our selves is not understood as well as our selves for a man may lawfully love himself better then his neighbour but yet so as withal he is bound to love his neighbour too and self-love is not so much commanded as presumed because it is natural but the love of our neighbour is an absolute command because our neighbour is as dear to God as we and was created by him as we are redeemed by him as we are and so must be beloved by us because he is as well beloved of God as we if not better and if he be a better Christian sure enough he is better beloved 28. Here our Saviour caught the Doctour who thought to have entrapped him by telling him the keeping of this Law is the way to live everlastingly but the Doctour expected Christ would have contradicted the Law and not have confirmed or bound him to keep it which therefore he did bind him to because it was a Law of love not of ceremony as those other lawes were which Christ abrogated 29. By justifying himself is here understood a huge pride in this Doctour as who should say he was so just a keeper of the Law and so just thereby that he did not think he had his fellow in justice or any neighbour like to himself and so he demanded of Christ to know who was his neighbour who so just as he who to be compared with him 30. By these words Jesus taking it is intimated Jesus understood the latent pride of the man and so in the following parable undertook to confound him and make him answer himself by finding that no man in misery is to be rejected by those who are in prosperity but that the way to make a man in prosperity as good as another in misery is to commiserate his case and to relieve his wants who is in need not to neglect or scorn him as it seems the Lawyer did all others besides himself whilest he thought no man so just as he was True by the word tempting as above it is evident this was first the sense of the Lawyer till afterwards as some say he found by his conversation with our Saviour that his own heart was changed from malicious to religious If so the sense is sound that sayes really the Lawyer desired to become just and did not then as formerly think he was so but with a real desire of becoming so ask Christ who was his neighbour that he might love him as he did himself And this stands with reason because the Jewes held none for their neighbours but vertuous people of their own Nation so they thought it a vertue to hate a sinful Jew or a Gentile but our Saviour reduced them from this errour by the following parable wherein he made the Jewish Lawyer see the Samaritan was the Jewes neighbour if he did love him and relieve him in his wants and that Christian perfection extended even to the love of enemies Where note that our Saviour takes hold of the dangerous passage that was between Jerusalem and Jericho because none could passe almost without danger of being rob'd stript wounded and many times slain By this man half-slain is understood the state of man corrupted by the fall of Adam whose understanding and free will remain but so as a man half dead is said to live in respect of another in full health and vigour of body 31. 32. This is understood a chance to man but a true providence in respect of God who therefore ordained those passengers should go by that some of them might relieve the wounded man But by this act of the Priest and Levite we are instructed how little inward vertue was in the Ministers of the Church under the old Law all their sanctity consisting in outward ceremony and having no acquaintance with internal sincerity or charity so as disdaining they went off from him whom they found in misery in the way they were to passe 33. By the Samaritan is here figured Christ the perfect Priest of the perfect new Law and light of the Gospel He therefore goes not off blancheth not from the man in misery but comes near him and hath pity on him 34. By the oyl and wine understand the Sacraments of the new Law made as salves to cure the sore of sin which yet literally may be taken for the Samaritans provision in his journey By his own beast may here be understood the humanity of Christ taking upon his back all our sins to ease us of the burthen 35. By the two pence given the hoste may be understood the Sacrament of the Eucharist consisting of two natures in Christ Divine and humane The hoste may signifie the Deacon or the Priest of the new Law or the Priest assisting the Bishop in administration of the holy Eucharist By what he should supererogate is here understood what he should spend in cure of this man above the two pence held sufficient he would repay and here is grounded the Catholick doctrine of works of supererogation which Hereticks allow not of And by this Parable is insinuated that what the old Law had not power to do for recovery of the wounds in corrupted nature the new Law by way of the Priests and Sacraments thereof is sufficient for and so can save even all the corrupted seed of Adam by the virtue they have from the passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ 36. Christ doth not intend to ask which of these was neighbour to the wounded man for all men are truly neighbours each to other but onely which behaved himself like a neighbour 37. Here you see Christ by a question makes the Doctour be his own instructer commends his answer and tells him if he will be saved he must not onely know but do the law of charity and this whilest he bids him do to all men as the Samaritan did to the Jew to enemy as well as friend to bad as well as good Christians if the bad one be in misery Thus Christ hath made curiosity the cause of sincerity and dissimulation the cause of truth in this entrapping Lawyer and no marvail since he alone is able to cull good out of bad The Application 1. THis dayes Epistle taught us a due regard to the Law of God least breaking it we loose the hopes of heaven and all the expectation of the happy promises God made to those who keep his holy Law This Gospel tells us now how to keep that Law By loving our neighbour as we love our selves by loving him for that dear Jesus sake to whom he is probably much more dear then we as happily offending God lesse however most displeasing us who are still lesse pleased with others when we our selves do most displease the heavenly Majesty So 't is not indeed what others do to us that ought to trouble us but our omitting that we ought to do to please Almighty God and purchase heaven by keeping of his holy Lawes which then our Saviour sayes are kept when we
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
alone damning without redemption for he that beleeveth not shall be condemned Mar. c. 16. v. 16. 10. Againe he shall argue them of Iustice that is hee shall accuse them of injustice shewing to the Jewes all their ceremoniall rites and Lawes did not render them just nor would all the morall vertues of the Gentiles that were infidels justifie them in the sight of God because none could render them just there but Jesus Christ who for that purpose went to his Father to tell him these onely shalt thou justifie who beleeve aright in me who renounce the ceremoniall Law of the Jewes the humane Law of the Gentiles and follow the divine Law that I have left them who alone have redeemed them and can alone save those that keep my Law that can make them truly just in the sight of men and Angels and of God himselfe it is very pretty what Saint Bernard saith of these words Ser. 12. The Holy Ghost doth argue the world of sinne because it dissembles of Justice which it doth not rightly order while it attributes the same to man not to God of Judgement which it usurpes while it judgeth rashly not onely of it selfe but of others too 11. Lastly he shal argue the world of Judgement is diversely understood by some that the Holy Ghost shal shew the world made a false judgement of Christ his Miracles holding them to be witchcrafts or workes of the devil by others that he shal argue men of sloath to be overcome by the wounded and conquered devil for want of diligence to resist him by others of cousenage to put their hopes in the devil who himselfe is damned and can save no man by others and those best of all that the Holy Ghost shal argue men of Judgement in shewing them how justly they deserve damnation who follow for their guides the damned devil and all his wayes and workes and this when he shal make the Apostles cast out devils out of the visible Temples where they were as Idols adored for God and out of the invisible Temples the soules of men whom they had possessed both by their foule persons presence and by the guilt of enormious sinne cast out by Sacramental grace of holy pennance 12. Christ here alludes to the mysteries of Faith the conversion of the Gentiles the foundation of the Churches and Government thereof by his Vicar by the Bishops and Priests in a Hierarchical way all which he left to be the product of the holy Ghost and things deeper then for novices to be able at first to dive into in whose eyes the carnal and ceremonial Rights of the Jewish Churches or Synagogues rather were too fresh as yet and their souls were not sufficiently illuminated to attend to higher matters and those altogether spiritual whence we may gather that even the Apostles had by the coming of the holy Ghost new lights and did daily increase in the knowledge of the mysteries of Faith and Religion according to that of the Proverbs Cap. 4. v. 18. The ways of the just are like light shining and increasing to high noon day whence the Primitive Church is compared to be quasi aurora consurgens like the dawning of the day Cant. 6.9 and proceeding brighter and brighter daily till she come to the brightness of the latter day when all her Saints shall enter like so many noon-time Suns into the kingdom of Heaven 13. When for the reasons above he shall come who is the spirit of Truth he shall teach you all Truth that you are capable off and that is fit you should know to guide your own and others souls to Heaven For he shall not speak of himself but what he shall hear since t is not what he alone says but what my Father and I say too that he shall tell you so all he says shall be as we all three determine nor shall he speak as men do out of their fancy no but just as I have taught you before and as my Father and I will have him tell you hereafter not as fables but as undoubted Truths which are of eternal Verity so look how Christ said his doctrine was not his own but his Fathers that sent him in like manner the truth which the holy Ghost shall teach is not his own onely but joyntly the Fathers and the Sons from whom he doth proceed and from whom he was sent And he shall tell you things to come by this is understood the Apostles were to have the Spirit of Prophesie as Actor 11. v. 18 20. v. 19 21. v. 11. we may read nor is St. Johns Apocalypse other then a continued Prophesie from one end to the other Nor was it requisite Christ his Apostles should be inferiourly gifted to any of the Ministers of God in the old Law and this gave great comfort and encouragement to the Apostles since naturally men desire to know future things by future things also venerable Bede understandeth things of Heaven of Grace and of Glory as who should say the Apostles shall not be onely able to guide you here but to set you safe into a blessed Eternity and future Kingdom that shall never end 14. He shall glorifie me when he shall confirm the world in the belief of my being the Messias expected God and man the Saviour of the World He shall receive of mine for he shall proceed from my Father and me and receive the Divine Essence one and the same in all the three Persons of the Trinity and consequently his Will shall be mine his Science mine his Doctrine mine where note the Text doth not say he shall receive me but of mine because he is a distinct Person from the Son and though he receive not the filiation by his procession he receives the Essence of the Son so that is to receive of him and yet not him nor to be him And thus he gave compleat content to the Apostles seeing they did passionately love him to tell them the Comforter he was to send them should supply his absence by teaching them as he had done by loving them as he did since he received his doctrine from him and his affection too The Application 1. THe whole scource of this Gospel is to beget belief in the Apostles that our Saviours departure from them was for their good and that the Primary effect of the coming of the holy Ghost was to beat down the sin of Infidelity as who should say it were the sin of sins not to believe in Jesus Christ and not to obey all his commands in vertue of that belief 2. What should then be the Practice of us Christians at this time but to use all means possible to fortifie our Faith as the greatest Bulwork against all sin whatsoever and indeed what is it else but a kinde of Infidelity not to do according as we are taught by the rules of Faith that is not to make all our actions tend to the sole will and pleasure of Almighty God since if
mysteries which we have faithfully received we may be purged from sinne and delivered from all dangers On the fifth Sunday after Easter The Prayer O God from whom all good things do proceed grant unto thy humble supliants that we may thinke on those things which are good thou inspiring us and thou governing us we may put the same in execution The Secret REceive O Lord the Prayers of the faithfull with the oblations of their sacrifices that by these offices of pious devotion we may passe into eternall glory The Post-Communion GRant unto us O Lord who are filled with the vertue of the heavenly Table that wee may desire those things which are right and receive what we desire On Sunday within the Octaves of Ascension The Prayer OMnipotent Eternal God grant us ever to have our wills devoted and our hearts sincerely bent unto the service of thy Divine Majesty The Secret MAy the Immaculate Sacrifices purifie us O Lord and afford unto our souls the Vigor of supernal Grace The Post-Communion BEing replenished with thy holy Gifts grant unto us we beseech thee that we may always remain in thanksgiving FINIS THE THIRD PART Of the first TOME On the Feast of Pentecost OR On WHIT-SUNDAY The Antiphon ACTS 2. v. 1. ON this day are compleat all the dayes of Pentecost Allelujah This day the holy Ghost did appear to the Disciples in fire and gave unto them gifts of graces sent them over all the world to preach and testifie that he which shall believe and be baptized shall be saved Alleluja Vers The Apostles did speak with divers tongues Alleluja Resp The wonderfull works of God Alleluja The Prayer O God who on this day hast taught the hearts of the Faithfull by the Illumination of the holy Ghost grant unto us in the same Spirit to relish those things that are right and ever to rejoyce in his consolation The Illustration IF we look back to the three last Sundayes-prayers we shall find them all as it were preparatives to this which we now make to day of relishing those things that are right and rejoycing in the consolation of the holy Ghost And indeed our B. Saviours whole life and death had no other aim then by making God man to winn man into an affection of deity and of being content to become God and when by the last mystery of humane redemption as far as lay on our Saviours part his glorious Ascension we were brought to devote our wills and our hearts affections sincerely to the service of Almighty God now we are led into that holy School and unto that heavenly Master where we shall be taught how to set our hearts right to his heavenly Majestie and this by the Illumination of the holy Ghost which that we may do the better see how to day we pray that in the same Spirit we may relish those things which are right and rejoyce in the consolation thereof as if in this School flesh and bloud were to have no place which had so far and so long mis-led us and indeed the very Apostles themselves so long as they looked upon Jesus Christ as man they did not relish the pure service of Almighty God they were not set right in their hearts affections they doted upon flesh and bloud and so fell into the errours thereof S. Peter of denying Christ in his afflictions S. Thomas of doubting of his Resurrection but we never heard that after the coming of the holy Ghost any of the Apostles fell into those or any other errours in the rectitude of their service towards Almighty God but were alwayes in the right and took content in nothing that was wrong or swarving from the doctrine of their Master our Saviour Jesus Christ And why this Because the holy Ghost who was the Spirit of Truth had possessed them and taught them all truth and made them not onely relish it but disrelish all things that were contrary thereunto Nor is it without reason that erring man in his most solemn prayer should beg the grace of God to relish what is right for we never please our selves with what we do not relish nor do we ever relish what displeaseth us whereas to relish what is right is to relish at least what is pleasing unto God however it doth oftentimes nor please our selves and therefore in this grand day when we are to be weaned from the nurse of flesh and bloud and brought into the school of Spirit and are to ask our Master a boon now we see his hands full of bounty and benevolence we are taught to beg that we may relish and take content in whatsoever is right towards God be it never so averse to our selves because our teeth being set on edge with flesh and bloud and our mouths quite out of taste with Spirituall food nothing is of more import to us then that we may relish such meat as we must hereafter live and nourish by Spirituall consolations not earthly delectations any more for the first set us and our hearts affections right to God the last draws us headlong to death Now it will be the least of our cares to day to adjust this prayer unto the Epistle since this is altogether of the coming down of the holy Ghost into the school of spirituall comfort where he is to reade his lessons to mens hearts as this prayer tells us and as we read Jerem. 31.33 I will write my law in their hearts whence it is holy Church to day takes the Antiphon out of the Epistle rather then out of the Gospel and yet rather makes it then takes it for though the sense be the same neverthelesse the letter is not so which perhaps was mysteriously contrived to shew that as soon as the holy Ghost came down to teach the Church was able of her self to reade a lesson to her children and immediately we see S. Peter preached but indeed as the Gospels ever tell us the stories of our Saviour's life so the Acts of the Apostles tell us the history of the holy Ghost first that of the fact when and how he came next that of the effect how prodigiously he wrought in the hearts of those he did descend upon so the Epistle being to day out of the Acts of the Apostles is as the gospel of the holy Ghost made the place whence Preachers take their texts or whereunto at least they drive the design of all their Sermons And to this the prayer is apparently suited yet it is not therefore unsuitable to the Gospel also of the day wherein S. John tells us in our Saviours name he that loveth me observes my words which is in effect to say doth relish my words doth relish that which is right for nothing more right then the word of God since we may take that for verity and rectitude it self especially being taught us by the holy Ghost who this Gospel tells was to come purposely to teach us truth the truth of that word by the
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
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
because they were commanded absolutely by the Patriarchs and Prophets being themselves servants of God though masters of the people who were indeed Lords of all Gods graces and favours since no nation shared thereof beside the Jews 2. The Apostle follows his example and proves there is no difference between a Lord under the command of Tutors and Governours and a meer servant since this Lord or heir is not all the while of his Minority to rule and command but to obey his stewards and governours who are then the Fathers and shall after be their young Pupills servants too and this time in those dayes of the old Law lasted till the heir was twenty five yeers of age 3. The Apostle here applyes this argument to himself formerly of the Jewish Religon and consequently an infant or little one in the line of those that are Gods true servants namely Christians serving God onely under the Alphabet of a religious Law that is under the letter or Elements of the world which were the old Law all the rule men had to serve God by and then saith the Apostle we were like little ones young lords and masters by birth-right of our Judaism yet nothing different from servants since we had that Law but as an Usher to bring us up and deliver us over to another much better indeed a most perfect Law of Grace whereunto the old Law was a meer type or figure a meer Element or Alphabet of a true Law Note by the Elements of the world are here understood the letter of the law given to the men of the world in those at least who were the select thereof the Jewes for if the world were here taken for other than the men thereof the Elements of the naturall world were to bee understood earth aire water and fire but since by the world is meant the people thereof therefore Element here stands for the letter of the old ceremoniall and servile Law whence the Apostle here useth the word of serving very aptly for there are three servings in this word related unto The First that of heathens serving their Idols as their Gods The second that of the Jews serving God by their impure creatures ordered unto Gods service The last that of Christians serving God by pure creatures not by Idols nor by bloudie sacrifices but by such as in Sacraments are sanctifyed and so are more than Jewish Elements of sanctity as the Rhemists Annotations have at large expressed though true it is many by the elements here understand also the festivall and solemn dayes moneths and yeares which the Jews very superstitiously observed and made themselves indeed not onely servants thereof but even slaves unto them and this because in the tenth verse of this Chapter S. Paul mentions their formalities upon these dayes moneths times and yeares 4. By the fulnesse of time is here literally understood that time when Christ by the authority of his Father sending him for that purpose came to abrogate the servile law of the Jews and to deliver us a more filiall law of love liberty and grace for then was the time of the old law filled up when it was no longer to remain when we were no more to bee under the Ushers and Tutors of Religion but under Christ himself the true Lord and master of the whole and specially of the Christian world That the Son of God sent unto us is here said to be made of a woman wants not a deep sense namely to shew he was not begotten nor conceived of his fathers seed but was made and framed wholly out of the pure substance and blood of his blessed mother the Virgin Mary where we are to note the word woman in this place doth not signifie any commixture or corruption which doth accompany the losse of virginity when maids passe from their virginal purity to the impurer state of corrupted woman but woman here signifies directly the sex or female kinde of man and so in that sense is competent even to a virgin who is also of the female Sex again he was said to be made of a woman to declare the falsity of the Valentinian and Anabaptistick heresies teaching Christ to have been made of some aeriall and not of an earthly substance as if he had brought his body ready made in the heavens out of some aeriall combinations into the womb of the virgin and had not received his flesh from her whereas the true Christian doctrine teacheth he was flesh of her flesh and bone of her bones He is further said to be made under the Law not that by right he was subject thereunto even as man because his person was divine by the union of his two natures making but one onely sacred and divine person so called from his principal his divine nature but that indeed he was pleased to subject himself to the law though of right he were above it and thus he vouchsafed also to undergo voluntarily the law of circumcision rather to take it honourably away than to subject us to so dishonourable a slavery as that of the Old Law was 5. This Verse reports to the former and makes that to be the cause why Christ subjected himself to the Law of servitude namely because by his so doing he might redeem those who truly were under the servile Law and that by this Redemption we might all receive the Adoption of Sons and by a new filiation become the children of Grace nay even Heirs of God and Coheires of Christ who were formerly bastards and slaves of the Devil whence Saint Bernard sayes well upon this place Therefore God became Man that Man might become God And we must further note here that this our happy Adoption which is made by the means of Grace doth not onely give us right to the Inheritance of God but to a participation even of the Divine Nature it self according to S. Paul Rom. 8. ver 15. where it was said we became True Sons of God by the holy Ghost communicating himself unto us and so making us true Children of Christ God and Man if any doubt of this truth let him read what Cornelius à Lapide excellently proves to this purpose upon the place of Saint Paul his Epistle above cited and what will be said more to this purpose on the eighth Sunday after Pentecost in this Book We are lastly to note that not onely the just who are now under the Law of Grace but even those just who were under the Law of Moses were also the Adopted Sons of God however the Apostle calls them here Servants and not Sons First because though they were the true Sons of God yet they were not in the state of liberty competent unto such Children Secondly because they had not their right to this inheritance or fâ—liation by vertue of the Law under which they lived but by a speciall prerogative of Grace and Faith infused into them of Christ his being to come and so they were rather belonging to
the Old than to the New Law Thirdly because in that state they were in they did want the fruit of Adoption because when they dyed Just yet they could not partake of Heaven the now immediate reward of such blessed Soules as they were in regard Christ had not opened the gates thereof to mortalls by his first entring into Heaven as was fit he should since all others were to follow upon his Title not upon their own Lastly because Christ by exempting us from the servitude of the Old Law gave us the right of claime to the Spirit of Adoption which was that of the New Law taught by Christ and affirmed by the holy Ghost 6. This Verse clearly shewes the truth of the Doctrine above delivered since to declare we were partakers of the Divine Filiation God sent us the Spirit of his Son Divine the holy Ghost as who should say it is a true signe we are partakers of the Divine Nature because we have the Divine Spirit in us though this Spirit doth rather shew we are the Sons of God than make us such as the Signe shews the thing to be there where the Signe of the thing is for indeed we are the Children of God by the merits of Christ his passion since the true Adoptive cause the root of our filiation is the Son of God his Incarnation for thence we become God because God became Man so the grace of the holy Ghost or his Spirit abounding in us is rather the signe than the cause of our Adoption or filiation since our adoption is by Christ and the proof thereof is by his holy Spirit abiding in us not that this spirit of the holy Ghost is an empty signe but that besides the signe it is of our filiation to God it is also the same God with the Father and the Son really and truly sanctifying of us and uniting himself unto us by his holy Grace as well as he unites us to the actuall participation of our Saviours Passion at the same instant when he gives us his Grace and thereby teacheth us to cry Abba Father that is to say O Heavenly Father look upon us as thy Children being made so by the passion of thy Son and declared to be so by the coming of the holy Ghost amongst us into our hearts inabling them with a loud pious affection though sometimes their lips move not to cry unto thee in that filiall voice which ever opens the ears of thy mercy towards us and makes thee often ask us as thou didst silent Moses thus internally and silently crying to thee What doe you cry unto me for Exod. 14. ver 15. my dearest Children what doe you want it is but ask and have 7. Here is a Graecisme or Greek transition from the Second person to the Third as who should say what I speak of you O Galatians adopted as above the like I say of all third Persons even any Gentile so adopted that be he of what Nation he will if he can truly cry Abba Father he is not a Servant but a Sonne of God and if a Sonne he is an Heir also by God that is by Christ who is the Son of God O happy Children of this Heavenly Father who makes all his issue equall Heires and leaves not younger children to the mercy of their Elder brothers for their Patrimony but gives all his whole estate in Heavenly Glory and by that himself for their Patrimony whence Saint Austine sayes well Thou hast created us O Lord to and for thy self and our heart is at no rest untill it have the happinesse to rest in thee nothing lesse than thy self can satiate us and this satiety we enjoy when thy glory appears in us and placeth us in thee The Application 1. LEarn all ye Monarchs of the Times to know this Text forbids you Lord it here as if you were not under Age. The Kingdomes you command you then usurp when you deny obedience to the Church Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords he is the Father of all Christians who hath made no servant Tutour to command us but his Sacred Spouse the holy Church so long as here we live 2. Learn all ye proudest men to stoop to the degree of little ones again now you behold your ancient God become a Child of Man to make you Men children of Almighty God 3. Learn ye that glory to write man to Nature to be but Babes yet to Grace let not Christ remain alone an Infant be every Christian at the least an Innocent to keep him company while holy Church recounts his Cradle-dayes And Prayes that as children unable to doe manly acts our selves we may be directed in the pleasure of our Heavenly Father by doing nothing but in the Name of his onely Sonne who knowes best what will please him and make us deserve well at his Holy Hands by abounding in good Works The Gospel LUKE 2. ver 33. c. 33. ANd his Father and Mother were marvelling upon those things which were spoken concerning him 34. And Simeon blessed him and said to Mary his Mother Behold this is set unto the ruine and unto the resurrection of many in Israel and for a signe which shall be contradicted 35. And thine own soul shall a sword pierce that out of many hearts cogitations may be revealed 36. And there was Anne a prophetesse the daughter of Phanuel of the Tribe of Aser she was far stricken in dayes and had lived with a Husband seven years from her Virginity 37. And she was a widdow untill eighty and four years who departed not from the Temple by fasting and prayers serving night and day 38. And she at the same hour suddenly coming in Confessed to our Lord and spake of him to all that expected the redemption of Israel 39. And after they had wholly done all things according to the Law of our Lord they returned into Galilee into their City Nazareth 40. And the Child grew and waxed strong full of wisdom and the grace of God was in him The Explication 33. NOte here Saint Ioseph is not called Christ his Father as Nurses husbands are called Foster-fathers to the children whom their wives give suck unto though they never did beget those children but further and yet more really because Jesus was the true and naturall Child of the Blessed Virgin Mary being joyned in reall Wedlock with Saint Ioseph though she never did accompany her husband in the Marriage bed so his paternity was more than nutritious and yet less than naturall because Jesus was onely the Son of Ioseph marryed to the Virgin Mary but never having knowledge of her Body and therefore he is called the putative or esteemed Father of Christ for all he never did beget him meerly because his wife did truly bear him and was his naturall Mother though by a meanes supernaturall to wit the over-shadowing of the holy Ghost These his Parents are here said to be marvelling not that they were perhaps
the will to it Thus these Baptismal vertues make of children men hence the Graces of the Holy Ghost brook no delay but make an Infant Christian as soon the Masculine sacrifice as he is able to be the Sacrificant O Happy Christianity 2. And 't is great reason that new creatures should operate according to the newnesse of their Being Since therefore we are all by Baptism newly made to be children of God who were born slaves of the Divell it is but reason we embrace the Apostles counsell here and live reformed according to the newness of our mind who have new Beings given us such as propend to a conformity unto the will of God and renounce all self-will for ever As then that Renunciation was made last Sunday so this Conformation must be made from this day forward 3. Now least we should erre in this Conformity the close of this Epistle tells us how to scape that Errour by a sweet subordination unto one another such as may make up the mysticall body of Christ which Christians are as perfect as our naturall bodies bee whose every member is subordinate unto the Head whilst they remain subservient to one another and the Head commands them Learn therefore subject Christians to be dutifull to your superiours Learn Commandants to live your selves obedient to the great Commander of us all And that we may learn these Lessons let us pray as above The Gospel Luke 2. ver 42. c. 42. ANd when he was twelve years old they going up into Hierusalem according to the custome of the Festivall day 43. And having ended the dayes when they returned the child Jesus remained in Hierusalem and his parents knew it not 44. And thinking that he was in the companie they came a daies journey and sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance 45. And not finding him they returned into Hierusalem seeking him 46. And it came to passe after three dayes they found him in the Temple sitting in the midst of the Doctors hearing them and asking them 47. And all were astonished that heard him upon his wisdome and answers 48. And seeing him they wondered and his mother said to him Son Why hast thou so done to us Behold thy Father and I sorrowing did seek Thee 49. And he said unto them what is it that you sought mee did you not know that I must be about those things which are my Fathers 50. And they understood not the word that he spake unto them 51. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them And his mother kept all these words in her heart 52. And Jesus proceeded in wisedome and age and grace with God and men The Explication 42. THe twelve years of the childs age are here specified to shew that Jesus who was not onely Doctor of the heavenly chaire but even the wisedome it self of his heavenly Father lost no time in taking hold of all opportunities offered unto him to shew how great a zeal he came withall from heaven to teach and play the Doctors part on earth so as at the twelfth year of age childhood expires and youth begins in us to spell man at least if not to write it wholly Jesus who was as wise an Infant as a youth would not before the years of discretion assume unto himself the office of a Teacher but so soon as by course of nature he was held among men capable of discourse and judgement then he mixed himself mostestly amongst the Doctors in the Temple to shew he came not thither to play the boy as children at that age doe but the man assoon as men would look upon him for such who knew no more of him than what they saw They vvho are here said to goe up into Jerusalem according to the custome of the Festivall Day which was that of the Jewish Easter or Pascha were Jesus Mary and Joseph the childs Mother and Father as also with them wee may presume there went diverse others of their allies and kindred as the custome was for friends to goe in troops together to this celebrated Feast once a year from all neighbouring Countries that being the Metropolis or head City of the Jewes where the grand Synagogue was held 43. The dayes that are here mentioned to be ended were those seven daies which they held continually solemn as now the Catholick Church doth the Octaves of the greatest Feasts in the year consisting of eight solemn dayes to shew that as by seven of those dayes we consecrate all time to God as well that of work as that of rest so by the eighth day we offer up unto him here all the eternity wherein we hope to rest with him in glory after we have ended our laborious time upon earth and by this we give testimony that the Evangelicall Law is much more perfect than the Iewish in regard we labour here in hope of eternal rest and this by the prescript of our law whereas the Law of the Jewes was onely temporary and so prescribed order for no further than the time they lived here upon earth which whole time was mystically represented by their Feast of seven day s continuance and ours hath one day more to shew that we hope for a blessed Eternity after time is gone Here then the Story tells us the Parents of Iesus returned to Nazareth after the seven dayes of this solemnity were ended which yet was more than others spent in the celebrating this festivity for none were tyed to be there all the dayes thereof it being sufficient that they appeared once upon any one of the seven Festivall dayes but as the Devotion of this humane Trinity of Saints Iesus Mary and Ioseph was greater than that of others so they spent the whole time of this Festivity in continuall Prayer and Devotion which time being ended and Iesus having asked leave of his Parents to goe visite some of his kindred whilst they were getting things ready to return home again it was through God Almighties permission that he by this slight gat loose from his Parents making a very short stay with those he went to see nor did he make a false pretence though he concealed the other truth of his further meaning partly out of humility to cover his devotion which lead him to a longer stay in the Temple partly to let his parents see that however they were holy Saints yet they were not exempt from the infirmities of humane nature and so though not sinning therein were short of that home-care they ought to have had of keeping Jesus alwayes in their own eyes as thinking him safe enough for so short a time amongst his kindred hence it was they knew not that their charge stayd behinde them in Ierusalem 44 45. So thinking he had been with his kindred where they presum'd at night to find him but missing of him they returned a dayes journey back full of trouble and yet were carryed on with the comfort of hope
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
of the holy Altar and the touch of all their Omnipotent Powers in the Sacrament of Confession See now Beloved how aptly we doe pray to Day to have the Right-hand of the Divine Majesty extended over our infirmity when the Preachers tell us by the touch of the Deity we are cured of all Diseases On the fourth Sunday after the EPIPHANY The Antiphon MAT. 8. ver 25. O Lord save us we perish Command and cause O God tranquilitie Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who knowest us to be set in so great dangers that we cannot through humane frailty subsist grant unto us health of minde and body that what we suffer for our Sins thou helping us we may overcome The Illustration THe last Sundayes Prayer exhibited the horrour of sin unto us under the notion of diseases This of dangers which we finde so great and wherein we are so openly set that humane frailty considered wee are not able to subsist And therefore against these extrinsecall dangers we beg of God this day as an intrinsecall Protectrice health at least of body and of mind that since in punishment for our sins wee must suffer to be thus exposed to dangers we may be able Gods holy grace assisting us to overcome them This may suffice to render unto every soul the sense of this delicious prayer what remains will be to shew how apposite it is to the Epistle and Gospel of the day which Two are generally allowed to have a pious report to one another and consequently if the prayer be set to the tune of either it must agree with both by the undeniable rule of Schools When any two things are one and the same with a third they must both be so with one another but here the Prayer agrees cleerly enough with the Gospel therefore it cannot be discordant to the Epistle and indeed what more pat to the Gospel relating th Apostles dangers in a tempest at Sea than this prayer altogether deprecating dangers so the difficulty will be to make a harmony between the Epistle and it wherein there is no sillable of danger openly expressed and yet upon reflection we shall find regard enough to danger therein for first the grand Pellitorie the most potent repeller of all dangers meets us in the Van of this Epistle Love whereof S. Paul sayes It is the chaser of all fears out of doors and consequently must needs bee free from all dangers which ever inforce fears upon us timorous Leverets of corrupted nature but further see a prohibition palpable in our eyes in the next Verse of this Epistle Thou shalt not commit Adultery and prohibitions are ever opposites to dangers indeed preventers of them so 't is a sign the Epistle hath regard enough to those dangers which the Prayer deprecates but the last verse comes home to this sense telling us The love of our neighbour worketh no evill that is no danger for evils are the greatest of all other dangers therefore love is the best buckler against dangers in regard it is the fulnesse of the Law which is never made but to prevent the dangers we incurre by the prevarication thereof For to the Iust there is no Law put 1 Tim. 1.9 And thus wee see from first to last a totall exhausting of the Epistle and Gospel by the admirable Piety of this dayes Prayer The Epistle ROM 13. vers 8. c. 8. OWe no man any thing but that you love one another For he that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the Law 9. For Thou shalt not commit advoutry Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not bear false witness Thou shalt not covet and if there be any other Commandment it is comprized in this word Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self 10. The Love of thy neighbour worketh no evill Love therefore is the fulness of the Law The Explication 8. SOme misunderstand this place as if it did argue obligation to pay the debt of Love but that all other debts were with all speed to be payd whereas in very truth the sence of this place is quite otherwayes and imports as much as if the Apostle had said what other debts soever you are able to discharge yet never esteem your selfe quit from the debt of Love which you must alwayes owe unto your neighbour though you clear all other accounts debts or scores with him because when this debt in part is payd it inflames the reckoning for the part behind just as fire being blâ—wn or made use of doth more and more enkindle whereas if rak't up in the ashes it soon dies So the more we use charity the more we enkindle and increase it therefore the Apostle saies well that we can never be out of this debt to our neighbour since if we pay him the Love we owe unto him for this day to morrow we shall find our debt of Love inflamed and and grown greater by the very agitation of that divine fire which is the mutuall Love of one another To which purpose S. Augustine Epist 62. ad Coelestin hath an excellent saying SEMPER DEBEO CHARITATEM QUAE SOLA c. Love I must alwaies owe which of all debts though payd yet still keeps a man in bonds And againe CHARITATEM LIBENS REDDO c. I do willingly pay Love and as willingly take it in payment it is a thing which when received I count not my self fully satisfied nor when I repay it discharged Hence we may see how absurdly the Anabaptists and Trinitarians Heresy exploded by this Text all debts of Justice and onely required the debt of Love to stand due for if Charity oblige to doe ultroneous and voluntary good deeds how much more to do Justice but so perfect a payment of all debts is commanded by this place as we see the Apostle saies Who loveth his neighbour fulfilleth the Law because we cannot love him but we must love God for himself and man for God's sake as we love our selves 9. And to confute further the Heresy above mentioned see how this whole verse insists upon Acts of Justice to our neighbour rooted in the commanded Love to them aforesayd Whence some conceive the Apostle alludes onely to the law of the Second Table because here is no mention of any one of the three precepts belonging to the First Table importing our duty to God but S. Austin contends that the love of man being but subordinate to the love of God 1 John 4. v. 7. imports and includes both grounded on those words of S. John Children love one another repeated over and over againe to his friends and being asked why he did so he replied because it is the Precept of our Lord and if this alone be done it is sufficient For our love to God and man is like the lines drawn from the Center to their Circumference be the Center God the Circle man the Lines our affections see then how they
flow between these two extreames the more they approach to the Circle the wider they are but as they recede from the Circle the closer they go till at last they are all concentred in one point Almighty God and so made one heart and one soule amongst our selves hence we see that all the motion our affections have from man to God growes still more and more vigorous and more perfect So S. Austine concludes DILIGE ET FAC QUOD VIS. Love and do what thou please Tract 7. in Epist 1. S. John whereas the Apostle sayes if there be any other precept meaning of the Second Table for of the three belonging to the First Table and that of honouring our parents the first precept of the Second Table he had spoken before at large under the title of Superiour powers Princes and others ending that subject in these words To whom honour honour for that command is in these words Honour thy Father and Mother under which title are included Elders Betters Superiours especially Princes spoken of at large from the first verse of this Chapter to the end of the seventh ending as above to whom honour honour I say whereas the Apostle saies if there be any other Precept it is included in this word Love your neighbour as your selfe we are to note the Precept of love to our neighhour is bipartite as divided into two branches the first whereof is affirmative grounded on these words of S. Matth. Chap. 6. What you will have others doe to you doe you the same to them The second negative in that of Tobit Chap. 4. v. 16. What you hate to have another doe to you see you never do that to another not that this Precept commands an equality but onely a similitude of love to your neighbour with that you beare to your self that is to say as all you desire is honest good delectable to your selfe so desire the like to your neighbour not in equall proportion but in exact similitude distaste him not hurt him not rob him not as you desire he should not distaste hurt nor rob you so the allusion is to similitude not to equality 10. The reason of this is because the object of our love being good the effect thereof must be good also for as none can love evill for evills sake so none can love good for evills sake because true love both makes good the end and medium of its operation as who should say doe I finally ayme at good then good must be the medium leading thereunto so it being good to love our neighbour the operation of this good love cannot be a bad thing Therefore the Apostle concludes The fullnesse of the Law is Love that is to say if we love we fulfill the Law or as Tolet saies The scope or end of the Law is Love or as S. Augustine because love forceth a man to fulfill the Law hence we see Faith alone sufficeth not to satisfie the Law without Acts of Love how absurd is it then to say as hereticks do the Commandements are impossible to be kept when by onely love they are all fulfilled not that so perfect a love can here be hoped for as shall exempt us from veniall sinnes against the Law since such is onely reserved for the next world and performed in the state of Bliss but that we may forbeare mortall sin even in this life if we but love our neighbour as our selves and God appretiatively at least above all things that is to say not so well to love any thing but still to resolve we will rather leave to love it than for its sake cease to love God and surely thus all good Christians doe appretiatively Love God above all things The Application 1. WEll is Love said to be the fullnesse of the Law because the Law commands us nothing else but that we love So to love it to prevent the danger of the Law which is never broken but under paine of penalty Wherefore as last Sunday bids us fly sin as a disease this bids us fly it as a danger 2. Well is the danger of the Law expressed in these negative Commandements for prohibition is the best prevention of a mischief Hence we say forewarn'd and arm'd against all danger whatsoever as new we are especialyl against the dangerous temptations unto what is here prohibited 3. Well doth S. Paul conclude as he began exhorting us to love because love workes no evill now amongst evills danger is not the least and onely not to love is hugely dangerous since we are taught 1 John 3. vers 14. and 1 Cor. 16. v. 21. that he who loveth not remaines in death in the death of that sin he commits against the Law for lack of loving God above all things and his neighbour as himself Say now the Payer above and see how suitable it is to this Epistle The Gospel MAT. 8. v. 23. c. 23. ANd when he entered into the boate his disciples followed him 24. And loe a great tempest arose in the sea so that the boate was covered with waves but he slept 25. And they came to him and raised him saying Lord save us we perish 26. And he saith to them why are ye fearfull O ye of little faith Then rising up he commanded the windes and the sea and there ensued a great calme 27. Moreover the men marvelled saying what an one is this for the windes and the sea obey him The Explication 23. IT was his usuall custome to preach in a boate a little off from the shoare but here it seemes he took boat to avoid the multitude of people that followed him and so both to flie popular applause and to give occasion to this following miracle he took boat and put to Sea with his Disciples 24. Probably our Saviour himself raised this Tempest purposely First to shew he was Lord of all the world both sea and land the figure of which passage S. John in his Apoc. Chap. 10. v. 2. recounts telling how an Angell set his right foot upon the Sea and thereby commanded it at pleasure Secondly to inure his Disciples to tribulation as well at sea as land Thirdly to confirm his Disciples in their Faith of him and some others besides in the company and these may be all true reall causes of the tempest but figuratively wee may believe this Tempest to have been raised to shew the future persecution of the Church of Christ and of a devout soul in temptation and how as by his permission it comes so by his power it shall passe away even when it seemes most severe and when Almighty God seems as it were asleep and not to regard it till by the joynt prayer of the Church he be wakened and made propitious For Seneca himself sayes A mans life without temptation seems like a dead Sea so called for the stillness thereof as if there were no life in the water of it and indeed as in a storm at sea the best man aboard is
in this Verse and the next there is no promise made of a penny which was the just reward of a whole dayes labour but onely of what was just proportionable to the time and merit of their pains which argues for the doctrine of merit asserted by the Catholiques denyed by Hereticks who cannot endure to hear of merit in any but in Christ Nor is there any in men as due to what like men corrupted they doe though to what they doe as more than men that is as elevated above the pitch or reach of nature by grace wee doe allow them merit but still so as this merit receives value from Christ's Passion not from Humane actions onely and consequently Christ merits in them or they in Christ but not in themselves or of themseves 5. This verse puts us in mind that God hath more sollicitude to call us to him than we have of going our selves 6. Here we find an addition of a whole daies idlenesse whereas before there was onely some little loytering objected to those that were called as we heard ver 3. above The reason is that this eleventh houre is the last which can be allowed to losse for at the twelfth Judgement begins and therefore those now called were told they had lost all their former time and were bid go for one hour at least labour to save their soules The former calls we may understand made to the Iewes This latter to the Gentles Origen takes Adam to signifie them called at the first hour Paul to signifie them called at the latter hour 7. Hear the reason given by these last called why they came no sooner because no man did sooner hire them and to this excuse the rationall master makes no reply as not willing to blame where there was no fault and certainely there is none in those who come not before God calls them for it is impossible any corrupted nature should look towards heaven were it not that Gods holy grace propends than that way To these therefore it was onely said well goe now at last that I doe call you imploy this last hour to Gods honour and glory where observe nothing is promised not that these shall need feare to receive no reward but that they shall humbly acknowledge the little they can doe in so short a time as this life affords us is not worthy so great a reward as heaven and that thence Gods infinite goodnesse may appear the more giving to the least minute of holy labour an everlasting crown of glory for our rewards a gallant incouragement indeed to all noble soules and enough to give noble thoughts and hopes to the most abject spirits 8. By evening is here meant the day of doome by the Bayliffe Origen understands S. Michael or the Angels guardian of each soule summoning men to this latter Judgement and leaving them to receive the publike reward or punishment as formerly they had done the private but better is Christ understood to be the Bayliffe here of his heavenly Father paying each soule the hire of his labours though some conceive the holy Ghost may be the rewarder as he is by his grace given the Caller and Imployer of Soules in the Vineyard or Church of Christ The reason why the penny is here called a reward is because a reward is not a thing given answerable to time or paines but to merit and therefore the distribution of this reward is said to begin first with those who were last called because the grace whereby the Apostles and Gentiles were made servants of God and Labourers in Christs Vineyard was infinitely more valuable than that whereby the Iewes were called and consequently no marvell if in an houres time it caused more merit in Christians than in all the ages before it had caused among the Iewes 9. There was but a penny promised the first comers and the last receiveing as much were in that regard preferred and made as it were the first because they received equall reward for unequall labour but since all reward was gratuite as respecting the party rewarded no marvell the rewarder gave his bounties as he pleased though he would vouchsafe them the title of rewards 10 11 12. The greatest difficulty we have here is to explicate what is meant by murmur in that sence of the parable which makes the last to be saved soules for those who understand them out-casts from glory will not scruple to say the damned soules live not onely in eternal murmur but in open mutiny and rebellion against Almighty God for saving the Blessed and not them too but we may piously acquiesce here to Suarez and Vasquez their interpretation of murmur in the last blessed to see the first so strangely above their merits rewarded not that this admiring murmur is the least repining but the most extatick admiration of the infinite goodnesse of Almighty God first in saving any Iewes at all since they had butchered his sacred Sonne next in giving an endelesse crown of Glory to an instantaneous time of labour in the Gentiles This I say we shall rather give to those renowned men for a plausible exposition of this hard place than contrast with them the solidity thereof unlesse a better could be found out By the burden of the day and the beates we may here understand the long time w th the Iewes groaned under the dark law of Nature or tormenting Law of Moses from Adam to Christ which was the duration of the Iewish Synagogue and the hot persecution the Iewes groaned under not onely when the Romanes first sack'd Ierusalem and destroyed it with the greatest number of the Jewish nation but while the subjection of the Iewes lasts even to the worlds end they being the scorne of men for ever in a just revenge of their scorning the most beautifull among the Sonnes of men CHRIST JESUS 13 14. These two verses shew that first there was no injustice done to him who had the just reward of his labours which he contracted for next a contracted bragaine with one hinders not an ultroneous reward to another if a man please to bestow his bounty upon those who never laboured to deserve it since it is free for any man to dispose of his own as best pleaseth himself 15. This is a friendly expostulation of the Master with the Servants who needed not have given other reason for his will but his own pleasure and though here he give no other yet it is a vouchsafing in him to give that since the murmur was unjust where no injustice was done and indeed this place shewes how truely S. Austine saies That when God rewards man he crownes his own not the workes of men 16. According to the first sense of this parable explicated as above The last first are the blessed not onely called but chosen and these are in number few and the first last are the damned not chosen but called onely and for not answering the expectation of their calling are damned and
we are else below our high designe of connecting all the parts of this days service each to other and yet perhaps we are no further from the matter then he is from twenty several shillings of silver who hath in his pocket one onely single piece of gold for as in that is virtually all the silver he desires so in this golden Prayer are all the silver Sentences of the Epistle and Gospel of this day The merited affliction we confess to lye upon us as condigne punishment of our actions exhausts the First the consolatory Grace we beg to be our comfort draws out each letter of the last For what is the Action we merit affliction by but that of our common Parent contracted by us in the guilt of original Sin and which makes our Mothers Agars us all Ishmaels by our first birth to nature to this worlds Sinai or Jerusalem what is Baptism but our second Birth when holy Church becomes our Mother Sarah and we her Isaacs both children of the caelestial Abraham and heirs to Sion or the heavens Jerusalem and what our actual Sin but a degenerating into our former bondage in this Prayer called the merited affliction of our sinful actions and what remedy for all this but the last verse of the Epistle knitting up to the Gospel the consolatory grace of redemption to be our petitioned comfort as often as we do pennance for our reiterated sins And see this grace figuratively represented by the miracle mentioned in the Gospel for what better Embleme of the grace we beg then these Two natures of Food to our bodies Fish and Bread Types of the Humanity and Divinity of Christ in the blessed Sacrament the very source of all Grace Comfort and Consolation And why this called the Sunday of Joy but because God will have us comforted with the memory of a Spiritual Feast in the very midst of our corporal Fast for in very deed these five thousand people fed better on the feast of Faith then on that of fish and bread though they were full of both and thus we break happily out of the cloud of doubt into the cleer Sun of certainty that this Prayer holds mystically at least a sweet and pious harmony with the other parts of this days service The Epistle ad Gal. c. 4. v. 22. c. 22 For it is written that Abraham had two Sons one of the bond-woman and one of the free-woman 23 But he that of the bond woman was born according to the flesh and he that of the free woman by the promise 24 Which things are said by an Allegory For these are the two Testaments The one from mount Sina gendering unto bondage which is Agar 25 For Sina is a Mountain in Arabia which hath affinity to that which now is Jerusalem and serveth with her children 26 But that Jerusalem which is above is free which is our Mother 27 For it is written Rejoyce thou barren that bearest not break forth and cry that travailest not because many are the children of the desolate more then of her that hath a husband 28 But we brethren according to Isaac are the children of promise 29 But as then he that was born according to the Flesh persecuted him that was after the Spirit So now also 30 But what saith the Scripture Cast out the bond-woman and her son for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman 31 Therefore brethren we are not the children of the bond-woman but of the free by the freedom wherewith Christ hath made us free The Explication 22. NOte it was then lawful beside the wife to have concubines so Abraham had for his wife Sara for his concubine Agar Sara his wife was a Free-woman and of her he begat Isaac Agar his concubine was a Bond-woman and of her he begat Ishmael 23. That is to say Agar the concubine was a young and fruitful woman so no marvel though Abraham were an old man that he gat a childe by the force of nature upon a young woman and she fertil too hence Ishmael is said to have been begotten and born according to the flesh that is by the due course of nature but Isaac was not begotten nor born thus but according to promise that is miraculously since God had promised Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth shall be Blessed and so that this seed might be lawful heir to the promised Benediction it was of necessity it should be the son of Abrahams wife not of his concubine since the concubine was a bond-woman whose issue could not inherit the Fathers estate wherefore to make this promise good God gave power to Sara a steril and aged woman to conceive and bring forth a son miraculously and this son is therefore called the son of the promise not of nature the son of grace not of flesh and blood and his name was Isaac 24. Here the Apostle professeth to speak Allegorically that is mystically or figuratively comparing these two women of Abraham to the two Testaments Old and New by Agar he means the Old by Sara the New Testament So when in this verse he sayâ— which things are said he means these things which he spake in the two verses before and in the following verses we shall finde so much Allegory as therein use will be made of all the several Senses which in speech are used so that upon the literal sense of Agars natural and Sara's supernatural son follows the Allegorical sense that these two women signifie the two Testaments hence follows the Tropological v. 29. that as then the natural son did persecute the spiritual so now also and v. 26. we finde the Anagogical sense that the Heavenly Ierusalem is the freeborn-woman and our Mother This premised we shall better understand what follows As for the two Testaments they are so called because they contain the two Pacts or Covenants which God made at several times with his people The first with Moses and the children of Israel which God made by the mediation of an Angel upon the mount Sinai promisâ—ng him and the people of Israel that he would give unto them the land of Canaan flowing with milk and honey whence this is called the land of promise and the people on the other side promised God they would upon this consideration keep the Commandments or Law which he by Moses did deliver to them The second Pact or Covenant was that which God made with Christ and Christians in Ierusalem and Sion where God promised to Christians he would conduct them into the kingdom of Heaven and make them heirs thereof whereupon they promised to keep the Commandments delivered to them by Christ himself and such other precepts as our Saviour should deliver unto them by the mouth of his Apostles and their Successours and this Pact was on both sides ratified at the last Supper of our Lord immediately before his passion as we read in Saint Matthew
Saint Mark Saint Luke and Saint Paul Now the reason why Sinai is said to ingender unto bondage is because the Law which Moses brought the people from Sinai was a Law of terrour punishment and servitude as menacing temporal punishments and corporal death to the infringers thereof and giving onely temporal rewards to the observers of it namely prosperity and plenty in the land of Canaan and this Law is therefore represented by Agar the woman of servitude and bondage whose children could not hope for better condition then that of their parent Agar Hence we may figuratively say that as Abraham Noah Moses and the rest of the Prophets of the old Law were Christians because they served God filially and freely in hope of Christs coming to redeem them so all wicked Christians are Jews serving God onely servilely that is for fear of Hell 25. This vicinity is of Similitude not of Site or Place for between Sinai and Jerusalem lyes a great distance and that tedious by the interposition of the Idumean Mountains so that this vicinity consists in the sterility of Jerusalem producing no fruits of vertue but the meer ceremonial servitude of the Synagogue as Sinai was a very barren ground again as in Sinai this steril law was given so in Jerusalem it was principally kept and as Sinai was out of the land of Promise so this legal or earthly Jerusalem was out of the Church of Christ Militant and triumphant which is the heavenly Jerusalem but lastly and perhaps most appositely to the Apostles Sense as the people who received the law in Sinai were Parents to the Jews of Ierusalem which is a natural vicinity in blood and consequently begets in the Jews the same dispositions of fear and servitude as was in their parents so Ierusalem with her children is by the Apostle called a servant here of fear and not a childe of love 26. whereas the heavenly Ierusalem the mother of Christians is free and bringeth forth children of love not of fear according to that of the Apostle c. Love banisheth or shutteth fear out of doors for in heaven there is no fear at all but a continual and fervent love which rules in that blessed kingdom The Etymology of this word Ierusalem is worthy our remark not that it is derived as Erasmus would have it of Jebus and Salem by both which names it was formerly called but rather of the Hebrew Jire which signifies videbit or shall see and of the old name it had Salem alluding to the mystery which reports unto this change of the name for example the passage between Abrabam and Isaac on the mount Sion when Isaac seeing the fire burn asked his Father Abraham where the victime was that should be sacrificed and Abraham answered God will see to that or provide it whence the mount Sion is called Moria that is to say visio Dei the sight of God as we read Gen. 22. or his provision for that which shall please his Divine Majesty and hence the city which was neer this mountain was called Ierusalem more exactly after the Hebrew written Ierusalem beginning with Iod then with He though the other be as usual as this thorough a common errour in Orthography Now hence it is easie to apply the reason why Heaven is called Ierusalem or Sion since there God hath provided most abundantly for his own glory where he hath made a glory by vertue whereof all the Saints and Angels see his most glorious face and so the Prophets words are verified saying in thy light we shall see light that is in thy light of glory we shall see thy light of Deity an inaccessible however by thy mercy it is become a visible light of comfort to all the blessed court of heaven whose bliss consisteth in the Majesty and Glory of that blissful Sight and is therefore called the beatifical Vision and it is most literally called Ierusalem because as the old Law was given upon mount Sinai so the new was given upon Sion a mount neer to Ierusalem though figuratively it hath this name from being the place of blessed vision or provision as above It is called Free for four respects it hath to freedom First Civil which is opposite to slavish Second Moral which is opposite to the servitude of sin Third Spiritual which is opposite to temporal or corporal and so serves in the freedom of the true Spirit not in the servitude of the binding Letter Fourth Heavenly which is opposite to earthly or transitory She is called fecund or fertil because out of steril Souls bred up in Gentilism she bringeth forth fruitful Christians such as abound in all vertues whatsoever 27. Whence the next verse bids her rejoyce even for this cause of her fecundity joyned to her freedom and though Isai 54. v. 1. bid her rejoyce in her sterility because out of it as out of nothing to be expected from her own barren Gentilism God by his holy Grace brought forth a plentiful Issue of the Church of Christ when the Synagogue of the Jews was antiquated or taken quite away so though she of her self be steril yet she is to rejoyce that out of her sterility springs Christianity as out of barren Sara sprung fruitful Isaac though she travail not with any Homogeneal fruit of her own barren womb yet she is in travail with the Heterogeneal the spiritual fruit of grace so her cry is to be of joy not of sorrow and why because many more are the children of the Church that was desolate when she did first fructifie then were those of the Synagogue that had a husband that was actually and long married unto God but under the notion of a punisher rather then of a rewarder whereas when Christ was espoused to this desolate Church of the Gentiles then God became husband to his Spouse under the notion of a redeemer a rewarder and a Saviour of his people again more are the children of the desolate than of her that hath an husband might be understood comparatively spoken to the time of the primitive Church unto that time of the Synagogue as who should say God hath more servants in the very first days of the primitive Church then he had in all the time that the Synagogue of the Jews did last so fruitfull was the child of the Spirit so barren that of the letter so abundant the child of grace so sparing that of flesh and bloud the reason was because Moses being but a man of flesh and blood was the first-born of the Synagogue but Christ who was both God and Man was the first-born of the Church not that therefore he was not the head and founder thereof but that in the order of Gods decree the first thought was to serve himselfe of his creatures or people regulated in the old Law by a Synagogue in the new by a Church and so by priority of nature as the Schoolemen speake the Jdaea's of Synagogue and Church were first in Gods decree
us whose guilty consciences tell us we deserve a famine in punishment of our sins rather then such a Feast as joys our hungry souls And as by this we see a joyful Communion is an accomplishment of our Lenten Fast so before that Communion we are fitly taught to premise such a Prayer as may first strike into us an act of Contrition and then compleat our Ioy. Say then the Prayer above and see if it be not most propper to this purpose And say it also to force out of us further yet the vertue of Gratitude such as these people shewed to Jesus when they thought to make him presently their King O let us make him the perfect Commander of our hearts-affections he will not fly from that Soveraignty because he doth affect it On Passion Sunday in Lent The Antiphon John 8. v. 56. YOur Father Abraham rejoyced that he might see the day he did see it and was glad Vers Deliver me O Lord from the evil man Resp .. From the wicked man deliver me The Prayer VVE beseech thee Almighty God propitiously behold thy Family that thou giving we may be governed in body and thou reserving we may be preserved in soul The Illustration IUst as your ebbing waters meet yong floods so doth the Edde stream of Lenten fast fall to the banks to day and leaves the Channel for the Churches Prayers to bring the red Sea of the Passion in upon us whence we cal this Passion Sunday Yes yes beloved This is very true and yet I do believe few have observed this to be so God grant that all may see it when 't is made appear out of the Prayer above which I confess was to me as hard as if I had been forc't to pick a lock whereof the proper key was lost and truly where to finde a mention of the Passion in a proper term in all this Prayer I know not but yet this help remains a common key will do as well when proper keys are missing Take therefore the propitious look of God upon us which to day we beg and then believe the door is open to our Saviours Passion for what is that but a propitiation for our sins which we implore when we beseech Almighty God to look propitiously upon his Family and though we use this phrase at other times as well as now yet that forbids not a common key to open a private door nay rather this is indeed the particular key unto the Passion and made common upon all other occasions because that sacred Sea flows over all the other works and mercies of Almighty God gives force and value to all our actions and so is here properly applyed however it hath become a common stile in all our Prayers Now by this key we shall open all the doors of this days Epistle and Gospel for why is Christ his blood a more powerful Sacrifice then that of Oxen Goats and Heyfers in the old Law as this Epistle tells us but because theirs availed onely to a nominal purity This to a real propitiation for all our sins that onely leads us into the Tabernacle of the Arke this into the Tabernacle of glory to conclude this propitious look we begge to day unlocks the Cabinet of the Gospel also and leads us after a long contest between Jesus and the Jewes whether he or they were devils whether he or Abraham were the greater person unto the very first entrance into his Sacred Passion where we should finde them stoning him to death but that he miraculously preserves himselfe for a more ignominious Sacrifice upon the Altar of the holy Crosse for whilest Jesus thus expostulated with the Jewes certainly he did looke propitiously upon the Gentiles in whose behalfe hee so much exasperated the Jewes as they menaced his death And this may suffice to bring our new floud in See now how the Lenten edde meetes the Passion Tyde in a way as strang as true while we are bid begge our sparing meales out of Gods ample giving hand and the preservation of our Soules out of his reserving from us whereas fasting requires a hand which will take away rather then give food to the body and our soules preservation depends upon Gods ever giving hand his adding more and more to his former graces bestowed on us all this is true in one sence and so is the contrary in another for we begge in this Prayer a rule and government of our bodies and that according to the time of Fast whence it follows our meat should be now given us with the same regulating hand of God that knowes best how to proportion food fit for a Fast which we doe not know nor doe we aske absolutely the full-giving hand of God to be extended to us but that which may so give as to reserve withal and hence we pray that thou giving us little food for our bodies they may be wel governed and thou reserving the former plenty we may enjoy at other times our Soules may be preserved from the guilt of those past excesses and so prepared as vessels empty of worldly trumpery to be the more capable of those heavenly treasures that are Sayling towards us upon the red Sea of thy bitter Death and Passion O Blessed Saviour now flowing in upon us The Epistle Heb. 9. v. 11 c. 11 But Christ assisting an High Priest of the good things to come by a more ample and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hand that is not of this creation 12 Neither by the blood of Goats or of Calves but by his own blood entred once into the Holies eternall redemption being found 13 For if the blood of Goats and of Oxen and the ashes of an Heifer being sprinkled sanctifieth the polluted to the cleansing of the flesh 14 How much more hath the blood of Christ who by the Holy Ghost offered himselfe unspotted unto God cleansed your consciences from dead workes to serve the living God 15 And therefore he is the Mediator of the New Testament that death being a mean unto the redemption of prevarications which were under the former Testament they that are called may receive the promise of the Eternall Inheritance The Explication 11 12. HItherto the Apostle in this Chapter had described the manner of the High Priests officiating in the old Law as also he described the Exod. c. 25. c. 26. Tabernacle wherein were placed the Candlesticks the Table and the Bread of proposition and this Tabernacle was called Sanctum The Holy but behinde a Curtaine at the back of this Sanctum there was yet placed another Tabernacle which was called Sanctum Sanctorum or the Hoâ—y of Holies unto which none but the High Priest could goe who there was to offer Sacrifice while the people remained all without praying for themselves as the Priest did for them all and here stood a golden Thurible the Arke of the Testament all guilded over wherein was a golden Shrine which had in it the Manna the two
Tables of the Law and the Cherubins of Glory above this overshadowing the propitiatory and the Apostle told them this way of Sacrificing should last till the time of correction that is untill the first comming of Christ into this world who should correct this manner of proceeding and take away those legall rites and ceremonies by putting in their place a spiritual Sacrifice and worshipping of God not that it is to be understood the old being corrected should stand but be abrogated by command of Christ as we say ill manners are corrected in youth not by remaining in the young man but by being taken away by good behavior and by vertue correcting his former vices so the Apostle having told the Hebrewes thus much of the old way of Sacrificing begins in this verse to shew how Christ assisting taking upon him the office of High Priest of the new law and of the good things to come thereby distinguished the fruits of his Sacrifice from those of the High Priest in the old Law who by assisting officiating at the Tabernacle obtained onely present and temporall benefits but Christ was an High Priest obtaining the good things to come Spirituall and Heavenly things as here remission of sins graces and vertues and in the next world glory blisse and everlasting life and this by entering to keep the Analogy between the old way of officiating and the new first a more ample and perfect Tabernacle that is as some say by his Divinity entering our humanity as others by his entering his Virgin Mothers wombe but the most genuine sence is by his entering into his Church Militant becoming the first member of it as it was framed in the Idaea of his Heavenly Father For so it was not a work of humane hands of flesh and blood or of this creation of creatures making but was indeed the Tabernacle of God the first Sanctum Holy through which he was to passe by the vale of the Crosse into the second Tabernacle Sancta Sanctorum the holy of Holies his Church triumphant the Kingdome of Heaven nor was it necessary for Christ to prepare his way from his outward Tabernacle his Church Militant to his inward his Church triumphant by the bloud of Goates for his own sins since he had none and the blood of a Calfe for the sins of the people as in the old Law the High Priests did once a yeare that by Sprinkling the Sancta Sanctorum with this blood they might render God more propitious to themselves and the people no he shed once for all mankinde his own most sacred bloud and dying on the Crosse he entered the holy of holies the kingdome of heaven whereby he found for us eternal redemption so copious an one indeed as needed not be repeated by his dying any more for us then once though in the old Law the bloody Sacrifice of the High Priests were annuall because the power of that bloud they shed was weak and could not plead for long mercy whereas Christs blood prevaileth for eternall and that by being shed but once 13. It was the ceremony of the old Law Num. 19. first to shed the blood of Goats Oxen and Heifers and then burning the Beasts to keep the ashes and putting them into living so they called fountaine water and Sprinkling the people with them to declare they should by that aspersion after Sun-set not before be reputed sanctifyed corporally cleane and be admitted into the company of the faithfull as formerly which was a figure of the blood of Christ issuing out of his earthly body to be a reall purgation of sin out of our Souls and not onely of our corporal impurity it was also the ground whence holy Church useth aspersion with holy water wherin is mixed Salt insteed of those burnt-ashes Note it is well said here this ceremony was but to the cleansing of the flâ—sh for it only did declare their bodies who were thus sprinkled should be esteemed cleane and pure though before polluted by the touch of a dead carcasse a leper or otherwise and this cleansing was then called sanctifying as in this text it is 14. It is indeed great reason the blood of Christ who was God as well as man inspired by the instinct of his own Deity and by the speciall instigation of the Holy Ghost to offer up his life as an unspotted Sacrifice to God the Father for our sins should have much more force to purge our Soules from sins that is from dead works then the blood of beasts had to cleanse mens bodies and Sin is not unfitly called a dead work because it not onely defileth our Soule worse then the touch of a dead carcasse did their bodies of the old Law but even kils them too and yet by the blood of Christ they are both purged and revived so as to be able to waite upon the living God before whom no dead Soul that is to say no Soule in deadly Sin can give any attendance at all it being unfit that the Fountaine of life should be attended on by the ougly countenance of death 15. He is therefore truly the Mediator because he did partake of the nature of both extreames that is of God offended and of man offending and so death being a mean which is to say man dying in Christ God was satisfied not onely for the Sins of those who live under the Law of grace but as is specially noted here in this verse for the Sins of those under the former Law of Moses which was the former Testament here specified and of those also under the Law of nature quoniam copiosa erat apud eum redemptio because redemption with him is plentifull and since he took humane nature it was not out of the Spheare of his activity to satisfie for all mankind to whom that nature is common by those called are understood here the elected for those onely are effectually called to the participation of the promise of eternal inheritance of being eternally heirs of God and coheires of Christ and this inheritance is called a promise because it was the pact of God the Father with his Sacred Son that if he would once dye to satisfie divine justice for mans Sins those whom he should call that is effectually single out or elect for eternall salvation should receive the same by vertue of promise from God the Father to his Sacred Sonne whence their salvation is called the promise of eternal inheritance and in this regard Saint Paul speaking of himselfe as of one thus effectually called or elected said that he having done what was required of him had reposed for him in heaven a Crown of Justice not as due to his work but as due to the promises God the Father in Pauls behalfe made to his Sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the like promise we account is made in the behalfe of all those whom Christ hath elected to his eternal inheritance not that it is a thing man can
Illumination of his holy Spirit and was to make the often dead letter of that word to be the life of our Souls for so it must needs be when it brings us that peace which it promiseth namely another manner of peace then the world giveth which is alwayes mixed with war for whoever relisheth what is right hath a true peace within his conscience and so is at no variance or war at all In a word the Gospel being out of the story of our Saviours Life tells us the effect of this fact the fruit we shall receive by the coming of the Holy Ghost by relishing those things that are right and by rejoycing in the consolation of this holy Spirit that comes to read lessons of Divine Love unto our hearts and to wean us from the humane affections we have unto creatures and consequently this Gospel wants no adjusting to the Epistle and Prayer of this solemn day but makes good still our main design in this book The Epistle Acts 2.1 c. 1 And when the dayes of Pentecost were accomplished they were all together in one place 2 And suddenly there was made a sound from heaven as of a vehement wind coming and it filled the whole house where they were sitting 3 And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire and it sate upon every one of them 4 And they were all replenished with the Holy Ghost and they began to speak with divers tongues according as the holy Ghost gave them to speak 5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jewes devout men of every nation under heaven 6 And when this voyce was made the multitude came together and was astonied in mind because every man heard them speak in his own Tongue 7 And they were all amazed and marvelled saying Are not loe all these that speak Galilaeans 8 And how have we heard each man our own tongue wherein we were born 9 Parthians and Medians and Elamites and that inhabite Mesopotamia Jewrie and Cappadocia Pontus and Asia 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia Aegypt and the parts of Lybia that is about Cyrenee and strangers of Rome 11 Jewes also and Proselytes Cretensians and Arabians we have heard them speak in our own tongues the great works of God The Explication 1. THat is to say Fifty dayes after the Resurrection for as the Christian Pasche is a fulfilling that Feast of the Jews which was a figure thereof so likewise the Christian Pentecost is a fulfilling of the like figure of the Jewish Pentecost or of the delivery of the Law upon Mount Sinai by the like confirmation of the Christian Law upon the Mount Sion when the holy Ghost descended purposely for that end But as the Jewish Pasche was on Saturday which was their Sabbath so was the seventh Saturday after their Pentecost and the Christian Pasche being the day after which was Sunday makes the seventh Sunday following to be the Christian Pentecost both to shew Christ did abrogate the Jewish Sabbath by rising on Sunday and the Jewish Pentecost by sending the holy Ghost the seventh Sunday after which proves that the Christian Religion as it was successive to the Jewish so it did abrogate the same By those that were here in the place of the last Supper assembled we are not to understand onely the Twelve Apostles but also the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the rest of the Disciples and friends of Christ then in Jerusalem to the number of about one hundred and twenty as S. Luke recounts and S. Augustine gives a very pious reason for this number saying What Christ did promise onely to his twelve Apostles he performs into a ten-fold multiplyed number for ten times twelve make just one hundred and twenty so Christ to shew his liberality made his promise good ten times over and indeed it is usuall in Almighty God to better the expectation of his creatures 2. The mystery of this noise or sound was that thereby the Jews might come together out of curiosity to see what the matter was when they heard a sudden clap like thunder just over the place where the Apostles were assembled and likewise to raise up the hearts of those within the place to heaven expecting hereupon something of consequence to follow it was sudden for two reasons First to shew it to be a voluntary and free gift of grace such as could not be merited by any our previous preparation thereunto Secondly to shew the efficacy of that holy grace working to all purposes in an instant as we see it did in S. Paul and S. Mary Magdalene both instantaneously converted from notorious sinners and made eminent Saints whence S. Ambrose sayes truly commenting upon the first of S. Luke The grace of the holy Ghost brooks no delayings This sudden sound came from heaven to shew that as Gods throne was there so he came by his holy grace to call and to carry the Apostles and all good Christians thither it came like a huge high wind to shew the effects it was to have when the voices of those it sell upon were heard all the world over from one end to the other as was prophetically foretold by holy David Psal 18. Now we are to note the holy Ghost hath appeared severall times in severall wayes as first like a Pigeon or Dove upon Christ baptized to shew the columbine simplicity of grace and good works next like a Cloud in the Transfiguration to shew the fertility of Christian Doctrine falling like a fruitfull rain upon the barren souls of men and covering them from the nocive sinne of lustfull desires Thirdly like a Breath to shew the manner of Christian conversion was to be by aspiration or breathing of the holy Ghost upon our hearts and giving us thence a spirituall life and this was when at the last Supper Christ breathing upon his Apostles said Receive ye the holy Ghost to remission of sinnes Joh. 20.22 Fourthly as here both like fire and wind the first to shew the holy Ghost did inflame the hearts of men to the love of God and burn up in them all the stubble of their terrene affections the last to shew the efficacy that the Apostles preaching should have to convert all the world and like a whirl-wind blow down the resistance of Princes and Potentates as so many Towers standing in their way and also blow all infidelity all heresie all sects and schisms quite away as so much chaff and drosse in respect of solid doctrine not that there was a reall wind but yet a reall sound or rather an effect as of a reall wind for had the wind been reall being so great it had overthrown the house and done mischief to those within and indeed the Text saith it was a noise like the coming of a high winde nor was it marvell God could produce a sound without a winde for as the fiery tongues were not reall tongues but onely similitudes thereof so was this noise no reall wind but onely a likenesse of it
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
are loving and charitable to our neighbours for the love we bear to God so the Gospel ends Do this and live Live eternally live in the happy fruition of all the vaste promises God made to those that love him thus 2. But we have yet a better pattern of our duty then what Jesus bid the Doctour of the Law take to secure him of this happinesse the charitable Samaritan We have our dearest Lord our Blessed Saviour Jesus here not onely the giver but the keeper of this his Law least we should argue our impossibility to keep the same when we see at how dear a rate he kept it how he so loved us as he laid his life down for a testimony of his love and gave us grace to do the like as the onely means of doing it Nor had the end our glory been otherwayes atchieveable then by the meanes unto it his holy grace so he that would our happy end must will us the meanes to compasse it this followes naturally and is therefore in the rule of grace undeniable nature being ever perfected by grace Hear how he sayes himself Blessed are the eyes that see the things you see c. and to the rest of those things which the Explication enumerates we may avowably here adde this for one their seeing Jesus give his life for an example to us of valuing his love at as dear a rate as he did our loves when he dy'd to gain them 3. Yes yes beloved this is the full scope of the Gospel and ought to be the aym of our actions while we read it so we may hope that he whose bounty gives us Faith to believe him charity to love him and hope to enjoy him will mercifully give us grace so to fulfill the condition of his Lawes whereunto his promises are annexed that we need not fear to obtain What to day we beg in the Prayer above the running without offence in to the possession of those promises which they that do offend cannot obtain and those that love can never loose by offending whilest they love So that onely love is the easie rule we are to be happy by for ever as was hinted before in the Illustration On the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 7.15 BVt one of them when he saw that he was made clean returned again with a loud voyce magnifying God Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer ALmighty and everlasting God give unto us the encrease of faith hope and charity and that we may deserve to obtain what thou doest promise make us love what thou doest command The Illustration HEere 's a Prayer that in one word of it richly containes all the doctrine of this day and indeed all the main point of the differential doctrine between the Roman Catholick Church and her antagonists especially the Hereticks of this time who deny good works to be necessary to mans salvation and will have no more then faith alone required on our parts pretending the work of our salvation is already finished by the passion of our Lord if we do but believe as much It is otherwise with us for here we pray not onely for other acts of virtue namely hope and charitie but even for our own increase of faith as well as for increase in other good works which as they are all rooted in these three Theologicall virtues so are they contained in them as the tree is contained in the root thereof or rather in the seed that runs to root the better to support the tree That then we may pray as well to the bettering of our understandings as to the perfecting our wills in the service of Almighty God know beloved holy Church to day instructs us in this Prayer to beg increase of all good works eminentially included in the three Theologicall virtues above mentioned and doth further declare that by this increase it is we may deserve to obtain as much as God Almightie hath pleased to promise us which is no lesse then his heavenly glory especially if we can by our increase in virtue arrive as well to love as to do what God commands that is to say in other termes if we so love God as for his sake we can also love the things commanded though never so contrary to our liking for then we Saint our selves indeed when thus we love And why because where sinne is not in man sanctitie will be undoubtedly as it was in S. Marie Magdalene who then was even canonized by our Lord himself when he declared Many sinnes were forgiven her because she loved much Luke 7.47 And by many we understand all for God never doth his works to halses but leaves them ever perfectly compleat And having thus evinced the veritie of this glosse out of the letter of the Prayer let us further see how the Canon of the Churches service is harmonious by the musicke of her Prayer to day which is therefore best because it is throughout three parts in one Nay if I said the whole Epistle Gospel and the Prayer to boot were all contained in the word increase perhaps I should not erre for if we but apply that word unto the things wherein we beg increase the work is done the cabinet of rich connection by that key is open to the view of the world But lest some dimmer sighted souls do not perceive as much it will not be amisse to show the whole Epistle of the day doth run upon the ground-work of the Prayer while from the first unto the last it beats upon the faith of Abraham joyned with the hope of a reward for his obedience performed with an act of charitie wherewith he shewed he did deserve the promise of Almighty God because he loved his commandement better then he did his onely sonne Isaack whom he was ready to sacricrifice to show how truely he did love the said command Compare this now unto the Prayer and see what can be more desired to make the harmony compleat Yet further look upon the Fathers expositions of the last verse in this Epistle as you see below and then say if the glosse I made above be other then Expositours allow As for the Gospell t is alike concording with the Prayer if we believe the Fathers of the Church expound the saving faith aright wherewith it ends when they declare this faith was saving to the cured Samaritan because it was accompanied with his good works namely with his hope of cure when in that hope he paid obedience unto Christ saying go shew your selves unto the Priest for the Text sayes after and it came to passe as they went they were made clean and lastly by his gratitude returning to give thanks for the cure which acts of other virtues obedience and gratitude made manifest his charitie since they were good works growing out of that root and since by this action of gratitude we see the Samaritan shewed an increase of Faith Hope and
following law of Christ who had power as God to abrogate what he pleased of Moyses law and to confirm what he pleased thereof and to make what new law best liked himself as he did when he made our saving law of the Gospel To conclude these words God is one import the Saviour of the Jews was not Moyses but even that one God who also saveth all other Nations and therefore he is emphatically called here one God that is to say one Saviour 21. This verse onely reduplicates the former senses and sayes that neither the law of Moyses was against the promises of God made to Abraham nor yet was it that law which did or could justifie the people but that it was as it were a stay or prop a pedagogue indeed as follows v. 24. of this chapter unto them to keep them in aw and order untill Christ came in whom the promises made to Abraham were to be performed and he coming the pedagogue of Moses law was to cease at his pleasure 22. By the Scripture concluding all things under sin is here understood Moyses his written law which then was and still is called the Scripture even to this day yet by this concluding is not understood the Scripture orders sinne to be but onely that this Scripture notwithstanding all men then living lay under the yoke of sinne and were not by virtue of that Scripture freed from this yoke but by Jesus Christ in whose person and not in Moyses law did consist our justification promised to Abrahams seed that was to Christ Jesus Note here the promises said to be given to those that believe do not exempt from good works nor make faith alone even in Jesus Christ without works to be saving but such a faith onely saves which works by charity The Application 1. THe scope of this Epistle is to tell us with how ample a reward Almighty God did recompence the obedience of Abraham in being ready to sacrifice his onely sonne Isaac according as he was commanded by the Authour of life Namely with such a blessing upon his seed as should bring a benediction upon the whole seed of Adam all mankind So that since the first root of all mans misery was Adams disobedience in a triviall thing an apple therefore God was pleased to take an occasion of making Abrahams obedience in a weighty thing the apple of his eye his onely Joy the rise of all mans happinesse not that Abrahams obedience did satisfie God for Adams disobedience but that the sonne of God who was to satisfie the Divine Justice for this sinne did please to take that first mans flesh upon him who first by his obedience taught man the way to keep the law of God by doing his commands 2. And certainly it was with deep designe Almighty God delayed his promise unto Abraham four hundred and thirty years before he was pleased to make a beginning of performance in giving by Moyses a Law to lawlesse man and by that Law to try the children of Abraham the Jews before he gave a better Law to them and all the world besides by Jesus Christ The design we may both piously and profitably presume was as well to prove the faith and hope of Abraham as his obedience and his love were proved in the sacrificing little Isaac For probably there passed not one minute of time over Abrahams head nor over the heads of his posterity wherein they did not give themselves an infinite content in thinking on the goodnesse and on the veracity of God that surely he would not fail to verifie his promises which he had graciously made unto them the frequent memory we find in holy Writ and the gladsomenesse wherewith the mention is made of these promises testifie as much and consequently prove Abrahams whole life time was in a manner one continued act of faith and hope in the Messias to come 3. O beloved how can we read this Text and not be animated to an imitation of like acts of virtue of like obedience to so sweet a Law as we enjoy when all the end thereof is felicity without an end Or if we cannot think our selves so much concerned as Abraham who had as vve the comfort of having concurr'd to the salvation of all mankind as of himself at least let us not come short of Abrahams posterity of the Jews see how they boast here how they vaunt themselves thence the sole people of Almighty God because they were descended but from Abraham When did the cease to glory in the promises made of Jesus but to come and that as they thought to make them onely rich onely honourable here on earth onely temporally happy whereas we Christians know he is actually come hath left us rich here in grace and made us sure of heavenly honour of eternall felicity and of greater riches yet in glory if we be not defective to our selves O how should our whole lives be one act of faith one act of hope one act of charity one continuall indeavour to prove all this by a perpetuall obedience to the Law of Christ from whom we are extracted in a righter line then the Jews yet were descended from Abraham since their naturall conception was in sinne our supernaturall adoption is in grace What need we more say but the Churches prayer upon this holy Text and see by that what Christians should be at according to the will of holy Church and that 's the will of God no doubt Say then that prayer beloved and do as you pray so shall you be the Christians Christ desires The Gospel Luke 17. v. 11. 11 And it came to passe as he went unto Jerusalem he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee 12 And when he entred into a certain town there met him ten men that were lepers who stood afarre off 13 And they lifted up their voice saying Jesus master have mercy upon us 14 Whom as he saw he said go shew your selves to the Priests and it came to passe as they went they were made clean 15 And one of them as he saw that he was made clean went back with a loud voice magnifying God 16 And he fell on his face before his feet giving thanks and this was a Samaritan 17 And Jesus answering said were not ten made clean and where are the nine 18 There was not found that returned and gave glory to God but this stranger 19 And he said to him arise go thy wayes because thy faith hath made thee safe The Explication 11. HE was then going from Cesarea to Jerusalem to the feast of the Tabernacles and was willing to passe by Samaria and Galilee the right way indeed he was to go yet he went that way with speciall zeal to requite the discourtesie he received in being cast out of a village in that countrey and ill used after a cure he did upon one of that countrey men a Samaritan shewing us by this an example to requite evil turns with good