate upon reasonable things considering how irrationally all the world was commonly distracted so as friends they advised me if I would goe on to change at least this Prayer and put some other in the place of it lesse paradoxicall in it self and more suiteable than this could be either to the Epistle or Gospel of the day which they read over and over before they spent this judgement upon me and my designe To these I answered pleasantly as me thought they spake to me though I perceived they were serious too That if they observed the Gospel it was all Parabolicall and therefore admit that were true they said it was not unsuiteable on this day to have a Prayer Paradoxicall since Parables and Paradoxes were of near allyance but further let me now ask all the world if it be not reasonable the Church should pray most fervently for that which is most hard to doe as it seemes men account it the hardest thing in the world alwaies to meditate on reasonable things and yet the harder this is to doe the more necessary it is to pray for grace at least to enable us thereunto since even â—hese prodigious wits would think a man unmannerly that should tell them th y were irrationall soules at any time and yet what difference there is between being irrationall and thinking and doing for the most part unreasonable things I doe not well know sure I am reason alwaies dictates to doe well and as sure I am that a sinne is an irrationall act as it is certainely a thing ill done nay if I had said every sinne were so farre forth against nature as it is against reason I think I should not exceed verity in that assertion and since all that men doe like men they premeditate therefore with reason we pray this day least our actions should prove unnaturall that our meditations or thoughts should be rational for none other are connaturall to men as men though often they creep upon us and so render our actions more bestiall than rationall more unnaturall than naturall To conclude though many of our actions passe among men as rationall which yet are not so indeed therefore we pray to day that really they may be so since God is not deceiveable as man is and since no unreasonable thought or deed can passe with him for reason or be pleasing to him see then if it be not very fitting to pray that corrupted Nature may by Grace be elevated to the operations suiting Nature in her best rectitude when even so she is crooked enough in the sight of God who is Rectitude Essentiall But least while we condescend to satisfie curiosity we forget our maine designe let us see how this Prayer suits indeed with the other parts of this daies service which with the Epistle it seemes to doe whilest petitioning Reason to be the guide of all our actions it puts us in mind of a rationall persisting to doe well since by Gods grace we are called with the Thessalonians to the profession of the same faith which this daies Epistle from first to last exhorts them to continue in maugre
duties The Gospel MAT. 20. ver 1 c. 1. THe Kingdom of heaven is like to a man that is an housholder which went forth early in the morning to hire workmen into his vineyard 2. And having made covenant with the workmen for a penny a day he sent them into his vineyard 3. And going forth about the third hour hee saw others standing in the market place idle 4. And he said unto them Go you also into the vineyard and that which shall be just I will give you 5. And they went their way And again hee went forth about the sixth and the ninth hour and did likewise 6. But about the eleventh hour hee weâ— forth and found other standing and he saith to them What stand you here all the day idle 7. They say unto him because no man hath hired us He saith to them Go you also into the vineyard 8 And when evening was come the Lord of the vineyard saith to his Bailiffe Call the workmen and pay them their hire beginning from the last even to the first 9. Therefore when they were come that came about the eleventh hour they received every one a penny 10. But when the first also came they thought that they should receive more and they also received every one a penny 11. And receiving it they murmured against the good-man of the house 12. Saying These last have continued one hour and thou hast made them equall to us that have born the burden of the day and the heats 13. But he answering said to one of them Friend I doe thee no wrong didst thou not covenant with mee for a penny 14. Take that is thine and goe I will also give to this last even as to thee also 15. Or is it not lawfull for mee to doe that I will Is thine eie naught because I am good 16. So shall the last be first and the first last for many bee called but few elected The Explication 1. WHen it is said the kingdome of heaven is like a man doing as this Parable relates the meaning is that in heaven it is done as here by such a man is said to be done though true it is this alludes also to the great ones in this world Let us therefore state the Parable thus By the Vineyard is meant the Church by the market the world by those called at the first the third and sixth hour are understood the Jews signfied in their forefathers Abraham Jacob and Moses called to Gods service in that sort as hee was pleased to lay his commands upon his Church or Synagogue rather by the last called are signified the Gentiles in their primitiae or first fruits the holy Apostles who were made the Pillars and Props of the Christian Church By the evening is meant the day of Judgement when every one shall receive his hire according to his labours in the Church of Christ that is the penny which was promised unto him for his pains and this penny is eternall glory to the blessed deserving well though withall by the word penny is understood pence of severall coins or rather values that is to say monie called a penny at pleasure though worth perhaps much more Again we are to note the greater reward is not given for the the greater pains but for the greater grace or greater co-operation with equall grace and according to this sense by the first are understood the blessed or saved souls by the last the accursed or damned men and Angels but divers of the Fathers explicate this Parable thus As by the first made last to understand those who have been longest Catholikes but making lesse use of time and grace than those who are later called to the Catholike Faith and yet make more profit of their little time and more use perhaps of their lesse grace than others have done So then the penny which is heaven is equally divided to each each being saved and none damned though the last called have the greater glory which makes no essentiall difference in the Beatitude common to them all that is in their genericall or objective bliss which consists in seeing God the Beatifying object whom all shall see though there shall be a difference in their more or lesse cleerly seeing this blissefull Object or Objective blisse according to their more or lesse Merit or Co-operation with the Grace given unto them in this life So though they have an equality of a most happy eternity yet shall they not be equally happy by equality of glory in that eternity of happinesse and in this sense the parts of the parable are thus to be applyed That by the day we understand the whole course of this world by the severall houres of this day we understand the particular ages thereof by the first hour from Adam to Noe by the next from Noe to Abraham by the third from Abraham to Moses by the sixth from Moses to Christ by the eleventh or last from Christ to the day of doom Thus S. Chrysostome and others Or by the day may be meant the whole time of each mans life by the severall hours his Infancie youth virility old age and decrepicie Thus S. Hierome and others But the fullest sense and that which best exhausts the whole Parable is to joyn all these together so what falls short in one will come home and be supplyed by the other for though here S. Chrysostomes enumeration of parts in the Parable seem different from S. Hieromes yet they both agree in the sense of the equall penny given to first and la t whereas the former enumeration of these parts casteth out the last from all reward and supposeth them damned souls so there are but two senses in three Enumerations of parts to this Parable And this long Preamble in the first Verse will ease us much in the explication of all the rest and shorten what is to be said upon them 2. The covenant here made with the Workmen for a pennie is the promise God makes of heaven to those that live here in the Church of Christ which is called his Vineyard according to the Apostolicall Rule of Faith including good works and co-operation with the grace of God answerable to the proportion thereof given unto us 3. The Romans first and then the Jewes under them divided as well the day as the night into twelve parts by four equall divisions answerable to their four watches or changes of their Guards The first hour of the day when the first guard mounted was from Sun-rising The third was three hours after The sixth six hours after that which was noon-day The ninth was three hours after noon The last was at Sun-setting and to these houres allude what is here said of the severall hours of mens being called to the vineyard of Christ By those who were found standing idle are meant remiss soules who make it not their studie or labour to gain heaven but expect it should be given them gratis 4. Observe here
this Rapture yet Saint Thomas disputing this question purposely to declare the naturall truth determines him to remaine alive because God doth not kill men to honour them by his conversing with them so Saint Thomas concludes his soul was in his Body and consequently resolves that which the Apostle will not determine saying this Rapture was when Saint Pauls Soul was in his Body whence he was alive though he did not know so much But many doubt what this Third Heaven meanes unto which the Apostle was elevated but the common consent runs to affirm he was carryed up even to the Empyreall Heaven the highest of all that where God shews himself in his greatest glory and concludes this is called the third not as to averr there are but three heavens in all but as to include all be there never so many by the briefest way which is by saying three for all Yet the common division of the heavens into Aereall Aethereall and Empyreall will serve literally to this Text making the ayre the first heaven so birds are called the Inhabitants of Heaven The second the Aethereall which includes all the voluble Orbs above us and the Empyreall to be that of the Blessed to which last understand the rapture of S. Paul to have been The greatest doubt is whether he were rapt both bodie and soul up so high some think no and that this rapture may bee understood to be imaginary onely or Intellectuall wherein he had a revelation or vision of stranger things than were lawfull for him to speak or then were in his power to utter if it had been lawfull and this they ground out of the 1. verse of this Chapter and out of the 17. both which mention visions yet it is much more probable that he was really rapt both soul and bodie First because it was as easie for God to doe both as one Secondly because the Apostle doubts whether it were so or not as we see in this second and third Verse where he professeth not to know which in his sense is to doubt whereas those who have visions or revelations doe not doubt but know they are upon earth for all those Visions which onely make a rapture of the soul but none of the bodie so it is probable as Moses went corporally up to the mount Sinai where he was rapt out of the sight of the people by interposition of a cloud snatching him from their eyes and had delivered into his corporall ears the words of the Law in like manner Saint Paul who was to be the heavenly Doctor of all nations had corporally delivered to him such secret words as he mentions even in Paradise to have received and thence to bring back to earth such a Magazine of spirituall commands as he hath filled the whole world withall though he neither have told nor could tell all hee heard and therefore S. Paul after he had spoken of the third heaven adds the mention of Paradise to shew he was rapt not onely in his understanding but also in his will above the pitch of nature and even into that place of heaven which is therefore called Paradise because it ravisheth the wills of the Blessed with an infinite delight of loving as well as of seeing and understanding God So Divines allow in the vast Empyreall heaven a kinde of place apart called Paradise for the variety of pleasure it affords And hither they allow S. Paul to be rapt yet doe they not therefore say he did see God face to face as the blessed souls there inhabiting doe because he was not to remain there with them yet S. Thomas and other Divines thinke it probable he might have a transient sight thereof 2 secundae q. 175. a 5. but more probably it was not so since to Moses was onely granted to see the back of the Angell representing God and since 1 Tim. 6. v. 16. we read No man ever did see God that is to say with corporall eyes as here the Apostle was corporally rapt For if of the Angel it were said in Gods name to Moses No man shall see me and live how much more probable is it that Paul living after this rapture did not see God himself though no man doubts but he might see the glory of Christ and not unlikely heard from his own glorious mouth those secrets which he could not utter however to render his calling or Apostolate undoubted he had it conferred upon him personally by our Saviour in heaven as he upon earth did personally call the rest of his Apostles to his Service Of this Gal. 1. v. 12. the Apostle makes mention saying Christ revealed unto him the doctrine that he preached and then most probably was this Revelation made when he therewith revealed his glory too and those secrets he speaks of here may be partly certain Attributes of the Deitie assuredly the Ranks and Orders of Angels and their natures which S. Dennis seems to have drawn more particulars of from the Apâ—stle than himself utters in his own enumeration of their nine Orders and therefore in his celestiall Hierarchy S. Dennis this Apostles Disciple tells us of higher matters belonging to the holy Angels than ever any man else durst venture on Lastly we may piously believe S. Paul had told unto him by Christ in this rapture much of the course of divine providence in governing the world especially the holy Church much of the conversions of nations by himself and the rest of the Apostles which his modesty would not permit him to boast of 5. â—ee how he distinguisheth himself rapt from himself in the ordinary condition of man even as if he were not the same man for of him that was rapt hee proâ—esseth to glory still in the sense as above not vainly but of him that was not rapt he boasteth not at least not in this place to shew how great a difference there was between his rapt and not rapt condition and therefore as of his usuall self he boasts onely that he is infirm namely that he is lyable to affliction and miseries which are â—nconsistent with the state of rapt creatures for their rapture exempts them from the pain of sense and so from grief or pain which is meant here by infirmity as it is when our Saviour is called the man of griefes by Isaiah cap. 53 v. 3. which he explicates by adding these words Knowing infirmity that is to say lyable to all torture misery or pain 6. We read in the Acts cap 14. v. 10. that the Lycaonians held Paul and Barnabas for Gods To avoid vain-glory in this hee tells them he will not be understood above what he is above a man lyable to all misery and persecution which gods are exempted from nay lest they should thinke him an Angell though not god he speaks sparingly of those prerogatives of his rapture An excellent example for them to follow who are indeed nothing extraordinary and not boast themselves as more than ordinary men which yet
the Apostle saith here of prophesies failing is to be understood that they faile not as defective in revealing truth but as not rightly understood by those to whom they do reveal the same through the defect of our capacity to hard and abstruse points Note the possible failing of tongues is here on purpose expressed in the plurall number as alluding to the cessation of the gift of many tongues which even now is ceased and was so long since not that the power in God of giving such gifts again is lost but that there is not the like necessity thereof as in the primitive Church but we may observe he doth not say the Tongue shall possibly cease but Tongues or the plurality thereof for it is a common opinion amongst Divines that all men in heaven as they have their bodies there so they shall have the use of their tongues and speak to one another but so as they shall all speak one and that the Hebrew tongue the most perfect expresser of the mind and that which Adam spake in the state of innocency and all the Antient Patriarks before the destruction of Babylon confounded the Tongues and likewise the Prophets singing as in the Apocalyps Amen Allelujah Though some think it not improbable they shall rather than want the use of speech have a new language created common to them all and more perfect yet than Hebrew For thus all shall cease that ever were in use and yet another never used may be made without contradiction to this text not that the Blessed shall want in heaven the gift of Tongues if they please but that as they are there all of one mind so they shall choose rather to speak all one tongue than to use many which multiplicity argues rather an imperfection than otherwise though here it were a Blessing necessary to our imperfect state by Science being destroyed in heaven some will have the acts thereof destroyed onely and the habits remain yet to no purpose this for in vain is that habit faculty or power which never shall be reduced to act hence we must rather say Science as it is imperfect here shall be destroyed by a change into perfect Science there yet even this is rather preservation by addition than destruction by subsâ—â—action Let us therefore say yet further Science shall be destroyed as it imports here teaching and learning which there shall cease since no man can teach nor no man learn in heaven any new Science To conclude let us grant a totall cessation of Science as the best of Sciences namely Divinity grounded on points of Faith deduced here partly out of naturall reason partly out of revelations nay even Faith it self the Mistresse of Divinity and yet we shall doe no wrong to the Blessed because intuition is better than cognition clarity of knowledge is more excellent than obscurity in a word vision is the best of demonstrations and therefore Science being nothing but a rationall exhibition of the object shall suffer no prejudice by ceasing when the object is there more clearly seen with the eye than it could be discerned by the understanding here but the truth is the cessation of prophesie tongues and knowledge or science is not here absolutely asserted but supposed onely to prove their cessation would not yet take away charity 9. See how this Verse cleers the former in the latter sense thereof here we onely know in part so there this partiall knowledge ceasing our Science may be said to cease as also our prophesie which though it be a revelation of truth yet it is not a revelation of all truth which in heaven shall be revealed and so take away all divisions of truth by an unity or integrity of all truths in one 10. See how still the succeeding verse in termes avowes the explication of the precedent when perfect intuition comes then imperfest exhibition shall cease when God in his owne and sole perfect selfe shall appear then creatures who shew him onely in part shall need no more to make their imperfect exhibitions of him or when we see the creature perfectly in God then the imperfection we did see of them in themselves shall cease 11. In this verse he illustrates by a similitude of a child or little one in respect of a man what he said in the former and makes the Science Prophesie or perfection we have here to be in respect of what we shall have in heaven like the meer sensible knowledge in a child to his intellectuall and rationall science when he is a man which is as much as to say most of all our science here is but as knowledge of sense and not indeed intellectuall because not grounded in certitude of principles but in apparences onely of truths and causes which though they doe not yet for any thing we know they may fail us even when we thinke our selves most certain of truth therein 12. Some will have S. Paul to allow cleer Intuition of God here by his confessing we see him at least in a glass because glasses doe represent the reall things and not the pictures onely thereof which is true but withall they represent the things in a reflected not in a direct line and hence we see nothing so perfectly in a glass as when we look directly on the object it self Again hence we never see nor know so much of our selves as we doe of others because we see not our own shapes so directly in a glass as wee doe others out of it by looking on their persons directly Others understand S. Paul to mean by a glass here our seeing God in a confused way as Mercers shew a multitude of ware together to distract the eye of the buyer or as if they were shown by false lights giving them other lustre than indeed they have or as things shewn in a transient way to cheat the eie rather than to satisfie it all which is to see God wrapt up in Riddles of knowledge not in the reality thereof Now if we ask what glasse it is wee here see God by say either the creature representing him or the fancie apprehending him or Christ his humanitie best of all expressing his goodness yet infinitely short thereof or as some will have it in the Sacraments which are visible signs of invisible things of grace and of God the Authour thereof By seeing God face to face some conceive it shall onely be when we see Christ in heaven and through his glorious face behold with our corporall eyes his sacred Deity grounded in the words of Theodoret faying Wee shall not see his nature meaning his Deitie which falls not within the compass of our corporall eyes and so can bee seen by none but that nature onely which hee assumed meaning humane nature but Theodoret thus understood would be made the Author of a huge errour as denying us the happinesse of the Beatificall vision which doth not nay cannot consist onely in seeing Christs humanity face to face because
intrinsical flowing from the Deity The causes of this Fast were many As that thereby he might satisfie for Adams eating the forbidden Apple That his own humane Soul might be more apt to contemplation by this means That he might sanctifie the Lenten fast of forty days which he knew his Apostles would erect and deliver over for the Church to follow until the worlds end in imitation of this example he had given them When it is said That after forty dayes he was hungry this argues not but he might sooner have felt the want of meat however his divinity supplyed the defect thereof and when he was sensible of hunger afterwards it was not that he could no longer fast but to have the merit of being tempted against his holy purpose and of resisting that Temptation for our future instructions in like occasions 3. The Tempters approaching argues he came visibly in the shape of a man which he had assumed for Christ had his internals so regulated as likewise Adam by Original Justice had that he could not be tempted by any inward Suggestion against Reason nor was Adam what-ere he might have been so tempted but by Eve and she by a Serpent outwardly appearing When the Devil said If thou be the Son of God it argues he was doubtful of it for he had heard the voyce from heaven saying This is my beloved Son when Christ was Baptized as also he had heard how John the Baptist preached him to be the Messias the Son of God and yet seeing him appear to be a man and finding he was hungry as men are he tempts him to break his fast by the subtilty of telling him it would shew him to be the Son of God if he would turn stone into bread to satisfie his hunger 4. Excellent answer giving no advantage to the aggressor but repelling him rather by his own weapons turned upon him by holy Writ saying Man doth not onely live by bread but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God Deut. c. 8. v. 3. and what need he convert the stones to bread to manifest his power who with the least word of his mouth could feed the better part of man his Soul intimating thereby Prayer and Meditation to be as fit a food for the refreshment of a Christian as his daily bread the one enabling him to live eternally the other helping out a momentary breathing onely 5 6 7. The evil Spirit finding Gluttony to be no motive able to prevail with Deity flies to the medium that had wrought upon himself the Titillation of Ambition or Vain-glory when he said he would be like the Highest fondly thinking what prevailed with him in Heaven would work upon our Lord on Earth To be forsooth attended on by holy Angels though in an act of diabolical presumption Precipitation of himself from the pinacle of the Temple Too short a cloak to hide so large a sin as the Revenge thou aymest at beneath it Thou hadst thy self a Fall from Heaven down to Hell which thou wouldst now repay by giving Christ another from off the Temple where God is adored down to the ground where thy High Altar is when men adore low Creatures of the earth before their high Creator This this fond Serpent is thine aym to make thy God lye sprawling on the earth as thou dost lye in everlasting flames and this thou wouldst have done before the doors of all the holy Priests whose houses were about the Temple so to make them scorn and trample ore the God they had adored upon their holy Altars Alas how short is thy Serpentine wisdom of his that is eternal of his that sees thy specious pretexts are all deceits and tells thee so when he replies Thou shalt not tempt thy Lord thy God Deut. 6.16 How canst thou hope to Tempt hereafter any man to evil under shew of good this thou hast got to make poor man thy Master by ayming at the Mastery upon thy God To conclude by the Hands of Angels in this Text is understood their ayd for Spirits have no hands nor any other limbs or parts at all 8 9 10. Alas how poor a thing is Avarice to tempt a God withall say who is able first to give him any thing and it shall be restored Rom. 11. v. 35. Thus creatures seeme to uncreate their God in their foolish imaginations thinking him to be imperfect as themselves needy or indigent as they who yet hath made and given to the universe a being out of nothing But for the devill to presume God should adore him too for that he could not give this is a fondnesse not to be exprest as passing all imagination and so was best returned with a scorn of bidding the fond usurper know his distance go like a Lacquey at the heeles of his creator and well he was not yet reduc't to his first principle to nothing by an immediate annihilation It was indeed high time to tame his insolence when nothing but an homage due to God an Adoration would suffice him No devil no maugre thy pride Thou must adorâ— thy Lord thy God and he alone it is that thou and we and all the world must serve His are the Heavens and the earth is his and well it is thou art the Lacquey yet of him thou wouldst have Lorded over if thou couldst It is his greater glory to force thee to thy duty maugre thy proud heart then to deprive himselfe of what is good in thee thy being how bad soever thou art thy selfe and howsover despicablely miserable in that being too 11. Some doe doubt how Christ came backe to his desert of Quarentana when the devill was gone affirming the good Angels carryed him thither as the bad Angel had brought him thence but probably himselfe gave his own Divinity leave to doe that office to his body if yet we may not say it was the effect of his glorified soule and body too for they were both as glorious then as now Sure enough as soon as he was there the Angels as to their Lord and God came offering their attendance however this is for our comfort that after the devill hath tempted us if we resist we may hope the Angels will come to comfort us that need it since they did so to Christ who stood in no necessity thereof at all The Application 1. WE had the honour to be called into the field to day by the Lieutenant Generall the Priest of holy Church but we are led up to the Battaile by the Captaine Generall himselfe our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath already vanquisht all our enemies for as he dyed to conquer death and purchase us eternall life by dying so by his being tempted he secur'd us of the victory in our Temptations if we but resist the Temptor and persisting in our holy purposes Crown the Fast with our Perseverance therein such as Jesus in his hunger gave us an example of although not bound to Fast as we 2. It is a
Son and that from these Two loving each other did proceed the Holy Ghost the third Person of the Blessed Trinity in this Sence he said they did not know him and in this Sence he professeth he did know him and that if he should say otherwise he should be a lyer as they were lyers who had called him Devil and Samaritane yet particularly that they did not thus know him to be as well Father of Christ Jesus as to be one onely true God But says Christ I know him thus and more then this I keâ—p his Word that is in the best literal Sence I am his Word though this place may bear the other Glosses too that Christ as Man obeyed the Precepts of his Father and that as the Jews did shew they were not of God because they did not give ear to his Word meaning his Laws and Commandments therefore he said they were not of God but rather of the Devil whose suggestions they did adhere unto and follow 56. Abraham your Father from whom you glory to be descended in your Faith he himself was glad to see me nay did long desire it and when he had the happiness of my sight he leapt for joy and yet you that boast your selves to be his children are so degenerate as seeing me and perpetually conversing with me you rejoyce not but reject and revile me most blasphemously Many expound this Place diversly some will have the day of Christ which Abraham did long for and exulted to behold to be the time of the eternal generation of the Word of God others the day of his Living upon Earth others the instant of the Incarnation of God in his Mothers Womb others the Day of his Passion which wrought all mankindes Redemption and all these very well And they differ as much in expounding the Time when Abraham injoyed this desire by actually seeing this day some affirming that by Faith he see this day when he obeyed God in Sacrificing his Son which was a Figure of Christ his being to dye for our Sins others that he see it by Revelation as Prophets do things to come others that he knew it and see it when Simeon came to Limbus and told Abraham he had held Jesus in his hands as also when Zachary St. Anne the Blessed Virgins Mother and St. John Baptist told him they had seen him and likewise by the Angels of God telling him thereof as the like Angels do tell Souls in Purgatory what doth daily comfort them but the best way of all is that God for a reward of his Obedience gave him the happiness both by Revelation and Elevation of his Souls Faculties to see Christ Born as the Saints in Heaven Now see all we do if yet this may not be done as some conceive by the very natural Faculty of a Soul able of her self to know all things naturally as soon as she is out of the body or as St. Stephen Act. cap. 7. v. 55. from Earth though clogged with his body did see Christ up as high as Heaven by the like Elevation nor doth this lessen the Joy Abraham had therein to see and know no more then an other separated Soul since his joy was answerable to his expectation longer then that of any other and if we say more earnest perhaps we shall not do others wrong because as the promise of all our happiness was made to Abraham in his Seed so questionless his share of joy was greater because he had thereby the fulfilling of the promise made to him above two thousand years before and although all who receive a benefit equally divided are equally happy yet if among these any one had the happiness to be able to say this benefit was derived to them by vertue of a promise made to him in all their behalfs sure he hath somwhat more of Joy even in his equal share admit he had no more then others have This then was Abrahams Case though if this were not the Text doth not deny all the rest that see the day of Christ with Abraham did exult thereat with him but here it was enough to the purpose that Christ told them how careless soever they were of the honour yet their Father Abraham rejoyced at it 57. It is not hence to be inferred that Christ did live as some have pretended almost fifty years for the reason they said he was not yet fifty was to be sure they would not fall short of the years he had lest our Saviour might have intrapt them as they desired to do him so they named a time much beyond what he had lived and therefore he could not as they conceived possibly have seen Abraham whence they would inser he did lye and was not to be believed not reflecting nor indeed knowing he as God was elder then Abraham how much younger soever he were as man 58. And by this Answer of Christ it is evident he spake of knowing Abraham not as man for so he was Abrahams Junior but as God who as such created Abraham and all the world besides and therefore he doth not say of himself I was before Abraham but I am before him thereby to shew that in God there is no difference of the time no not any time at all but all that is in him is eternal and so cannot be said to have been or that it shall be but that it is whence we see God giving himself a name Exod. 3. says I am who I am so now Christ speaking of himself as God not as man says before Abraham was I am which was as high an expression of his Deity as he could use and for that cause the Jews not believing but even hating him run and 59. Took up stones to pelt him immediately to death as the highest blasphemer in their opinions that possibly could be For it was according to the Law Blasphemers should be stoned to death Levit. 24. v. 16. though indeed they were so doting on their Father Abraham that even for Christ to have preferred himself before him onely was enough for them to have stoned him to death if he had not declared also that he was God and the Creator of Abraham for so his words imported and so it was indeed by our Saviours hiding himself is here understood his hindering the Faculty or Power of their optick Nerves or withdrawing his concurse as God from their Faculty of seeing him though he left them power at the same time to see all things else besides himself as perfecttly as ever if yet we may not more rationally say this was done by hindering his body from reflecting any species to their eyes for this every glorified Body shall be able to do So it is not hence to be conceived Christ did hide himself by running into any corner or covert for thither their malice would have pursued him but that he did by his omnipotency work a miracle that they seeing should yet not see him who stood in the midst of them
yet by thy mercy soon enough believe that thou art risen and that thou art indeed my Lord my God who didst upon the Cross receive these wounds for mine and all mankindes redemption and though the Apostle knew Christ dyed for all yet he calls him here Emphatically his Lord his God as who should say this grace and favour was to him alone to have so convincing a Proof made unto him of that Truth he onely among all the Apostles then doubted of 29. And lest the Apostle should Glory that by this he might seem more in favour then the rest Christ tells him plainly no That others who without the help of Sense believed were more happy then those who for Sense-sake onely gave consent unto Faith Besides formally Saint Thomas did Believe more then he did see or feel that is he believed Christ to be God by feeling him to be man and not a Phantasm So if we shall allow him to have had onely humane Faith of the resurrection by this sight yet he had thence Divine Faith of all the rest of his Doctrines and especially of his Deity whereunto he Attributed the Power of his resurrection 30. The reason why Saint John writ no more on purpose to confirm this Doctrine of the Resurrection was because he thought the other Evangelists had been large enough in that point and because this was so pregnant a Proof as it alone was sufficient so what he adds in his last Chapter is rather to shew the effect thereof by the multitude that were converted by it then for any other reason 31. Here the Evangelist tells his Reason why he writ this viz. to render Christ received and believed to be the Messias that was promised and so God as well as man and when he says we shall have life by believing in his name he means in his Person in his merits in his Passion so that first we are to believe him to be our Saviour Secondly the Messias Thirdly God and the onely Son of his eternal Father And lastly that he will give to all that thus believe and do as he hath commanded life everlasting eternal happiness The Application 1. THe whole designe of this Gospel being onely to prove the Resurrection and by the reality thereof the Truth of Jesus Christ his being God as well as Man we have hence to gather that the exercise of our Faith is here chiefly required and that so often as we reade this Gospel each one cry out with the convinc't Apostle my Lord my God confirm in me that happiest Act of Faith which believes without the help of touch or eyes that thou art my Leige Lord as thou art Man and hast all Power given thee both in Heaven and Earth That thou art my God who hast created me out of nothing and redeemed me from worse then nothing my grievous sinful state to make me more then all things under Heaven a saved soul 2. Yet lest we should pay the duty of such a Faith without our reason leading thereunto see here apparent Proofs of the same real Body risen which was dead and buried while the wounds are just the same that were received on the Cross see that this humane Person is withall Divine whilest he gives power to pardon sins and to retain them if occasion be see how he proves what the Epistle taught that by our Faith we overcame the world when himself brings to his believers the Fruit and End of Victory a happy Peace and gives it his Apostles as a Testimony that it is the same Gods gift now rising from the dead who brought it with him hither at his Birth onely the Angels then delivered it and now we have it from his mouth Divine who well may give it us now he hath vanquish't all our Enemies the World the Flesh the Devil Sin and Death and gives this Peace both as Recompence and Fruit of Faith 3. O happy Faith that brings forth such a Peace as sets us right to God our neighbors and our selves for if with any of the Three we be at odds we can have peace with neither of the other O happy Faith again that works in us by Charity and brings forth all the twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost with all the other Vertues that accomplish Christianity and integrate the Paschal Feast in us which now we Celebrate And consequently pray as above with holy Church that we may keep these Vertues in our Lives and Manners On the second Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 10. v. 11. I Am a good Shepherd who do feed my sheep and for my sheep yield my life Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who by the humble abasement of thine own Son hast raised up the prostrate world grant we beseech thee unto thy Faithful people everlasting Joy that they whom thou hast taken out of the danger of Eternal Death may enjoy perpetual Felicity The Illustration AS we finde in this Prayer the streame of the resurrection run strongly down the Channell of the Church her service thus humbly praying so we are minded that the Paschall Feast which we must retaine in our manners and lives is here commemorated in one of the chiefe accomplishments thereof the death of Christ since it was by his abasement unto death that we are raised up to life and are imboldened to begge our joy may be perpetuall who by his temporall resurrection are taken out of the danger of eternall death to the end we may not onely joy therein for ever but even injoy perpetuall felicity thereby But stay beloved why doe we now eclipse the glory of this Festivall by mixing with it the memory of our Blessed Lords inglorious death because the Holy Ghost will have it so first to shew us that it was an abasement for the Son of God to remaine one minute out of the Kingdome of his eternall Father though he were never so much triumphant over death upon death as also to indeer us the more unto Almighty God who was content to give us glory by the infamy of his Sacred Sonne but was not satisfied to give us being out of the nothing we were before he shewed his omnipotency by creating us unless he had made his own Son by death as it were not to be that so he might give us a second being in grace better then our first in nature and unless our Saviours temporall death might give us life eternall free from all danger and injoying perpetuall felicity yes yes the little Prayer above imports all this and infinitely more then all we can imagine who are not able to reach the depth of sence that lies under the dictates of the holy Ghost and such we know are holy Churches Prayers nor is there want of admirable sweet connexion between this Prayer and the Epistle and Gospel of the day for what doth all the former say but that our Saviours abasement was our
exaltation when Saint Peter in his Epistle tels us we that are Christians are called to suffer with Christ who gave us example by his sufferings to follow his steps even unto death for him who did vouchsafe to dye for us And is not this the full sence of the Prayer As for the Gospell if we look with a regardfull eye upon it 't is but the same sence in other words for while it runs upon the nature of a Shepheard it never comes unto the hight of his commends untill it layes him low as death to save his sheep so still it drives to that abasement which is our exaltation and drawes us sweetly on to dye for him while it gives us an example of confidence that admits no fear because there is no security but in Trust and who can we trust more safely then him that knowes no guile our Saviour Jesus Christ who rather dyes in us then we can dye for him and if he dye it is that we may live and joy eternally with him that by his resurrection conquered death Thus do the sparkes of spirit flye from every letter of the Holy Text when they are strook against the steele of this dayes Prayer and thus the high dignity of Pastorate acquires a glory from the lowest stoop the Pastor makes even that to death so in a word our highest sanctity consists in our lowest humility as this dayes Prayer Epistle and Gospel do all avouch The Epistle 1 Pet. 2. v. 21 c. 21 For unto this are you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving you an example that you may follow his steps 32 Who did no sinne neither was guile found in his mouth 23 VVho when he was reviled did not revile when he suffered he threatned not but delivered himselfe to him that Iudged him unjustly 24 VVho himselfe bare our sinnes in his body upon the Tree that dead to sins we may live to justice by whose stripes you are healed 25 For you were as sheep straying but you are converted now to the Pastor and Bishop of your soules The Explication 21. SAint Peter had before advised to bear patiently not onely just punishments inflicted on the faithfull to whom he writ dispersed as they were some here some there of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia but also to bear injuries with the like patience saying that to this Christians were called because Christ did suffer for us most unjustly leaving us example to doe the like if need were and as there were three causes which moved God to become man this last is one of them The first was by his death to redeeme us the second by his preaching to teach us the third by his example to draw us to imitate his sanctity of life And to this last the Apostle now chiefely exhorts in this place as we see by the following verse contrary to the Hereticks Doctrine who hold it needless Christ having dyed for our sinnes that man himselfe use any mortification or doe any penance at all 22. Nor could he do any because he was God as well as man and hence Calvins Doctrine teaching Christ was a reall sinner and that he was in regard of his sins afraid to dye and did sweat bloud for fear thereof were all most abominable blasphemies because though in Christ there were two natures humane and divine yet there was in him but one person so had that person sinned God had sinned as well as man since the actions are attributed to the suppositum or person not to the natures contracted by the person but see the Apostle mindes us that Christ was not onely free from sin of fact but also of word and consequently of thought which is by word expressed nor is this marvell since out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Matt. c. 12. v. 34. but certainly God was the most abounding in Jesus his heart and so his words were all holy he being the very word of the eternall Father to whom as nothing is more proper then veracity so nothing is more improper then falsity or dissimulation fraud or guile 23 As indeed he was reviled when they called him drunkard raiser of seditions blasphemer nay conjurer or devill as casting out devils in the devils name yet did not he revile those who used him so ill nor did he recriminate as commonly men doe that excuse their own sins by casting other mens faults in their dish though in pure charity we read in Saint Matthew cap. 23. How roundly he did rebuke the Jewes to see if by a temporall check he could preserve them from eternall paines of hell which is a far other aime then those use who excuse themselves by way of recrimination of others for their end is not charity but passion or revenge and when he might have terrified the Judges that unjustly did condemne him he did not give them the least threat but gave himselfe up to the hands of Pilate his unjust judge how farre short are we of following this example whose whole indeavors are in all our actions even in those that are unjust to justifie our selves whereas if we would follow Saint Bernards counsell we should finde a remedy for all evils and injuries done unto us in the passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 24. The Apostle here assimilates Christ to the Emissary Goat in Levit. cap. 16. v. 21. Sent out into the desert loaden with all the sinnes of the people and so Christ came into the desert of this world out of his Eternall Fathers heavenly Pallace carrying all our sinnes upon his shoulders though by sins here is not understood the fact or guilt thereof but the punishment due unto them by the tree is meant the Crosse of Christ whereon while he dies hee represents us to his heavenly Father as dead to sinne because he dyes for us and for our sins whereupon Saint Ambrose sayes divinely well c. It was not our Life but our Sinne which dyed when Christ our Saviour dyed upon the Crosse So we being dead by that meanes to sinne may live to justice that is in the sight of the just Judge may deserve Eternall life in heaven for living justly here on earth O Soveraigne Stripes which bruising Christs body do cure our Soules more ulcerated with sinne then his body was with stripes 25. Straying we were indeed from God from vertue from Salvation from heaven and running to the devill to vice to damnation to hell had not Christ our Shepheard â—â—duced us to his fold againe by converting us to an amendment of our lives and winning us to follow the Footsteps of our heavenly Pastor and Bishop of our Soules See Bishops are metaphorically called Pastors because as shepheards feed their sheep so do Bishops by Doctrine and example feed the soules of men but Christ is eminentially called both as feeding soules not onely by grace here but with glory in the next world The Application 1. HOw sweetly Holy Church
the same childe was first cause of pain so he is cause of comfort the like of Christ dying and rising again Sixthly both joys are excessive Great whereas they take away all sense of Sorrow So here the Passion of Christ is in this Parable supposed to be the labour or travail of the Apostles dolorous as a womans in childe-bearing and his Resurrection is supposed to be as the Birth of a Son to them after so hard a labour as they were in whilest all the world jeered and scorned them for hoping after so impossible a comfort as it was thought when the Apostle calls it a scandal to the Jews and to the Gentiles a folly St. Augustine is so acute upon this place as to say Christ compared the Apostles sorrow for his Passion to the pains of a woman in labour of a Boy and not of a Girl because those are the greatest labours of women and again he makes a special remark that the Text saith here the Mother forgets her pains not because a Boy is born but a man one that is to be the Support and Prop of her house when her self can no longer live for saith St. Augustine Christ was as it were born by his Resurrection to the World not as a Childe but as a Man conquering Death winning eternal Glory to himself and to all his Posterity to all Saints of Heaven who are the Children of his Grace 22. This Verse applies all the rest by way of Repetition to the Senses as above while it tells the Apostles this shall be their Case about him this their Grief at his Death this their Joy at his Resurrection like the travail and comfort of a woman first in labour then delivered of a Son But when he adds this Close That their joy no man shall take from them he means neither in this world nor in the next for such shall be their joy to see Christ risen who was dead that even the menace of Death to themselvcs shall be comfortable out of their assurance to share with Christ in the joy of his Resurrection if they partake with him in the pains of Death by dying for his sake Whence St. Paul boasting said who shall part us from the Love of God Nakedness the Sword Persecution Rom. 8.35 No no the love of Christ and hope of Heaven are comforts above all afflictions whatsoever whence we reade of the Apostles that they went rejoycing from the bench of the Iudges because they were held worthy to suffer contumely for the name of Iesus Act. 5.41 And this to shew that no man could takâ— away that joy which God gave them as the Text above hath told us The Application 1. IT is worthy our observation that amongst so many passages as were between Christ and his Apostles after his Resurrection this days Gospel is taken out of Saint Iohn Evangelist his Story of our Saviours Actions reporting what he said to his Apostles immediately before his Death For we see the Expositors upon the first Verse of this Gospel tell us all that is here said alludes to the Death Passion and Resurrection of our Lord as well as to his Ascension and to the coming of the Holy Ghost Then certainly our Mother Church reads us this Lesson to day with intention to draw from us such like Acts of Faith as our Saviour desired the Apostles should make when he told them he was shortly to dye and shortly to rise again 2. And since this Parable aims at raising consolation in the Apostles hearts out of the disconsolate Death and Passion of their Lord and Master by vertue of the Faith they had in his future Resurrection after his Death Assuredly it is now our parts that are Christians to make the Cross of Christ our chief content the Death of our Saviour the onely hope we have to live and his Resurrection the ground of our Faith that by vertue of his Blessed and Incorrupted Body risen from his Grave our corrupted flesh and blood shall rise again and be made partakers of those heavenly Joys which he hath prepared for all that do firmly believe in him and live according to the Rules of Christian belief 3. Note that amongst those Rules a Principal one is read unto us this day of believing firmly that all the sorrows this world can afford us are not able to rob us of the future joys prepared for us in Heaven if from erring Infidels we become right believing Christians and live according to the light of Truth The Faith of Jesus Christ that is if we do such Actions in Vertue of that Faith as We pray to day we may do say then the Prayer and see how pat it is to this Doctrine of the Church On the fourth Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 16. v. 5. I Go to him that sent me but because I have spoken these things unto you sorrow hath filled your hearts Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who makest the mindes of thy faithful to be of one accord grant unto thy people that they may love what thou commandest and desire what thou doest promise that amongst worldly varieties there we may fix our hearts where are true joys The Illustration O Beloved what a Prayer is here what an elevated language doth the holy Ghost speak in to day behold hold a whole Sermon in a few lines what preacher needeth other Text then this Prayer to dilate upon even till the day of Judgement shall I speak a big word upon this Prayer be it but with us as this day we pray and we are even with God himself at our journeys end and why should we despair thereof since in vain we are bid to pray for this if it were not by Prayer to be obtained beg it then beloved on your often bended knees beg it earnestly fervently heartily and doubt not but it will be granted for God doth not feed us with fond hopes of what he will not grant if we so a k it as we ought But stay how comes it that with so much plenty of Spirit we finde to day so little seeming connexion with the Epistle and Gospel which yet I am confident will prove both as it were eminentially contained in this admirable Prayer And first observe how suitable it is for holy Church to pray thus when we are now in the time that Jesus Christ prepared his Apostles to be content to leave him or at least that he should leave them How often did he command them resignation on all occasions to the will of Almighty God was not this the very form of his Prayer Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Matth. 6.10 Hence the Church begs to day that we who believe in Christ may live all of one minde and since it is morally impossible so many men should be consenting all in one therefore we see the prayer gives that to God saying it is he
thing in our own names that is as good Christians for that name we take of Christ nor doe we aske otherwise then in his name if we goe to our Prayers and tell the heavenly Father we come as from his Sacred Sonne to prefer such a request as he bid us make much like the Embassage that is made by the Embassadors person but understood to be the business of the King that sends him so by this way of asking we can desire nothing but what Christ himselfe doth wish we had and consequently we aske it very properly in his name it being answerable to his will But the most genuine of all these is the second way by that of Christ his merits for what we aske thus is not given to us onely by way of grace but it is granted by way of Justice since it was merited unto us by Christ dying for us and wishing it unto us and for this reason we end all our Prayers with the close through our Lord Iesus Christ Amen The last remark we are to make is upon those words he shall grant unto you that is to say what e're we ask as above shall be granted how comes it then to pass we ask so often and so many things and goe without them for all this asking the reason is that affirmative promises are commonly conditionall so if we aske without performing the conditions required on our part we cannot wonder that we faile and the conditions requisite to Prayer on our part must be those five above enumerated humility reverence confidence fervour and perseverance whereunto if we adde resignation we doe but secure our Petition the more by making Gods will ours when ours is his where these are exactly performed and the name of Christ rightly used there we cannot feare to faile while it is said he shall give you what ere you thus ask imports as well he shall give it a third person for whom you ask it as if you did ask it for your selfe and indeed if the defect be not on the third persons part we shall sooner obtaine what we aske for others then what we aske for our selves because it is a greater charity to pray for others and especially for our enemies then for our selves since they may want our help but we can never lose our owne reward by helping them 24. Because hitherto you have relyed wholly upon me and have not asked any thing of my Father in my name and indeed having asked of me â—ather as of man then of God you have in a manner asked nothing because you asked not of him who was all things but when I am gone ask as above and you shall receive what ere you so do ask and ask that your joy may be compleat As who should say you will begin to be glad when I shall be risen but if you ask my Father any thing in my name after I am gone then you shall receive all things that you want and have your joys compleated here by Grace and in Heaven by Glory both which I have purchased for you 25. This Verse shews what he spake now was before his Passion and so it was Proverbial Parabolical or Enigmatical unto them but the time would come after his resurrection when he for fourty days together would speak plainly what now they heard of but obscurely and that when he was Ascended the Holy Ghost should come and by a purer language by the tongues of fire should speak all Love all Light all Clarity all Truth unto them and then they should be capable of much more then now they are yet there want not who think Christ by this place alludes to his displaying of his Fathers Glory in the kingdom of Heaven where they shall see all things cleerly as they are even God himself and shall therefore become like God because they shall see him face to face as he is 26. The day he means here is when he shall be gone from them and ascended up to Heaven and then saith he I do not tell you that I will pray to my Father in your behalf first because the holy Ghost shall come and by his Inspirations and holy Grace you shall make your own petitions so effectually in my name that I shall need no more to intercede for you or because I shall not need ask as I did when I was upon the Earth by way of suffering for you but by way of exhibition of what I have suffered Thus one of the Fathers will have it that Christ did onely pray for us on Earth and that now in Heaven he prays no more but onely shews his sacred Wounds to his heavenly Father though Cornelius a Lapide here concludes the better opinion is that really and truly he doth there pray for us as was explicated Rom. 8. v. 34. by the said Cornelius but after another manner then here he did where he both prayed and suffered too and there he praies without suffering So the true Sence of this place is that he doth not tell them he will pray for them though he means to do it and actually doth it too as often as desired but that if he did not pray they should not need his prayer both because he had sufficiently purchased to them the love of his heavenly Father for his voluntary vouchsafing towards them and because the holy Gbost was to finish the remainder of our salvation by his Supplies and Magazines of Holy Graces and in truth what Christ once obtained for us by his Passion we losing the benefit of it by our sin are to attribute the recovery thereof to the special act of the holy Ghost not coming once onely down as to the Apostles to confirm them in grace but millions of times descending upon us by the influence of his holy Gifts and so as often saving us by the recovery of grace as we make our selves guilty of damnation by relapse of sinne 27 See how this Verse in terms tells them his Father needs not now be prayed unto by him for them since he hath already purchased unto them abundantly his Fathers love and so made him soft to all they can desire by their own prayer and the reason why he so loves them is because they loved Jesus Christ and believed he was his heavenly Fathers Son and come out from him to them but if any ask why God loving us as here it is said he doth for his Sons sake doth not give us all we want without our asking but requires our humble and frequent Prayer The Reasons are many first because it is suitable to the Majesty of God that all his Creatures do adore him and Prayer is the best kinde of adoration next because it acknowledgeth our totall and necessary dependance on him and our Indigence and his Liberality Thirdly the Dignity of the things we ask requires on our parts a frequent expression of our esteem thereof namely Grace and Glory not so cheap as to be given gratis
Spirit of Servitude and Fear being onely a shadow of that Truth which was to come after it Lastly and most properly because he is the Author of all Truth whence Christ said of him Cap. 16. he shall teacb you all truth 27. See the infinite Dignity of the Apostolate and of their Successors the Prelates of Gods Church that they are joyned in testimony of Christ his Deity and of all the other mysteries of Faith even with the holy Ghost himself and yet the Hereticks so undervalue Church Authority as if it were onely Humane and Fallible whereas indeed it is Divine because supported by Divine Power promising it should be Infallible and it is as little derogatory to God his veracity to say that failing man supported by God cannot erre as it is to say God cannot erre in that he undertaketh so the Infallibility is radicated in God however by his gracious vouchsafing it is also attributed to man as exercising the ministery of God not otherwise C. 16. 1. Many take scandal here in diverse Sences but the best and genuine is that they be not offended at their persecutors when they shall finde them to oppose Gods holy Ordinances and Ministers and that for this reason they do not slacken in their Faith or Zeal as expecting God should being Good and Goodness it self defend them from evil while for his sake and for his Name they were doing well and executing his commands but should rather remember he had foretold them these things would happen and that if his heavenly Father permitted him who was actually God to be in his own sacred Person abused and persecuted to Death they should not being but men expect to have more regard shewed them by Gods enemies then was shewed to God himself but should rather conclude he suffered for them to give them example to suffer for him and for their own and others sins besides 2. The Synagogue imports either the Congregation of the Jewish people or the place wherein they were to observe their ceremonial Rites in serving God as now the word Church signifies the believers in Christ and the place where Christians assemble to attend the Divine Service so by being cast out of the Synagogue imports excommunicated as cast out of the Place or Society of men serving God for so odious were the Apostles to the Jews upon the account of Christ Jesus their Master that they were not esteemed worthy of the name or company of Gods people and Christ comforts them against this disgrace by making them the Heads of hiâ— Church who were not held worthy to be members of the Jewish Synagogue Further he tells them they shall have the honour to be as he was offered up a Sacrifice for the sins of the people by the Jews who are so obstinately blinde as to esteem they offer sacrifice to God for their own sins while they persecute the servants of Christ Jesus the Son of God nor doth our Saviour here onely foretel the personal persecution of the Apostles but that also of all Christians which was to continue till the worlds end and the causes of this persecution are many The first the Devils and his Ministers malice to see Saints prefer Gods Service before the respect even to the proud Princes amongst men the second the destruction of Idols by the erecting a worship to one onely God The third because it was presumed as false as it was new to preach a crucified man to be eternal God The fourth because Christians do not onely beat down the false Religions of the Jews and Gentiles but even reprehend the manners and proceedings of those who profess such false worship of God as the Jewes and Gentiles did exhibite The last because the Devil and his adherents perswaded the world that all the miseries of Famine Plague Warre and Death which befell mankinde were just punishments of God inflicted on them for letting Christian Religion be professed and this saith he they will do to you because 3. They neither know my Father nor me that is they will not know either of us for this is not an excusing but an accusing phrase of Christ so this ignorance was not alledged as extenuating but as aggravating their fault and our Saviour animates the Apostles to suffer these temporal Scorns with as much neglect as a Prince would do who coming singly to Town without any visible attendance or retinue after him should be refused entrance and kept out as a private person for instead of being angry he would comfort himself with the redouble honour it would be to him to have these people let him in with their excuses and apologies for the affront as soon as his train appeared to testifie what he was and such a Train of holy Saints every Christian ought to believe will follow him to make the world with shame cry him mercy for affronting him whom God himself esteems and loves 4. The reason why I tell you or foretel you rather these things is not to disanimate but to hearten you to suffer them with alacrity because I shall as surely help you out of these bryars as I have told you that you should fall into them for my sake and if you remember I foretold you this you shall need no other comfort in your afflictions for you know sufficiently who I am your Jesus your God and when I tell you I shall give you the honour of suffering for me be confident I shall not fail to attend you with a Crown of Glory for your Martyrdoms The Application 1. THe two first Verses of this Gospel run wholly upon the Hope our Saviour put his Apostles in for the coming of the holy Ghost and so do fitly now exhort us to the practice of that Vertue according as we have been taught we must between Ascension and Whitsuntide And what more comfortable exercise can we desire then to expect the holy Ghost to come and take possession of our hearts on Earth while Jesus is gone to take possession of our Mansion House in Heaven A happy and a hopeful parting from our Ascending Saviour when we are left in expectation of our Descending Saintifier 2. In the three next Verses our Blessed Lord tyes the strongest link of Charity that of dying for the Faith to this above of Hope so is the Gospel suitable to the Epistle of the day Just in this sort he welcom'd St. Paul to his conversion promising to shew him what he was to suffer for his holy Name O admirable spirit of Almighty God! making that to his Saints a ground of Hope which were to sinners the greatest Motive of despair How comes this to pass but onely as the Royal Prophet sayes Because thou eternal God hast singularly placed me in Hope that is to say hast made thy servants contemn this tempting world and life it self the sweetest thing on earth in expectation of an everlasting life or to use thy words divine meerly for the Hope of Israel 3. The last
The whole house was filled with this noise to shew all their hearts who were within should be filled with the Holy Ghost for thus the Text affirms immediately saying vers 4. and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost Note it is said they were Sitting both to shew the rest and quiet Gods holy Spirit bringeth with it and to shew that prayer of expectation and such this was is perhaps best when it is performed sitting thus S. Bernard a great Saint was noted to proceed in his deepest meditations 3. By parted tongues is here understood tongues divided amongst many not in themselues as commonly Painters make them thinking thereby to expresse the activity of fire rising up in many-pointed flames but the reasons why the Holy Ghost would have the forme of a tongue to declare his coming are many First because the Apostles were by this coming confirmed to be the Preachers of the Gospel and the proper instrument of a Preacher is his tongue So the gift of tongues was first expressed by the species of a tongue where we are to note this gift includes three properties the first the knowledge of languages the next the true signification of the words of different languages the third a volubility of tongue adapted to the several articulations requisite to several Languages and consequently a prudence to use all these in a right way The second reason is because a tongue hath a great affinity with a word as therefore the Holy Ghost was the Spirit of the VVord so he came in the species of a Tongue and as by the word of the mind is produced the voyce of the tongue so from the Divine word did proceed the Holy Ghost whence the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. vers 3. sayes no man can say Jesus but in the Holy Ghost The third as the tongue distinguisheth tastes so doth the Holy Ghost truths from falshoods heavenly from earthly things insomuch that St Paul tells us The Animal man doth not perceive the things of the Spirit 1 Cor. 4. Lastly because the tongue is both the best and worst instrument of man Proverb 12. Death and life are in the hand of the Tongue Prov. 16. It is in man to prepare his heart but the government of the tongue is from our Lord wherefore there was great reason to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to tame rule and sanctifie the tongues of men As for the tongues themselves whether they were true fire or true tongues is questioned yet resolved best that they were not truly fire but only fiery forms like unto tongues as some ayr condensed and made into that form and illuminated so as to seem fire but not to burn because it was to set upon the heads of those it fell upon Of their pyramidal form we give many reasons First to shew the Spirit of God only penetrates all deep and hard mysteries Secondly to shew it penetrated the very hearts of those it fell upon and made them cordially love Almighty God Thirdly it made them aspire from earth as high as heaven Fourthly that the very tongues of those who had this gift should penetrate the hearts of men to their conversion Lastly to shew it should give them the discretion of spirits that had this gift to distinguish betwixt good and bad inspirations in themselves or in those they were to direct spiritually And these tongues were rather fiery then of any other kind to shew God is all a flame of Love as Deut. 4.24 Thy God O Israel is a consuming fire And therefore as the Law of Moyses shewing Gods Will was given with the Circumstances of Thunder and Lightening so the Law of Christ now was to be confirmed by the holy Ghost with like signes to shew it was the Will of the same God abrogating the former and constituting this new Law Secondly as all the old Prophets were authorized by circumstance of fire Isaias his lips being touched with a coal of fire became as we read Chap. 6 ver 6. like fire and his words seemed all fiery too and Elias being carried up in a fiery Chariot into heaven 4 Reg. 2.11 and of Hieremias it is said from above he sent fire into mens bones and thereby instructed them Thren 2. v. 13. and Ezechiel foretelling of Christ his Chariot supported by four Cherubims of whom he sayes Chap. 1. v. 13. Their looks were like fire coales all which were but types of the more univocal fire that did accompany the election confirmation and conversation of the Apostles true Prophets of the new law foretellers of heavenly things Thirdly to shew Christ his law was a law of love of charity of coelestiall fire Fourthly to shew the effect of this love was to produce the fire of love divine in all Christian souls Fifthly to shew the spirit of God was searching as fire the most subtle worker and penetratour that is in nature The reason why these fiery tongues were said to sit in the singular number not plurall upon the Apostles was to shew that though the tongues were and must be many for each to have one yet the Spirit giving them was one and not many namely one onely God And this Spirit was rather expressed setting then otherwise to shew the constancy of Gods holy grace and gifts in those he pleaseth to bestow his speciall favours on and their ease and rest in the possession of that Spirit as also that the holy Ghost was to rest in the hearts of the Faithfull to the worlds end 4. They were all replenished whereas before they had received the grace of God now they had the plenitude thereof not all alike but some more some lesse according as was requisite to their callings No marvell then if the Apostles being full of grace and the gift of tongues they could not contain themselves but say The Things which we have seen and heard we cannot but speak nay so much they spake that some believed they were drunk with new wine and so it was indeed with the wine of the heavenly grape the holy Ghost not otherwise and as they were inforced to speak the praises of God by the irrefragable impulse of this holy Spirit so they spake to all purposes that is to the capacity and understandings of all hearers of what nation soever for they spake all kind of languages or tongues which some will understand as if each Apostle speaking a severall language among them all they had all languages others conceive that they speaking onely in their own Syro-Hebraean tongue all the several nations understood them as if their languages had been various as in this manner S. Vincentius Ferrerius preaching in Spanish was understood by severall nations as Italians French Flemish English c. each conceiving they heard him in their native tongue grounded in these words following v. 11. We hear them speaking in our tongues But the true sense is they did really and truly speak upon occasion all languages by the gift
Gods transient works about his creatures now we come to the immanent actions of the Sacred Deity within its own Essence and these are operations so hidden from created knowledge as our best comportment will be with St. Paul rather to admire then search into them suffice it Christ who hath revealed this mystery hath proved himself to be God by his works amongst men and being God must needs be essential verity and so can neither be deceived nor deceive even when we take him upon greatest trust We must therefore follow him as Schollers do their masters before they understand them and we shall find as children do our understandings bettered by giving trust unto this heavenly Master and at the latter day we shall with the Blessed in heaven see as we have heard of this prodigious mystery that is we shall with our intellectual eyes behold the Triunity thereof which yet while we behold we cannot comprehend And indeed it is admirable to see how in the dark of this profound mystery we find light to illuminate the whole world whilest the light of Faith breakes out of this blessed cloud since in believing this one thing which we know not we are taught to know almost all things else that we believe as the Apostles in vertue of this belief were bid immediately to Go and teach all nations that is they were to go in the light of this Faith and teach all the world both it and all things else belonging to their soules salvation And how to teach them by first Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost By the name we have the unity by the persons the Trinity of God taught unto us and that teacheth us all the rest which we are implicitely told in the close of this dayes prayer when we beg a firmnesse in the Faith of this mystery as the shield that must defend us against all adversity whatsoever by teaching us to bear off all the blowes of Infidelity after we see Faith to be an elevated reason which secures us Points of Religion are not therefore against reason because they are sometimes above it O what a seeing blindnesse is this when we believe of God what we do not know I can liken it to nothing more then to the means wherewith our Saviour cured the blind mans sight by putting dirt into his eyes just such is the darknesse of knowledge in this mystery to the light of Faith it brings into our souls To conclude since the report between the prayer and other parts of this dayes service is even literal we need no labour to make it appear suiting with our main design of this book shewing a harmony between them all The Epistle Rom. 11.33 c. 33 O the depth of the riches of the wisdome and of the knowledge of God! how incomprehensible are his judgements and his wayes unsearchable 34 For who hath known the mind of our Lord or who hath been his counsellour 35 Or who hath first given to him and retribution shall be made him 36 For of him and by him and in him are all things to him be glory for ever Amen The Explication 33. HEere we are first to note that height and depth how ever seeming to differ even in their natures as well as in their names are oftentimes taken both for one and the same notion as for example that which we in our climate call depth or profundity as relating to things below us to the Antipodes that same thing is height or altitude above them namely the Hemisphere or arch of the heavens under the earth to us which is over the earth to them and the arch of the heavens over our heads is as it were under the earth to them again if any of the Antipodes should from the footing he hath upon the earth fall with his head from us downward he would seem indeed to fall and yet that fall would be his rising up towards heaven and the like fall to them would our rising seem to be if from our footing we departed hence up towards heaven in like manner we call a deep Well high and a high Well deep So by depth of the riches of God is here understood the height thereof though for him that is all in all there is neither depth nor height however for want of better expression we use such terms wherefore the Apostle here under one terme expresseth both depth and height of Gods riches as who should say O deep height O high depth of the riches of Almighty God! And though St. Ambrose and S. Augustine so point this verse as they joyn the depth both to the wisdome and knowledge of God and in them make up the depth of his riches yet St. Chrysostome Origen and others following the Greek and Syriack pointings of this sentence seem to attinge the sense of this place more home distinguishing the sense and meaning it to be tripartite not single that is to say attributing the depth equally to the riches the wisdome and knowledge of God as it were three things equally high and equally deep beyond humane or Angelical understandings for first the riches here mentioned report to the infinite mercies of God insisted on by the Apostle saying in the two and twentieth verse God hath concluded all in incredulity that thence he might shew his mercy unto all by making the incredulity of the Jewes the cause of his mercy turning to the Gentiles and so converting them to the right Faith as also some Jews shall be converted by the exemplarity of the Gentiles becoming good Christians Secondly the three after questions in this Epistle shew these three are to be read distinct and so understood namely who knew the mind of God who was of his Counsel who first gave to him and it shall be restored And we are to note by riches the Apostle understands the mercies of God whereby he makes us rich in all gifts of grace and glory as appears Ephes 1. v. 7. where the Apostle sayes we receive mercy according to the riches of his grace The true and genuine meaning therefore of this place is O profound depth of the mercies wisdome and knowledge of God! of his mercy extended to all Nations of his wisdome making even the incredulity of the Infidels to be the motive to convert Nations of his knowledge penetrating all future present past and contingent things at once And indeed these three points are the scope of all the Apostle aymes at from the ninth to this eleventh Chapter to the Romans for it was a special design of God to send his Sacred Son poor and abject amongst the Jews who had he come in a splendid way would have been undoubtedly received by them but if we ask the reason why God would do this there is no better can be given then in brief O the depth of Gods riches and mercies of his wisdome and of his knowledge This is the Abysse that
calls upon the Abysse in fine this is a reason above all reason but that which being increate it self creates the reasons of men and Angels as short of it self as finite things are short of infinite as creatures are short of their Creatour The Apostle ends this verse with an extatical admiration of Gods incomprehensible Judgments and investigable wayes that is to say the counsels means works and reasons of his providence who alone can cull Good out of evil as he doth convincing all Nations of incredulity that thence he may make one the motive for his mercy towards the other as was said above 34. How are we lost in our judgments when we see the wicked prosper and the just afflicted when we value humane abilities which in sight of God are follies because we do not know the sense the mind of God in these his permissions nor how contemptible a thing the wisest man under the cope of heaven is in the sight of God of whom Zeno said well that the pastime or sport of God was man as if God made but a Tennis ball of man or of the wisdome of men tossing him up and down at pleasure to the wonderment of us poor mortalls Whence the Abysse of humane misery calls upon the Abysse of Divine mercy and as S. Augustine saith the Abyss of humane ignorance calls upon the Abyss of the Divine knowledge or science How well then doth the Apostle say who knowes the mind of God or who was ever of his Counsel that is as Isaias said Chap. 40. v. 13. who ever gave him counsel or who did he ever make acquainted with such counsel as he gave himself in all internall and external operations whence no man must dare to ask why leaving the Jewes he turned to the Gentiles or the like 35. This place is remarkable for it is not asked who ever gave God any thing but who hath first given him any thing which before he had not received from him that so he might be able to make God his debtour truly no man and for this reason S. Paul sayes well what have you that you have not received and if you have received it why do you glory as if it had not been received by you but were your own Yet such is God Almighty his mercy to mankind that even this impossibility in man to make God his debtour by giving him any thing that was not his own before doth not hinder man of the honour to have God a debtour to him But then we must understand this saying safely and take heed we make not God our debtour for any gift or loan of ours to him but meerly for his own promises to us and those his promises though he were graciously pleased to make them voluntarily unto us yet he binds himself by vertue of his own promise to be our debtour for the performance of his words unto us to which purpose St. Augustine spake home in these words upon this place of the Apostle Serm. 16. Pay unto us what thou doest owe us because we have done what thou hast bid us to do though even what we have done were thy deed too because thou didst help us to do it 36. And for further proof of this doctrine the Apostle proceeds saying of him by him in him are all things that is to say not onely the essence or beeing of every thing but also the operations thereof since the operations of creatures are likewise creatures too as well as the things themselves that do operate and so both have equal dependance on Almighty God so that all things are of him as of their first maker by him as by their directour disposer and perfectour in him as in vertue of his assistance they are made do operate and are conserved But St. Augustine and with him the torrent of Fathers observe that what is said to be of God is appropriated to the Father what by God is attributed to the Son and what in God is reporting to the holy Ghost that so to the whole sacred and undivided Trinity we may refer the honour and glory of all beeing and operation of creatures insomuch that even from the Apostles time the close of prayer was made in this sort Glory be to the Father Son and Holy Ghost and by the Councill of Nice was added thereunto as it was in the beginning and now and ever world without end Amen For though here be ground of distinguishing Persons yet there is none of dividing essences or natures and therefore the Apostle telling us here of our obligation to the Blessed Trinity concludes saying not to them but to him be glory for ever that is to the one only undivided God who is neverthelesse distinguished into three several Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost A very apt close for the Epistle on Trinity Sunday The Application 1. WE have hinted in the Illustration above at the deep design of holy Church in closing up the grand work of humane Redemption and the Octave of the holy Ghost with a Feast made sacred to the B. Trinity wherein our Faith seems to be chiefly and wholly exercised because there is nothing so hard in Christian doctrine as to believe the Trinity of the sacred Triunity Now we may presume to affirm further that albeit from Pentecost to Advent the main aym of Christian duty be the exercise of charity in producing frequent acts thereof neverthelesse it was fitting to begin the practice of charity with an act of Faith to shew the difference between our love of God on Earth and our love of him in Heaven for there Faith shall cease that Love may increase and be alone the Totall duty of the Blessed but here Faith must increase least Love decrease in us Hence it was not onely fit that this our first act of charity to day should be to God but that it should be also accompanied with the strongest act of Faith imaginable which is this we now produce in making profession we believe God to be Trine and One. 2. Now not to break the order of the service that I mean of charity the main imploy of every Christian between this and the holy time of Advent see how by way of commemoration at least of the first Sunday after Pentecost we have regard to such another Prayer and such another Gospel whereunto I have added here the Epistle also though not read in open service as do mainly point at charity so shall we see in their perusal anon when these proper to the day are done 3. And lastly least this Act of Charity we are now to exercise should be defective being an act of love to God alone without relation to our neighbour see how we are taught to perfect it as well with an act of hope as with an act of Faith since the main scope of holy Churches prayer to day is to declare so strong a Hope in her believing and in her loving God that she puts it as a hopeful
is indeed the highest article of our Faith the first and main principle of Christian Religion But to conclude this doctrine 20. See how the beginning of this verse tells besides this mystery what the Apostles were commanded to teach the world namely to do all whatsoever Christ commanded them to deliver as the Will of God that is to say as well to do good works as to believe aright and to professe that Faith which was preached unto them and how ever Luther and Calvin pretend the Church of Christ and the right administration of the Sacraments thereof and of the divine Services had failed for many hundred of years together before they arrogated to themselves a kind of new Apostolate forsooth yet it is from hence confidently asserted by the unanimous consent of all Catholick Doctours and Divines that there neither hath been hitherto nor ever shall be hereafter till the day of doom which is the consummation or end of the world any failure in the Church of Christ nor in Christ his perpetual assistance and presence with his ever visible Church insomuch that he is ever visibly present in his perpetual visible rulers of the Church and invisibly in his continual-assisting grace and hence it is evidently proved that albeit no successours of the Apostles had those ample prerogatives which they enjoyed yet their Ministery is so the same that the Apostles was as Christ is said even to perpetuate the Apostles in their successours and his presence with them in his presence with their followers and in his assisting them as constantly as he did assist their predecessours though perhaps not as amply nor as efficaciously at all times For how else can it be true that Christ said to his Apostles he would send them another Comforter that should assist them eternally not in their persons but in their successours to the worlds end For the same are the gifts of Christ and of the Holy Ghost as far forth as they are both one and the same God Nay more Christ is even visibly remaining with the Ministers of his Church in the holy Eucharist or B. Sacrament of the Altar his blessed body and bloud being exposed perpetually to the receiving and adoration of the people more he is visibly with us in his Priests who are his visible instruments to administer the Sacraments and offer sacrifice unto the sacred Deity for though the Priest be the instrumental yet Christ is the chief and principal Priest himself it being proper to him to be both Sacrifice and Sacrificant so as in seeing the accidents of bodies we are said consequently to see the things whose accidents we see in like manner by seeing the Sacramental species we may be said to see the Sacrament the body and bloud of Christ whose accidents they are after consecration though the same species before were the accidents of bread and wine To conclude we may as truly say Christ is visibly with his Church to the worlds end as we may say a mans soul is visibly in his body that is to say perceptibly so long as a man lives and hath motion for look what the soul is to the body the same Christ is to his Church so that as the soul is the bodies natural life Christ is the supernatural life of the soul believing in him and making her self by that belief a member of his Church for as the soul makes the body move so Christ makes his Church to do according to that of S. Paul Philipp 2. he worketh all in all according to the purpose of his own holy will and again he it is that gives a will to do good and a power to put that will in execution and to perfect by him what was undertaken for him as being to his honour and glory The Application 1. IT is no marvel that to day we hear inculcated to us an explicite act of Faith in the Front and body of this Gospel while Hope and Charity are onely recommended to us in the close thereof and that but implicitely neither notwithstanding as our design of piety is laid in this work Charity is the chief vertue to be practis'd from this day untill Advent This is I say no marvel the very name of the day requiring this preference to Faith and the nature of the Feast inforcing it besides for since the proper object of Love is Goodnesse seen or understood and since the Blessed Trinity is not here seen at all but by the light of Faith therefore all the understanding we can have of it on Earth is first to believe and next to love it according as the Gospel intimates where Jesus by the vertue of Plenipotentiality given him both in heaven and earth sends his Apostles first to Teach the whole world the mystery of the B. Trinity by Baptizing all Nations in the name of the Father Son and holy Ghost and thereby obliging them to believe explicitely these Three distinct Persons are all but one simple and single God whereas he bids the said Apostles here at least but implicitely to hope in and to love the sacred Trinity in as much as he commands their Teaching all Nations to observe all his Commandments whatsoever which yet are not observeable but for pure love of the commander and for pure hope of his recompencing our obedience unto his commands Who so reads the Gospel will soon see this to be the whole scope thereof 2. What then remaines for further application but that by an actual confessing this true Faith we actually glorifie the eternal Trinity and that in the Power of each Divine Persons sacred Majesty namely in the Power of the Father creating us in the Power of the Son redeeming us in the Power of the Holy Ghost sayntifying of us we adore the Unity of these Three Persons Deity since none but God can create none but God can redeem and none but God can sayntifie a soul 3. O Happy Christians who by firmly believing this to be their obligation to the sacred Trinity can neither want motive enough for Love of God nor ground enough for Hope that by this Act of Faith they shall be defended from all Adversity since the true victrix over all our enemies is as St. John tells us 1 Ep. c. 5. our Faith which overcomes the world and consequently all Adversity Say now the Prayer above and see how patt it is to what we here are taught On the first Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 6.37 JVdge not that you be not judged for in what Judgement you Judge you shall be Judged saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer O Lord be directed Resp Even as Incense before thee The Prayer O God the strength of those that hope in thee be propitiously present to our prayers and because without thee mortal infirmity is of no ability grant the assistance of thy grace that in doing what thou dost command we may please thee both in will and work The Illustration ALbeit this Sunday is
the love of them both uniting them and him all in one indistinct essence distinguished into three distinct persons now the true reason why God is called charity is because he is goodnesse it self which is charity communicative and diffusive of it self 9. But this next shews clearly why St. John calls God Charity because he appeared so to be by sending his onely begotten Son into the world that we may live by him alluding to the like in his Gospel chap. 3. v. 19. who by Adam were all dead And this love he shewed us as an example for us to give our selves to him by again 10. For in this that is to say in our re-dilection or retaliation of love for love consisteth charity which can never be in us to God but reciprocal between God and us though in us to others it may be not mutual and de facto in very deed in God to us it was so when he loved us before we loved him for it was impossible we should have loved him before he loved us and therefore we are inabled to re-love him because his previous love to us inkindled our subsequent love to him Whence the Apostle sayes our charity doth not so much consist in that we love God as in that God loves us and makes us thereby able to re-love him because he sent his Son a propitiation for our sins St. Augustine sayes briefly and excellently well upon this place tract 9. God loved the impious to make them pious the unjust to make them just the sick to make them whole and why may not we adde he loved them that hated him to make them love him for sending his Son a Sacrifice for his utter enemies O how contrary is this to the course of the world which is to revenge our selves on those that love us not O how truly is it said of God Esay 55.8 9. My wayes are not like your wayes but exalted from them as high as heaven from earth yet S. Paul shews us we may follow God marching above us as high as heaven is from earth when Rom. 9. v. 2 he desired to be Anathema accursed to save the Jewes his persecutours and consequently his utter enemies 11. If is here a causal not a doubting or conditional particle as who should say because God hath thus loved us we must therefore love one another In like manner And was taken causally when Christ said to his disciples as in his Gospel Joh. 13. v. 14. I have washed your feet being your Lord and Master And you must wash one anothers feet that is to say because you must c. Hence learn to humble your selves to your fellow servants since I your Lord your God have humbled my self to you And we may note the deep art of this phrase in St. John who rather sayes admiring If God hath thus loved us then because God hath thus loved us c. to shew it doth not follow we can render equally to God we can love him as well as he can love us So it is not said therefore love him again but rather if God hath loved us and we must love one another as who should say since we cannot retaliate love for love to God let us at least love one another let us for his sake love our neighbours as our selves since he dyed equally for them as for us for as S. Matthew tells us Chap. 25. v. 40. what you did to the least of my brethren you did to me And indeed since God cannot personally want any thing that we are able to give him he hath afforded us this means to relieve him as wanting when we relieve the necessities of our neighbours So the sense of this verse is strong and even inforcing us to love one another Since God so unlike to us so much above us in perfection hath stooped so low as to love us how much more ought we that are all one like another to love each other since like naturally runs to like and naturally loves what is like unto it 12. This verse corroborates the explications of the former as saying though God be in himself Invisible yet if we love our neighbour God is by his Divine and indivisible vertue of charity united to us and made as it were one in and with us whereby our charity is rendered perfect nay even the Invisible God becomes as it were visible both in us by the visible charity we shew to others and in our neighbour whom we love as the visible image of the invisible Deity But we shall do well to see upon this occasion how these words are safely expounded God no man ever saw For which purpose turn to the exposition upon 2 Cor. 12.4 on Septuagesima Sunday declaring what S. Paul saw in his rapture but for present let us take it with the common sense of Expositours that no pure man ever in this world or in heaven can with corporal eyes see God his essence or divine nature though Cornelius à Lapide presumes to say Christ being both God and Man did see his own divinity whence neither Moyses nor St. Paul did thus see him and that sight the Blessed have of him in heaven is more by way of grace then of nature and this indeed more with the soules understanding then with the bodies eyes To conclude this verse a thing is then perfect when it consists intirely of all its parts and charity we know to be tripartite consisting of our love to God which alone is not perfect unlesse we love our neighbour also as we do our selves for these are both integral and essential parts of perfect charity And while we have charity thus perfected then though we see not God yet he both regards and abides in us by reason of this divine vertue of charity uniting God to all and all to God again Besides we perfect even the charity we love God with all when we extend it to our neighbour too since we cannot love one another for Gods sake but we must love God more then we did before Lastly when the text sayes his charity we may understand it as if truly the charity of God to us were perfected by our loving each other since while we do so God abideth in us and his charity is thereby perfected not so as to make it more in it self but to make it more in us and to appear also more to others which is a kind of perfection too and in particular charity is perfected by loving our enemies which being a love none but God hath taught us God in this hath appeared more perfect to us then in any thing else he ever did because he became a propitiation even for us that were all his enemies before his charity perfected in us made us his friends and him our Saviour and so finally gave him an opportunity who was in himself all perfection to receive in our esteems at least an addition to his innate perfection if not a new perfection by our
up sitting at this feast into the great presence-chamber of the sacred Trinity the Empyreall heaven and after his Ascension his servants the Apostles went round about the world to invite more and to tell them the great supper of glory was now ready for all that would go to it such way as thâ—se inviters would lead them namely in the high rode of professing and observing the faith and law of Christ 18. By all excusing themselves is here literally understood the Jewish nation whose eye was no further bent upon religion then as they expected a Messias that should make them all rich so grosly they understood the heavenly riches promised by the Messias as they believed them to be temporall estates And therefore here the first excuse is made by plea of necessity to looke after worldly wealth represented by the purchased village which was said to be newly bought by him that was content to sell the kingdom of heaven for a patch of earth But Saint Gregory hom 36. in Evang. notes the ill manners of this civility when the excusant sayes I pray thee have me excused for he calls it pride in the action though it seems humility in the voyce because he disdained heaven and preferred earth 19. The second excuse insists upon an other notable addiction of the Jewes to worldly wealth namely their huge great stocks they gloried in upon their grounds which we read Abraham Isaack Jacob and Job abounded in and which were looked on as the greatest blessings God could give so in regard of earthly stocks of Cattle they contemned the greater stock of Glory in the next world But St. Gregory in the place last cited will have these five yoak of oxen allude to our five senses distracting us from all heavenly objects 20. St. Gregory cited as above understands this place of carnall sinne the greatest impediment between a soul and glory of all others for here the excuser askes no pardon but boldly sayes he cannot come it seems he that could not wish he were able was wholly unable as well as he was absolutely unwilling while he did not say he would come another time as the former excuses might import but absolutely professed he could not come he had sure as little will as power and therefore he might have added he neither could nor would Though others more favourably say this place alludes onely to the excessive use of the lawfull marriage-bed which then is used in excesse when it is made a pretence to hinder us from the service of Almighty God And S. Ambrose expresseth much to this sense in few words saying The love of earthly things is like a birdlime upon the spirituall wings of our souls hindring her flight up to heaven But S. Augustine applies these three excuses to the three things that include all sorts of worldly pelf concupiscence of the flesh concupiscence of the eye and pride of life The first excuse reports to the pride that man had to see himself Lord of a Mannour The second to concupiscence of the eye to see a rich stock of cattell cover his grounds The third to concupiscence of the flesh that made this his excuse from going to heaven as if he did not hope for greater pleasure there and indeed riches and pleasure are the chief impediments mortalls have between them and eternall blisse 21. This place of the Parable alludes to Christ speaking of himself as servant to his heavenly Father and telling him the Rich men of the Jewes were all so transported with the love of the world as they gave no ear to the invitation of the eternal word calling them to everlasting rest and glory and that then his Father bid him apply himself to the poorer sort of Jewes which to effect was done when S. Matthew Chap. 21. 31. sayes to the Pharisees Scribes Doctours and high Priests rejecting Christ The Publicanes and whores shall go before you in the Kingdome of God as also the last shall be first and the first the last Others think this verified in the choyce Christ made of Fisher-men for his Apostles and of other poor Mechanicks rather then of Scribes and Pharisees as 1 Cor. 1.27 God chose the infirm things of this world to confound all the strength thereof and fooles to confound wise men and this to encourage the most contemptible creatures on the earth to aym at as great riches as heaven can afford if they live according to the rule and law of Christ 22. And here our Saviour urgeth his heavenly Father since all the poor people amongst the Jewes are not able to fill up the Court of heaven that as yet there may be more invited and then he went aside from the Jewes to the Samaritans and Gentiles converting them and so inviting of them to his heavenly Glory which is the Supper here spoken of 23. But we are here to note that Christ looked upon these Gentiles in respect of his beloved people the Jewes as he would do upon men that have no poor beeings in Townes or Villages but are forced to shelter themselves under the banks on high wayes and to covet the loane of hedges for their shelter from winds and weather and therefore being himself after his resurrection to ascend to heaven he sent his Apostles over all the world to find out such poor Gentiles as these who in respect of the Jewes were not held worthy in Gods sight to be esteemed as Masters of Townes Villages or houses but were like vagabonds yet these not filling heaven neither see how he makes provision for relapsed Christians also as men equally miserable with such vagabonds and those he will have by Ecclesiastical censures nay by penal lawes to be even compelled or forced to return to their belief again which yet is not a course used to any but revolted Christians such as once were in the lap of the true Church by holy Baptisme and they indeed as having once been children and Subjects of the mother Church of Christ may upon revolt be compelled back again whereas Pagans Jewes or Infidels cannot be thus forced by penal lawes but must in a sweet way be gained to a right belief through perswasion not compulsion 24. This verse is onely the excluding those from eternal glory who being invited to it will not leave temporal riches and pleasures to purchase the Kingdome of heaven but willingly wallow in the mire of worldly wealth rather then they will leave that to enjoy eternal felicity and glory The Application 1. AS this Gospel in the sense of the Expositours alludes to the Blessed Sacrament whose Feast is now flowing so is it fit we should observe therein such lessons as we are bound to learn and put in execution for our more worthy receiving which we may for brevity sake reduce to two the one a reverential awe or holy fear of unworthinesse the other a fervent act of love and charity because in this Sacrament is not onely the body and bloud of
resignation as a meanes to our exaltation in the time of visitation which is to be understood when God shall think fit to look upon us with the eye of mercy 7. It were an injury to Gods goodnesse for us to cast about for that which God himself takes care for that is our soules good the care of that is his and our rule of that is by him laid unto us so in that affayre we have rather to do what is commanded already then to be solicitous about it as if it were not done And to be solicitous of Temporals is an unchristian care and therefore often forbidden in point of perfection however tolerated in regard of humane infirmity but moderate care is alwayes allowed Christians in order to Temporals when anxious solicitude is forbidden them by many texts of holy writ 8. Sobriety is the best companion of watchfulnesse and therefore both are recommended And because our watchfulnesse is to be perpetual therefore our sobriety must be so too but especially towards night when our hearts onely are to keep the watch whilest our senses are asleep and this because the devil is then most busie in temptations when men are least able to resist having as it were but their wish awake and their will asleep hence all spiritual men recommend temperance towards bed-time both in meat and drink hence the Completory begins alwayes with this very verse to put us in mind with what purity we ought to go to bed having our profest enemy alwayes awake and ready to devour us if he find us off our sober guard 9. Happy we that by the least resistance are sure of victory against this ravenous devil for maugre all his malice and all his power he cannot hurt us unlesse we yeeld our consents to his Temptations Here is added that we must stoutly resist him and believing too because so we get compleat victory for by resistance we overcome him by fortitude we bind him captive by Faith we take away all his armes and power that is by firm stout and constant Faith And again our resistance will have the more force because of what followes in this verse we never are left alone but have alwayes our fellow Souldiers to help us in this Fight against our enemy who never tempts us alone but all other good men at the same time and we have share in their greater resistance by adding what our weaknesse is able to do 10. This next verse comes yet more home to our comfort and assistance telling us besides the help of our fellow creatures we have the help of our omnipotent Creatour against this enemy of mankind the God of all grace who having called us to everlasting glory will not if we help our selves permit the devill to snatch us away into his kingdom of darknesse so that being designed for glory we cannot fear the want of grace for that is the seed and glory the fruit of Gods goodnesse in us O who seeing how much Christ suffered to purchase us patience would not gladly suffer this little we are told must be indured if we will hope for victory Let us therefore with the same zeal begin to suffer as we would desire the happy end of it which is assured victory and glory 11. This last verse minds us that the victory is Gods and the honour of it his though the reward by his mercy be our eternall glory too The Application WE have had hitherto the holy Ghost the sacred Trinity and the blessed Sacrament to help us on in our long journey between Pentecost and Advent which we are to march all upon the feet of Charity but now we must expect no more such speciall helps suffice it we have had last Sunday the corroborating repast whereof Elias his refreshment under the Tree in the desert was but a type or figure when yet he was told that little bread should inable him to his journeyes end although he had a great wâ—y to go after that before he came to the mount Horeb so beloved must our charity from this day forward march upon the late refreshment of the blessed Sacrament till we come in our annuall journey to the mount of Advent the mount of expectation the mount that leaves us on the top of the highest mystery of our redemption the Incarnation of our Lord God where his first stoop to earth was our first step to heaven 2. Now for as much as we shall in this march find charity sometimes handed on by other vertues as last Sunday most properly by holy fear sutable to her in so long a journey and through the many dangers which she was to meet withall in the desert of this world and because at other times she will be in a manner out of sight and carried on with the crowd of other vertues thronging about her to secure themselves by her and to be her guard as they are bound she being sovereign to them all we must not therefore think our design is ill laid and that our obligation ceaseth as to the practise of charity when in the holy Text other vertues are more visible then she for there want not good Divines who grounded on S. Paul his definition or description at least of this majestick vertue affirm there is indeed no other vertue but charity both because God himself is called charity and because in heaven all other vertues are refunded into her so that in these Divines opinions even Faith Hope Humility Patience Obedience and all other vertues whatsoever are but charity believing hoping submitting suffering obeying or the like as one and the self same man by the severall faculties of his soul by his severall senses and members of his body is doing those exercises that such faculties such senses and such members are necessary for Be these Divines right or wrong it boots not to our purpose more then thus to let us see all our actions are good or bad according as they partake or want of charity to give them life or to declare them dead 3. This premised see how humility resignation to Gods holy will sobriety vigilance and a strong faith bring charity along this first-dayes journey after the repast she had last Sunday as above And though the Text tell her she is to carry us through the ravenous Lions walk yet we see the close of this Epistle is that the God of all Grace the God of charity will secure us through these dangers for his own glory if we but love him and will cast our cares on him and will rely upon his multiplied mercies whereof we have dayly and hourely huge experience if we will make him our Ruler him our Guide and if we do not loose our charity to him our Creatour by wasting it away upon creatures unworthy of our love because we cannot grasp temporall felicities without hazard of loosing eternall happinesse Yes yes assuredly this ought to be our duty now Whilest to this very purpose holy Church prayes to day
person of another man so he cannot mean himself when he sayes the Lord but must needs mean the Bailiffes real master did praise his own Bailiffe of iniquity that is did commend the invention or manner of the cheat not the cheat it self and said that the children of this world used more wisdome and prudence in their worldly wayes then the children of light This may put us in mind how ill it is that we study more to damne then to save our soules 9. This verse cleares the sense of the former to be spoken in the name of the master to the Bailiffe for here Christ having told us that masters sense now makes profession to speak in his own name in these words I say unto you give almes do good deeds unto the poor with your Mammon of iniquity your treasures for by vertue of these almes the poor may plead your admittance into heaven and obtain by their intercession that your almes may cover a multitude of your sins So this is a parable speaking properly to rich men of this world who are not true Lords of their own estates but owe them to God and have the portions of the poor in their hands and own all their treasure but as Lords of iniquity as heapers up of wealth which they have cheated the poor of and when they pay them not by Almes they lye lyable to the like censure of this Bailiffe to render account for they are such to God The Application 1. THis Gospel being wholly Parabolical we are at the greater liberty to make our applications thereof according as we can best avail our selves by it further then what by the Illustration and Explication above is already done First therefore albeit this Parable aymes directly at rectifying the inordinate excesses of Rich men who abuse the trust God hath reposed in them of relieving the poor when they lavish away their estates vainly and do not by their charities pay the poor mens Portions which are included in the rich mens revenues yet we may very properly here mind the Priests of Gods holy Church that as they are indeed the chief Bailiffes of their heavenly Master trusted with more of his Estate and Treasure then all the world besides namely the receiving and distributing his holy graces the livelyhoods of their own and other mens soules so when they waste these Treasures either by their own idle mispending them or by their undue dispensing them to others especially by palliating the sins of the people and flattering them with needlesse dispensations from their Christian duties never valid but when really necessary then are they most properly such ill Bailiffes as this Gospel specifies 2. Secondly in regard there is no Lay-man free from the Bailifship of a huge though lesser trust also reposed in him by Almighty God of all those rich graces vertues and gifts which are bestowed upon us in holy Baptisme therefore every Lay-man as well as the Priest may piously fear he playes this ill Bailiffes part and that chiefly out of this root his giving way to unjust thoughts such as propend him to unrighteous actions by not being rejected but disputed with untill the temptation of sordid gain or pleasure overcome him and make him unjustly act that which at first was but unrightly thought 3. Now this evil holy Church hopes to amend in us by prayer adapted to the Bailifship we are intrusted with absolutely of our own soules and partly of our neighbours too in point of edification to him at least whereby we are charitably to contribute also to his salvation which we shall then perform in act if our thoughts be first set upon the doing it Thus we see how the debt we owe of charity to our neighbour puts us in mind of the greater debt we owe thereof unto our selves and to Almighty God And by this charity it is we are best able to perform what we this day Pray for with holy Church that by alwayes thinking thus charitably right we may do uprightly we may live spiritually to that good God without whom we have neither spiritual nor yet corporal Beeing On the ninth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 19.46 FOr it is written that my house is the house of prayer to all Nations but you have made it a den of theeves And he was daily teaching in the Temple Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt the eares of thy mercy O Lord be open to the prayers of thy suppliants and to the end thou mayst grant the things desired to those that ask make them ask such things as to thee are pleasing The Illustration BLessed Jesu that the holy Ghost should teach us perfection of prayer in a language arguing imperfection in Almighty God mutation from his not bearing to the opening of his mercifull ears to the prayers of his Suppliants Whereas his eyes being alwayes open to see our actions his cars cannot be shut from our petitions since we can as little speak what he doth not hear as we can do what he doth not see It is not therefore because he at any time hears us not but that we deserve not to be heard sometimes even when we pretend to pray that we are taught to beg his open ears to our petitions and that if we will hope to be heard we must ask such things as are pleasing to his Divine Majestie rather then what is desired by us wherefore we were taught by our Saviour himself to pray that the will of God might be done in earth as it is in heaven which in effect though in other terms we pray to day when we begg that to the end God may grant what we desire he will make us ask such things as are pleasing to his Divine Majestie Yes beloved this is the full scope and sense of the prayer above and by this we see 't is one and the same spirit that now dictates the form of prayer to holy Church which our blessed Saviour had when in the garden he gave us the most excellent method of praying called to this very day our Lords prayer onely this we find peculiar now that all prayers of holy Church are so set after the stile of our Lords prayer which alone includes all the requests we are able to make that they are adapted to peculiar emergencies and do specially relate unto the present service of the day As for example the prayer above now doth unto the Epistle and Gospel of the Masse in regard they both mind us of the severe punishments inflicted both upon the Gentiles and the Jews who in their prayers runne after their own inventions and made their sacrifices which should appease the wrath of God to be the highest provocations of his fury as the Idolaters fornicatours and murmurers did whereof S. Paul here minds the Christian Corinthians who it seems were also inclined to make idols of their own desires rather then to adore in true
spirit the living God or seek his holy will as also S. Luke in the Gospel tells us the whole city of Jerusalem was ill addicted wherein were not onely slain twenty three thousand persons at the sacking thereof by the Romans but even in the destruction of that city the whole nation of the Jews was dispersed and overthrown for persecuting Jesus Christ because he came not to them according to their own desire according as they had fancied to themselves the Messias should come in power and glory in riches and abundance the very thought of which iniquity in the Jews made Jesus weep as S. Luke tells us so soon as he saw the most splendid and opulent city of the whole universe near to her destruction for want of following such instruction as we have in this dayes prayer for want of conformity to the will of God for want of desiring and asking those things that were pleasing to the Divine Majesty And to shew how short they were of using this form of prayer we see he went immediately to the Temple and chased out those from thence who made the house of prayer a den of thieves of such as under colour to sell necessaries for the sacrifices of the Temple sold their God himself for hope of sordid gain who therefore were called thieves as robbing God of his honour even in that place which was sacred to his service by seeking more their own profit then his glory in that place Say now beloved was it not fit the Church should make her prayer to day in the stile above when all the service of the day runnes upon examples of severest punishments upon those whose prayer was of another tenour and is it not most behooffull we should pray in this sort since these figures are professedly made mention of for our examples that whilest we hear of them we may beware their case become not ours Assuredly it is And this being declared I make account our souls are well armed because well warned resolved heartily to pray in this manner least for not so praying we be punished as those formerly in this kind defective were The Epistle 1 Cor. 10. v. 6. c. 6 And these things were done in a figure of us that we be not coveting evil things as they also coveted 7 Neither become ye idolaters as certain of them as it is written The people sate down to eat and drink and rose up to play 8 Neither let us fornicate as certain of them did fornicate and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand 9 Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them tempted and perished by the serpents 10 Neither do you murmure as certain of them murmured and perished by the destroyer 11 And all these things chanced to them in figure but they are written to our correction upon whom the end of the world are come 12 Therefore he that thinketh himself to stand let him take heed lest he fall 13 Let not tentation apprehend you but humane and God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able but will make also with tentation issue that you may be able to sustain The Explication 6. O How much are Christians obliged to Almighty God who hath laid before them the punishments of his own elect people the children of Israel not onely for a figure but an example also unto them that by the punishments inflicted on the Hebrews we Christians might beware and avoid such sinnes as we see God did not pardon in his own chosen people but punished them severely 7. When they erected themselves an idol of a golden calf and adored it and afterwards like the Egyptians and Gentiles made great feasts wherein they wanted not excesses at their tables and then rose to their wanton sports and dancings as if they would thereby honour their Idoll Which profanenesse was punished by Moyses commanding his Levites to kill at once three and twenty thousand of them And this S. Paul inculcates to the Corinthians and to all dissolute Christians to day For as the Corinthians had certain dedications of thousands of virgins to Venus who were defloured under pretended honour to her so this was a fit example of S. Paul to them and may be to all our wanton youth God help them 8. Here S. Paul alludes to the abomirable idolatry that was committted to Bel-phcor that is unto Priapus with the daughters of Moab abused in honour of this horrid Idol-god which was punished as above is noted in the glosse upon the former verse where the like punishment was inflicted upon the idolaters to the calf as is here mentioned upon the fornicatours onely that there were mentioned twenty four thousand Numb 25. v. 5. here onely twenty three thousand So the Apostle speaks with the least not that he contradicts the other place of Scripture since the greater number includes the lesser though the lesser doth not exclude the greater 9. Here the Apostle calls tempting distrusting in Christ as it seems some of the Corinthians did who doubted of his resurrection for where in the Old Testament we read Num. 25.5 the children of Israel are said to murmure against the Lord S. Paul here applies this to Christ and calls it tempting of him in the Corinthians as in that figure the Israelites did who perished by fiery serpents Num. 21. v. 6. not that they were fiery but because the effect of their sting was as hot as fire and seemd to burn the people that were stung or bitten by them 10. Their perishing was partly being swallowed up alive by the earth partly being burned with fire from heaven or smitten with the sword of the Angel called in this verse the destroyer and conceived by the best Interpreters to be S. Michael the leader of the people and the giver of the Law unto them in the mount Sinai and in that the figure of our Saviour Jesus Christ And indeed Gods punishments were frequent and very severe upon the sinne of murmure against his Divine Majesty 11. That is all things here specified not absolutely all that are written in the whole ancient law for however many things were there figurative yet there were also many things not figurative but had their own end in themselves without relation to any thing that was to follow And here the word figure is not taken strictly so as to mean allegory or mystery but rather indeed for example since in that sense S. Paul applies it to us in the Corinthians as appears by his following words that they were written for our correction reprehension or admonition By the ends of the world in this place is understood the coming of the Messias whose time is often called the last hour both in the Old and the New Testament this hour is to be measured from the birth of our Saviour till his coming to judgement because to millions of souls it hath been already their last hour and will be to many
ordinary but ultroneous Tythes of things he needed not to pay Tyâ—hes for This relates to what went before as vaunting himself to be the only chast the onely just man living chast as fasting which is the mother of chastity just as giving Tythes of all he had 13. The Publicane a true Type of humility standing his reverential distance from the Altar confessing him elf unworthy to come nearer to the place where the Pharisee proudly stood not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven where he had offended the whole Court the Saints and Angels whose inspirations he had contemned whose prayers defrauded God whose commands he had broken he knocks his breast his heart in token of sorrow and repentance for his sinnes By saying he is a sinner he confesseth his habit of sin by saying have mercy on me he doth not blame either fortune the world or the devil but himself meerly and layes all the load on his own shoulders as true penitents ought to do 14. More then he is as much as to say not absolutely but in respect of the Pharisee he was justified because the one humbled himself the other exalted himself Whence Optatus Milevitanus sayes well lib. 2. against the Donatists Better in some sort are the sinnes of an humble spirit then the pretended or boasted Innocency of an arrogant person The Application 1. THis whole Gospel is summ'd up in these few words of the Publican God be merciful to me a sinner For we see there is nothing else aym'd at in the whole Text but a condemnation of the Pharisees pride and a commendation of the Publicans humility or rather of his humble charity That is such a love as renounceth all proper merit and hath recourse to nothing but the mercy of Almighty God such a love as likes but dares not look to heaven such a love as hates all sin but hath no other hope of sayntity then from the mercy of God Almighty such a love as believes God hath power to save a soul but that he cannot manifest this Power without his mercy first appear because he cannot save a sinner unlesse he mercifully give him first leave to repent his sins 2. Thus we see beloved how charity goes shod with humility when in her journey she is handed on by Faith and Hope But that which to me is most admirable in this dayes service is to see the little end for which Almighty God is manifesting his power most of all by his mercy and how he is besought to multiply that mercy for the maâ—ifestation of his power both to men and Angels upon so small an account as making us pursue our own felicity onely that is to say the Promises he hath made unto us of much better gifts in the dayes of glory then he hath yet bestowed upon us in these our dayes of grace 3. Yes yes beloved our good God hath much to do with wicked sinners We may say with much more reason of mans salvation as the Romans did of erecting their Empire Tantae molis erat O what a huge attempt it was to set up the Roman Nation and to make them Monarchs of this world So if we look upon the final end of God Almighties exercised power and multiplyed mercies over us it is meerly to save his Christian people meerly to make them Monarchs of the next world eternal Emperours everlasting Triumphers over death sin devil and damnation after they had been slaves to them four thousand years together Nay so fond Almighty God is of his darling man that he is even content to bestow his utmost Power his extended omnipotency his multiplyed mercies on him to beget but a desire in him onely of his own felicity which consists in the promises of the next world not in the possessions of this Say then the Prayer above and see how it petitions onely this desire here to make us capable of all the joyes in heaven and of all the Treasures there On the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Mark 7. v. 37. HE hath done all things well he hath caused the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who out of the abundance of thy pitty dost exceed as well the merits of thy suppliants as their desires pour out thy mercy upon us that thou mayst forgive what our conscience is afraid of and adde even what our prayer dares not presume to ask The Illustration HOw apposite is this admirable Prayer unto the Epistle and Gospel of this day which are nothing else but meer relations to the abundance of that pity whereby God doth exceed as well the merits as the desires of his suppliants and whereby he did pour out his mercy upon his people forgiving them what their own conscience was afraid of and adding what their prayer durst not presume to ask Say beloved was it not an abundance of pity that Christ gave us S. Paul and other Apostles to preach unto us the story of his life passion death and resurrection were not these works of his pity exceeding as well the merits as the desires of his suppliants when no mortal durst have desired so much misery to Christ because no man was able to deserve his God should suffer so much for him were not then the mercies of Heaven poured out upon us when our redemption was purchased at so deare a rate to Jesus Christ and was not St. Paul justly afraid something might lurk in his conscience unforgiven when he ends this dayes Epistle saying his having persecuted the Church of God made him unworthy to be called an Apostle and that since he was what he was by the grace of God he durst not presume to ask so great a favour O how literally is this whole Epistle exhausted in this excellent Prayer And what are the cures done upon the deaf and dumb related in the Gospel but an abundance of like pity in Jesus Christ but like excesse of his mercy poured out upon these diseased people what the amazement in the beholders of these miracles closing up the said Gospel but an acknowledgment that the guilt of their consciences made them afraid to be in the presence of so good a God and that the grant of the cure was a thing added freely by Christ as done in more ample manner then they durst presume to aske though with a faint desire and a fainter faith they had presented those diseased people to our Saviour to be cured Say now beloved was I rash in falling upon this bold attempt to shew a sympathy between the Prayers of holy Church and the preaching part of her Services Rather I am to ask God pardon that I did often doubt it was not true because I was many times too lazy to beat it out by way of meditation but now that I see the thing is certainly true I shall not be troubled if I fail at any time in so
supernall grace the breasts that thou hast created 7. This verse clears all we said in the precedent and averres that the law of Moyses was rather a law of death then life a law of figure not of substance for that law did rather threaten death and damnation then truely contribute to life or salvation That it was in glory is understood by the ceremony it was delivered with of thunder lightning tempests earthquakes and the shining of Moyses face coming down from the mountain of Sinai By being figured with letters is understood literally written in the tables of stone 8 9. By the ministration of spirit is meant in these two verses the promulgation of the new law the law of grace of Christ which leads us indeed by the spirit of it into a spirituall life of glory and salvation This ministration is said to be glorious by the promulgation of it by Christ the sonne of God next by the coming of the Holy Ghost like a whirlwind in fiery tongues confirming the Apostles in grace teaching them all truth giving them the gift of prophecie of severall tongues as also the two last were given visibly to Christians in baptisme in the primitive Church as 1 Cor. 14.26 we may see and even now graces gifts and virtues are in baptisme given invisibly to all Christians The Application 1. THe Apostle in this Epistle teacheth three principall things the first how frail men are of themselves and that they can do nothing at all by their own power which is able to merit grace here much lesse glory in the next world The second how by degrees of the two Laws God brought these unapt men laudibly to serve his Divine Majesty The third how these two laws differ both in their manner of delivery and in their finall ends which they were to bring frail man unto 2. Stay then beloved this abstract of the Text premised and set before the eyes of our marching charity through the desert of this world what is her office now but that first she do walk warily not onely in regard of her own frailty but of the multitude of ambuscadoes laid in her way by the common enemy next that she give God thanks he hath betterr'd her condition now from what it was in our forefathers dayes and lastly that she do remember 't is not onely present grace she is to beg but future glory as if God had not made this world beautifull nor rich enough for his beloved but valued her alone above all the treasure of the earth and beauty of the universe to the end she might prize his promises unto her yet to come above all that he had here bestowed upon her already and consequently cast her eyes off all the vanity of present objects and fix both them and all her hopes upon the better expectation she is in 3. Thus farre assuredly we hit the Churches aim in giving us the present Text to square our actions by It remains that we conclude These greater promises require a present vigilance to keep this law of grace that is but as 〈◊〉 little key to open heavens widest gates put in our hands which key if it be broken will not let us in nor can we break it if we keep it close with in our hearts or hang it as a jewell in our ears and hearken unto nothing else but what this law commands or if we fix it still before our eyes as the lantern that must light us through the darksome wayes we are to passe lest losing sight thereof we do not onely lose our way but lose our selves indeed by falling into such offences as the law forbids not slightly neither but under pain of forfeiture of all we can expect to make us ever happy Which mischief that we may prevent we fitly pray as above The Gospel Luke 10. v. 23. c. 23 And turning to his disciples he said blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see 24 For I say unto you that many Prophets and Kings desired to see things that you see and saw them not and to hear the things that you hear and heard them not 25 And behold a certain Lawyer stood up tempting him and saying Master what shall I do to possesse eternall life 26 But he said to him in the Law what is written how readest thou 27 He answering said Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thy self 28 And he said to him thou hast answered right Do this and thou shalt live 29 But he desirous to justifie himself said to Jesus and who is my neighbour 30 And Jesus taking it said A certain man went down from Jerusalem into Jericho and fell among thieves who also spoiled him and giving him many wounds went away leaving him half dead 31 And it chanced that a certain Priest went down the same way and seeing him passed by 32 In like manner also a Levite when he was near the place and saw him passed by 33 But a certain Samaritan going his journey came near unto him and seeing him was moved with mercy 34 And going unto him bound his wounds pouring in oil and wâ—ne and setting him upon his own beast brought him into an Inn and took care of him 35 And the next day he took forth two pence and gave to the host and said have care of him and whatsoever thou shalt supererogate I at my return will repay thee 36 Which of those three in thy opinion was neighbour to him that fell among thieves 37 But he said he that had mercy upon him and Jesus said to him go and do thou in like manner The Explication 23. 24. That is the works and person of the living God of the Messias so long being foretold so longed for to be seen so hoped in and this is the sense of these two first verses 25. This Lawyer is therefore said to tempt him because he did not ask with a sincere desire to know what to do for gaining heaven but rather to entrap him if he had said any thing contrary to the Law of Moyses by venting or abetting a new doctrine of his own 26. See how in this verse Christ frustrates the Lawyers plot referring him to the written Law contrary to the Doctours expectation 27. In this verse is grounded the Catholick doctrine that the Law is observeable against Hereticks who say it is impossible to be kept Not that the love here commanded is either to be extensive or intensive but onely comparative final and appretiative that is nothing ought by us to be loved better then God more finally then God nor more dearly or appretiatively By the heart soul and mind is here explicated the whole Will of man applyed to the love of God By strength is explicated here his endeavours and forces used to shew this love in all his actions By loving our neighbour as
passion to us perpetually our humane mortality would fail in all her works of charity Whence it is holy Church to ripen her charity and to preserve it for eternity begs in the Prayer above that it may by the perpetual propitiation of Christ that is to say by the continual application of his Passion to us in the sacrifices and Sacraments of holy Church be withdrawn from hurtful things and directed to those which are saving The Gospel Matt. 6. v. 24. 24 No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will sustain the one and contemn the other You cannot serve God and Mammon 25 Therefore I say unto you be not careful for your life what you shall eat neither for your body what rayment you shall put on is not the life more then the meat and the body more then the rayment 26 Behold the fowles in the ayr that they sowe not neither reap they nor gather into barns and your heavenly Father feedeth them are not you much more of price then they 27 And which of you by his caring can adde to his stature one cubit 28 And for rayment why are you careful consider the Lillies of the field how they grow they labour not neither do they spin 29 But I say unto you that neither Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these 30 And if the grasse of the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the oven God doth so clothe how much more you O ye of very small faith 31 Be not careful therefore saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewith shall we be covered 32 For all these things the heathen doth seek after for your Father knoweth that you need all these things 33 Seek therefore first the Kingdome of Heaven and all these things shall be given you besides The Explication 24. BY serving is here understood loving and obeying out of love not serving for hire since so we may serve many masters By can is meant can easily So the text intimates onely a huge difficulty not an absolute impossibility That this is the sense the following words prove of hate and love Now the next words of sustaining at least argue a possibility though with difficulty for to sustain or bear argues a power thereof The last words of this verse you cannot serve God and Mammon are taken strictly for loving and obeying so thus the Apostle sayes God and riches are incompatible masters 25. By careful is here understood anxious or solicitous for your life is understood your soul because by that we live and we are not to be anxious for our soules sake what we eat because it doth not eat to keep it self alive but onely the body The like anxiety is forbidden even for the body too how it shall be attired The following words are Christ his argument from the lesse to the greater as who should say I who have created your souls out of nothing will not fail to give you meat to conserve them and the body in union and health which is to shew us we shall not want his lesse favour that have had his greater so if he give our bodies life and health it is not likely he will deny us clothing for our bodies unlesse we fall to be anxiously solicitous how to clothe our selves which anxiety is here forbidden and we are counselled to rely upon Gods providence herein 26. The same naturall argument flows in all the six following verses But it is here worthy observation that Christ rather instances in birds then beasts to shew us that as they live in the air off from the earth for most part so man should have his thoughts in heaven and not in earth and should expect his food rather from heavenly providence then from earthly solicitude 27. And as such solicitude were vain so is it to care what we eat or how long we protract our lives by curiosity of diet And this example of a cubit is not improperly brought in to shew us that as the due proportion of a man is to be as square or broad when his arms are stretched out as he is long from head to foot so a soul well proportioned must be solid in virtue and constant in the pursuit thereof 28 29. As the former verses argued to cast off care of meats so these two next argue in like manner against anxiety in clothing exemplyfying in the delicate attire of Lillies and of Solomon who by art the ape of nature had made his attire to be decked with Lillies of most curious needlework to shew the robes of grace or nuptiall garments of our souls should be as fragrant and as pure in Gods sight as Lillies are in ours and if they be but so it imports not how our bodies are attired 30. By adding the low similitude of the grasses beauty after that high and rich one of the Lillie and Solomons garments Christ augments the reason we have to confide in Gods providence towards the meanest of persons since he is not wanting to adorn the grasse as he doth By grasse is here understood all plants at least such as make fuell for ovens for else in vain had he spoken of putting grasse into the oven if it had not been that after these fine green plants of the field were cut down and lost the splendour of their growing state and served now for nothing but fuell to fire he had not intended to shew us that if God were so carefull for so small a thing as grasse and little green plants growing to adorn them as he doth he would be much more carefull to cloth us with attire sufficient for this life whom he intends to invest in robes of glory for all eternity By the close of this verse rebuking our very small faith is not understood our want of belief in God but our want of trust or confidence rather that he whom we believe to be so infinitely great and good can and will have care of our least necessities 31. He well subsumes to close his argument that after all these examples of his solicitude for the meanest creatures he will not be carelesse of us if we confide in him as we ought to do for our due supplies both in meat and clothing 32. This is an excellent argument against the anxiety above that it is common to heathens and therefore no way proper to Christians who since they know God sees their wants they ought to referre the supply thereof to his omniscience as God to his love as father to his power as King of heaven and earth so if he see and supply not he is pleased we shall suffer want and therefore in vain we seek to have that else where which God pleaseth to abridge us of rather in this case we must be content as the grasse to lose our lustre then covet to enjoy it when it is designed for feuell to the fire
so we must live rather content to die poor then seek to live rich after God will have us die beggars Note it is onely excesse of care or anxious solicitude that we are forbidden not ordinary diligence in our occasions 33. By first is here understood chiefly or principally so that we are allowed a secondary care of our temporals though our main imploy and study must be to get heaven for that is the Kingdome of God By Gods justice is here understood those virtues and good deeds that render us just in the sight of God and so capable of that heaven we are in the first place to seek since it was the end for which we were first created By those things which shall be given us besides are understood things of lesse moment and consequently which ought to take up lesse of our care such as are meat clothes and other temporalls The Application 1. GOd and Mammon are not so here declared to be the two masters meant who cannot be both served at once but that we may also take the spirit and the flesh for these two masters and this the rather because so the Gospel is more literally suting the Epistle and besides S. Matthew in the following verses of this present Text doth aim directly at the service we pretend unto the flesh when we neglect our souls to provide for our bodies 2. And see how to prevent this poor pretext our charity is led to day by Providence to shew us that we cannot any way pretend to corporall duty for excusing us from our spirituall obligations since God Almighties Providence is here brought in to furnish us with all things necessary for the body and so to ease us of that care and to send us about our main and onely businesse our secking in the first place the kingdome of heaven and the justice thereof by the works of charity such as in the Epistle above are enumerated and assuring us all things wanting else shall be provided us by his Providence who never relinquisheth the just man nor permits his seed to seek their bread so if neither for our selves nor for our posterity we need to interrupt our spiritual duties or to renounce our service to our souls for any tie we have to serve our bodies we have no pretence then left at all for our so doing 3. Yet least we be withdrawn from the saving works of charity by the hurtfull ones of the flesh which humane frailty would easily incline us to therefore we are taught upon the reading of this holy Text To pray as above alwayes for the help of Christ his perpetuall propitiation by the cordiall of his passion to relieve our fainting charity withall in her march to heaven On the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 7. v. 16. A Great Prophet is risen amongst us and because God hath visited his people c. Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt thy continued mercy O Lord both cleanse and defend thy Church and because without thee it cannot stand securely be it alwayes governed by thy bounty The Illustration WE heard in the exposition of the last Sundayes prayer that the perpetuall propitiation there begged was the continuation of our Saviours passion to be our continuall help in all occasions and now that to day we beg to have the mercy of our Lord continued to his Church we seem but to repeat the same prayer again in a varied phrase But if we cast our eyes upon the Epistle and Gospel here below and observe how the Expositours upon them apply the same as declaring all the office of Priestly function and telling us what should be the duty of the people thereupon we shall soon perceive as well a difference in the substance as in the phrase or language of these two prayers That alluding to the immediate influence of the passion into us by the personall help which our Saviour affords in the grace he gives us to repent us of our sinnes which relating to himself is fitly called his perpetuall propitiation but reporting to the mediate helps we have from our Saviour by the mediation of his Ministers the Doctours Teachers Preachers and Priests of holy Church it is rather stiled his continued mercy towards us because it was his mercy that moved him to supply his own personall presence amongst us by the mediation of the Priests whom in his place he left by means of catechising preaching and administration of the Sacraments to continue his mercy towards us and by the continuation thereof to cleanse and defend his holy Church cleansed indeed by participation of the Sacraments defended by the communication of the Priests their functions sacrifices and prayers in her behalf and yet our holy mother closeth up this Sundayes prayer with an immediate addresse again unto the fountain it self when she concludes affirming it is as well his bounty as his mercy that she subsisteth by when she professeth she cannot stand securely unlesse she be alwayes governed by his bounty that is to say by his holy grace derived unto us through the hands of his Ministers the Priests of holy Church so that this prayer instructs us whence our helps do flow and by what hands they are conveyed to us And requisite it is that we do pray in this sort to day when the Epistle runs all upon the Priests office to the people and their putting in practice the Christian doctrine taught them by the Priest all which is neatly couched under the spirituality wherewith the Epistle tells us both are rendred compleat as signifying neither the Master nor the Schollar must sow fleshly seeds since both must live by spirituall fruits And for the Gospel we hear the Fathers of the Church avouch it to be a parable alluding to the death of sinne and life of grace which is coincident with what the Epistle taught us of sowing spirituall seeds that might bring forth fruits of grace of Christ not fleshly which produce nothing at all but corruption and death Since then we have this prayer adjusted to the sense of the Expositours upon the other parts of this dayes service we make good our designe as hitherto we did in some one of the latitudes in the preface of this work allowable unto this mysticall Theologie The Epistle Galat. 5. and 6. Chap. Chap. 5. v. 26. If we live in the spirit in the spirit also let us walk let us not be made desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Chap. 6. v. 1. Brethren if a man be preoccupied in any fault you that are spirituall instruct such a one in the spirit of lenitie considering thine own self lest thou also be tempted 2 Bear ye one anothers burthens and so you shall fulfill the Law of Christ 3 For if any man esteem himself to be something where as he is nothing he seduceth himself 4 But let every one prove his own work and so in
present good any longer in hope of we know not yet what future happinesse in our celestials therefore to shew the constancy of her charity in doing good holy Church begs it as a grace to day that she may not onely persevere in good works but further do them exactly and purely in honour of Gods holy Name least what may seem good in man's eye prove bad in the sight of his heavenly Majesty Say now the prayer above and see if it be not sutable to this application The Gospel Mat â—8 23 c. 23 Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a man being a King that would make an account with his Servants 24 And when he began to make the account there was one presented unto him that owed him ten thousand talents 25 And not having whence to repay it his Lord commanded that he should be sold and his Wife and his Children and all that he had and it to be repayed 26 But that Steward falling down before him said Have patience towards me and I will repay thee all 27 And the Lord of that Servant moved with pity dismissed him and forgave him the debt 28 And when that Servant was gone forth he found one of his fellow-servants that did ow him a hundred pence and laying hands upon him throtled him saying Repay that thou owest 29 And his fellow servant falling down besought him saying Have patience towards me and I will repay thee all 30 And he would not but went his way and cast him into Prison till he repayed the debt 31 And his fellow servants seeing what was done were very sorry and they came and told their Lord all that was done 32 Then his Lord called him and said unto him Thou ungraciouâ— Servant I forgave thee all the debt because thou besoughtest me and oughtest not thou therefore also to have mercy upon thy fellow servant even as I had mercy upon thee 33 And his Lord being angry delivered him to the Tormentours untill he had repaid all the debt 34 So also shall my heavenly Father do to you if you forgive not every one his Brother from your hearts The Explication 23. THe sense of this verse is that look what this Parable reports to be done here between Debtour and Creditour on Earth the same will be done in Heaven between God and his Creatures wherefore not so much the Kingdom of Heaven as the course of it is here described in this Parable 24. By the number of ten thousand talents of money owing from the Servant to the Master is here assigned a certain for an uncertain Debt or indeed a finite for an infinite namely a mortal sin against Almighty God which how ever finite in the act is infinite in the malice because committed against an infinite Goodnesse So that by deadly sin a man becomes debtour to God and stands bound to repay him all the Gifts Virtues and Graces infused into his Soul by holy Baptisme and squandered away by any one deadly sin so the debt is of the treasure of Heaven the grace of the holy Ghost spent by a sinner which God trusted him with and which by sin he hath wasted 25. By this command to sell the non-solvent debtour as also his wife children and all the goods he hath is intimated that for any one mortal sin a man and all that is dear unto him is confiscate to Almighty God and ought to be sold to be cast into eternal pains and so though this be nothing towards repayment of the debt yet since he had sold grace Heaven God and all for sin now by right God should sell his sin body soul and all to the devil though still his goodnesse as long as man lives reserves a place for repentance such as in the following verse we find Note here the particularizing to sell wife and children adds nothing to the mystery more then to show man looseth himself and all that is dear unto him by sin 26. Alas what can poor man afford towards the repayment of so great a treasure when 't is wasted by him Hence the text sayes true nature cannot make good a debt of grace But yet if the creature do humbly prostrate it self at the feet of the Creatour and acknowledge with sorrow the fault oâ— incurring so great a debt and beg of God grace to make good what nature cannot then God his goodnesse is so great thaâ— he gives such a sorrowing soul so great a help of grace as makes him able to pay the debt to recover what he lost for so may the debtour have again as much as he had spent to repay thâ— Creditour since God the creditour accounts himself repaid for sin by his servants recovering grace which they had lost for the very truth is God cannot lose by any creature and he esteems so much of a creatures cooperation with his holy grace that in such a case he reckons his own gifts to man as a repayment of mans debt to him 27. This verse proves the former to be explicated in a right sense so it needs no more enlargement 28. This verse besides the ingratitude it showes in man to God not forgiving his brother Gods image as himself was forgiven so again it showes the narrownesse of mans heart and the largenesse of Gods one forgiving an infinite debt being but asked so to do the other not remitting a petty one by any entreaty whatsoever 29. Strange that we cannot kneel with humble heart to God but he relents and yet to man no bow of knee or heart prevailes Note here patience or forbearance of the debt was truly and properly demanded upon promise and just hope of payment after a while because it is not out of mans power to pay man what is due unto him though 't is impossible we can hope to make even scores with God unlesse he rather remit then demand the debt So the patience asked by the servant of his Lord was rather an artifice to gain time hoping by intervention of Friends rather to get the debt remitted then that there was any likelihood of this servants payment of it what fair promises so ever he made in the instant of his being pressed because that was a debt from a creature to God but this is onely a debt between man and man so here to delay was not to delude or elude the debt and considering it was asked of him for a little summ who had before obtained remission of an infinite great one truly the debt ought by all means to have been forborn if not forgiven 30. Here we see how true it is that the rigour of the law is highest injury This man did but use the rigour of the law yet he had before a pattern set him oâ— mercy from his master and therefore that ought to have moved him to show some favour at least and to forbear rigour But by this we are advertised how unchristian a thing it is in us to beg absolution for
once would let us know the dead child being a Jew represents the expiration of the Jewish Synagogue by the plantation of the Church of Christ For as this diseased Gentile fell sick when Jairus his child was born so the Gentiles fell to their brutish Idolatry figured by the Bloudy Flux when the Jewes were born to right belief in Abraham and therefore as Christ went to raise this child from death to life and by the way first healed the diseased woman so he came first to the Jewes yet the Gentiles received and believed in him before the Jewes whose conversion or being raised from the death of infidelity to the life of Faith is not to be till after all Gentiles are first reduced and then at last even the Jewes shall generally be converted This is the mystical sense of the present story prosecuted in these three verses onely we are to observe by this womans Faith that the Gentiles are of much more easie and entire belief then the Jewes besides this place gives a great ground for the Catholick doctrine of revering reliques since here the woman was cured by the onely touch of our Saviours garments hemm and Eusebius writes that she in memory of this favour shewed unto her made a coat like that of our Saviours and kept it religiously in her house and that diverse who were diseased went away from her perfectly cured upon the sole touch of this garments hemm also 23. 24. The musick our Saviour found here was onely such as usually in those dayes did accompany all burials Our Saviours saying the child is not dead did not deny but she was so for all that onely his meaning was she should live again and therefore he accounted her death but a sleep in the sight of God because her soul was not summoned to the barre of Judgement being to return and lead a longer life in this world though this saying of Christ might also import his modesty in not making difficult his works to get thereby popular applause However they knew and so did Christ the child was really dead to all humane power of recovery but that they might see death to God was but as sleep to nature since he that could out of nothing make all things could much more easily out of a dead body make a living creature and so as to God death and sleep are much alike in respect of privation of life whence it is frequent for Christ to call death obdormition or sleeping onely thus he did in Lazarus his case after he was four dayes buried Joh. 11.44 and thus you see here he doth in this present case of the dead child But as commonly men judge of all things by outward appearances and of other mens powers by comparing them to their own so here these mourners laugh at Christ for saying the dead child was onely asleep as who should say they held it impossible for him to revive her which argues they were sufficiently satisfied she was truly dead to all this world 25. 26. Note his bidding them depart when he sayes she is not dead argues that their diffidence in his power did not deserve the honour to be eye-witnesses of the miracle how it was done though afterwards they had proof enough it was most true and again it argues he was not seeking popular applause when he went in alone leaving the company without taking onely the child's parents and his disciples with him S. Mark sayes Peter James and John to shew it was not ultroneous fasting that conferred sanctity of which you heard before but a lively Faith and an ardent love to God wherewith his Apostles were endowed and so fit to be now witnesses of his and after workers of as great miracles themselves though they did not run the vain-glorious wayes of Pharisaical fasting or the like Note the Scripture phrase is here pathetical saying Christ held the childs hand in such sort probably as officers take hold of such as they arrest to carry away with them and so shew their power over them for thus our Saviour seemed to snatch the body of this child from death and to command her soul from entring into hell but to animate again the body thereby to shew he had perfect dominion over life and death And it seems the manner of this was extraordinary when the story of it ends by saying it was divulged all the countrey over for a famous miracle though St. Mark sayes Christ gave the girle to her parents bidding them say nothing Mar. 5.43 to shew his modesty and that he sought not the worlds applause but onely Gods honour and glory Yet their disobedience in this was not unseemly The Application 1. THis Gospel of the Jewes and Gentiles Infidelity is as we heard in the Explication made a whole Type of all Iniquity whatsoever and yet is most peculiarly proper to the Epistle inculcating so sincere a sayntity as above because as to that sayntity pardon of iniquity is necessary and this pardon is mystically represented in the raising Jairus his daughter from the brink of death which is the natural punishment of sinne so to the said sayntity there is also necessary a detestation of all affection to sin which detestation is also represented by the cure upon the woman sick of the Issue of bloud not unfitly likened to reiterated or accustomary sinne which argues a huge affection thereunto 2. What then more proper for Christians at the reading of this holy Text then first to procure an act of contrition for all guilt of sinne upon their soules and next to detest all affection to any sinne whatsoever especially to those which have been formerly to them accustomary for those are properly bonds which we have sealed to the devil while we hamper our selves with giving them up as our well advised acts of our yet most abominable wicked deeds 3. Say now beloved if our holy Mother have not fram'd a fitting Prayer when to this purpose she brings charity to day upon her knees preparing her self for the grand account she is next Sunday put in mind to make By petitioning as above an acquittance of her sinful debts by absolution from the guilt thereof and a cancelling of all her bonds to the devil by teating her affections to sin in pieces and planting her love from hence upon Almighty God above On the four and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 24.34 AMen I say to you this Generation shall not passe untill all be done Heaven and Earth shall passe but my word shall not passe saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer STirre up we beseech thee O Lord the wills of thy Faithful that they more diligently preparing the fruit of thy divine work may receive the greater remedies of thy mercy The Illustration WE are this day closing up the Ring of our devotion which we desire all the devotes of our sodality to wear in testimony they are of
proceeded by an Act of mutuall love between the Father and the Sonne but all confesse his procession to be from both while it is from the Father by the Sonne 14. True it is by the passion of our Saviour we are redeemed but if we ask what it is to be redeemed we cannot expresse it better then here the Apostle doth by calling it remission of sinnes for as by sinne we were made slaves to the devil so by remission thereof which we obtain by Christ his passion we are made children of God and are thus redeemed from the captivity of the devil not unlike to men freed from prison by their creditours remitting unto them their debts for which they clapt them up but we are in a more liberall way redeemed from the prison of hell that was our inheritance when Christ not we payes the debt and so it is most freely remitted to us since we neither did nor could pay it our selves The Application 1. BLessed S. Paul we have thee now in half a word the Colossians were as dear to thee as the Ephesians the Romans and all thy other Converts what thou didst write to one upon the news of their conversion by thy preaching thou dost in other terms but in the same spirit write to all the rest Again we know our holy mother the Church reads thy ancient lessons every day anew to us that we her children may be Christian Catholicks like thy happy Converts And to that purpose she brings our charity to day with thy Epistle home to her annuall journeys end as the best usher to lead her to this lifes end also and to the entrance into everlasting life that of eternall happinesse and glory 2. See how to day our holy Mother sets us all a preaching to our selves to this effect while she doth make us pray to God that he will raise up our affections to our own salvations Why Blessed Jesu is it come to that must we be courted to our own felicity can we be lesse then willing to be sav'd I dare not say it but I doubt it much And therefore holy Church I see petitions it lest we should vainly think we had advanced farre when God Almighty knows the many years that passe upon our heads are like so many labours lost and therefore at the end of every year 't is piety to think we do but then begin to wish we were but willing to be sav'd yet we must wish it faithfully sincerely earnestly and we must pray withall that God will graciously please to raise our wish to the perfection of a will at last that if we value not our selves we will not undervalue God Almighty who looks upon us as the apples of his eyes as the fruits of all his labours in creating preserving and governing the world and us in redeeming and saintifying of us for no other end but to save us at the last and that at so easie a rate as can be possible our onely cooperating with him to that happy end our onely being willing be should work in us that saintity we cannot work in our selves without him 3. To conclude the many books of controversie in the point of merit may be summ'd up all in this petition of the Churches Prayer to day so deep so copious so facund and so fecund withall is the spirit of the Holy Ghost couch'd in those teaching Prayers What is it else we say defending merit but that we must cooperate to our salvation but that the more we do cooperate the greater Saints we are but that the improvement we make of one grace procures us another greater then the former but that we so take in hand the work of our salvation as we do not think it is nor can be any work of ours but must be still the work of God in us though by us too whose onely part is to be pulling down the greater remedies of his Piety towards us by improving his lesser and to be drawing from him grace upon grace so fast untill by means thereof we render our selves a fruit of the work divine as ripe as grace can make us here ready then to be transplanted into heaven where yet the sunne of glory will mature us more so farre indeed as we shall never fear to be corrupted but shall hang upon the tree of everlasting life an ornament to the celestiall Paradise Say now the Prayer above and see how home it is to this construction in it self to this instruction of us by it if we say it in the sense above The Gospel Matth. 24.15 15 Therefore when you shall see the Abomination of desolation which was spoken of by Daniel the Prophet standing in the holy place he that readeth let him understand 16 Then they that are in Jewry let them flee to the mountains 17 And he that is on the house top let him not come down to take any thing out of his house 18 And he that is in the field let him not go back to take his coat 19 And wo to them that are with child and that give suck in those dayes 20 But pray that your flight be not in winter nor on the Sabboth 21 For there shall be then great tribulation such as hath not been from the beginning of the world untill now neither shall be 22 And unlesse those dayes had been shortened no flesh should be saved but for the Elect the dayes shall be shortned 23 Then if any man shall say unto you Lo here is Christ or there do not believe him 24 For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders so that the Elect also if it be possible may be induced into errour 25 Lo I have foretold you 26 If therefore they shall say unto you Behold he is in the desert go ye not out behold in the closets believe it not 27 For as lightening cometh out of the East and appeareth even to the West so shall the Advent of the Son of man be 28 Wheresoever the body is thither shall the Eagles also be gathered together 29 And immediately after the tribulation of those dayes the Sun shall be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light and the Starres shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be moved 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven and then shall all tribes of the earth bewaile and they shall see the Son of man comeing in the clouds of heaven with much power and majestie 31 And he shall send his Angels with a Trumpet and a great voyce and they shall gather together his Elect from the four winds from the furthest parts of heaven even to the ends thereof 32 And of the fig-tree learn a Parable when now the bough thereof is tender and the leaves come forth you know that Summer is nigh 33 So you also when you shall see these things know ye that it is nigh even at the
son of Goriah each of these strove to be reputed the Messias to these therefore and their flatterers this verse alludes for these would be called Christ as the true Messias was 24. See how this verse verifies the sense of the former for of these and such like men even of Arch-hereticks in future times also our Saviour speaks here and such were David George and John of Leyden King of the Anabaptists proclaiming himself to be Christ and sending about his twelve Apostles till he was taken in Westphalia and burnt alive for his abominable heresie The signes here mentioned shall be those of witchcraft and other cheats to delude the Faithful people as Simon Magus by these arts cheated Nero and other Romans till by S. Peters intercession he was brought down from the high pitch of his artificial wings and dashed his feet in pieces to shew Gods Saints are above the devils instruments since by St. Peters prayer he was made unable to go who by fraud pretended a power to flye When he sayes by these arts the Elect shall if possible erre he meanes it is not possible morally speaking that when God pleaseth to assist his chosen people any fraud of the devil himself can delude them though in a physical sense there is no impossibility thereof since even grace notwithstanding men have physical power to sin yet supposing God have predestinated any to salvation then that may stand with infallibility by supposition which absolutely speaking would not do so Note the Reformers fondly obtrude this practise to us by exposing the B. Sacrament to adoration since therein we expose onely an invisible Deity whereas here our Saviour beats down the exposing any visible God in mans shape any to be Christ but himself and that he left himself thus to be adored till the worlds end we have it avouched from the Apostles who did practise and preach this duty to be done to the B. Sacrament 25. He means his prediction to after ages as well as that to the Jewes of their impostures so this warning serves us to beware of heresies and their divulgers 26. Christ here alludes to Simon Gerasenus son of Goriah who went into the desert and mountains raising forces under a pretence he would as the Messias vindicate the injuries done to the Jewes by the Romans the like did Eleazar above menâ—ioned and John leaders of the Zelotes onely they pretended in caves and vaults and chambers to supply the open worships due unto them in Churches and this with promise to restore them as by the Messias they did hope to be restored and thought their Captaines to be indeed Messias 27. No the true Messias comes not thus couched but his coming shall be as visible as undoubted as the lightening breaking in the East and seen even to the West here indeed he alludes to his second coming in the latter day when the world shall be all on fire from East to West 28. This he likens to be as sudden upon men as the Eagle is upon her prey and though some think he onely means the noble Eagles that feed not on dead food but on living yet his words incline to the vulturine Eagle which Aristotle mentions and tells us he feeds on dead bodies and discovering them by the smell is as soon upon them as if he see them presently Christ seemeth to humble himself to this sort of Eagles both in regard of his own body which was dead to purchase mans life and in regard it suites better with our corruption which at the latter day is the prey of this Eagle Christ Jesus who comes as fiercely upon all mankind then corrupted in their graves when summoned to Judgment as the Eagle doth upon his prey that lives by carrion to shew us there is then no hope of mercy if we prove corrupted carrion but we must be delivered over as a prey to the devouring Eagle meaning the Judge converting corruptible into incorruptible flesh their unsavoury bodies into sweet incense to burn and never be consumed nor tormented before his sacred Deity 29. See how he falls from the particular devastation of the Jewes to the general destruction of the whole world telling us hence forward the signes of this as he did before the signs of the other favouring in a sort the errour of the Apostles who did believe by his speech the day of Judgement should follow immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem though indeed he speaks thus to terrifie men from sin who after it may immediately fear Judgment and to shew that what to us is long a coming to God is ever present so he falls out of the one into the other as if they were both linked together The Sun shall be darkened by which he meanes there shall be prodigious Eclipses before this dismal day and strange interpositions of vapours to shew the dark effect of the child of darknesse sin The Moon having no light but from the Sun can give none when the Suns light is not seen The Starres shall seem to fall but cannot do so for each one is bigger then the earth yet what with comets playing in the ayr what with the dazzeling of our eyes in that circumstance the starres shall seem to fall upon us Mystically understand by Sun Moon and Starres failing here the fall of greater and lesser lights in holy Church by the terrour of the persecution of Antichrist at this time by the virtues of the heavens being moved understand their usual influence into the creatures of the earth to be disturbed yet some others think the very Angels the movers of the heavens and so called their virtues shall be as it were afraid they do fail in their offices seeing the usual course of nature inverted which may seem even to discompose their constant and unmoveable natures not that indeed it shall be so with them but onely it may seeâ— so to us 30. This sign all allow to be the Crosse of Christ which for three causes shall then appear first to shew Christ came to the glory of being Judge over all the world by his former ignominy upon the Crosse secondly to shew he was truly crucified on the Crosse for all mens redemption and therefore brings it now to confound those who were ungrateful for such a benefit especially the Jewes thirdly to shew that all who were religious worshippers of him and of his holy Crosse should now march under the banner of it into the Kingdome of heaven whence it is probable the very self-same Crosse that Christ dyed upon shall be then made up and placed there a thing not harder then for the dead to rise By the bewailing of all tribes understand that some of all tribes shall be in a bewailing case for their ineviâ—able misery then laid before their eyes By the son of man is understood Christ Jesus himself coming after his sacred banner is displayed in the clouds for three reasons first to moderate the infinite splendour of his glory