when they prevaricate by injustice falshood irreverence to God impenitency and the like they act against a Law-giver which is God himself and against a Law that took birth with their Creation and is the Model and Rule of humane Lawes which without conformity to this Law are not Lawes but injustice and tyranny I will teach the wicked thy wayes The third remonstrance of our enflamed Doctour is to inform the wicked that positive Divine Lawes are necessary not only to rectify their wandring steps but also to preserve the just in their righteous paths The reason is Man is designed to a supernatural end to arrive at which his natural faculties are deficient wherefore it was requisite he should have supernatural precepts and rules proportioned to the sublime condition of his end Besides after he had exchanged a state of innocency for that of sin and corruption he stood in need of a Master who might instruct him how disastrous a thing sin is how necessary to have a redeemer all which Divine Lawes do open unto him Again to observe even the Lawes of Nature would have been a hard task if he aspired not after somthing more sublime for the efforts of his Soul are so clogged by the violence of his passions and his nature so weakned by sin that unless divine positive laws had engaged man unto heavenly pursuits scarce would he ever have been able to reach the perfect observance of the Law of nature Lastly it was necessary he should have alwayes before his Eyes his dependency and subjection unto God so to be stirred up to the performance of his duty and by giving testimony of his faithful obedience merit something at his hands wherefore his Creation was no sooner finished but God laid a command upon him that he might know even in Paradise he had a Master Next he consecrated the Seventh day to works of his service obliging the first inhabitants of the Earth to its observance Moreover those first Men of the World were obliged to the supernatural vertues of Faith Hope and Charity without which acts they could not be saved now those decrees were positive Lawes and superadded to those of nature so that in all times Men were never left purely to the Law of nature but it was intermixed with several positive ordinations that might help them on more advantagiously in the way of their Salvation Our Holy Penitent having thus exposed before the wicked the endearing providence of God over mankind who never abandoned them to the sole instinct of nature and conduct of their own Reason but like a careful Master teaching them his will by himself and giveing them particular directions to lead them in the way of vertue he would not stop there but proceed to a further elucidation of God's benefits towards them that at last overcome by his goodness they might lay down their arms and think it no dishonour to lye prostrate at the feet of so noble a Conquerour which if our penitent can effect he will repeat with much joy I will teâ—ch the wicked thy ways Our zealous convert plyes the Iron whilst it is hot hoping to render the wicked more malleable wherefore he produces the Mosaick law given by God to sanctify the Children of Abraham and dispose the World for the knowledge belief and honorable reception of Jesus Christ The Law consisted in precepts moral ceremonial and judicial The first contained the Ten Commandments and divers others relating to them and though the Law of nature led to their observance yet many errours were committed in reference to them which were cleared and better regulated by positive Lawes The Ceremonial were ordained in order to the worship of God regulating what belongs to the Sacraments Temple institution of fasts and bloody Sacrifice of Beasts wherein God manifested his justice declaring that sin deserved Death and likewise his Mercy in that he would exchange the death of a sinner for that of a poor animal The third are judicial which conspire to the establishment of a rare Government amongst the Jews that by an admirable policy being kept in peace Religion might flourish the number of their Laws amount to above six hundred an Argument of God's indulgence towards them For the Jews being stupid and of a gross apprehension uncapable of being led by general rules as not knowing how to apply them in particular emergencies he was pleased in every point to satisfy and instruct them Nay his particular providence here in appears that delivering so many Articles for their observance he seems to take upon him the whole care of providing for their temporals as well as spirituals as if he would keep a watch over every step and motion of theirs to the end all things might be exact and setled in the highest order He designed them likewise to be a pattern of Holiness and Sanctity to the Gentiles that by their example they might be drawn from the corruption of Idolatry to the real sentiments of vertue and religion wherefore he planted them in the midst of the habitable world Lastly it was just that Nation should be the most Religious and Pious from whence Jesus Christ was to issue forth that they might prefigure publish and engrave him in the hearts and minds of Men by their holy Ceremonies and legal observances which were all to represent him and the wonders of his life and death for this cause the kingdome of the Jews was prophetick and their religious actions a figure of the qualities condition and mysteries of Jesus Christ Nay all the worship and service which God required of that Nation and all the Exercise of their Religion was meerly to foretel announce expect and receive the Messias wherefore St. Paul calls it a holy Law abounding in Ceremonies and all tending to this effect I cannot doubt but our great Doctour and Prophet did with much Energy insist upon the designed End of the Mosaick Law which is Jesus Christ representing to the wicked that the sole way to Salvation was by repentance and belief in the Messias exhorting them to joyn with him in the practice of Heroick acts of vertues so to expedite his coming and repeat after him this his daily Prayer who will give us from Sion the Saviour of Israel He told them there was not a sigh or languishment any prayer or good work directed for the accelleration of this mystery which had not its effect that Abraham advanced it much by his prodigious act of obedience in offering to Sacrifice his Son and after he had run over all the Gests of Saints till his time he conclude all these motives would have been little efficacious without the charity mercy and love of God to lost Man St. John attributes the glory of this Action to love alone and if some have compared the vigour of love to equal that of death I dare give it a higher Encomium and will say it was so generous as to transport it self up to Heaven and assault the Divinity
himself to one who is the searcher of hearts and before whom the most secret motions are displayed he should nevertheless make this superfluous expression of his promptitude to perform what ever he would exact of him But we ought to justify our Penitent and believe that in this he aims at the Worlds satisfaction to the end after ages might read he declined not the use of those remedies the Law prescribed out of any defect of submission to the Law but meerly upon the score of God's dispensation who was pleased to accept of the interiour Acts of his repentance and in that acceptation would inform Mankind the heart is the thing he most considers The Application From hence we may learn this instruction that when we see our Neighbour deficient in what he owes to the eternal Law we must not immediately pass Sentence of Condemnation upon him the Judgements of God being far different from those of Men but referr all to that great day which will lay open all Truths especially in matters of omission where the causes are so inevident and where in we so often make the Innocent guilty If seriously we insist upon this principle then with confidence we may keep time with Holy David and cry If thou wouldest have had a Sacrifiice I had verily done it Amen CHAP. XXXIV Holocaustis non delectaberis Thou wilt not be delighted with Holocausts HAd our Petitioner couched this Clause in the present Tense and said Thou art not dedelighted with Holocausts it would have cleared the sense of the precedent disease and proved a satisfactory alligation for his omission of Sacrifice But being in the future it renders the expression dubious and may import that upon the establishment of a new Law all these Figurative oblations will cease and then the Incense of those appeasing Sacrifices would no more smell sweet in his Nostrils But however upon a more serious inspection it may bear this construction that an immediate and present effect would follow to wit whensoever he should offer Sacrifice it will be no wayes acceptable to him because as I said in the promises the lively Faith he had of the Law of grace put him in the same condition through a particular dispensation of Heaven as if he had not been under the Mosaick Yoak and therefore since he contributed on his part what was requisite to the perfection of an Evangelical Sacrifice God would supply the rest so that truly as to his particular he might say Thou art not delighted with Holocausts c. Upon these grounds our Petitioners argument carries weight and inferrs that if Holocausts be not countenanced by Heaven it were in vain to think of any other oblation for amongst all the legal Sacrifices that of Holocausts or Burnt-offerings was the most perfect and the most compleatly expresses the supremacy of God's power over us and the fulness of our subjection to him for in some Sacrifices part of them were burnt the rest applyed to the use of the Minister but in Holocausts all was consumed and by the total destruction of that offering was implyed a dependency of Fortune Life and Being on his orders and commands from whence they were derived I observe likewise in the sacred Text that if Sacrifices were not performed with a pure conscience and detestation of sin they were odious in the sight of God this appears in the First Chapter of Esay by whose Pen God declares that Incense was abominable to him and that he abhorred their Solemnities Again in the Prov. The Sacrifice offered up by an impious hand is abomination in his sight For the end of a Sacrifice is either in order to a reconciliation with God a return of thanks for benefits received or for the impetration of some new favour Now to pretend to any of these and not renounce all affection to Sin were rather to provoke than any wayes appease his anger But our Petitioner delivers not the thing with that horrour he touches not upon any abomination or severity on God's part but expresses it in the Negative of any satisfaction he will take in it which concludes his Sacrificing action would not be rejected upon the score of any real-guilt but as a thing unnecessary to him who was priviledged with the conditions of a more efficacious oblation and therefore justly he might cry thou art not delighted with Holocausts Again our Holy Penitent in his 30. Psalm explicates himself more clearly about this point his vvords are these Thou hast not required a burnt-offering for sin wherefore I will plant your Law in the midst of my heart since I said engraven in the Frontispiece of the Book that is my conscience I should in this manner perform your will What can be more evident to demonstrate he had orders to desist from any other Sacrifice then what were hatched and conveyed unto God from an unspotted Heart for by this Book is meant the secret of Gods proceedings with Man as appears in the Apocalips where is expressed that the Lamb alone was found worthy to open and unclasp the Book of God's secrets and this Book was unfolded to him by which he is taught That he is not delighted with Holocausts Holocausts c. Besides though the Law of Moses were abrogated as to their Ceremonial and judicial precepts Yet what depended on the Doctrine of Faith and morality was not cashierd but refined amplifyed and made more perfect Whence our Holy Petitioner by way of Amplification instructed in the more ample Elucidation of Faith to be unfolded in the Law Evangelical and enriched with a right Spirit not only to discern what is good from bad but likewise to embrace and pursue the wayes of vertue not only to know the wounds of humane nature but also the sovereign remedies for their cure presumed he might lay claim to a Law not of fear but love laid open to him in his prophetick Spirit A Law not only given by a Legislator but by him who was both a Lawgiver and Redeemer a Law not written in stone and which breathed forth anger but one that should be imprinted in the hearts of Men vvhose effects are Grace and Truth and by vvhich he should be related to them as their God and they to him as his people A Law not given to one single Nation but directed to the whole World in which repentance and remission of sins should be enacted and held forth A Law not consisting of shadowes but substance by the infusion of Faith and Charity and by the impletion of all figurative Sacrifices a Law not of slavery but freedome and love which vvith the Precepts vvould be communicated a spirit of Charity to enable them to the performance of vvhat vvas imposed and vvhere the Lords spirit is there liberty is found Hence though our Petitioner was still under the Law yet it vvas not as a bond-man performing his acts by constraint but as a Child born to his duties by affection and respect and therefore exempt from
Creatures to this intent he knowes no better medium than the publication of Man's corrupted Nature brought to that imbecility as of himself unable to give life and birth to one good thought behold sayes he I am conceived in iniquities that from the first instant of his conception he is seized on by sin and though that lineal stain be cleared by circumcision in the old Law and now by Baptisme yet there still remains a propensity to sin which grows up with us gaining strength through the whole course of our Adolescence For many years of our age are spent e're we come to distinguish between good and evil in all which time 't is clear we follow without any stop or haesitation the Dictamens of sense so that at the opening of our understanding we discover a Law Anathemathematizing our former practices the which by many reiterated and continued Acts are so wrought into habit that to break them we must as it were mould our selves into another nature This considered together with the dreggs and relicks of corruption which original sin leaves behind I wonder not if our Penitent deplore his misfortune and hints in his Petition this memorandum that he was conceived in iniquities This Fomes or scattered seed of original sin hath a double effect one an inclination to evil the other a drawing back or declining from what is good This made St. Paul confess he found a Law in his Body contradicting that of his reason and St. Bernard sayes the sin 't is true may be taken away by Baptism but to work a compleat cure that we feel no spice nor itching of the infection is in a manner impossible at least it requires a long course of remedies by a constant exercise and Tryal in vertuous actions For it is an inordinate and habitual concupiscence in the sensitive part so radicated that it becomes as it were a portion of nature Whence Seneca affirms vertues are rarely acquired without a Master but we quickly become expert in vice without the help of any Teacher which shews the pernicious consequence of original sin Our Penitent had found the bitterness of it by dear experience and this pushed him on to the reflection of a main cause of his misery because he was conceived in iniquities Yet our Penitent repines not at God's Justice herein but submits to this smart doom acknowledging a just retaliation that since the Soul had been disobedient to her Creatour the Body in requital should rise up in rebellion against her and punish her by the same Engins she had made use off in her prevarication he doth not scan the motives why God should punish so severely many millions of innocent Souls for the miscarriage of one Man and though he could satisfy himself that since original Justice had been purchased to all Adam's descendents by his obedience it is not unreasonable to share by his fall in the pain due to his transgression Our Penitent I say waves all argumentation looks upon the sentence pronounced and executed and being a Decree from God it must be just His sole hope is that this disordered and depraved constitution in humane nature will draw a more powerful aid and greater compassion towards a sinner when he fails and still the burden of his Song is because he was conceived in iniquities St. Bernard seems unresolved and full of perplexity when he considers Man in this tottering condition it makes him confess he knowes not by what strange bewitching means our will impared by sin is hampered in a kind of necessity and in such a manner as neither the necessity because voluntary can plead excuse for our consent nor the will being allured can scarce break through the necessity for this necessity is in some sort voluntary it is a kind of amorous violence working by flattery and flattering by force Whence the Will having once consented to sin can hardly disengage her self nor yet finds reason enough to excuse what she hath done Upon this score I wonder not to hear the plaining note of Job Lord I suffer violence it is onely you who impose the necessity can answer for me And a little after he cryes O thou Ruler of men why hast thou set me against thee all which shews the sad State of man wrought by original sin if left to himself for he was conceived in iniquities Philo the Jew speaking of Sin gives it a Term of infinity that being once set a flame can never be extinguished he calls it an immortal evil by no death or desolation to be destroyed The truth of this Philosophy who finds not in himself that albeit Baptism hath cleared the channel so as the streams of grace may run yet there are certain exhalations which issued from that corruption always ready to fall and embody with the currant so that if there be not a continual care and sifting it will be morally impossible to preserve our Souls pure and unstained Seneca sayes there are certain vices which are obvious to every Eye and to which we may be led as it were by the hand others there are that lye lurking and are hardly discerned till fastned upon us and these are the most pernicious because against them we can have nither open warr nor a secure peace And this truly is the genuine State of our natures from the corruption wrought in us by sin that we are not said to be clearly sick or well and this fluctuancy if rightly considered must needs be a torment because though we happen not to fall yet danger still threatens so that if we tender our happiness we must stand upon our guard at all times and places because neither Heaven Paradise Religious Cloyster or remote Hermitage is a secure fence against sin and a main reason to us the Children of Adam is because in iniquitatibus conceptus sum we are conceived and born in iniquities Whilst we are invironed and beset with such adversaries as our bad inclinations who watch as I may say but an advantage to undo us surely we ought to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling St. Bernard was not ignorant of Mans inconstancy when he gave this caution Oh sayes he did we but know how small a portion of vertue we have and how soon it vanishes upon how ticklish a foundation it rests unless the giver by a continued flux of Grace secure it to us we would not so easily imbark our selves into dangerous occasions for to indulge our senses and to arm our Enemies is the same but a strange policy How many who have thought themselves like Cedars elevated to a high pitch of vertue by a presumption of their own strength through ignorance of humane frailty and a Supine negligence rashly engaging themselves in hazardous Tryals have been ignominiously blasted and reduced to the condition of a contemptible shrub Lucifer enamoured of his own perfections and aspiring to a parity with God became the most abject of Creatures St. Peter promising wonders of
his constant Fidelity sufficiently testifyed by his shameful denyal what Man is in his own nature without the support of Grace Our Penitent comes in also for a sad example and hopes it will serve at least for a monument to Posterity that they may reflect what Man is from the instant of his conception and however he may be raised and enobled by God's favours yet in his 103. Psalm he tells what he must trust to when left to himself Auferes spiritum eorum deficient in pulverem suum revertentur upon the subtraction of thy Spirit O Lord we sink and resolve into the dust from whence we came all covered and besmeared with the stains of sin St. Austin sayes because Man did not what he could and might have done now he hath a desire to that he cannot perform losing by a will of malice the power of doing good Hence St. Paul become as it were a captive cryes the evil I would not now I do truly it is an expression which might terrify were it not that a little he confesses there is a power of grace which contradicts this predominancy of nature and therefore in the Sixth Chapter to the Romans he warns us not to let sin reign in our mortal Bodies intimating hereby the seeds of tumults and seditions be sowed within us yet we have also arms and strength sufficient if we adhere to God to crush and frustrate all their insolencies So true it is that Man cannot be injured but by himself to whom alone he owns his ruine if he perish Thus the life of Man is become a warfare upon Earth the Seat of many a contest and strife the sensitive part haling him one way reason another and this by a just Decree of Heaven that since he would not have peace with God he should have warr brought to his own doors and feel it within himself Now to come off clear and safe amidst so many hurley burleys requires no small dexterity and courage It minds me of Agesilaus answer to his friend who importuned him not to remove his Camp though necessity urged it because he was sick and could not without much pain endure any motion whereat Agesilaus all perplexed what to do crys O how hard a thing is it to be wise and yet compassionate So our sensitive part made treacherous by sin still makes its moan fawns solicits with importunity and if the Will never so little condescend Man is presently lost in sensual pleasures Our Penitent had felt the smart of this Shipwrack how soon he was overthrown by a little dalliance and therefore exposes to the view of his Judge the source from whence he springs and hopes since he knowes his brittle substance it may plead some inducement unto mercy at least to a mitigation of his penalty upon this score he proclaims behold I am conceived in iniquities The Application In imitation of our holy Penitent we ought seriously to reflect upon the sad plight of humane nature wounded by original sin so depressed and made feeble as most Divines affirm we cannot in any vehement temptation prove victorious without a speciall assistance from Heaven For you must know though the Will have an absolute command over the sensitive part yet if the object be present and very delightful or afflictive it is not in the Will 's power to suppress the contentment or anguish derived from thence to the imagination Wherefore spiritual Men give these Rules that we remove what we can the Object beloved or hated from our sight senses imagination and thoughts next that we consider the little of pleasure and multiplicity of defects which usually attend the objects of a sensual love all which shews there is no reliance upon our own temper and after we have practised all evasions to decline an engagement the success if put to the Test must be expected from that all powerful hand which never fails to shield the humble in the most hazzardous and dangerous attempts It is humility then must crown us with Laurels Amen CHAP. XII Et in peccatis concepit me Mater mea And my Mother hath conceived me in Sin OUr Penitent thinks it not enough to display his own misery unless he relate also the condition of his Mother at the instant of his conception and he expresses it so as if she yet groaned under the burden of original sin when she conceived of him and my Mother sayes he conceived me in sin That is had the same stains which defiled me at the First instant of my Being As to this you must know in the old Law was instituted a remedy against original sin for Women as well as Men. For from the Creation of the World to Abraham's time when First circumcision was commanded which was above Two thousand years we find nothing set down for the expiation of this hereditary guilt yet doubtless as that lineal contagion was never interrupted no more was there ever wanting a means ordained by Heaven to disengage us from it so that it is probable after the precept of circumcision the same remedy was continued on for women and 't is thought it consisted in some particular Sacrifice though the specifical nature of the Sacrifice or ceremony be not laid open to us Hence it is beyond dispute all were cleansed from this contamination and therefore our Penitent means not by this word sin Original sin but the penalty and unhappy consequences of that sin which are hunger thirst sickness and all other afflictions annexed to a mortal life all which took not their rise but from Adam's transgression He therefore casts this glance upon his Mothers condition to quiet himself that if the plant from whence he springs be beset with thorns he must not think to be decked with roses and if it be decreed she must breed and deliver him amidst the horrid throwes of her labour he must not think to pass the rest of his life without a sweaty brow and a heart seasoned with cares Man no sooner peeps into the World than he speaks his own misery and prophecies by his weeping notes this future condition being grown up he finds himself engaged in a perpetual conflict between hope and fear For if he be so happy as to live well yet it must be in the midst of temptations which oblige him still to have his arms in hand and dangers threatning from all sides exclude security or rest so that in all events Labour and Apprehensions are his inseparable mates St. Paul exhorting us to wisdom tells us the means to purchase it by redeeming our time and gives this reason because the dayes are evil He reflects sure upon those delicious hours we might have spent in Paradise and which are not to be regained but by actions quite opposite to the cause of our Exile from thence Our First Parent valued more the satisfaction of his sensual appetite or a complacent humour towards his Wife than he did all the pure delights without any mixture
bread given in his Name to relieve the want of a distressed person as that he will own it as done to himself what may we expect in return when we prevent the eternal misery of our Neighbour which is the necessary consequence of sin not defaced by repentance These reflections so transported St. Gregory the great as to make him say The very Angels do envy Man in the conversion of a sinner Nay they would be content to quit even the beatifick Vision for a while that they might render to God the service of gaining one Soul and could they repine at any thing it should be in not having Tongues sensibly to express themselves in order to this end Wherefore you may see by this clause our Penitent is grateful he will not like the sluggish steward bury his Talent in the Ground but improve it and this by the noblest way of Traffick encreasing the number of the blessed I will teach the wicked thy ways There is nothing certainly holds in subjection and strikes an awe and respect into us more than the impressions of knowledge we receive from any person those who are most famed for wisdome in the world have alwayes acknowledged a greater Obligation to their Masters than Parents because the one made them simply to live the others to live well It was from this principle that God designing to give a precept of charity to his reasonable Creatures to facilitate the Execution of this his command ordained a dependency of one another in the conveyance of intellectual notions that the first rank of Seraphims should enlighten the next immediate order and so to the lowest Hierarchy for from this ordinate transmission of scientifical species arises a Harmony of love and respect love in those that communicate respect in those that receive nor doth it end in the giver and receiver but is returned with the advantage of praise and glory unto the supream Fountain whence all true wisdom flowes Now Princes are Earthly Seraphims unto whom it belongs as mortal Quires to enrich their Nobility they their immediate subordinate ranks and so to the lowest Peasant with Documents of Justice temperance and Piety First by good example Next by a vigilancy to put in Execution pious and equitable Lawes Our Holy Penitent happily ambitious to lay the Foundation of a Common-wealth which unanimously conspiring to God's honor might imitate that of the blessed is resolved to play his part he will not barely instruct but teach by his actions what his subjects owe to God Nay he will have a particular Eye unto the wicked and shew his zeal in their reduction a task beyond the victory over Lyons and Giants I will teach the wicked thy wayes I will teach the wicked thy ways that is thy commandments and from thence confound them in their disobedience for God having created the world of nothing an absolute dominion over all Creatures is from thence most justly due unto him and if the potter of the same Mass of Clay composes Vessels of honour and others to baser uses and this without any blame though many causes concurr with him in this action With much more reason God having had no partner in the production of Creatures ought to have an entire disposal of them this sovereignty by the title of Creation is the most noble and accomplished that can be imagined because he derives the priviledge from none but holds it from himself so that it is natural to him Having laid this foundation our penitential Master unfolds unto the wicked a Law eternal which is nothing else but certain decrees and maxims he framed in his infinite understanding from all eternity by which he resolved to govern the World when he should think fit to give it a Being Amongst a multitude of these Maxims One is to concurr to the motions and actions of all Creatures conformably to their Natures which he would not destroy Another is to permit Man to act according to his strength and liberty whatsoever the issue be The third is not to admit him into Heaven unless he render himself in some sort capable of it and after the Collation of his grace and imposition of his commands never to violence his liberty so to obstruct sin but yet he resolved to draw good out of evil and at the latter day pass a severe sentence upon voluntary bad actions This is then the first lesson our Convert will read unto the wicked that the decrees of God touching the worlds Government as they are eternal so are they immutable If some be frozen through want of light and heat others again do melt with the excess of both yet will he not for all this alter the Sun's course if some do abuse free will and by it work their own destruction this inconveniency will not make him change what he hath done nor abrogate that noble priviledge Though heaven should become a desart yet will he not people it but with such as merit it by a good life I mean in persons grown up to the use of reason however foolish intoxicated brains may quarrel his conduct as they do in many of these particulars The next Lecture our Convert will hold forth unto the wicked and mark out to them the track of heaven is that this supream Lord hath imprinted in every man a law of reason by which if he square not his actions his own reason will rise up against him play the judge and condemn him This light tells us we must fly what is evil in it self and embrace that good which is so intrinsick to our natures as its contrary is absolutely evill As for example to adore God is a thing so corresponds with Mans reason as were there no superiour command to do it yet our own judgement could not but allow it as proper and fitting to be done both in consideration of Man's infirmity and vileness as also in relation to the greatness and infinity of God This light is so universally spread that scarce any can be found so savage who knows and performs not good in some kind or other St. Paul confirms this doctrine ad Rom. 1. The Gentils ignorant both of the Law of Moses and the gospel do naturally discharge some part of the Law that is of nature whence St. Austin cryes out O God your Law is written in our hearts which no iniquity can raze out Hence springs a remorse of conscience even in the most barbarous persons after the perpretation of any crime opposite to the law of nature and which sooner or later never fails to seize them with apprehensions of the divine justice but especially when grace of which no man is altogether and always destitute awakens their drowzy and extinguished conscience this I say ever gives them some light spark of knowledge by which their first inconsiderate act is rendred less excusable Thus our brave combatant beats the wicked with their own weapons and evidently demonstrates referring all to their own conscience that
THE CYNOSURA Or a SAVING STAR That leads to ETERNITY Discovered amidst the Celestial Orbs of DAVID'S PSALMS By way of Paraphrase upon the MISERERE Humanum est errare Divinum quid emendare To do amiss is incident to humane Nature To repair our failings something Divine Si non traheris ora ut traharis If you be not moved to repentance pray you may be moved St. Aug. LONDON Printed by I. Redmayne for Thomas Rooks at the Lamb and Ink-bottle at the Entrance into Gresham Colledge next Bishops-gate-street 1670. To the Right Honorable and Illustrious Lady ANNE Countess of SHREWSBURY MADAM IT is the great Voice of the Church taught by her Heavenly Espouse that according to the ordinary course set down by his Providence none arrived to the knowledge of good and evil can reach their Beatitude but by the wings of Pennance 'T is a Decree passed immediately after our First Parents transgression that he should not eat his Bread but at the rate of sweaty Browes And though God seems to dispense in this severe Sentence in the old Law promising to the exact observers of it long life abundance of wealth a plentiful posterity and the like Yet this was done as he will leave no vertue unrewarded in regard that Heavens Gates were then shut up But when Christ had cleared their passage unto Eternal felicity and clapt the Thorns which were the fruit of our sins upon his own Head then they recovered so high a Being and grew to that value as the heavier God layes his Hand upon us the more his love appears So that now the mark of our happiness is the Son of God not glorifyed but scourged spit upon crowned with Thorns torn with Whipps and nailed to the Cross Hence it is we find our sweet Redeemer born in Tears bred up in obscurity and concluding the upshot of his life with all the circumstances of infamy and pain at the opening of his grand commission to preach unto the World his first Exordium was an exhortation unto pennance as if it were the sole Loadstone to draw Heaven towards us And St. Paul his great Disciple declares it nay he makes no exception that all those who would be happy must crucify their flesh with their vices Thus you see Madam that every Hand whether innocent or guilty whether noble or vulgar ought to be stretched forth to sow the bitter Seed of pennance If we have sucked in vertue even with our Milk and thrived with a daily encrease in the sequel of our life yet we ought not sayes St. Austin descend into the Tomb but by the way of pennance Again if we have complyed with the Frailties of our corrupt nature and trespassed against the duty we owe to our good God pennance likewise must be our Sanctuary So that pennance is furnished with two Wings to bear us up to Heaven the one is fashioned out by love which prompts us to become by a course of severity a true Copy of our suffering Original the other is framed by strokes of Justice and exacts worthy fruits that is such as may in some proportion be answerable to our failings and though this other have not a motive altogether so Heroick yet it speaks a great vertue because it puts us upon a task the most knotty that can be imagined as to appease the face of an angry God Besides it renders that Action just and equitable in that it aims to repair the injury and contempt thrown by sin upon his greatness Wherefore we ought not to blush upon either of these accounts to wear the Liveries of pennance If on the former we mortify our senses upon Earth and vest our selves with the habit of Christ shaped out to the Image of his Death it is a perfect Metamorphosy wrought by the power of love and for which Figure the very Angels were they capable of sensible impressions would be glad to exchange with us If on the latter that is the score of satisfaction it Cancels all our Bonds of guilt it raises us from an Abyss of misery to the high dignity of Grace by which we are adopted Sons and Heirs to Heaven So that a penitential life cannot but find veneration amongst all wise Men and be highly acceptable in the sight of God since by our humiliations we labour to contribute to his honor and greatness But Madam you may perhaps upon this discourse wonder to behold in the Courts of Christian Princes so much of glory pomp and magnificence which suit so ill with the Characters of the Cross I confess at the First glance it might startle any one were it not that a multitude of persons both Illustrious in Blood and eminent in Sanctity have taught by their Example that the glittering of the World and a penitential Heart are not things incompatible It were to groap in the Sun-beams to play the Ignorant in this Truth that is not to acknowledge that in all ages since Christ's visible appearance upon Earth Princes and Ladies of no less extraction have been found who under a Cloth of Tyssue and the richest Ornaments have covered their tender Bodies with Hair-cloths Who amidst the delicacies of the Court have macerated themselves with fasting and seasoned their repasts with bitter ingredients VVho have more valued one hours entertainment between God and their happy Souls than all the Balls and Masques to which external compliance the greatness of their condition in some sort obliged them For the essential part of pennance consists in the interiour disposition of the Mind that is in the operation of the understanding and will The understanding first represents unto us a God disobeyed and scorned and his Justice by this indignity stirred up to vindicate his honor threatning nothing but ruine and desolation in this distress the understanding further suggests that we have no refuge but to the throne of mercy whereupon the will falls to work laments what is passed protests against any future complyance with bad inclinations and seised with a holy sorrow and affliction submits to any compensation shall be required These are the preparatories to justification and when once they are compleated by a ray of Faith strengthened with hope and animated with charity this vertue of pennance growes up to that efficacy as to obtain in consideration of the excellency of its acts and fervency of the Agent a full remission of all sin Whence it is evident this grand work of pennance may be wrought within the precincts of our interiour and consequently the vain appearance of precious attyre and ceremonies of greatness may possibly reach only to the film or out-side whilest within they possess humility purity temperance and other Christian vertues To give a further elucidation of this point you will please Madam to know that Christ our Lord in his copious Redemption had two main designs The one to gain the Hearts of Men to the obedience of his Lawes which were so frozen and marble like as he foresaw a
104. l. 7. nor well p. 106. l. 12. a little after p. 111. l. 3. his future p. 136. l. 23. injure p. 151. l. 12. palms p. 158. l. 6. communicates p. 160. l. 20. object p. 161. l. 1. for that p. 162. l. 16. Deity p. 163. l. 3. most love p. 165. l. 6. heeld p. 183. l. 7. preceding p. 184. l. 16. decides p. 186. l. 21. punishment p. 189. l. 15. account soever p. 202. l. 5. it is only our heart p. 203. l. 5. she seemed and â—… 25. interiour p. 221. l. 21. in his mind p. 225. l. at a more p. 231. l. 25 entertains p. 236. l. 25. possible and l. 27. abstruse p. 237. l. 17. should p. 248. l. 12. incentives p. 263. l. 8. blot out degree and in the place read will p. 278. l. 16. believe in thee p. 280. l. 2. in these p. 284. l. 29. affect p. 297. l. 26. blot out his and read all material p. 324. l. 25. beating p. 325. l. 21. obstructed p. 343. l. 25. Quires p. 355. l. 2. appartment p. 363. l. 9. premises p. 366. l. 19. after love adde to p. 369. l. 8. danger and. l. 15. this instruction p. 370 l. 1. of his heart p. 403. l. 1. word p. 365. l. 5. since as I said it is engraven CHAP. I. Miserere mei DEUS Have mercy on me O GOD. AT the first entrance our Kingly Prophet prefers his Petition and without any circumlocution expresses in direct terms what he would have Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God and he do's it with such confidence as if he had a right to be forgiven which minds me of a rare sentence of S. Gregory Nissen that Man cannot more willingly ask pardon than God is ready to give it The Divine Majesty expects if it may be so express'd with passion the conversion of a sinner and no sooner a repenting motion animates his heart but the whole Court of heaven is alarmed with joy and this joy is followed with showers of mercy No wonder then if our Petitioner make his address with so little Ceremony since he speaks to a Judge resolved to mercy upon his submission to a Father who is transported with joy at the sight of his long lost Son to a Creatour who hath framed every particle of his being and perfectly knows how frail weak and prone to innumerable failings he is if left to himself wherefore he cryes Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God He shelters this guilty me t'wixt God that made him and Mercy that must save him on these two he anchors all his hopes which being let down by a vigorous faith renders him secure amidst all the storms that hell and earth can raise so that now like a rock he stands braving all his enemies assaults who not long before was handed like a ball from one pleasure to another as if he had been made up of sensuality passion and a neglect of God Next in this exordium our Petitioner would insinuate a great truth that the first grace is a free gift of God and man a vessel of mercy not of merit hence he cryes Miserere mei Deus that is to say let him pine away in sorrow and repentance let him produce acts of ardent affection by which he prizes God above all things imaginable yet when all this is done he is a Child of perdition and clouded with the guilt of Sin unless an act of Grace be made him from his Sovereign Wherefore we must know that Grace expelling Sin by access unto the Soul finds there no merit nothing that can pretend to a justification neither Faith nor any other Vertue strikes the stroak since Grace is the basis or ground-work of all merit whence it s being is derived no less than a beauteous Flower from the Plant that gives it birth This piece of Divinity lay not hid to our penitent hence he acknowledges his imbecility in meriting any favour only he strives by holy acts of love and grief to dispose himself for mercy Nay though he should comfort himself with Nathan's words that he was already possessed of the first Grace yet to persevere in it so as not to fall again he knew must be the work of the same merciful hand for it is no less out of our reach to become just than to remain so without a constant supply of many actual Graces which must issue gratis from Heaven This kept him still in humility as never to presume of his own strength alwayes in fear without any security of happiness in this life So that having throughly scann'd the Condition of Man in this present State he concludes the best lesson suitable to our continual wants here is incessantly to repeat and entreat under this effectual form Miserere mei Deus have mercy on me O God Whil'st he thus layes all his hopes at the feet of mercy he cannot but bless the sweet proceedings of Heaven in requiring of us to compass our happiness that which is so conformable both to our Reason and Nature For can there be any thing more rational and delightful to Man than to love a Sovereign Good to congratulate the Divine Essence Divine Subsistences Divine Attributes and unchangeable perfections essentially seated in God Can there be any thing more just than to desire this greatness and goodness should have his Divine Laws fulfilled the Universe conserved for the Encrease and Accomplishment of his Service and that all praise and Benediction be poured forth before him by all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth Can there be any action more commendable than to conceive an extream detestation of Sin because injurious to His Supream Majesty and obstructive to his glory and yet in doing this we so attemper our selves for the reception of his favours that as in the Order of Natural things upon the Organization and fitted Dispositions of a Body he hath obliged himself to infuse a Soul so he hath no less engaged to vest that Mind with supernatural Grace which by acts of love and repentance shall be prepared for it But alas Amidst these pleasing reflections when he looks into himself he finds a check seeing he cannot even dispose himself for this happiness without a supernatural aid for though 't is true humane Nature by its own strength knowes that God is worthy of all love yet our knowledge in morality is much more capable of comprehension than practice 'T is not enough to have Wings to fly if they be so hamper'd as they cannot be display'd so this natural faculty in Man of loving God above all things is so weakned by original Sin and a million of Obstacles that we find the inclination of doing it far more ineffectual than the dictamens of our reason to have it done And no wonder when St. Thomas affirms our Will by original Sin is much more damnified than our understanding whence self love growes powerful in us and if it hath not a
Death might not prey on a treasure that deserves to be immortal wherefore let us never cease to cry with our holy Penitent à peccato meo munda me cleanse me from my sin Amen CHAP. VII Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco Because I know my iniquity AFter all these supplications our Petitioner now comes to give a reason why so confidently he requires an Act of Grace At the first view it seems a strange one and to imply his greater guilt It is this because he knowes his iniquity Ignorance where the fact is palpable makes a great plea in offendours our criminal on the contrary acknowledges his trespass declares he knowes what he has done and from thence claims and pretends a rationality in his petition had he in lieu of this inserted a Repentance of his misdeeds a detestation of his past failings this might have carried some weight in order to a remission But we must reflect injuries done to God and Man are things very disparate and quite of another nature For I may consider many disobligations I have thrown upon my Neighbour and yet not retract in my will those ill Offices because I may have received the like from him and many humane Lawes have allowed this retaliation so that to retain a memory of the harms I have done to Man may signifie nothing of vertue or pious amendment But when I look upon any miscarriage in my Duty towards God this glance must needs reproach me of ingratitude there can be no pretence or shadow of excuse to justifie any failing towards the Divine Majesty Since we are overwhelmed on all sides with his favours and benedictions whence the Sequel of such a consideration inevitably will humble confound and cast us upon the storms of Repentance Our Petitioner therefore knowing his iniquity virtually declares by it he disowns what he hath done or rather owns it to be exorbitant and from this confession layes claim to his Justice which upon the conversion of a sinner engages to abolish and raise out of his memory all past iniquities Because I know my iniquity This knowledge evidences the return of Grace to his Soul In the 35. Psalm he describes his own condition in the state of sin My iniquities surrounded me and I could see nothing St. Austin exclaims against that day wherein he committed sin and questions whether he may call it day since he was involved in a profound obscurity and then he goes on saying he will rise and disperse the mists of his iniquities that he may see the fountain of all goodness Our Petitioner again in the 48. Psalm gives Man when enslaved by sin the title of Beast nay with something of aggravation assimilating him to a Foolish Beast He remembred how Adam after his fall was cloathed with Skins of Beasts which attire was but a Symbol of his Mind bestiatized and made Savage by transgressions St. Thomas speaking of those Clouds of darkness wherein poor sinners lye groveling sayes it proceeds from a propension bent upon evil aversed from God and deprived of grace The opposite beams then which fill our Souls with light and serenity must needs draw their source from a love of what is good an adhaesion to God and a sweet repossession of grace and in these splendours our Petitioner finds himself First they raise his Soul to an Object infinitely good and amiable and after vehement affections enkindled towards this Sovereign felicity his Eyes are unsealed and beholds the Ghastly shape of his sins which cast him into exclamations against his own unworthiness upon reiterated addresses for mercy and pardon and at last admitted into favour he learns by that inestimable gift under whose Dominion he now lives what it is to offend God how monstrous a thing sin is and therefore will not conceal his new acquired notions but proclaim Quoniam c. because I know my iniquity It was not an abstract knowledge of his iniquity he alledges for this may consist with the most innocent and spotless Soul and was found in Adam before his fall But 't is what he had learnt by dear experience he had tasted that Tree which imports knowledge of good and evil but alas far different from those pure Idaeas which reside in Souls that were never involved in the shades of sin for such survey with an intellect as it were Angelical the commands of God and in obedience to his Law make use of their knowledge but to avoid the prevarication But our Petitioner looks upon the deformity of sin in all its circumstances of the Abyss of ruine it drawes upon us and having with the Cananean cryed for mercy then he confesses his nakedness then he layes open his failings and blushes not at the knowledge of his iniquity because they are now washed in a Christal stream and their past horrours serve but to raise in him a detestation of them and to invite him at the same time to admire the Wisdom of God that thus by his penitential acts will manifest his Justice and lastly to praise his mercy that hath given him a perfect knowledge of his iniquity as a certain Land-mark to preserve him from future Shipwrack because I know my iniquity I remember the Prodigal Son when languishing in misery and perishing for hunger pitched only upon this remedy that he would tell his Father he had sined against Heaven and him In like manner our Petitioner layes aside the thought of any good he may have done offers to the view of his eternal Father all the wounds of his cauterized Soul and that he might engage himself to a compleat discovery confesses he is not ignorant but knowes all the Windings and extravagant progressions of his iniquity how they had led him from Adultery to Homicide thence to Pride Vanity and Sole reliance on his own greatness and power and when he had summed up all his ingratitudes he gives this account Domine opus tuum vivica illud Lord I know my Sin So likewise I know the temper of the delinquent how he is composed of frailties unable of himself to set his hand to any good vvork to any supernatural motion Wherefore he hopes this consideration may something take off and render his deviations less irregular Yet on the other side he will not flatter himself into a blameless condition he knows a support of Grace ever attended him amidst his predominant passions and smartest tryals by whose means he might have been victorious This brings him on his Knees and drawes from him an humble confession Because I know my iniquity It was this knowledge fixing him on the basis of humility which prepared him for those sublime and supernatural communications he afterwards received from his dear Creatour What are his Psalms but a Series of raptures and coelestial ravishments a Tabernacle of sacred mysteries vvith vvhich his understanding was fed that vve may see to vvhat pitch Man is capable of arising from this knowledge of our Sins How confidently did St.
delicacies sought to preserve a beauty and make it proof against time Yet once grown old or cut off by Death it is cast into oblivion the other kept in Chains and threatned daily with ruine yet at the last proves matter of veneration even unto those who before perhaps contemned it You see then how to live in the Memory of Men what Art is to be used to raise a stately structure of our selves the materials of this must be acts of Charity towards our Neighbour and acts of severity towards our selves the Cement must be Patience Constancy Resignation to God's holy will and the like with these Saints have purchased glory to themselves before God and veneration amongst Men that even Kings have crouched with bended knees before their Ashes who whilst here poor Pilgrims upon Earth were looked upon as Idiots and made as it were the mockery of the World so that humbled bones at last shall Triumph and erect their Trophies where they had been made the spoils of Death St. Gregory Nazianzen affirms the Ashes of St. Cyprian were so powerful as no Disease wanted there its remedy and this Testimony he received from those very persons who had been the Subject of his miraculous Cures St. Ambrose relates of one Severus who being blind by touching only the Casket wherein were enchased the relicks of the Holy Martyrs St. Gervasius and Protasius he recovered his sight St. Austin recounts many miracles wrought by the relicks of St. Stephen and adds The benefits obtained at his shrine were so great and numerous as whole Volumes might be filled with the relation In fine there is not a Doctour of the Church whose writings speak not the wonders Heaven hath owned even in their time upon the score of supplications made in the presence and honour of Saints Bodies Nor did this religious Worship of relicks spring up originally with the Ghospel for St. Epiphanius brings evidence how the Sepulchers of Esay Ezekiel and Jeremy were had in great veneration among the Jews and this from the extraordinary succours God conserred on distressed People at the Tombs of those Holy Prophets We find likewise Exodus 13. that before Moses conducted the Israelites out of Egypt he ordained the Bones of Joseph to be taken up and born away with Ceremony into the Land of promise Now why all this But to verify our Holy Prophets assertion that humbled bones shall rejoyce that Death may cause a separation twixt Soul and Body and so seem to Triumph over this mortal clay of ours cannot be denyed Yet if our members have served in purity as St. Paul terms it and merited in life to be the Temple of the Holy Ghost such as these though exanimated may still retain a vertue by which they give life and joy to other Beings Whence justly our Petitioner fore-declares and humbled bones shall rejoyce Truly it is but rational to conceive there should be a Providence to preserve from common corruption those Bodies who had been instrumental to many acts of vertue and made a daily victime by pennance For since mortality is the effect of sin there ought at least be something that hath the resemblance of immortality to attend that Body which hath much contributed to the Souls happiness Besides we believe our Bodies shall one day be glorified and vested with immortal dotes it is fit then such who have here led a life as it were Angelical without any contamination of sensual pleasures should anticipate in some kind their future glorifyed condition and how can this better appear than by imprinting a Sovereign vertue in their extinguished Ashes since it is decreed a compleat glorification cannot unless particularly dispensed with be conferred till the universal Resurrection This admirable operation given to their Earthly and liveless substance as it is a Testimony of their Souls felicity so is it no less to us a pledge the most dear we could have by which we are assured of their watchful and compassionate care over us In fine how powerfully are we wrought into the imitation of their lives when at their shrines we behold both Death and Nature vanquished and the prodigious effects of humbled prostrate Limbs lowdly declare how precious the Death of Saints is in the sight of God Thus our Holy Petitioner hath laid open unto us First the Jubileys of mind which fill a Soul united unto God by love and repentance Next to compleat the Harmony he tells us our very bones shall not want their portion of joy that if they here be made bare disjoynted or broken Almighty God never fails to sweeten those rigours by internal whispers and consolations which carry them on to perseverance in their pressures and debasements and when Saints have once payed this debt to nature then he gives to the one part the immediate fruition of his Glory and to the other he often communicates such Soveraign vertues that they are as it were certain previous dispositions to immortality 'T is true the relick of a Saint appears but a lump of Earth liveless inanimate and so is not capable of joy yet God making it the instrument of miraculous effects is thereby glorifyed and what ever relates to his honour is matter of exultation Again St. Paul saith that every Creature groans that is feels throwes and longing desires after their Maker If then these resentments be allowed to every Being much more ought we grant it to the Sacred pledge of a Saints Body in which the Omnipotency and other Divine attributes of God do so gloriously shine and humbled bones shall rejoyce The Application Let us then so manage our senses in this life enslaving them to the Lawes of reason that after the short course of their servitude here we may arrive to that joy mentioned by our Holy Petitioner Amen CHAP. XIX Averte faciem tuam à peccatis meis Turn away thy Face from my sins WHen I cast my Eye upon this clause of the Petition I cannot but reflect on that passage of Esay where he sayes it is a bitter thing to have once abandoned God for after a sin is committed though it be secret unseen and none reprehend us for it yet we fear every shadow suspect every look and syllable nor can we ever think our selves secure and out of danger St. Austin sayes as iniquity is alwayes accompanied with a neglect of God and consequently is a kind of Pride by which we value our own satisfaction beyond his honour so sin by a just punishment throwes us down below our selves it first induces us to actions unworthy our reason and after that engagement what Tyranny like to this usurper For having shaken off the fear of God who alone ought to be the Object of that passion we sink into the fear of every thing capable to be the Term of Sense if a sound it is a loud promulgation of our Crime if a Shadow it is some Ambuscado to surprize us if the World be civil they are acts of
any stop as if the Sage ruler of all things took no cognizance of their actions and which is done parhaps from a foresight they will persevere to the end in wickedness and having performed acts of moral vertues God allowes them a little calm in this life But in our sense when God passes over as undiscerned our faults he remits them without punishment and so seems to have been a stranger to our misdeeds but yet he never doth this that is never turns away his Face from our sins unless we first turn our Face upon them placing them before our Eyes and touched with a horrour at their deformity abjure and protest against them having done this we must then expose that abstract of wonders Christ Jesus before the Eternal Father that his wounded body may serve as a bulwark to defend us and appease his angry looks which implies the aversion of his Face or fury from us Our penitent having in this manner made his way he hopes the effect will follow that God averting his Face in that act will give him an abolition of his crimes that so he may reap the fruit of a Holy penitential fear We kow St. Peter fared not the worse when prompted by a low esteem of himself he requested his Lord to withdraw from him because a sinner No more did the good Centurion lose any thing in acknowledging his little of merit to have his house blessed and made happy by Christ's presence So our Penitent's awful respect in declining the Face of his Creatour springing from a sense of his own unworthiness and believing his sins an object unfit for an Eye so pure and unstained may perhaps draw benedictions upon him and contribute in a large measure to his happiness Wherefore he goes on still repeating turn away thy face from my sins The Application From this discourse we may learn the agitations of a Soul which hath once been defiled with sin sometimes he Figures God unto him as an angry judge and is affrighted to appear before him then again as a purity so compleat and Essential that though he should be conscious of no guilt as having been cleansed and washed as white as Snow he dares not yet stand to the examen Nay on the contrary it makes him petition to have that face which is the joy of Angels to be diverted from him we must then in imitation of our penitent fix only to this comfort that humility repentance and reverential thoughts though they keep us here depressed and under hatches will at last render that face we would now decline through the terrour of our Sins amiable and pleasing into our possession whereon we may gaze and feed our glorifyed Senses for all Eternity Amen CHAP. XX. Et omnes iniquitates meas dele And wipe away all my iniquities ST Cyril of Alexandria saith in the jâ—…stification of a sinner are required certain previous dispositions amongst which he reckons up faith hope repentance and fear Whence I conceive the apprehension of our Holy Penitent lest God should fasten his regards upon his iniquities mentioned in the preceeding verse was initiative and preliminary to his present address That his iniquities may be wiped away St. Austin holds it a thing most rare that any should embrace Christian Religion who have not first received within them an impression of the fear of God That the Ninivites became Penitent and shrowded themselves under a veil of Sackcloth and Ashes The only cause was a fear of vengeance threatned them by the preaching of Jonas St. Hierom upon the First Chapter of Malachy sayes behold O Lord how the fear of punishment diverts us from evil and that the priviledge of being your Children arises from a servile apprehension Our Penitent was not ignorant of this when after a dread conceived of God's judgments he immediately proceeds as if prepared by that terrour to demand an abolition of his crimes Wipe away my iniquities Besides he here explicates himself more fully that in case he do procure the Face of God to be averted then he is confident the sequel will be an expulsion of sin by grace For it were absurd that faith love and other qualities inherent should be necessary to dispose us for pardon and yet the formal effect to be extrinsecal and a justice not ours but imputed to us St. Paul desides this in his Epistle to the Colossians Christ hath freed us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of the love of his Son Where you see the infusion of justice by which a Man becomes pious succeeds to the Remission of sin by which we cease to be impious and just as the Air by the same ray of the Sun hath not only its darkness expelled but also is filled with light so that true Son of Justice communicating unto Man his divine grace doth at once by this gift disperse the Clouds of sin and replenish him with the splendour of inherent Justice The same Apostlâ—… Rom. 5. takes away all doubt in this point saying that the grace of God is diffused into our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us and that no mistake in this Text may happen St. Austin explicates it in this Sense The charity of God is said to fill our hearts not with that love by which he loves us but by â—heâ—…by which we love him It is then in this fountain of love which springs within us whose over-flowing streams arise from Christ's donation in these we are washed we are sanctifyed and made just by this regeneration we are said to become a new Creature and from an Enemy purchase the title of being the Son of God all which powerfully import a mutation and real change within us St. John in his First Epistle sayes he that doth justice is just Abel was just in that he sacrificed unto God with all the circumstances of homage due unto a supream Being Noah just in that he gave credit unto God feared his judgements and obeyed his commands St. Luke affirms Zachary and Elizabeth to be just from their compliance and obedience to Divine precepts so that it is clear the Principle of their justification was inherent and that nothing extrinsick or imputative can be the formal cause of our actions for if not issuing from something within us we cannot own them to be ours Our Holy Penitent filled with supernatural illustrations was not a stranger to Divine Lawes established in order to Man's conversion Wherefore he knew well his Petition to have his iniquities strook off involved the gift of grace by whose power alone they were to be destroyed Nay even Natural Reason will lead us to this Truth for justification is a motion from sin to justice whence its name is derived as calefaction from heat Now it is evident to expell cold will not be thought calefaction unless the quality of heat be introduced So the bare remission of sin cannot amount to an act of justification without the consecution
in his Throne drawing from thence the eternal Son of God O who can be so wicked to behold the lines of this merciful proceeding drawn forth and not presently joyn issue with our holy preacher to abandon the pernicious wayes of sin and become a Disciple in the Rudiments of vertue To behold a Redeemer living in the Hearts of Men before he came to live upon Earth to see all the Sanctity of the World addressed to him to speak of nothing but him and all conspire to his glory If before he came he had so many tongues and voices to set him forth and that the Law and service of God had no other aim than to engrave the Messias in the Hearts of Men what expressions ought to enflame our zeal after his birth life cross and triumphant glory These are the wayes our Graduate will distill into the Minds of the wicked and certainly he did it with an excess of fervour and delight helped on by the consideration that out of his seed the Saviour of Israel was to be born And it is clear he kept close to this Theam even to the last making it his Testament and the subject of his expiring words to his Son Solomon That he should be sure to walk in the wayes of the Lord that in the exact observance of his judgments and Commandment written in the Law of Moses were fastned the succession of his Crown saying This done thou shalt not want one of thy posterity to sit upon the throne of Israel These are the wayes if happily taken will preserve the wicked from ruine give them eternal life secure them from Hell and open a passage to all the delights of Heaven as St. John sayes To the end that all who believe in the should possess eternal bliss Wherefore our Penitent egged on by so many powerful motives to the discharge of his task will never fail in what he hath promised to teach the wicked the wayes of God The Application Our Penitent instructs us here by his example that there is no employment so acceptable unto God as to disperse in our Neighbour the clouds of Ignorance and imbue him with principles of wisdome His Son Solomon was perhaps taught by this clause to address so happily his petition And Joel the prophet makes it the great subject of good tydings he foredeclared to the Church Be glad yea Sons of Sion and rejoyce in the Lord your God who hath given you a teacher of righteousness Aristotle being asked why Commonwealths did not assign pensions for Masters that taught and instructed others as they did to other offices of the State made this reply because there could be no reward answerable to their desert if he thought certain notions in natural knowledge to be so valuable what a price would he have set on such as convey the sublime mysteries of heaven unto us Let us then instruct our Neighbour by good example by doing charity to the distressed and by wholesome Documents every one according to his Talent and Ability And in doing this we follow the steps of a great Saint who believed he could in nothing better express his gratitude and zeal for God's honour than in the Reduction of Souls to the way of Salvation Amen CHAP. XXVIII Et impii ad te convertentur And the impious shall be converted to thee BY this clause our Penitent destroyes the Opinion of some in those modern times who assert that Christ died not for all Men but only for the elect for if the impious be not excluded from the participation of his precious Blood surely there is none that are impiety being a crime that directly strikes against the honour of God and is a complaet rebellion against his Divinity Now if our Divine by his preaching was confident to reduce such offendours whom can we imagine shall be excepted nor can they say we are put into a worse condition by the Evangelical Law in which a plenitude of benedictions are showred down upon us and which as far exceeds the Mosaick as a thing real the type and figure that represents it St. John Chap. 1.2 sayes Christ is a propitiation for our sins and not only for ours but for the sins of the whole World First Christ satisfied for Adam's disobedience and original sin witness St. Paul ad Rom. Chap. 2. As death entered by the default of one so life by the justice and obedience of one Again St. John sayes Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World that is original sin for the Greek version puts it in the Singular Number so Bede Theophilact and St. Thomas understand it The Angelical Doctor adds that the Son of God was incarnate rather for original sin which was an universal evil whose venome infected all Mankind than for the actual and personal sins of the World but as no sin is irremissible to an infinite mercy by consequence after original sin he made satisfaction for all actions and transgressions which were mortal The reason is that mortal sins not only deprive the Soul of the vision of God for all eternity but likewise exposes it to the everlasting torments of Hell the Son of God then whose nature is all goodness considered the misery of these sins and offered up his life and death for their expiation For without sanctifying grace our works are not meritorious nor can they satisfy for any venial sin Wherefore deprived of grace by original sin we could not by our selves no not by the assistance of the blessed Angels satisfy for the least venial sin Because though they be endued with grace yet no pure Creature can merit condign grace Wherefore it was necessary that Jesus Christ should make satisfaction for our least failing as St. Austin sayes excellently well that to save an infinity of VVorlds we ought not to cast one glance of the Eye contrary to the will of God Whence it is clear no Creature can satisfy for the least sin since to do it we must offer up something more valuable than the whole VVorld If then we could not free our selves from the least deviation without the interposition of his merits much less were we in a capacity to relieve our selves from the guilt of Enormous Crimes and if as to these the fruit of his passion was not applyed unto all it must be either from the inefficacy of satisfaction or a defect of commiseration and goodness towards his Creatures It cannot be the first for his merits are infinite by reason of the divine person from whence they proceed for actions belong to the person according to Philosophy It was likewise infinite in regard of his humanity because it was sanctifyed and deifyed by the divinity which was like a certain sanctifying and deifying form unto that sacred humanity now as the greatness of merit is not only measured by the quality of the work but also by many circumstances and especially in consideration of the dignity of the person that
the terrours of the Law he sayes thou art not delighted c. Christ our Lord abrogated the bill of divorce practised amongst the Jews declaring that vvhosoever dismissed his wife and took another played the Adulterer Now it is most certain that it was alwayes unlawful though in the Law upon the score of the Jews proness and obstinacy in evil no punishment vvere ordained for the fame as there vvere for other crimes so that it vvas an evil permitted not approved off And this not as to the guilt but defect of chastisement If then the Law practised a kind of connivancy in forbearing the use of its coercive power to prevent a greater inconveniency that might ensue Why may vve not inferr vvith more reason that where the most perfect conditions as to the effect of a Sacrifice are found others of less moment may be omitted The legal Sacrifices not having power to conferr Grace nor without the internal worship of vertues as Charity Repentance and the like were grateful no more than our external good works at present are even in the highest and more perfect oblation if a disposition in the Mind be wanting wherefore our Petitioner enriched with all essential requisites of a lively faith love sorrow c. And being a person according to Gods own Heart I see not but with these circumstances he might rest fixed in his Oblation in Spirit and cry thou art not delighted with Holocausts This Clause hath set a work many great wits and pushed them on so far as to assert that Sacrifices were not commanded in the old Law but only permitted as a lesser Evil as to make them decline Idolatry which that gross people were so apt to slide into and to shew this was the end of that Institution they observe those Beasts were appointed and marked out for their Sacrifices which were the Deities adored by the Egyptians as a Sheep a Goat a Kid an Ox a Calf a Dove a Sparrow a Turtle that whilst they mangled and destroyed those Animals they might reflect upon that one supream God before whom all other powers must lye prostrate and by their destruction acknowledge his Sovereign Dominion Now I confess as to the Vniversal tye of the Law I go not along with this Opinion in matter of Sacrifice for before the written Law it is clear in the Sacrifice of Abel Noah and Abraham that they were Obligatory and likewise acceptable to God and this the Church confirms supplicating that this unbloody Sacrifice might find acceptance at his Hands as those of Melchizedeck and other just Patriarchs had done Nay in Exodus the 12. God makes an accurate and distinct settlement of the Ceremonies inflicting punishments on the infringers which speaks more than bare permission Nay he owns the perfume arising from a Sacrifice to be most Odoriferous and pleasing to him You must know then that one motive in the Institution of Sacrifices was to divert the Jews from dangers of Idolatry just as now one of the intentions in marriage may be to avoid fornication Another motive was to prefigure that bloody Sacrifice of the Cross to be offered up in the new Law for the end of the Law was to know love and obey Christ so that all their Sacrifices tended to his instruction They were as a kind of bond or engagement by vvhich the new Law vvas promised to them So that if they addressed them under that Form and attired vvith these circumstances they were questionless holy and grateful in the sight of God and in this sense the Law obliged all in general unto Sacrifice yet this hinders not but our Petitioner prevented with extraordinary Graces may be taught another method of Sacrifice and truly he insinuates as much in his 39. Psalm where he owns to have received a command to performe the will of God and adds he had done it and this in planting his Law that is Sacrifice in the midst of his Earth wherefore as to himself he might say Thou art not delighted with Holocausts c. I am not Ignorant there are many who lay the force of this expression upon the sole inefficacy of the Law whose Sacrifices and Sacraments did not Physically and really conferr Grace but only after a moral way prefigured and shadowed it forth depending more upon the disposition of him that offered than on any innate vertue contained in themselves and upon this ground our Petitioner might alledge that burnt-offerings would not serene his angry looks since they did but discover the Vlcer not heal it Yet the difficulty still remains that however inefficacious they were they had no other remedies so that they were duties to which they were obliged and the sole expedient to relieve them in distress Some were propitiatory to divert and shelter them from the storms of Gods vengeance and this was a victime for sin others were in thanksgiving for blessings received and for the continuation of them and was stiled a pacifick oblation part of this Animal was burnt the rest eaten by the Priests and those that offered the same Sacrifice likewise if not consumed the same day but reserved till the next was directed to the impetration of new benefits whence you may see that upon every turn and in all their Exigencies they were necessitated to flye unto the help of Sacrifices and how liberal and unwearied they were in that devotion appears by a just account as Josephus relates given into the President of Syria who was desirous to acquaint Nero by this with the greatness of their Common-wealth it was there found and exactly set down that they did Sacrifice at every one of their Solemn Sabbaths two hundred fifty six thousand five hundred Lambs So that you see their fervour was not slack and tepid in matter of Sacrifices and though they were a Nation of all others most addicted to avarice Yet in this they jumped not with the Opinion of Socrates who judged things of the least value most fit to be offered up to the Gods because as they stand not in need of our gifts so do they more value our affection then what we give but they on the contrary thought nothing better spent than what was laid out in Sacrifices a clear Evidence that the main part of their Religion consisted in these external rules Nay they were so bent upon them as St. Chrysostom by way of similitude sayes as a Physitian to cut off all opportunity from his Fevorish Patient that he might not ruine himself by intemperate draughts of cold water in a kind of passion throwes away that liquor and breaks the Vessel in which it was brought just so sayes he Christ the original and accomplishment of all their Figures appearing amongst them who came to make a perfect cure and free them from all their distempers saw he could not wean them from their habitual practises of the Law at that time not only unnecessary but even obnoxious to them without proceeding like a resolute Physitian by way
they are to wade through in making good their fidelity to God they throw themselves upon the points of Halberts and other instruments of severity without the least whining or flinching at their sharpness they take in as it were with the same relish the Gall of misfortunes and desolations and the Hony of prosperities and comforts No stormy season hinders their Journey and that which disturbs soft and effeminate Spirits is to them matter of joy and repose because they possess what they desire to wit affliction so that all things which pass under the name of Adversity are not so but to the wicked who make ill use of them in prizing the Creature more than the Creatour Hence it is that the general spirit of Saints have carried them on to be ambitious of suffering and to reckon it amongst one of the choice favours of Heaven for they had learnt by experience that if God with one Hand reaches unto them the Cup of his passion it is but by snatches and as it were a sup whilst with the other he gives them large draughts of consolation It is noted in the sacred Text that God laid open the person of Job to all the assaults of Satan but with this reserve that he touch not upon his life and this not in regard that death would have ecclipsed the glory of that great Champion but because he would not be deprived of such a Combatant to whose conflict he and his blessed Angels were intent with much satisfaction and so would not lose the pleasure of seeing this stout skirmish fought out to the last 'twixt him and his Enemy And as the Heathen Emperours took great delight to see a Christian enter into the list with a wild Beast so the King of Heaven is solaced with the sight of one of his Saints when he maintains a Fight against those fierce Beasts of Hell Seneca out of the principles of humane wisdom drew this excellent saying that no object was more worthy in the Eyes of the gods than to behold a stout Man with a settled countenance unmoved to struggle with adverse Fortune and truly the delay our blessed Saviour made in sending succour to his Disciples endangered by a storm at Sea sufficiently hints unto us the pleasure God takes to see the Just row against the stream tugg and wrestle with all the might they can against the stream and afflictions of this World Thus you see how happy our Holy Penitent hath ajusted his Sacrifice to the lines of God's will and that he never spake more emphatically than when he said A Sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit St. Bonaventure sayes that honor is due to God in four several respects and in like manner we ought in as many wayes render it unto him First in consideration of many blessings and this is to be returned by our gratitude and acts of thanksgiving Next we owe him honor in that he hath laid his commands upon us and this we perform by our obedience and submission to his Laws Thirdly his greatness and sovereignity exact it at our hands and this is paid by the vertue of Latria and adoration Lastly honor is due unto him in that he hath been offended and injuriously treated by sin Now the honor due to him in this point is restored by Penitential acts and by a troubled spirit Because in regard of his displeasure and to make reparation for the contempts thrown upon his Majesty he is ready to humble himself and apply all his endeavour to works of piety so far as even to afflict himself that he might honor the Divine Justice which requires that sin should never go unpunished Wherefore God is delighted in these painful satisfactory acquittances which we often give him written in our sweat and blood And Jesus Christ makes of them a present to his Father with his own from whence the value of ours is derived and there they find acceptance not upon the score of any contentment it is to God that we are tormented either in Soul or Body but meerly in that by them his Justice is honored and exalted and the Palms of our victory more resplendent This anxiety of spirit supported with a patient resignation and strengthened with a fervent prayer purchased to the distressed Anna and to the Jewish Nation that great Prophet Samuel This same disturbance of Spirit carried on by a generous submissive resolution against all the Machinations of Saul put into the Hands of our Penitent the Scepter of Juda in a word it seems to be a principle setled in Heaven that without this Sacrifice of a troubled spirit he will not part with his blessings It may be objected that God knowes the Hearts of Men and what they will do and therefore he need not this external Testimony Next that Christ's merits being of an infinite value ours appear altogether superfluous to which I answer First that his external glory consisting in the visible homages payd to him by his Creatures this would be wanting should he give them no occasion to make it manifest and shew unto the World he hath dependants who value no suffering in proportion to the duty they owe him Besides the satisfaction we shall take in Heaven to have done something to merit our Beatitude will certainly be a great addition to our Contentment As to the other though I confess the merits of Christ all sufficient yet this will not excuse us from offering what we can in satisfaction for the Honor and glory of all our actions belong to God now it being an Act of injustice to defraud any one of his revenue no less is it against equity to deprive God of the glory due unto him Wherefore a life that contributes not to his glory is perverse and wicked Again he that owns a Tree hath likewise right to the fruit it bears if the Land be mine the Crop also is at my disposal the labour and service of a Horse is due to his Master In like manner all that we are all the good we do or shall do is the work of God and a present with which he enriches us that we might be able to give something to him Wherefore as all is his our duty binds us to consecrate all our interiour and exteriour actions to promote his honor and glory And since it is reasonable sin should be punished our Holy Penitent submits to the decree exposes himself to be wracked and tortured by what punishment the Divine Majesty shall think good either in Mind or Body nor can he ever repine whilst he reflects That a Sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit The Application Here we are taught there is no Sacrifice conveyes an odour so pleasing unto Heaven as that of a Soul angustiated upon the score of God's cause The oblation of a Holocaust imports the reduction of it to Ashes that of a troubled spirit is a transmutation into the Holy Ghost who promises to be the intellect to be the Tongue nay
in which the immolated victime suffered a real mutation both in that Christian oblation without effusion of blood which he celebrated the night before his death as also in the bloody Sacrifice of himself which he might have hindred but would not he is then a true Priest Again his power not being confined to Sacraments nor to certain words and ceremonies as that of Men who are Priests after him and not depending upon the impression of any Character since he was setled in it sufficiently by his Hypostatick union he enjoyes a degree of Priesthood with eminency above all other Men invested with this sublime dignity Wherefore doubtless this his Priesthood above all other things was most acceptable to God because by this title and quality he hath wrought the Worlds Salvation hath reconciled Souls unto God and put them into a condition of rendering him glory in all Eternity So that among all the sublime qualities of Jesus Christ that of his Priesthood hath been the most beneficial to the World for by it he hath made up all the breaches of sin both in Heaven and Earth appeased God's anger by his Sacrifice and restored us to his lost grace and favour Next he is not only Priest but sovereign Bishop empowred to institute ordain and govern at his pleasure in all spiritual things which relate unto God and the Salvation of Souls wherefore St. Peter Ep. 1. C. 2. Stiles him the Bishop and Pastour of Souls St. Paul likewise to the Hebrews Chap. 7. sayes It was fit we should have a Bishop holy innocent unpolluted and separated from sinners who hath no necessity of offering Sacrifice daily for his own sins So that Christ is not reduced to that extremity as to offer Sacrifice for the expiation of his own faults he hath no need to purify himself since he hath a Sanctity which outvyes that of Angels his only task is to enlighten purify and improve others that he might transmit them from the perfection and spiritual treasures of this life to the perfection and eternal treasures of the next At this his sovereign Chair doth aim that is the acquisition of immortal felicity he hath laid down for our safe passage and firm footing two planks to wit the Cross and pennance he is mediatour between God and Man an intercessour for us he assists at our right Hand that we might not be overthrown and amidst the storm of Stones which fell upon St. Stephen he is awake and upon his Leggs ready to run to his succour so that he hath all the conditions of a powerful and careful Prelat The Prophet Joel had in his prospect this Prince of Ecclesiasticks when in his 2. Chapter he exhorts the Daughters of Sion to skip for joy and fly to the Lord their God because he had given unto them a Doctor of Justice to teach them a spiritual life how to separate their Souls from affection to Creatures and unite themselves to God This he did in commanding us to renounce our selves and follow him to carry with him our Cross to be perseverant in prayer to practise vertues to love God above all things and our Neighbour as our selves In fine his Doctrine permits no vice cherishes all vertues raises Man above himself and his nature and besides his Commandements he gives admirable Councels of chastity poverty and obedience and other precepts leading to perfection which if exactly weighed would evidence as clear as the Sun beams that he is the greatest Master and Doctor of a spiritual life He is then Head of the Church because the Founder from whence she hath received her Life and Being by the seeds of his grace by the preaching of his Apostles by all the good works and stratagems he hath set on foot to draw Souls unto Faith and Baptism From whom she hath received her subsistence and nourishment in the provision of the Sacraments and of a multitude of gifts and graces in order to the propagation and defence of the Church He hath likewise setled here an Ecclesiastical Hierarchy resembling that of Angels and lastly he overwhelms her with the load of his favours transmitting daily her Members to his Church Triumphant where he invests them with glory nor will cease untill he hath made of the Souls issuing from the militant here beneath a Church glorious and without the least stain or wrinkle This Saint of Saints this Prince of Ecclesiasticks this Doctor of Justice is the Corner stone on which our Penitent had fixed his Eye and petitioned to be the Basis of Jerusalem's fair Walls so that having such a foundation what noble superstructure might he not expect and truly this edifice was squared out to the highest Ideas of perfection First we see an addition of the three Theological vertues that is so polished and refined as it gives them quite another lustre as to Faith the mysteries of the blessed Trinity the Incarnation and the holy Eucharist are in the Evangelical Law drawn as it were out of a Cloud into the Sun-beams and therefore St. Paul styles the written Law a Schoolmaster which taught the Jews only the first Rudiments of Religion whereas Christian Faith proposes ravishing objects and discovers the wonders of the said mysteries distinctly which begets reverence and devotion in the Hearts of Men. As to hope which enflames our courage to the Execution of generous undertakings the Jews had very obscure revelations of eternal beatitude nor could they hope for it till the coming of the Messias and Redeemer who was to open Heaven's Gates and have the honor to be the first Man that entered there in the interim they were fed with promises of Earthly rewards which rendered Souls Mercenary and their intentions more gross whilst the Evangelical Law unfolds the wonders of Heaven the glory of a Resurrection and engages for our immediate reception into that place of immortal felicity after this life supposing we are distain'd from all guilt of sin As to Charity the Soul of vertues and devotion it must needs receive from the Evangelical Law many degrees of heat and fervour since it renders our faith and hope more perfect For where the knowledge is greater of things more worthy of love and where our hopes are heightned to a more valuable expectation there doubtless will be found the production of a more ardent desire and affection After this rare piece which much embellished the structure are disposed the Sacraments which like a great water about the circumvallation serve both to secure the inhabitants from the assaults of their Enemies and to strengthen them in the noble exploits of vertues So that by this succour and powerful aid they are obliged in honour and conscience to a more eminent degree of Sanctity We see that Arts and Sciences are improved by success of time and those Masters which come after are more expert than the former Now this proceeding we behold in divine precepts not out of any deficiency in the Law-giver but because after Adam's sin
the erecting this magnificent structure of the Church as by his ardent prayer to dispose the divine Architect unto this admirable work what a reproach will it be to us who find the Fabrick done to our Hands and who are our selves so happy as to be part of the materials if we do not so much as keep it in repair nor preserve it against any rebellious or violent effort To this performance is required a due obedience to the supream Pastour who as it were the form and Soul of this edifice Next a reverence and submission unto Bishops who are the pillars and great supports of it Lastly a respect to Priests who are a main ornament and useful to this glorious Fabrick Whereas then our Holy Penitent poured forth his prayers with so much fervour for the raising of these Evangelical walls it is our part now to make addresses unto Heaven that according to his promise it may continue pure unstained and invincible against all the malice of Earth and Hell Amen CHAP. XXXIX Tunc acceptabis Sacrificium Justitiae oblationes Holocausta Then thou wilt receive Sacrifice oblations of Justice and whole Burnt-offerings OUr Holy Penitent had entertained in his thoughts not only the Materials and Architecture of this Building but he went further and reached in his prophetick view the Sacrifices which were there to be offered up The first object display'd in this Temple is the Messias God-man who was a true Sacrifice oblation of Justice and Holocaust A Sacrifice in that he appeased God's anger frankly offered and with the purest intention that could be imagined this is expressed in John 14. That the World may know I love my Father and perform his commands arise sayes Christ to his Apostles and let us to the Cross For God having committed to him the affair of Man's Salvation lost by sin he was enflamed with a zeal of rendering all possible satisfaction and considering that if he should make himself a victime and present that Sacrifice to God it would be of an infinite value in regard of the infinity of his person and such a Sacrifice infinite would counter-ballance the infinite malice of sin and prove a satisfaction answerable to Man's offence Wherefore that God might have reparation of honor he designed an actual bloody Sacrifice of himself unto God for the sin of Adam and all Mankind And to this end likewise that God being appeased and satisfyed by the dignity of this Sacrifice might depose all animosity against Man and restore him to those expedients by which he may work his Salvation Amongst all the contrivances that can enter our thoughts none appear more excellent and noble both to ajust God's honor and Man's Salvation together than this immolation of himself upon the Altar of the Cross First it is very powerful to appease God's wrath for nothing more than death can be endured for God's honor nor can any Creature more absolutely avow himself unto him than in dying for his sake Wherefore St. Paul sayes of Christ ad Ephes 5. He gave himself up an oblation and host unto God in the perfume of sweetness Next it is very proper to cure Man's infirmity who by his disobedience and pride had forfeited his right to Paradise wherefore Christ submitting himself to the Cross and so accomplishing the will of his Father repaired those breaches we had made by our Rebellion Lastly it is very efficacious to purchase our love without infringing the liberty of our free-will For what can more charm us to love than to behold a person for my sole interest sustain the torments of a Cross which was the most infamous of all kind of punishments yet so great was the affection our Saviour Christ bare us that he deposited in the infamy and reproach of the Cross all that honor which his miracles his Doctrine and innocent life had purchased to him leaving them all hanging on it as a Trophey of his love The Cross then is the North Star of our comfort and hope for what can he deny us nay what will he not grant us who on the Cross hath made such large expressions of his kindness God is said to be the searcher of hearts that is he only knowes the sincerity of them whence some have taken occasion to murmur at the Maker in that he placed not a window before the Breast of every one But though we may be jealous of all the rest yet sure we cannot be of Christ upon the Cross nor of his love since he there even layes open his Bowels unto us upon this consideration Christ might justly promise to himself That when he shall be lifted up from the Earth that is upon the Cross he would draw the affections of all Mankind unto him How different is the proceeding of this our eternal Priest from the usual wayes of Men who upon a mean and trivial interest fall upon the destruction of their Neighbour whilst his design is to Sacrifice himself upon our score and by that means gain our love as a just Tribute to his eternal Father he might well assure himself this Sacrifice would be accepted he knew that God could not behold the Face of his Christ under this bloody posture for the redemption of guilty Souls and not be touched with the worth of this Sacrifice wherefore our Penitent may confidently repeat tunc acceptabis then that is at this plenitude of time a Sacrifice will appear which shall convey to Heaven an odor grateful unto God and serve as a balm to cure all the wounds of humane nature This Sacrifice was likewise an oblation of Justice for supposing that God would have sin punished because it is a decree of his eternal Law which cannot erre nor want its effect Again since Man was impotent to any compleat satisfaction for sin wherewith he was defiled and contaminated it was necessary some person exempt from all sin should interpose and take upon him out of love and goodness the discharge of our transgressions Now Christ was this happy Redeemer who replenished with mercy spared not his sacred humanity for our deliverance First he dragged us out of the misery wherein we lay after Adam's sin that by no action of ours we could recover grace or any wayes reach our justification this impotency Christ took away and purchased to all Mankind means of Salvation in case they make right use of it Next he freed us from the misery of sin and by his passion obtained a perfect enlargement for all those who faithfully cooperate with his grace Lastly he merited for the Soul and Body an exemption from the Calamities they sustain and endure in this life and afterwards the glory of Heaven if so be they persevere in sanctifying grace and all this upon the design of rendering a full satisfaction for all the sins of the World in rigour of Justice And since God was irritated by Man's contempt which sin involves Christ knowing that God could not receive more honour than
what was paid him by the way of Sacrifice and that by how much the victime excelled his glory went in the like proportion He presented his sacred humanity personally united to the Word by way of Justice on the Tree of the Cross as a just compensation of all indignities thrown upon him by the World and for this end he exposed his Body to all the highest severities of Justice Thus God accepting this oblation of Justice punished in his Son all the sins of Mankind Wherefore as a disobedience to God's Law a Pride in thwarting his greatness and a pleasure in our conversion to a Creature are found in sin all these were confronted in Christ's passion by a prodigious obedience an incomparable humility and a perpession of the most exquisite torments that could be inflicted so that there was not the least punctilio of equity wanting in this oblation of Justice Our Holy Penitent weighing this terrible account could not but tremble It is true God was contented with Abrahams good intention and stopped the Execution of Isaac but when his eternal Law to punish sin was in question which he will have inviolable he spares not his only Son and if on him the darts of his anger fall so heavy and this for anothers transgression what may not a miserable sinner justly expect for his own sins in his own person If this be done on the green branches what havock will be made of those that are withered if the Innocent have this measure what will become of the Guilty but however these dismal reflections may affright our penitent yet he is still boyd up with hope and confidence in this oblation of Justice Lastly this Sacrifice is a perfect Holocaust the excellency of which consists in the total destruction of the thing offered In confirmation of this St. Paul asserts that Christ annihilated himself in becoming obedient to the Death of the Cross Look on his passion and you will see him reduced to a moral nothing First at his last Supper he throws himself at the Feet of his Apostles he washes dryes and kisses even those of a perfidious Judas in the garden of Olivet he not onely prayes with bended knees but is prostrate on the ground bedewed with a bloody sweat the most prodigious effect of terrour that ever hapned in nature In the sequel of his passion he is branded with false accusations and ignominious reproaches derisions and scorns He receives the highest indignities from the vilest of persons as to be buffeted spit on crowned with Thorns fastned on the Cross between two Thieves as the ring leaders and this at their Paschal solemnity in the populous City of Jerusalem where he forfeited all that reputation which the wonders of his power and sublime communications of his wisdom had purchased to him so that many who had been his spectators and of his audience in whose opinion he had passed for a signal person a great Prophet a Man incomparable in vertue and sanctity nay who looked upon him as the promised Messias and Son of God gave him then the Character of an Hypocrit and condemned all his miracles as meer illusions and the effects of Art magick and his Sermons as dreams of phantastick babling Nay the Prophet Esay stiles him the last and outcast of Men disfigured mishapen and laden with infirmities insomuch that he was esteemed as one Leperstrook and the object of God's vengeance O what a Holocaust was this He that is Lord and Creatour of the World King of Heaven and Sovereign Judge over the living and the dead is destroyed in his honor and reputation his Eyes wax dimm and dark his Face pale and wan his Tongue furred and swoln his Lips black and blew and his whole Body mangled in such sort as they numbred all his Bones so that it was as it were but one wound and all these outrages are compleated in his Execution upon the Cross which kind of death was so abominable as Tostatus sayes it is an injury done to God himself that a Creature created after his Image should dye on the Cross Cicero sayes it is an act very hainous to bind a Citizen of Rome a Villany to scourge him and in a manner a Parricide to kill him but what then will it be to put him on a Cross Heretofore God made himself known by destroying Pharaoh and all his Host but now he will get himself a Name and Fame by playing the Holocaust and dying upon the Cross Thus you see how justly our Petitioner might assert this Sacrifice to be an oblation of Justice and a Holocaust or whole burnt offering which would be accepted off For certainly God was never more honoured than by Christ offered up on the Cross because the glory there given him outvyes all the injuries and affronts that had been or ever shall issue from the ugly Face of sin But the Fire of his love stopt not here his sacred humanity would further yet honour God by a Sacrifice which should not be confined to a short space of three hours to a little 〈…〉 Nation of the Jews nor to the narrow hill of Mount Calvary wherefore by a generous design he instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist where this same humanity without effusion of blood might honour God by a Sacrifice that would last to the worlds end and be every day reiterated not upon one single mountain but in millions of places throughout all kingdomes where there is any Priest to offer up this Sacrifice to God's honor and as a tribute to his infinite greatness Our great God beholding this admirable contrivance of his incarnate word and of a Soul most pure and holy allyed to his Son by a personal union and relishing this honor he should receive from this Sacrifice begun at a great distance to nose the sweet odour it would evaporate even up to Heaven this gave him a distast as it were of the Mosaical Sacrifices which revealing to our Holy Penitent made him cry thou art not delighted with Holocausts But this is more clearly expressed by the Prophet Malachy where God requires the Temple Gate to be shut the Fire of his Altar for the destruction of victimes no more to be kept in and confesses he is cloy'd with them upon the prevision of that excellent Sacrifice to be made to him in the Evangelical Law Again as a Sacrifice is directed not only to express God's supream Dominion over us but likewise to acknowledge our thanks for his divine favours now the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ accomplished in vertue would not be ungrateful For God had given himself unto it by a personal union in a manner the most obliging and most sublime that is any way consistent with a Creature in return of this he would consecrate himself unto him with all the circumstances of perfection by which a Creature can be made his And which cannot be more than by a Sacrifice wherein he himself is destroyed and as much as may be
its effects p. 158 159 Grace raises our hope to the expectation of a sovereign good p. 160 How sin is expulsed by grace p. 184 185 186 seq Grace compared to the essence of the Soul p. 192 How grace cleanses the Soul from all iniquity p. 193 194 Why grace doth not quiet all motions of sensuality p. 195 Grace purifyes all the powers of the Soul p. 196 God imparts his graces by degrees p. 224 The power of sanctifying grace p. 309 God God is the final end of all his works p. 337 God hath an essential glory and what it is ibid. He hath likewise an external accidental glory ibid. God is more glorified by a good than bad Soul p. 338 348 Every being glorifyes God p. 339 Why man above all in this world ought most to glorify God 340 341 Why God is delighted with our sufferings p. 385 Good works How do they merit a recompence p. 309 310 H Heart The heart the source of all evil and good p. 196 How St. Katharine of Sienna lost her heart p. 199 Character of a heart defiled with sin p. 201 God exacts only our hearts p. 202 The misery of a humane heart ibid. Honour Sacrificed by Christ on the Cross p. 429 Hope The comforts which hope brings to a Soul p. 160 161 The first sign of God's favour is to give us hope p. 332 The definition of hope p. 333 The motives of hope ibid. Holy Ghost His operations in a Soul p. 229 230 seq Humility Praise of this vertue p. 395 Not to be humble is to be disobedient ibid. Two kinds of humility p. 397 The effects of humility ibid. How pleasing to God p. 402 Homicide Terrours of mind which attend homicide p. 294 An injury not to be repaired p. 295 It destroyes God's image ibid. To prevent this he forbad in the old law the eating of blood p. 299 It is never left unrevenged ibid. Why a murthered body bleeds at the presence of the murtherer p. 299 300 I. Incarnation The wonders of this mystery set forth p. 16 No creature could satisfye for sin so that it was a mystery of love p. 17 Ingratitude The ingratitude of David p 232 Injury All injuries done are against God p. 89 307 Job Job excused from sin in cursing the day of his birth p. 116 117 Why God would not permit Satan to touch upon Job's life p. 384 Impiety Definition of it p. 285 seq Justice God's justice is distributive punitive and remunerative p. 318 319 seq To be just implyes an aggregation of all vertues p. 322 Justification The first step is not made without the concurrence of our wills p. 157 A justifyed Soul is filled with joy p. 156 seq Intention We shall be rewarded and punished according to our intention p. 204 Inspiration It highly imports not to reject the least good inspiration p. 224 Infirmity An infirm constitution and sickness not to be repined at p. 144 145 Instruction To teach others the way of salvation the highest employment p. 277 278 279 It is an employment envyed by the Angels ibid. Why Masters have not pensions assigned them by commonwealths p. 279 Ioy. Joy the effects of grace p. 56 seq Many blessings accompany a spiritual joy p. 162 163 Two kinds of joy p. 240 241 What ought to be the motive of our joy p. 243 The means to arrive at this joy p. 246 247 K. Knowledge Why it is good to know our iniquity p. 62 63 64 65 66 seq King In what sense Kings offend against God alone p. 81 The greater the person is that offends the greater is his offence 82 Why Kings are obliged to give good example p. 83 84 85 L. Love The properties of God's love p. 29 St. Peters love to Christ p. 233 Love assaults the Divinity in his throne p. 277 Why we should love our Neighbour p. 307 God's love in playing the merchant vvith poor man p 345 To overcome self-love the shortest way to perfection p. 382 Christ's love to man on the Cross p. 429 430 Christ's love to man in the institution of the Eucharist p. 436 seq Law What is law eternal p. 269 What is the lavv of reason p. 270 Positive divine lawes p. 272 The Mosaick lavv p. 274 275 The end of the Mosaick lavv perfection of the Evangelical lavv p. 419 420 421 Man Man is a vessel of mercy not merit p. 2 Man cannot persevere in grace without a special aid p. 3. Man is diverted from many sins as misbelieving his nature p. 290 How little man can do if left to himself p. 326 327 seq Man is created to praise God p. 349 Mercy It is God's mercy not the value of our actions by which we are saved p 9 His mercy is immense and exceeds all our demeries p. 12 His mercy is a Bulwark against despair p. 14 By Gods great mercy is meant the mystery of the incarnation p. 18 A series of Gods mercies p. 21 No Creature is destitute of Gods mercy p. 23 Why we have more Presidents of his mercy than justice p. 24. His mercy appears in reward of the elect p. 25 He distributes his mercies more in the measure of his love than wisdom p. 27 28 Martyrdom A description of what is requisite to be a martyr p. 150 151 152 Masters We owe more to our Masters than Parents p. 267 Why there is a dependency of one another in the conveyance of intellectual notions p. 267 268 Misery Miseries of this life set forth p. 114 115 No misery like to that of sin p. 174 Merit Definition of merit p. 310 We merit by vertue of grace but the effect of it comes from Gods promise p. 310 311 O Occasions of sin to be avoided p. 44 45 Omnipotency The belief of it raises our hope p. 290 P. Prophet Conditions requisite to a true Prophet p. 130 Several degrees of prophetick lights p. 130 131 Praise General heads of praise that man is to give to God p. 342 343 Pride and fear forbidden in those that would praise God p. 346 Prison Restraint occasion of much good p. 146 Providence How comfortable the belief of it p. 289 Persecution How beneficial p. 155 Passion How dangerous it is p. 301 302 Several benefits of Christs passion p. 431 Predestination No security of our state in this life p. 188 189. How we are predestinated p. 244 245 The effects of our eternal election Ibid. Perfection Praise of a state of perfection p. 440 What it is p. 252 440 The effects of perfection and its praise ibid. Perfect Souls if they fall do soon rise again p. 256 257 Three degrees of perfection p. 265 Pleasure Difference 'twixt corporal and spiritual pleasures p. 161 248 Pennance To pennance succeeds many glad tidings p. 162 164 seq Necessity of pennance p. 394 Prayer How we are to dispose our selves to prayer and what we are to ask p. 335 336 The power of prayer p. 405 Prayer works no change in Gods decrees p. 406 Prayer the first gift of God p. 408 How we ought to value it p. 413 seq R. Remorse Remorse of conscience alwaies attends sin p. 71 seq Resurrection Belief of the resurrection very comfortable p. 166 S. Sin The agitations of a soul defiled with sin p. 182. There is a period set to every man's sins which is called the measure of their iniquityes p. 220 221 The marks of this period p. 221 222 No less equal to what we lose by sin p. 233 Whilest in sin we are capable of no right to heaven p. 32 Why some are drawn from sin others not p. 33 Sin the greatest of evils p. 38 Greater sins require a greater mercy p. 45 46 47 The terrours of sin p. 76 seq p. 174 175 Man's imbecility caused by original sin p. 99 seq What remedy in the old Law for original sin in women p. 110 The penalty and consequencies of original sin p. 110. seq The benefit of confessing our sins 126 125 It becomes God to punish sin p. 176 Sacrifice Why God required not of David a sacrifice p. 351 Who the minister of a sacrifice p. 352 357. seq In the law of nature the first born male were Priests Ibid. That some sensible thing be offered is required in a sacrifice p. 353 Definition of a sacrifice p. 355 Other conditions of a sacrifice p. 354 Holocausts the most perfect sacrifice p. 363 Why sacrifices commanded p. 368 369 Divers sorts of sacrifices p. 370 The jews zeal in mater of sacrifice Ibid. Sacrifice of the new law most perfect p. 424 428. Sorrow There is a twofold sorrow p. 370 How pleasing a pious sorrow is to God Ib. What is a troubled spirit p. 377 Whether the soul or body most conducing to a sacrifice of a troubled spirit p. 377 Motives of a true sorow p. 390. seq Security No security from sin in this life Ibid. Speech How Croesus son came to his speech Ibid. How one is morally dumb and how cured Ibid. Seneca His opinion concerning such as lost their lives upon the score of friendship or a publick interest p. 148 249 T. Truth Three kinds of truth p. 121 Knowledge of truth most delightful p. 123 124 Trangressions Internal trangressions only punished by God p. 197 198 A certain period is set to every man's transgression p. 220 221 Signs of this helpless desolation p. 221 222 223 Tribulation Tribulation the securest way to heaven p. 147 Senecas opinion of tribulation manfully sustained p. 348 Temptation The difficulty to resist temptation p. 202 V. Vertue Moral vertues contribute a facility in doing well and wherein they consist p. 213 Vertue it self a reward to the actours p. 241 Delight of vertuous actions p. 242 243 Vncertainty All things uncertain as to the issue in this life p. 239 W. Will. The will is more prejudiced by original sin than the understanding p. 6. God doth never violence our will to our prejudice p. 35 The greatness of the soul by free will p. 313 Whether it had not been better to have done well by necessity 314 315 FINIS