that depended upon his Liberty made him in some sort the Author of his good or bad fortune but as hee dealeth now with infirme men whose Forces are weakned by Division he will have their Salvation depend upon his Will and gives them a Grace which seizing their heart makes them victorious in the midst of their Infirmities Thence it comes to pass saith Saint Augustine that the Liberty of Man though never so languishing perseveres in Good by the vertue of JESUS CHRIST when the Will of Adam with all its vigorous activity stood not out against the Temptation 'T is the glory of the Son of God and the assurance of a Christian who comforts himself when he sees that his Salvation is no longer founded upon the Inconstancie of his Liberty but upon the Stability of Grace and certitude of Predestination This Belief makes him not more insolent because he knows this Mystery is hid and that there is not any one upon earth that knows whether his name be written in the Book of Life It makes him not more lazie because he is not ignorant that Grace obligeth him to a combat that Glory is a Triumph that succeeds a Victory and that no body is received into heaven that hath not suffered with JESUS CHRIST upon earth But this Belief ministers them Tranquillity in the midst of all the miseries of life it sweetly mingles Hope with Fear in his soul at the sight of his Infirmity he trembles looking upon the vigour of his Grace he takes courage and having had so much experience of his frailty he comforts himself that his Salvation stands fixed upon the Rock of Grace he blesseth the mercy of the Almighty that hath found a secret whereby to vanquish us without forcing us which leaving us our Liberty fortifies our Weakness and gives us an assurance in our Banishment which our first Father never had in Paradise For to conclude this Discourse and this Treatise with the words of Saint Augustine Ille Adam nempe Job in stercore est cautior quam Adam in Paradiso nam Adam-in Paradiso consensitmulieri ut de Paradiso emitteretur ille in stercore respu â—t mulierem ut ad Paradisum admitteretur Aug. in Psal 29. Job was more happie in his misery then Adam in his innocence He was victorious on the Dung-hill this Other was defeated in his Throne He gave no ear to the evil counsel of his wife this Other was cajol'd by his He despised all the assaults of Satan this Other suffered himself to be worsted at the first Temptation He preserved his Righteousness in the midst of his Sorrows this Other lost his Innocence in the midst of his Pleasures Let us comfort our selves then in the Grace of JESUS CHRIST whereby the Infirmity of Man triumphs over the Malice of Satan Let us rejoyce because he enjoyns it his Disciples in the hope we have that his hand hath written our names in the Book of Life in Characters that cannot be blotted out Let us give Thanks to him who knowing our Weakness is willing to save us by his Power and protesting that his Grace is the Fountain of our Salvation beg it in our Prayers expect it from his Mercy and hope not for it onely by our Merits The Fifth TREATISE Of the Vertues of a Christian The first DISCOURSE In what Christian Vertue consists IF it be true that the Christian is an inward man we need not wonder if he be hid Condelector legi Dei secundum interiorem hominem Rom. cap. 7. nor that his vertues carry lesse splendour with them then those of Philosophers Inasmuch as all their beauty resides in the soul it can be perceived by none but by Angels Those that have not their lights cannot observe them and the same blindness that occasions their ignorance occasions also the neglect they conceive of them The Chastity of Lucrece hath received more Elogies then that of the Catharines and Cecilies because it sparkles with more pomp and the murder which should arraign her as guilty hath made her more notable and glorious The Constancy of Cato hath far more admirers then the undaunted Courage of the Martyrs Pride and Despair that forc'd him to sheath his sword in his own bowels to avoid something he called Servitude have heightned his Glory and his Crime in the soul of the children of Adam who can admire nothing but what is arrogant and pompous Thence it comes to passe that Christian Vertue which is humble and seeks no other witnesse but he that reads the the heart receives not always the approbation of men and wanders uon the Earth without any Elogy or Commendation Her Essence is conceal'd we have much adoe to discover her Proprieties and if Grace do not second Nature we shall be at a losse to define or describe her As every one hath form'd an Idea of her every one makes descriptions of her according to his own humour or his knowledge and we may say of Vertue what the Orator said of the Supream Good that men consulted rather their Inclination then Truth when they were minded to speak of it I wonder not that Philosophers who had no other light then that of Nature have injured Vertue in thinking to bestow commendations upon her But I wonder that Christians have followed them in their errours and that leaving the Fathers of the Church they have taken the Blinde for their Guides For there are some at this day that confound honesty with vertue Virtus houestas nomina diversa sunt res autem subjecta prorsus eadem Cicero de Offic. who would perswade us that whatever is honest is vertuous Wherein I find them little differing from those that place Vertue in Glory and imagine a crime lawful when it ceaseth to be shameful and begins to appear honourabble Seneca as proud as he was hath well taken notice that this error was prejudicial to vertue and that the ambitious would no longer court her when once she should oblige her Partisans to quit their honour to continue in their duty Some others not so much in love with glory but more in love with nature are perswaded that Vertue is nothing else but a naturall inclination guided by reason and perfected by Science so that to live according to the Laws of Nature was to live according to the Laws of Vertue This opinion is approved of by the Stoicks among Philosophers and by the Pelagians among Heretiques It infuseth blindness and arrogance into the spirit of those that side with it and the esteem it puffs them up with of Nature makes them neglect the assistance of Grace It seems they would retrive the state of Innocence that they have a design to perswade us that sin hath done no hurt to the will of man that he is as free under the captivity of Concupiscence as under the dominion of Original righteousness and that Nature having lost nothing of her primitive purity may serve for a guide to guilty
where the Sacrifice is wholly reduced into God men have no part he was pleased to institute another in his Church where giving himself wholly to his Father Hujus sacrificii caro sanguis ante adventum Christi per Victimas similitudinum promittebatur in Passione Christi per ipsam veritatem reddebatur post ascensum Christi per Sacramentum memoriae celebratur Aug. lib 20. cont Faust and to the Faithful he compleated with advantage the sacrifices of the Old Testament For he is there after such a wonderful manner that without being divided he enters equally into the bosome of his Father and into the heart of his Ministers every one possesseth him entirely and this communion is so perfect that none are excluded but those that will have no part in it But for the better understanding of a truth which is one of the principal Articles of our Faith and to resolve the difficulties Heresie opposeth against these two sacrifices we must know that both of them make up but one and that one without the other would be utterly unprofitable For the Scripture teacheth us that to the perfection of a sacrifice Si autem habuerit maculaÌ„ vel claudum fuerit vel coecum aut in aliqua parte deforme vel debile non immolabitur Deo Deut. 15. there are required five parts The first is the sanctification of the Victime which consisted in four things The first was its perfection which excluded all blemishes because they are the marks and punishments of sin whence it was that the Law in express terms enjoyned that nothing should be offered to God that was not perfect The second was a supernatural sanctification which elevated the sacrifice above it self and which being stampt upon it by Divine Authority disingaged it from the dominion of man and destin'd it for the Altar The third was separation which consecrated it to God and suffered it no longer to be employed to any profane use The last was the obligation to death Haecomnia patent ex libris Exo. Levi. Vbi de hâ—stia dicitur quod sanctificabitur scparabitur Domino as a thing dedicated to God and which ought to perish for his glory The second part of the sacrifice was the oblation of the Victime where according to the form prescribed in the Law or taught by Tradition it was actually offered to God and began to appertain to him by a new right greater then that of sanctification The third was the death or killing of the Victime which though the most sensible part of the sacrifice was not yet the principall because it was performed by the Levites and not by the Priests in the Court of the Temple and not in the place next the Sanctuary The fourth was the consummation of the sacrifice which was devoured by the flame that the smoak ascending up into Heaven God might partake of the oblation as the Scripture testifieth in those words Odoratus est Dominus sacrificium and that which seems to have given some colour to the false opinion of the Heathen who imagined that God was nourished with the fume of the offerings The fifth was the communion of the Victime which as we have already observed was sometimes wholly devoted to God sometimes was divided between God the Priest and the people But inasmuch as these sacrifices were but the types and shadows of that which Jesus Christ was to offer to his Father he did not partake of it but in a figure by means of fire which in the belief of the world was accounted the noblest representatation of the Divinity Deus noster Ignis consumens est as for the people and the Priest they communicated really and received the sacrifice into their mouth to disgest it in their stomach If Jesus Christ be the accomplishment of the Law his Sacrifice must necessarily comprehend all these parts and we must find on the Altar what we do not find on the Crosse His sanctification is fully evident for besides that he is the first-born and in that consideration is holy we know that he is the work of the Holy Ghost that his Father is God that his Mother is a Virgin and that his Conception is altogether Immaculate But his Divine Person is his principal sanctification and if other sacrifices be sanctified by some transient words this is consecrated by the Eternal and Divine Word The same Unction that made him Priest made him the Victime and dedicated him by a double title to the service of the Altar His oblation began in the womb of the Blessed Virgin continued in the Temple and during his life and was at last finished upon the Crosse In the womb of his mother he offered himself in spirit according to the meaning of Saint Paul and explaining his mind in the words of the Prophet he protests that he took a body only to be immolated to his Father In the Temple he was presented by the hands of the Virgin and received by Simeon who penetrating the design of Jesus Christ and his mother answers their intentions and instructs her in the mystery of the Cross whereof this oblation was the prologue During his life he continued to offer up himself to his Father as an innocent Victime till upon the Crosse he acquitted himself of his promises and satisfied his obligations Obtulit se immaculatum Deo per Spiritum Sanctum His death appeared upon Mount Calvary where making use of the cruelty of the Jews of the treason of Judas and of the rage of the Executioners he was offered up for our salvation But because it is not the principal part of the sacrifice which is not compleat if the Victime be not consummated it was requisite that the Resurrection should finish what Death began Indeed the Resurrection of the Son of God is his consummation 't is in this mystery that Glory swallowed up what Death had left that he parts with whatever remained of perishable that he enters into that Majesty which is due to his Birth that he is reduced to God and received into the bosome of his Father his lawful and natural habitation This is the mystery to which Saint Paul attributes the perfection of our salvation because it is the Crown of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ Therefore discoursing of what we owe his Death and his Glory he saith Mortuus est propter peccata nostra resurrexit propter justificationem nostram where he assigns the principal effect of our salvation not to the Passion but to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ There it is in a word that Jesus is perfected that his work is accomplished where he is happily consummated where the Divine Essence having the same operation in him that the fire had in the sacrifice he is despoiled of our infirmities and invested with all the glories of his Father Inasmuch as the life of a Christian is a sacrifice which honours that of the Word Incarnate it is not terminated so much by Death as
their affections upon the supream good and seeking their felicity in God say with David Mihi autem adhaerere Deo bonum est 'T is in this point properly that holinesse consists he that wisheth any thing else is blind or wretched and he that wasts himself with other desires is not yet fully informed that the supream good is the end and rest of the Christian Therefore is it that Saint Augustine speaking to his Auditors uttered these notable words Let us be grieved to see men distracted with the diversity of their desires Let us see their different conditions which arise from the difference of their designs Let some take arms and seek for Glory in the mouth of Danger hazard their lives to get themselves a Name and place their happinesse in killing and slaying Let others more harmlesse but not lesse ambitious plead at the Barr gain reputation in defending Innocence and aspire to the Glory of Orators being not able to purchase that of Conquerors Let others more humble but not lesse interessed hold commerce and Traffique with Strangers passe the Seas to content their Avarice descend into the bowels of the Earth to dig out Treasures Let others more Innocent but not lesse miserable till the ground master barrenness by their laborious Improvement and at the years end reap a rich and plentifull harvest Let all these different Conditions divide the heap of perishable Goods between them but let Beleevers instructed in a better School protest that God is their portion and that now and for ever they will have no other Inheritance These last words insinuate to us the last circumstance of Holiness which is not true if it be not Constant and pertinent A little to clear this Truth we must know there is no Christian that is not united to God the Character he received in his Baptism is a mark of his dependance Faith which he retains with sin is a sacred tye fastning him to Jesus Christ and gives him the honour to be a member of his Body Charity is a perfect Bond compleating what the others have begun which knits him so close to his Head that their Good and Evill are indivisible But if the Christian intend to be Holy Perseverance must second Charity and this faithfull vertue link them so constantly to the son of God that nothing can separate them Many heard his words admired his miracles loved his person who because they fell off attained not to that excellent title of Saints 'T is this last Condition which Crownes Holinesse the ultimate Character distinguishing the Elect from the Reprobate Finally Absque perseverantia nec qui pugnat victoriam nec palmā victor consequitur Bernard 't is this glorious mark that finisheth our salvation and begins our Beatitude It depends absolutely upon the good pleasure of God and as he refuseth it not without Justice neither does he indulge it but out of exceeding mercy It fixeth our will without constraining it renders it immoveable without taking away its liberty and gives it so much force that it equally triumphs over Griefs that astonish us and pleasures that corrupt us He that hath not this Grace cannot complain nor can he persevere He cannot complain because God denies it not but to his sin nor is his Reprobation founded upon any thing but his Infidelity He cannot persevere because this assistance depends not upon his Merit It being the immutable Decree of Gods good will and pleasure which makes men Saints and blessed It is by vertue of this Eternal ordinance that they resist temptations ouer-rule Tyrants and vanquish Devils 'T is by vertue of this internall Grace that they defie all Creatures and say with Saint Paul That nothing can separate them from Jesus Christ I am sure saith that Great Apostle that Death with his terrors Life with its charms Angels with their beauties Devils with their deformities Things present with their allurements Things future with their promises Heaven with its glory Hell with its torment can never separate me from the love of God And indeed how should they saith St Augustine because Death though never so hideous leads us to Him Life is found in his possession Angels and Devils are the Ministers of his Justice or of his mercy Things present are false Things to come uncertain Hell with God would be my Happinesse and Paradise without him my Torment Or if we will take this passage another way let us say again with Saint Augustine That nothing can separate us from Jesus Christ Not Death because there is none so dismall as to be deprived of his Love Not the Angels because being united to him we are stronger then all Spirits combined together Not the vexations of life because they are sweet when undergone for his Honour and serve only to give us a nearer conjunction to his person Not things to come because nothing can be bestowed nor promised which can countervail him Not Heaven because it is the recompence of those that serve him Not Hell because it is made for none but those that forsake him From all this Discourse it is easie to judge that the perfect Christian is a Saint that he ought to be wholly unbottomed from all things and so closely united to Jesus Christ that nothing can remove him But 't is easie to judge withall that we are at a great distance from Holiness because a small Interest a weak Temptation a shameful pleasure a light Injury separates us daily from him for whom we ought to sacrifice our Interests renounce our pleasures subdue our Temptations and forget our Injuries The Sixth DISCOURSE That the Christian is a Martyr THe condition of Christians would be very miserable did their vertue depend upon their Enemies and were they so streightened that they could not compass the Crown of Martyrdom but must be beholding to the Cruelty of Tyrants But the Peace of the Church hath her Martyrs as well as her Persecution Love is witty enough to exercise their Courage without employing the fury of Infidels Every Christian may without Impiety be his own Executioner and provided he live according to the Laws the son of God hath prescribed him will finde his punishment in his obedience All the vertues of Christianity will assist him in this designe Every Maxime of the Gospel will make a part in his Agony and having practised all that Jesus Christ commands or counsels he may boast though he be an unprofitable servant he ceaseth not to be a faithful Martyr For if it be true that the Cause and the Punishment makes the Martyrs we must confess that all they that live according to the Laws of Christianity may lawfully pretend to this glorious quality because they suffer much and for the height of their happiness they suffer for the Son of God This last condition is so necessary that in the judgement of S. Augustine 't is not so much the Punishment as the Cause that makes the Martyr The Gally-slaves that tug at the Oar
Afflictions seek after Pleasures value Riches despise Poverty we must conclude with Saint Augustine either that they are not Christians or but bad ones For as that incomparable Doctor saith there are many that bear the name of Believers and have neither their Faith nor their Vertue they wrong the Sacraments of the Church dishonour the Doctrine of Jesus Christ do despight to his Cross condemn his Example and being unwilling to regulate their lives according to his make it appear he is not their Master nor they his Disciples These wretches seek nothing but their Interests living in themselves they die to Jesus Christ and for the highest pitch of misfortune destroy others in losing themselves Their Evils become contagious they corrupt those that come neer them and fighting against the designes of the Son of God engage them in sin that he would deliver from thence They encroach upon the most eminent of his qualities and propounding themselves for examples to the Faithful strive to spread their impiety over the whole Church Let us defend our selves from their Infection and seeing we have no other Pattern then Jesus Christ let us try to regulate our life according to his Let us imitate his Actions because they are holy reverence his Maximes because true and that we may be the Copies of this glorious Original let us esteem those things he esteemed and despise those things he despised Let us be poor because he was born in a Stable and died upon a Cross let us not fear Hunger because he suffered it in the desarts not tremble at Nakedness because he had but one garment and that the Executioners robbed him of when they nailed him to the Cross Let us not be afraid of Persecutions because he underwent so many during his life nor let Death terrifie us because that which he chose was as cruel as ignominious if we himitate him upon Earth we shall be like him in heaven if we suffer with him we shall raign with him and if we share in his disgraces in Time we shall partake of his glory in Eternity The Eighth TREATISE Of the Happinesse of a Christian The first DISCOURSE That every man desires to be Happy and that he cannot be so but in God IF we may judge of the reasonableness of our desires by their constancy we must confess there is none more lawful then the passion we express for happiness because there is none more firm and durable All others change with time or humour we cure our selves of the vain desire of glory and are perswaded that vertue would be miserable had she no other recompence but reputation Age obstructs the desire of pleasure and when the body is spent with diseases or weakned with years we find little relish in those pleasures which solicit none but those who have too much ease or too much health Avarice it self is not always unsatiable and when he whom this vice masters finds his riches no longer serviceable to his designs he contemns them Curiosity and the passionate industry of knowledge grows flat with time the labour that accompanies it makes men repent of it Beati omnes vivere volumus nec quisquam est in hominum genere qui non huic sententiae antequam fit plane emissa consentiat Aug and there is scarce any man of parts but observes that the Earth is the mansion neither of Light nor Truth But the desire of Blessedness is immutable whatever change our condition is liable to this passion remains fixed in our souls nor can all the miseries that exercise our patience ever deface it Ask all people whose designs are more different then their faces we shall find they all conspire together in the search of felicity They may peradventure propound severall Ideas thereof but their desire is one and the same neither are there any wretches so miserable who have not a mind to be happy All conditions of the world agree in this point and their differences are so many paths whereby men resolve to arrive at the same end The Covetous seek felicity in treasures and as if nature had taught them that plenty attends this state they never pretend to enrich themselves but that thereby they may become happy Conquerours seek their felicity in victory and because nothing resists man in Beatitude their aim is in subduing their enemies to subject all things to their power The Learned are in love with science for no other end but because they are perswaded that felicity consists in the knowledge of the supream Verity and of all others by that light The Ambitious are passionate for honour because they have learnt that happiness is an Eternal Glory neither are they to be blamed because they are desirous of honour but for that they seek it where they neither can nor ought to find it The Lascivious doe not idolize beauty but because they have heard that this quality which charms them is inseparable in God from goodness and had not sin corrupted nature whatever is comely would infallibly be good Finally whatever men doe whatever designs they contrive whatever enterprises they execute they would fain meet with happiness If they engage in war Quaerunt in varietate Creaturarum quod amiserunt in unitate Creatoris Aug. they seek their happiness in victory if they agree with their enemies they fancy it in peace if they heap up riches they suppose it in abundance of wealth if they love women they are pleased with beauty and if they pretend to dignities they place their contentment in glory The truth is they are faulty aud miserable because they look for happiness where it is not and by a blindness which is the punishment of their sin would find that in the variety of the creatures which is no where to be found but in the unity of the Creator Thence it comes to pass that they spend themselves in desires form new projects and never content with what they possess heap Conquests upon Conquests if ambitious Treasures upon Treasures if covetous Novelty upon Novelty if Curious Their desires are not unjust because without bounds but because without prudence I condemn them not because they are insatiable but because they are blind and fix upon objects which entertain their Indigence and Consumption Every one blames Alexander the Great because he could not bound his Conquests that he passed from kingdome to kingdome that the Earth seem'd too scant for his ambition and what contented so many Kings could not satisfie him But for my own part I think Divine Providence had a mind to let us see in this Conquerour that there is nothing in the world that can satiate the desires of man that all the Scepters of the Universe have not charms enough to make him happy and that his heart larger then all Empires can be filled only with God Indeed inasmuch as God is his Creator he ought to be his felicity as he is the Principle of his Being he must be the object of
what I intend to those that shall take so much pains as to peruse it I will lay down a plain and easie Scheme which shall present you with a short prospect of the whole Christian Man I begin the first Treatise with his Birth which as it is the fruitful source of all the Allyances he contracts with God I cannot speak of it soundly and to the purpose without discovering some of his Qualities and letting you see that assoon as he is regenerated he is the adopted child of the eternal Father because he is the Temple of the holy Ghost and the Brother of the Word Incarnate To this I add some other Priviledges concomitants of his Baptism all which declare the misery he hath avoided and the happiness he hath obtain'd From thence I passe to the second Treatise which represents the Spirit of the Christian and which comprehends all the obligations we have to follow his motions to act according to his orders and to obey his inspirations because none are truly the children of God but those that are quickned by his Spirit Quicunque enim Spiritu Dei aguntur ii sunt Filii Dei Rom. 8. And because the Christian is but a part of a mystical Body whereof there is a Head to guide it as wel as a Spirit to enliven it in the third Treatise I describe the neer relations and close connexions this glorious quality communicates to him with Iesus Christ the advantages he receives from thence and the just duties he is obliged to return to this adored Head The fourth Treatise discovers all the secrets of Grace which seem to be nothing else but a sacred chain uniting the Christian with the son of God and with the Holy Ghost and putting him at their disposal to be conducted safely in the way of Salvation The vertues that flow from Grace as streams do from their fountain are the subject of the fifth Treatise demonstrating a new Morality which the Philosophers were ignorant of and which severing man from himself fastens him happily to his Principle Forasmuch as he lives by Grace and vertues in the sixth Treatise I set before him a heavenly Nourishment that preserves his life and withall affords him some pledges of Immortality But because this food is also a Victime speaking of his Nourishment I speak of his Sacrifice and I lay down the just Reasons the Christian hath to offer up himself to God with Iesus Christ In the seventh Treatise I discourse of his glorious Qualities which I had not touched in the former wherein I make it appear that being the Image of the Son of God he is also a Priest and a Sacrifice a Souldier and a Conqueror a Slave and a Soveraign a Penitent and an Innocent Lastly to compleat the Christian who is but rudely drawn in Baptism who as long as he is upon earth is always imperfect I lead him to Glory where finding his Happiness in the knowledge and love of the supreme Good he is happily transformed into God There he patiently waits for the resurrection of his Body that the two parts whereof he is composed being reunited there may be nothing wanting to the perfection of his happiness and that both Soul and Body being freed from the bondage of sin he may reign for ever with the Angels in Heaven Thus you see in a few words the drift and scope of the whole Work where if I have repeated something that I formerly delivered in the Guilty Man it is because the Cure depends upon the Disease Subjects are illustrated by their contraries and it is impossible to conceive the Advantages of Grace without comprehending all the Miseries of Sin A TABLE OF THE TREATISES DISCOURSES The First TREATISE Of the Christian's Birth Disc 1. That the Christian hath a double Birth page 1 Disc 2. That Man must be renewed to make a Christian of him page 6 Disc 3. That the principal Mysteries of Iesus Christ are applyed to the Christian in his Birth page 10 Disc 4. That Grace is communicated to the Christian in his Birth as Sin is communicated to Man in his Generation page 15 Disc 5 Of the Resemblances that are found between the Generation of Iesus Christ and that of a Christian page 19 Disc 6 Of the Adoption of Christians and the advantage it hath above the Adoption of Men. page 24 Disc 7 Of the Allyances the Christian contracts in his Birth with the Divine Persons page 29 Disc 8 Of the Principal Effects Baptism produceth in the Christian page 34 Disc 9 Of the obligation of a Christian as the consequence of his Birth page 39 Disc 10 That the Regeneration of a Christian takes not from him all that he drew from his first Generation page 43 The Second TREATISE Of the Spirit of a Christian Disc 1. That every Body hath its Head and what that of the Church is 48 Disc 2 That the Holy Ghost is the Heart of the Church 53 Disc 3 That the Holy Ghost is in a sort the same to Christians that he is to the Father and to the Son in Eternity 57 Disc 4 That the Holy Ghost seems to be the same to Christians that he is to the Son of God 62 Disc 5 That the Presence of the Holy Ghost giveth life to the Christian and his Absence causeth Death 67 Disc 6 That the Holy Ghost teacheth Christians to pray 72 Disc 7 That the Holy Ghost remits the sins of the Christian 77 Disc 8 That the Christian in his infirmities is assisted by the strength of the Holy Ghost 83 Disc 9 That the Holy Ghost is the Christians Comforter 89 Disc 10 Of the Christians ingratitude toward the Holy Ghost 94 The third TREATISE Of the Christian 's Head Disc 1 That the Christian hath two Heads Adam and Iesus Christ 100 Disc 2 Of the Excellencies of the Christian's Head and the advantages they draw from thence 105 Disc 3 Of the strict Union of the Head with his Members and of that of Iesus Christ with Christians 110 Disc 4 That the Union of Christians with their Head is an Imitation of the Hypostatical Union 115 Disc 5 That Iesus Christ treateth his Mystical Body with as much charity as he doth his Natural Body 120 Disc 6 That the Church is the Spouse of Iesus Christ because she is the Body and of the community of their Marriage 125 Disc 7 That the Quality of the Members of Iesus Christ is more advantageous then that of the Bretbren of Iesus Christ 130 Disc 8 That Iesus Christ hath taken all his Infirmities from his Members and that his Members derive all their strength from him 134 Disc 9 Of the duties of Christians as Members towards Iesus Christ as their Head 139 Disc 10 That all things are common among Christians as between members of the same Body 144 The fourth TREATISE Of the Grace of a Christian Disc 1 That Predestination which is the source of Grace is a hidden Mystery 150 Disc 2 Of the
period to his Controversies he is continually infested with a Domestick and intestine war Though Repentance subdue the Body by its Austerities and Prayer elevate the Soul by its Raptures both Soul and Body continually rebel against the Spirit of God Indicitur enim bellum non solum adversus suggestiones Diaboli sed etiam adversus teipsum sed ex qua parte tibi displices jungeris Deo idoneus eris ad vincendum te quia tecum est qui omnia superat quare autem permittitur ut diu contra te litiges donec absorbeantur omnes cupiditates ut intelligas in te poenam tuam In te ex teipso est flagellum tuum est rixa tua tecum sic vindicatur in rebellem contra Deum ut ipse sit sibi bellum qui pacem noluit habere cum Deo Aug. in Psal 75. The greatest Saints complain of these disorders and wish an End of their life to finde an End of their Conflicts The internal peace that always accompanies a good Conscience is not able to reconcile these two Enemies and experience teacheth us that peace and war wil sooner shake hands in a Kingdom then Concupiscence and Charity in a CHRISTIAN But certainly I never wonder at his Discord since he hath two Fathers two Births and two Principles He hath two Fathers because he came from Adam and from Jesus Christ and deriving from one the Life of Sin he derives from the other the Life of Grace Thus by a strange wonder he is at the same time Innocent and Guilty he hopes for heaven as his Inheritance and is affraid of hel as the place of his torment and pursuing the severall Interests he hath received from these two Parents he is toss'd continually between hope and fear He is * Primas homo Adam sic olim defunctus est ut tamen post illum secundus sit homo Christus cum tot hominum millia inter illum hunc orta sint ideo manifestum pertinere ad illum omnem qui ex illa successione propagatur nascitur sicut ad istum pertinet omnis qui gratiae largitate in illo renascitur unde fit ut totum genus humanum quodammodo sint homines duo primus secundus Ex sent Prosp 299. Adam and Jesus both together in his person he unites their names aswell as their qualities he resents their diverse inclinations and holding something of these two Fathers hee beares the Crime of the one and the Innocencie of the other They reigne successively in his person and the chief Imployment of his life is to make the first dye and the second live This Parricide is innocent all Christians are obliged to commit it neither doth Jesus Christ acknowledge them for his children who endeavour not to strangle this Father who made them liable to Death before he entitled them to Life They cannot dispense with themselves from this murder and whosoever spares Adam in his person gives evidence he hath no minde that Jesus Christ should reign there Adam himself allowes of this cruelty in heaven where he now triumphs amongst the Angels he desires to dye in his Children that he may see him live there who hath repair'd his breach and if there were any thing that could trouble his happinesse it would be this that he sees his sin still to reign in his posterity that he stifles Christ in their souls and makes him suffer death upon Earth by whose benefit he enjoys life in Heaven He complains that he cannot utterly perish in his off-spring that he reigns there to this day against his will and that for punishment of a sin whereof he made them stand convicted before they were born they continue to make him guilty after that he is dead But nothing afflicts him so much as to behold sin in some sort more powerfull then Grace that the One overspreads all mankinde the Other onely the * Contra carnis concupiscentiam ità confligunt Sancti non ei consentientes ad malum ut tamen ejus motibus quibus repugnantibus resistunt non careant in hac vita Aug. l. 1. Retra cap. 13. Faithfull that sin oftentimes destroyes all Grace but Grace can never wholly destroy all sin Lastly that Adam utterly exterminates Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ can never perfectly slay Adam These two Fathers are conveyed to their posterity by two different Productions the first is shamefull and guilty the second is glorious and innocent The first is inseparable from sin For though it be noble according to the Lawes of the world 't is alwaies ignominious according to the Laws of God and though it appeare innocent to the eies of men 't is alwaies Criminall in the sight of Angels The Saints acknowledge it with grief and though the Issue of lawfull Beds they cease not to confesse that they were * Nunquid David de adulterio natus erat de Jesse viro justo Conjuge ipsius quid est quod se dicit in iniquitate conceptum nisi quia trahitur iniquitas ex Adam Aug. in Ps 50. born in sin The second is ever joined with Grace it gives us God for our Father the Church for our Mother and Heaven for our Inheritance We cannot better expresse their differences then in the words of St. Augustine * Duae sunt nativitates una de terra alia de Coelo una de Carne alia de Spiritu una de mortalitate alia de aeternitate una de Masculo Foemina alia de Deo Ecclesia Aug. Tract 11. in Joan. Sicut eos vita spiritus regenerat sideles in Christo sic eos Corpus mortis in Adam generat Peccatores Illa enim carnalis generatio est haec spiritualis illa facit filios carnis haec spiritûs illa filios mortis haec Resurrectionis illa filios saeculi haec filios Dei illa filios irae haec filios misericordiae ac per hoc illa peccato originali obligatos illa omnis vinculo peccati liberatos August lib. 1. de Pecca men who tells us The one comes from the Earth and returns thither again the other comes from Heaven and ascends thither again the one draws it 's Originall from the Flesh the other from the Spirit the one tends to Death the other to Eternity the one proceeds from Man and Woman the other from God and the Church Or to deliver the same Truth in other terms we may adde with the same Saint That the Life of the Spirit regenerates the Faithfull in Jesus Christ and the Death of the Body begets sinners in Adam That of these two Births the One is Carnal the Other Spiritual The One produceth Angels the Other engenders Men The One designes them to Death the Other prepares them for the Resurrection The One renders them the children of the Devil the Other makes them the children of God The One exposeth them to his Wrath the Other to his Mercy Finally
the One engageth them in Original sin the Other by a more happy and powerful influence frees them from all Iniquity These two Births produce two Lives which are preserv'd in every Christian till he dyes their strength is more or less according to the Progress * Sient ignorantia minuitur veritate magis magisque lucente ita concupiscentia minuitur charitate magis magisque fervente Aug l. 6. contra Julia. Per cupiditatem regnat in homine Diabolus cor ejus tenet per charitatem regnat in illo Christus Aug. lib. de Agone Christ cap. 1. Quanto magis regnum cupiditatis destruitur tanto magis regnum charitatis augetur August lib. 3. de Doctrina Christ c. 10. Grace or Sin makes in the Soul They act by contrary principles and divide the Christian in his operations as well as in his person For as he is mystically compounded of Jesus Christ and Adam so is he spiritually framed of Concupisence and Charity whatever he undertakes is under the conduct of one of these Mistresses who have no other design but to have an absolute Command over his will He is a slave to both he complains that being wholly delivered up to Grace he is not wholly delivered from Sin that he suffers the Evil he hath no minde to act that he feels disorders he no ways approves of and that unhappily divided between his desires he cannot so fully obey Charity but he must still serve Concupiscence Indeed every Christian is obliged to combate himself he feels somthing within him that cannot but displease him he wonders to behold such different motions in the same person and not being able to comprehend how such contrary desires grow in the same heart he is amaz'd to finde inclinations which transport him to sin as much as to vertue When he reflects upon himself he observes that he is just and guilty that he partly obeys Jesus Christ and partly resists him that being a subject and a rebell at the same time he bears about him the seeds of Life and of Death For he is righteous as * Eris in parte emendata justus quamvis sis adhuc in emendanda pecoator ex qua parte tibi displices justus es ex qua parte tibi displicet quod justum est in ustus es August in Psal 1. Praeponite delectationem mentis delectationi carnis carnem quippe nostram delectant delectationes illicitae mentem nostram delectat invisibilis casta sancta dulcis justitia ut non ad eam timore cogamini si enim ad eam timore cogimini nondū delectat peccare non debes timore paenae sed amore justitiae Aug. serm 17. de verb. Apost St. Augustin saith with that part that is sanctified by Grace but guilty with that which is corrupted by Sin He pleaseth God because he endevours to keep his Commandments He displeaseth him because he cherisheth somthing in his Soul that opposeth his will These two Mistresses that govern the Christian have some correspondency in their oppositions both of them make use of the same subjects nor undertake any thing of importance but by the assistance of the Passions and faculties of the Soul But Concupiscence findes more submission then Charity because she asks nothing but what suits with their humour and flatters their hope Nevertheless Charity gains Obedience because she acts in the power of the Almighty and is assisted by Grace to reduce all these rebels to their duty Her Empire though strong is nevertheless pleasing and herein she imitates Concupiscence her opposite For this agreeable Enemy of a Christian reigns with so much sweetness that she is loved of those that persecute her all her perswasions are so many charms and knowing very wel that she commands over free Creatures she never propounds any thing that is not acceptable and delightfull Charity takes the same course all her inspirations are pleasant if she press us 't is with Charms if she be victorious 't is without doing us any violence if she gain our Consent 't is without compelling our liberty and if she encourage us against our selves 't is not till she hath perswaded us that we are faulty Finally these two Soveraigns wholly possess the Christian by their diverse motions and according as he is acted by them he is Innocent or Guilty When he follows the provocations of Concupiscence he can do nothing but offend * Libido non solum sibi totū corpus nec solum extrinsecus vendicat sed totum hominem commovet animi simul affectu cū carnis appetitu conjuncto atque permixto Aug. lib. 14. de Civ c. 15. whatever lustre his actions put on they are always bad when they proceed from this principle Though he give his goods to the poor his assistance to the miserable expose his life for the safety of his Country shed his blood for the interest of Religion or Justice if he act by the Counsel of Concupiscence he is criminall amidst the throng of so many splendid Actions and the principle he moves by being unable to propound any other end then vain-glory can secure him neither from sin nor punishment When on the contrary the Christian being led by Charity acted by the Spirit of God that quickens him and following the motions of Grace endevours to satisfie his Duty all his actions are Innocent and acceptable to God Did he always act according to this Principle his condition would be no longer peccant and did he obey its holy inspirations he should be sure not to offend It is in this sense that the Beloved disciple of our Saviour assures us * Omnis qui natus est ex Deo peccatum non facit quoniam semen ipsius in eo manet quoniam ex Deo natus est 1 Joan. cap. 3. That whatever is born of God sinneth not that is the Christian that always follows the motion of the Divine Spirit is never subdued by Concupiscence neither can he be overcome as long as he is actually guided by Charity This heavenly seed that preserves him can produce nothing but what is excellent and this Tree that is planted in his heart can bring forth none but good fruit But in as much as this actuall assistance is not due unto him and that heaven leaves him to himself to make him sensible of his weakness he fals many times into light transgressions and is forc'd to confess with the same Apostle That he that says he hath no sin deceives himself and the truth is not in him Thus the Christians life is a continual warfare he resents his double Extraction feels the effects of both his Parents and divided by his desires he learns by woful experience that when he acts not by Charity he is in danger to act by Concupiscence The second DISCOURSE To make Man a Christian he must be Renew'd Regenerate and rais'd from the Dead NOthing doth so fully manifest the greatness of a Disease Si
hath so many Ages sealed them up in their Tombs and that now they do arise after they were buried in Infidelity then they shall be freed from all misfortunes that attend their mortal condition now they are delivered from all clouds of Ignorance that darken their spirituall existency then they shall rise to Immortality and Glory now they are regenerated to Grace and Salvation Though these effects of Baptism are sufficiently admirable by their own proper greatnesse Nonne mirandū et lavacro dilui mortem atquin eo magis credendum si quia mirandum est ideo non creditur atquin eo magis credendum est qualia enim decet esse opera divina nisi omnē admirationem Tert. de Bapt. Sine pompa sine apparatu sine sumptu in aquae demissus inter pauca verba tinctus inde exiliit innocentior Idem ibid. yet must we acknowledg that the easinesse that produceth them extreamly heightens their Excellency For to revive a childe there needs only a little water animated with the Word of God all these changes are wrought in his soul when the Priest speaks and sprinkles his body he is miraculously raised when the Ceremonies of the Church are ended and this way that prepares him to eternall life costs the Ministers of Jesus Christ nothing but the Pronunciation of these words I baptise thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Heathen who heretofore inform'd themselves of our Mysteries were scandaliz'd at a miracle so mean and simple in its Administration so glorious in its Promises and so powerfull in its Effects They could not comprehend saith Tertullian that washing the body with a little water the soul should be cleansed from its sins that without any * Miratur incredulitas non credit miratur enim simplicia quasi vana magnifica quasi impossbilia Ter. pomp or expense a few words mingled with the commonest of the Elements should assure us of the Conquest of heaven But this Great Doctor answers their doubts with such solid Reasons that he at once blazons the honor of our Religion and the Majesty of our God For he makes them see * Prob misera incredulitas quae denegas Deo proprietas suas simplicitatem et potestatē Ter. de Baptis he was pleased to shew his simplicity in the matter of our Sacraments and his State in their effects that not to know God was no more then to deny him these two perfections which seem to constitute his Nature and that it was to want respect to make simple things passe for vain and glorious things for impossible because it is easie for him who drew the world out of nothing to draw our salvation out of an Element quickned by his Word and by his Spirit Baptism then being so fruitfull of Miracles and this Sacrament being the Throne of the power of the Almighty we need not wonder that the Christian finds his birth there that in it he is renewed by Grace that he is raised again by the vertue of Jesus Christ and that there he commenceth a supernatural life whose Progresse is as strange as the Beginning is wonderfull The Third DISCOURSE That the chiefest Mysteries of Jesus Christ are applyed to the Christian in his Birth IT is not without reason that St. Paul informs Christians newly baptized * Quicunque in Christo baptizati estis Christum induistis Gal. 3. that they have put on Jesus Christ since in their second Nativity they are united to his Person replenished with his Grace and quickned with his Spirit For as a * Induistis id est conformes ei facti estis quod est vobis honor contra aestus protectio Glossa ordinar in hunc locum Garment is the ornament and shelter of a man it covers his shame and protects him from the injury of the weather so may we say of Jesus Christ he is the glory and guard of a Christian whom having delivered from the confusion that accompanies sin he defends against the assaults of temptation and bestows upon him vigour and beauty thereby to render him a compleat work But as all graces in Christianity are mixt with pain the Christian according to the doctrine of the same Apostle if he intend to be perfect must die with Christ death must bring him to the resurrection and to life Whosoever saith he are baptized into Jesus Christ are baptized into his death All that we are of Christians we have by being baptized in his death Sacri Baptismatis in cruce Christi grande mysterium commendavit Apostolus eo modo ut intelligamus nihil aliud esse in Christo baptismum nisi mortis Christi similitudinem ut quemadmodum in illo vera mors facta est sic in vobis vera remissio peccatorum quemadmodum in illo vera resurrectio ita in vobis vera justificatio Aug. in Beda we are buried with him in Baptism we drowned our sins in the waters of this Sacrament and in this laver happily lose whatever we received from Adam in our first birth This death is fruitful producing in us the life of grace this burial prepares us for the Resurrection neither doth Jesus Christ make us partake of his Cross but thereby to make us partake of his Glory The Tomb is a step to our Birth like the Phoenix we finde life in our ashes and by a wonderful prodigie the Sepulchre of the Sinner becomes the Cradle of the Believer For the Christian receives a Being in Baptism according as he expires there and contrary to all the Laws of Nature Death is the Midwife of Life All the Fathers speak the same dialect with S. Paul Baptismus Christi nobis est sepultura in quo peccatis morimur criminibus sepelimur veteris hominis conscientia in alterā nativitatem rediviva infantia reparamur Baptismus inquā Salvatoris vobis sepultura quia ibi perdidimus quod antè viximus ibi dennò accipimus ut vivamus magna igitur sepulturae hujus est gratia in qua nobis utilis mors infertur vtilior vita condonatur magna inquā sepulturae hujus gratia quae purificat peccatorē vivificat morientē Aug. Serm. 129. de Temp. never mentioning Baptism but as a Sacrament where the life and death of Jesus Christ are equally applied unto us that we may live to grace and die to sin The Baptism of Jesus Christ saith S. Augustine is a burial wherein we bequeath sin and losing the conscience of the old man we enter upon a second Infancy by a new Nativity In a word the Baptism of our Saviour is a Tomb wherein we are buried and a Cradle wherein we are born again 't is a pleasant dormitory where receiving a death beneficial we receive withal a life far more glorious and where leaving off to be Sinners we begin to be Innocents In this it is that I admire the Providence of the Son
of God who made use of sin to destroy sin as saith the Apostle of the Gentiles De peccato damnavit peccatum and changing his death into a sacrifice made it a satisfaction for all our iniquities For if Baptism make us die to sin it is upon no other ground but because it imprints in our souls the merit and image of the death of Christ and by an invisible but a true and real grace works in us a desire to part with all that is derived from Adam This makes the * Infelix ego homo quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus Rom. 7. Saints that they cannot endure the rebellions of concupiscence that they employ all their strength to smother these embryo's that being true to Grace they resist all the motions of its Enemy groaning when they are compelled to follow or suffer his disorders They know that Christ died to oblige them to die to sin that he was not nail'd to the Cross but to crucifie them to the world nor buried in the grave but that the earth might be their sepulchre All that is in the world Crucifixus est Christus ut vos crucifigamini mundo mortuus est ut vos moriamini peccato saeculo vivatis Deo sepultus est ut vos consepeliamini illi per baptismum Apostolo dicente Consepulti sumus c. ut sicut ille semel surgens à mortuis jam non moritur ita vos vetustate mortalitatis per Baptismum mortificati vitale indumentum induti non iterum per peccata in anima in morte retrahamiâ—i Aug. de Expos Orat. Dom. Symbol Serm. 3. displeaseth them diversions are their torments that which is a recreation to sinners afflicts them and knowing very well the minde of the Lord Jesus they endeavour to fulfil it even with the loss of their own lives Saint Augustine entertained the Catechumeni heretofore with these obligations and expounding to them the doctrine of the Gospel taught them that Baptism engaged them in death Jesus Christ said he was crucified that you might be so to the world he suffered death that you might die to sin he was buried that you might be together with him and having put off the old man Adam and being cloathed with the new man Jesus Christ you may die no more in your souls by sin All the other Fathers speak the same language teaching us that there is a death and a life hid in Baptism producing real effects in our souls Thence ariseth the inclination all Christians have to die and to live thence proceed those obstinate conflicts they entertain self-love with thence spring those violent desires to be separated from the world and the flesh that they may be no longer subject to their tyranny But because this Mystery very much concerns our salvation it deserves a more ample explication from us that we may disclose the truths and obligations that lie wrapt up in it The Son of God is willing that as his death is the Principle so it should be the Rule and Example of our salvation as he died to deliver us he would have us die to honour him and as he entered not into glory but by the door of the Cross neither must we pass to the resurrection but by the gate of the Grave He died saith the great Apostle that by his death he might ruine the Empire of sin He died that losing all the imperfections he drew from Adam he might rise again to life everlasting He died that satisfying his Father we might be no longer responsible to his Justice All these considerations oblige us to die in Baptism Pro omnibus mortuus est ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est debet ergo vita hominis in se deficere in Christo proficere ut dicat cum Apostolo Vivo ego jam non ego Aug. Serm. de Epiphan if we intend to be the images of Jesus Christ we must destroy sin by death that dying we may be born again and making a sacrifice of our death we may be changed into spotless Victims But as the Son of God was not content onely to die but was willing to joyn the ignominy of the grave to the bitterness of his death Sicut Christus sepultus fuit in terra sic baptizatus mergitur in aqua Nicol. de Lyra. because there was a second punishment of sin comprised in those words of our Arrest Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return he will have our death followed with a funeral and that the same Sacrament that makes us die bury us together with him Consepulti sumus cum Christo. Burial addes to the dead corpse two or three notable conditions The first is Coemeteria extra urbes utnullum esset viveniuÌ„ cum mort uis mmercium that he that is buried is separated from the company of the living that he remains in the regions of death and hath no more commerce with the present world So the Christian is buried with the Son of God because he is removed from amongst wicked men neither doth the state of death into which he is entered suffer him to converse with them Quid est mori peccatâ— consepeliri cum Christo nisi damnandis operibus omnino non vivere nihil concupiscere carnaliter nihil ambire sicut qui mortuus est carne nulli detrahit nullum aversatur Prosp de vita contemp c. 21 He hath now no ears to hear calumnies no eyes to gaze upon the beauties of the earth no desires nor pretensions after the honours of the world and his death being attended with a funeral he protests aloud that he hath renounced all hopes of the things of the world The second condition of this state is the duration that goes along with it For though death be eternal in respect of the Creature nor can any but an Almighty power re-unite the soul with the body when once separated yet there seems to remain some faint hope as long as the body is not committed to the grave we watch it to see if that which appears a death be but a swoon or trance and there have been those that have died and rose again the same day without a miracle But when the body is laid in the sepulchre drooping Nature is then past all hope This dismal abode hath no intercourse with life 't is an everlasting habitation whence there is no return but by a prodigie Sepulchra eoruÌ„ domus illoruÌ„ in aeternuÌ„ jam quia constructa sunt sepulchra domus sunt sepulchra quia ibi semper crunt ideo domus in aeternum Aug. in Psal 48. 't is the place where worms serving for ministers of the Divine Justice discharge their fury upon men till being reduced to powder there remains nothing of these famous criminals Thus the Christians when baptized are as it were interred to
mistrust their merit They neither apprehended the greatness of the danger that was threatned nor the cruelty of the Tyrant that condemned them to death nor the fury of the Executioners that searched them out to massacre them their happiness was as unknown to them as their misery they were ignorant that they suffered for Jesus Christ that in their person they sought for Him and that receiving the stabs of the ponyard thrust at their heart they had this double honour to die for their Saviour and by yeelding up their own life to secure his Neverthelesse all the Fathers of the Church confess that their Martyrdome was true that the power of God supplyed their weakness that his grace prevented their will and that their sacrifice fayl'd not to be meritorious though it was not voluntary Amongst all those that have been their Advocates there is none hath pleaded their cause with more Eloquence then St Bernard his Reasons and his Words are equally powerfull and it seems that preserving the glory of their Martyrdom his designe was to preserve that of their Baptism Si quaeric corum apud Deum merita ut coronarentur quaere apud Herodem crimina ut occiderentur An forte minor Christi Pietas quà m Herodis impietas ut ille quidem potuit innoxios neci dare Christus non potuerit propter se occisos coronare Bern. de natal Inn. If you ask saith he what desert they had in the sight of God to merit a Crown ask what their crime was against Herod that deserved such a butchery shall the Piety of the Son of God be less powerful then the Impiety of Herod Shall the Tyrant be able to massacre Innocents and their Saviour not able to crown their sufferings Their Martyrdom exalteth the mercy of Jesus Christ and their example teacheth us that as good desires without works are sometimes recompensed in men works without desires may be recompensed in children If we doubt of their Martyrdom Ille pro Christo trucidatos Infantes dubitet inter Martyres coronari qui regeneratos in Christo non credit inter adoptionis silios numerari Idem ibid. as the same Father goes on we must doubt of the salvation of all those that are baptized and if we beleeve that Baptism sanctifies Infants though they cannot speak we must beleeve that Martyrdom consecrates these though they cannot expresse themselves After this example we need not think it strange that the Eternal Father acknowledgeth those for his Children whom the Son acknowledgeth for his Brethren nor doubt that imitating his Justice he saves by borrowed merits those he had condemned for accessory crimes But one of the most remarkable resemblances between our Recovery and our Fall is that both of them began by the Body For though this be lesse guilty then the soul neither did the corporal revolt sollicite our first Father to sin yet is it the pipe through which his offence passeth into the essence of his posterity Certum tenemus quia caro contracta de carne per legem concupiscentiae quam cito vivificatur originalis culpae vinculo premitur cjusque affectionibus anima quae carnem vivificat aggravatur sub hoc peccati vinculo demerguntur parvuli qui sine remedio baptismi moriuntur Habent enim originale peccatum non per animam sed per carnem utique contractum animaeque infusum carni namque ita unitur anima ut cum carne fit una persona Aug. lib. de Spir. Anim. c. 41. if they were not a part of his flesh they should inherit neither his sin nor his punishment and if concupiscence were fully extinguished by grace Generation would not be criminal Man is not faulty in his conception but because he is cloathed with Adam's flesh 't is by means of it that sin overspreads the soul for issuing from the hands of God 't is stain'd with no impurity but no sooner is it united to the body but it becomes guilty their marriage begets sin and having quickned that unhappy moity it enters into its imperfections and disorders it begins to affect terrestriall things it dwels upon perishable goods and is at a distance from eternall ones lest it should sad the Body it readily complyes with all its desires and as if it were become corporeal it longs for those objects that please and entertain the senses Though it be not carried yet by deliberation this way 't is by inclination and though it offend not willingly we may say it does naturally and that the privation of Grace joyned to its union with the body is the source of its transgression and misery In this point the Regeneration of the Christian holds so full a proportion with the Generation of the Man that the one is as well the proof as the Image of the other Quaeris in parvulis culpam invenis ex carne traductam Quaeris in eis gratiam invenis à Deo collatam Aug. de Spir. Anim. c. 41. For Grace though spiritual enters not into the soul but by the mediation of the body The Sacraments that dispense it communicate not their vertue to the Spirit till they have first imparted it to the flesh God is pleased to imitate his enemie and following his steps he cures the noblest part of man by the more ignoble Caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur caro ungitur ut anima consecretur caro corpore sanguine Christi vescitur ut anima saginetur Tert. de resurâ—ect carnis The spirit of the Christian Champions is not strengthened in Confirmation till the holy oyl is sprinkled on their fore-head Their soul to use Tertullian's expressions is not fatted with the Eucharist till it receives the body and bloud of Christ by their mouth nor is their spirit purified in Baptism but when their body is dipt in water The Remedy is symbolicall to the nature of the disease 't is affix'd to the prime delinquent and this maxime admits of no contradiction that the soul is uncapable of being healed assoon as it is separated from the flesh It seems the divine Justice will have Grace enter by the same passage into the soul that Sin did Nulla omnino anima salutem potest adipisci ni dum in carne est Id. Ib. and that the flesh should be the Christians ligament to Jesus Christ as well as the sinners to his first Progenitor Neither truly is it harder to conceive one then the other for as grace is insinuated into the soul by Baptisme of an offendor making an Innocent despoiling us of Adam and putting us on Jesus Christ ' Anima in corpore tanquam in vitiato vase corrumpitur ubi occulta justitia divinae legis includitur Aug. and finally passeth from our body into the Essence of that part that inanimates us so also may we easily comprehend that concupiscence is the conduit of sin that the miseries of the flesh make an Impression upon the spirit that this is
infected with the contagion of that and that sin tracing grace prevents the will making it criminall before it be free The only thing that may seem strange to us in this Oeconomy is That a Baptized person does not communicate Christian grace to his children though he be possessed of it and yet doth communicate originall sin though he be freed from it Miraris quare peccator nascatur de semine Justi non te delectat mirari quare oleaster nascatur de semine olivae Accipe aliam similitudinem non attendis quia de grano purgato frumentum cum palea nascitur sine qua seminatur Aug. Serm. de Verb. Apos 14. But our wonder will cease if we consider that a grain of corn which is sown without chaffe springs up notwithstanding with it and on the other side a learned man derives not his sciences to his children though he doe his being Ideo de baptizato non justus nascitur quia non eum generat unde regeneratus est sed unde generatus est Id. ib. And because as Saint Augustine observes Christians beget not their children by the Spirit which is sanctified but by the body which still remains corrupted neither is Grace the concomitant of the Birth of Adam but of the regeneration of Jesus Christ who absolves not the guilty till they are cloathed with his merits in Baptisme The Fifth DISCOURSE Of the Resemblances that are found between the Birth of Christ and that of a Christian AS the Christian takes his denomination of Christ so also doth he his Glory neither hath he any Priviledge which he is not obliged to him for If he have any merits that render him acceptable to God 't is from the * Ex sacramento unctionis Christi Christianorum descendit voeabulum et nomen quod nomen ille frustra sortitur qui Christum minime imitatur Aug. de vita Christi Actions or Sufferings of Jesus Christ that he borrows them If he pretends any right to heaven as his inheritance 't is because Christ is his elder Brother if the Angels do him any service 't is because he is a member of his Body and that this quality equals if not prefers him before these blessed Spirits If lastly his birth be holy 't is because it resembles that of the Son of God and receives in the bosom of the Church the same advantages the Son of God received in the womb of his Mother Indeed could the tongue of man recount the wonders of a Nativity that astonish'd the Prophets they might haply be reduc'd to three or four heads that render it glorious and full of lustre The First is That the Son of God was conceived by the operation of the holy Ghost He it was that managed this great Designe who curdled the most pure blood of the Virgin who form'd the Body of the Word Incarnate and becoming his principle did in a manner give him in Time what he had received from him in Eternity The Angel spake thus of it to the Virgin when for the interest of her Virginity she desired to be instructed how she might be the Mother of God Superveniet in te dando foecunditatem servando Virginitatem Bern. The holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Glory of the Highest shall over-shadow thee The Holy Ghost was the dispenser of this mystery his goodness wrought this miracle of love and he that was barren in Eternity to give Jesus Christ to the world became fruitfull in time Though this favour be admirable exalting the Son of God above Prophets and Kings yet is it common to him with Christians who have the priviledge to be born of the Holy Ghost and to enter into a new life by his grace For he it is and not an Angel that sits President in this sacred * Omni homini renascenti aqua baptismatis instar est uteri virginalis eodem Spiritu sanctorcplente fontem qui replevit et Virginē ut peccatum quod ibi vacuavit sacra conceptio hic mystica tollat ablutio Leo. pool wherein wee are regenerated he it is that stamps upon us the character that makes us Christians and sheds abroad charity into our hearts whereby we are made the children of God 'T is by his vertue that our sins are blotted out and by a secret influence that penetrateth the essence of our soul that we become the adopted sons of the Everlasting Father and the brethren of Jesus Christ The holy Scripture teacheth us this transcendent verity in common ordinary words but which in their deep sense comprehend almost an infinite number of mysteries Except a man be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost he shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven As it is he that gives us the being of Grace so he gives us a right to Glory and as he made the Virgin * Originem quā sumpsit in utero Virginis posuit in fonte baptismatis dedit aquae quod dedit Matri et obumbratio Spiritus sanctiquae fecit ut Maria parerot eadem facit ut aqua rogeneret credentem Leo Serm. de Nat. Christi fruitfull to bring forth Christ so he makes the water prolificall to regenerate the Christian 'T is the opinion of St Ambrose and of St Augustine who both conspire together to make us admire the excellent grace that we receive of the Holy Ghost in Baptism The same Grace saith the later that makes Man-God makes Man-Christian the one is re-born by the same Spirit whereof the other is born and as This is wholly exempt from all sin That is fully delivered from it Thus the Christian may boast that he hath God for his Principle that he owes his birth to the Holy Ghost and that this priviledge is common to him with the Word incarnate The Second Advantage of the Son of God in his temporall Nativity is That he had a Mother who miraculously united Fruitfulnesse with Purity for the Fruit that she bare shed not her Flower the quality of a Mother made her not lose that of a Virgin and Nature stood amazed that being so pure she was notwithstanding brought to bed The * Ecce Virgo concipiet ct parict filium Isa 7. Prophets have prepared us for the belief of this miracle by their predictions they beheld it in the secrets of Futurity and knowing very well that it was one of the greatest Priviledges of the Messias they have made it one of the fairest observations in his History The very Heathen were not ignorant of it The Sybils have proclaimed it for the rarest ornament of Virginity and there were some people who moved by their Predictions erected Altars to the * Virgini pariturae Virgin-Mother Nothing in all our Religion hath carried so much lustre with it amongst the Heathen as this glorious particular neither had they much adoe to beleeve that Jesus Christ was the Son of God seeing he was the Son of
experience that its subjects are so mutinous that they cannot be brought in subjection They are rather tired then overcome and at the very instant they seem to submit to Grace they listen to Concupiscence and taking new courage from this rebel-lust they set upon their Soveraign afresh Thus our whole life is a continual Warfare we begin at our Baptism and we end not till our Death This is it that S. Cyprian expresseth so handsomely in his Treatise of the Deluge where speaking to the Neophytes he says You are baptized you have the honour to bear the character of Jesus Christ you have been admitted to his Table and his Flesh hath served for nourishment Take notice how this new kinde of life engages you in a combat where you must grapple with the whole family of sins If you overcome Covetousness Lust will set upon you if you foil Lust Ambition steps in its place and joyning craft to violence endeavours to perswade us that all his designes are reasonable If you master this combatant Envie Anger Drunkenness accompanied with their partisans will presently draw into a body to destroy you Therefore doth S. Augustine compare the condition of newly-converted Christians to that of the Jews when they went out of Egypt They saith he were delivered by Moses these are delivered by Jesus Christ they passed thorow the red Sea these pass thorow Baptism they saw all their enemies dead upon the shore these see all their sins drowned in the waters But remember my brethren that the Jews having passed the Red-sea were not suddenly landed in Palestine the wilderness and desarts exercised their patience hunger and thirst oppressed them a long time fiery serpents persecuted them and a thousand strange nations opposing their passage made them stand to their arms to defend themselves Thus the Christians spend their life in conflicts and finde the world a horrid desart where a hundred several monsters serve as trials of their courage and exercises of their vertue They sigh after their dear Country they long to reign with Jesus Christ but disciplined by these precedent Types and Figures they are taught that to arrive to his Triumphs they must share in his Combats Therefore ought they not to think it strange though being brethren of Jesus Christ and children of their heavenly Father they yet enjoy not their inheritance and if while they are on the earth treated like slaves or enemies they still feel the revolt of the Creatures the persecution of Satan the War of those two parts whereof they are composed Let us profit by these Examples and remember that if Heaven be our Inheritance 't is also our Recompence if we be Children we are also Souldiers and if God be Good enough to prevent our Deserts he is Just enough to require our Good Works The Tenth DISCOURSE The Regeneration of a Christian takes not away all that he drew from his first Generation AS Grace and Nature proceed from one and the same Principle Erat Deus in Angelis in prâ—â— homine naturä condens largiens gratiam Aug. they have in their differences certain wonderful resemblances which cannot be considered without ravishment They act both together and though sin have divided them yet does not Grace forbear to make use of Nature in its highest operations Their designes are alike onely they seek after God by diverse ways but Grace hath this advantage over Nature that it never wanders They have one and the same End as they have one and the same Beginning and when they seem to contest their onely designe is to make Man happie Both of them are admirable in their Variety Nature puts as many differences in mens Mindes as in their Countenances and though all faces have the same parts yet she ranks them with so much artifice that there appears a diversity in their very likeness Grace is not inferiour to Nature in this advantage all its productions are different and though the Saints are quickned with the same Spirit the Church recording their Panegyrick instructs us that they are singular in their species But one of their greatest resemblances is that Nature is flowe in her operations she brings not her works to pass without much labour and time one grain of Corn costs her a whole yeer and she needs the several Seasons to bring it to a perfect maturity Flowers that are not so useful as Fruits stand her not in less time and to give them their Colour and their Smell Winter and Spring are requisite Grace is yet more slowe then Nature for whether it finde resistance in its designes or labour in more difficult undertakings it perfects not but in Eternity what it begins in Time There remains something still to be reformed in the Creature and whatever excellency of endeavour it bestows upon the greatest Saints it continually meets with some disorders to be regulated some sin to be corrected some inclinations to be vanquished Thence it comes to pass that in Baptism where it gives life to the Christian it acts with so much weakness that wiping away the stain of sin it leaves notwithstanding Concupiscence there still For though by the vertue of this Sacrament we become new creatures that Adam dies and Jesus Christ is born in us yet are we but rude draughts unpolished works expecting their perfection from time and travel We are saith one Apostle but the embryo of a new creature and we bear the denomination of Children by reason of our Weakness as well as of our Innocence The Principles of Christian life are in our souls we have the seeds of all vertues but if we husband them not with great care they are choak'd among the thorns of our evil inclinations For the understanding a truth that so much concerns our salvation we must know that the grace of Baptism defaceth the sin of Adam invests us with the Innocence of Jesus Christ and giving us admittance into his rights bestoweth heaven upon us for our inheritance of children of wrath which we were before Salus hominis in Baptismate sacta est quia dimissum est peccatum quod ex parentibus traxit vel quicquid etiam propric ante Baptismum peccavit we become children of mercy and contracting a true alliance with the holy Trinity we renounce all affinity with flesh and bloud In this happy condition we are no longer afraid of the just wrath of God the thunders he threatens sinners with are no longer terrible to us and living securely under the shadow of Jesus Christ we know that the sole sin of Adam can no longer prejudice our salvation we meditate with delight upon those words of S. Paul There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus We have the earnest of our salvation in our selves Grace is a pledge of glory and remaining under the Conduct of the holy Spirit we are sure that under so good a guide we cannot miscarry But whatever hope our spirit flatters us with
we consider that the Apostles served as interpreters to the holy Ghost that he spake with their mouthes and that he resided in their hearts we shall not conceive it strange that he that subdued Egypt with an army of flies converted the world by a few fishermen This spirit which was the force of the Church was also the light as it assisted her in her combats Impleti Spiritu sancto loquumur repente linguis omnium arguunt fidenter errores praedicant saluberrimam veritatem exbortantur ad poenitentiam indulgentiam de divina gratia pollicentur Aug. epist 3. ad Volusi it instructed her in her doubts and as often as she would resolve a difficulty or settle an Article of faith she consulted the spirit of her welbeloved and finding truth in his answers she pronounced nothing but Oracles to her children I see nothing more venerable and august in the infancy of the Church then the first Councell held in the City of Jerusalem to decide a matter that might separate the Jews from the Gentiles It was not convened with so much pomp as others have been there appeared not the Ambassadours of Christian Princes because the whole Church was included within the walls of one onely City there were no Philosophers who made use of the vanity of their Sciences to impede the progresse of the truth of the Gospel there were no strange Nations because all the beleevers were of one Countrey the epitome of the Universe was not seen in one Convocation because the Church had not yet displayed her banner neither in Europe nor Africa But there might be seen the Lieutenant of Jesus Christ with a zeal worthy of his charge there was the Bishop of Jerusalem who was to water with his blood the Church that he had built by his example and instructed by his sermons there might you see the Apostle of the Gentiles take the interest of the people he had newly converted and prove by his reasons that the Gospel being the accomplishment of the Law they were not to make that live again which Jesus Christ had crucified with himself upon the Crosse But of all the circumstances that give an excellency to this Councell above all others I am ravished with none so much as with that great assurance and unshaken confidence the Apostles begin their decisions withall For they acquaint us that they were the Organs of the holy Ghost that he that resided in their hearts expressed himself by their mouthes that he pronounced his Oracles in their words and confirming all they had ordained he had no other sence but theirs Visum est spiritui sancto nobis It hath seemed good to the holy Ghost and to us Let Kings conclude their Edicts in termes never so absolute let them second their reasons with that imperious clause Such is our pleasure and let them prescribe laws to their subjects liberty they shall never perswade us that the holy Ghost is the Authour of their Ordinances and that he that spake by the mouth of the Apostles speaks by the mouth of Monarchs Infallibility is promised to none but to the Church and to the head thereof there is but that Assembly alone that makes the holy Ghost vocall Truth is suspected in the mouthes of Philosophers and Oratours Soveraigns are constrained to have recourse to force to make their laws valid and of credit The Church onely can impose obedience upon her children when she will Potest fieri ut homo mentiatur non potest fieriut veritas mentiatur ex v ritatis ore cognosco Christum ipsam veritatem ex veritatis ore cognosco Ecclefiam veritatis participem Aug. in Isa 57. because to her alone is promised the assistance of the holy Ghost He is her Authour because he formed her in her birth he is her strength because he defends her in persecution he is her light because he instructs her in her doubts and he is her Spirit because he gives her life motion and direction The second DISCOURSE That the Holy Ghost is the Heart of the Church THough there is not any part in a mans body useless or unprofitable yet Natural Philosophy acknowledgeth the Heart and the Head for the two principal The Head is placed in the highest and most eminent seat as the Soveraign having all the Senses as so many faithful ministers gives orders aad sheds influences thorow the whole body of the State thence every part receives Sense and Motion and no sooner is there any obstruction that hinders the commerce of the Head with the rest of the Members but they remain stupied or benummed The Heart is not inferiour to the Head in dignity And we may affirm the Body an Empire that obeys two Soveraigns without the inconvenience of a Schism and takes Law from two absolute Potentates without dividing their Royalty For the Heart resides in the midst of the Body as a King in his Kingdom conveys the Spirits thorow the Arteries dispenseth Life to all his Subjects so extremely sensible of the Publike good that not the least disorder can arise but he gives notice of it by his irregular motion As these two parts are the Noblest so are they most United their fair correspondence cements the peace of the Body their division threatens its ruine and when they no longer entertain a free communication the State must necessarily perish without any hope of recovery If we may compare Great things with Small Ecclesiae Corporis Christus est Caput Spiritus sanctus Cor. Thom. we may say that the Church is a mystical Body whereof Jesus Christ is the Head and the holy Ghost the Heart They act diversly but to one and the same end The one Guides this great Body the other Quickens it the one gives it Motion the other Life As there is no misfortune that can divide them the Body which they constitute is immortal and whatever enemies set upon it they shall never be able to prevail against it all its Combats are attended with Victory Death despoils it of no parts which Eternity restores not again what it loseth upon Earth it recovers in Heaven and by a happie dispensation of Providence findes Rest in Persecution Life in Death Glory in Shame But as its greatest advantage is to have the holy Ghost for its Heart and the Son of God for its Head let us speak of the First till we shall have an opportunity to treat of the Second and let us discover those Graces and Blessings the Church receives from his guidance and direction Where that we may not pass the terms of our Comparison we say that the holy Spirit being the Heart of this great Body inanimates it by his Presence unites it by his Charity guides it by his Light and comforts it by his Goodness The Heart is the Noblest Seat of the Soul the Throne where she reigns the Centre of her Principality where she keeps her chief residence so that we may say 't is the
did not the following surpass it For the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Faithful as he is the Love of the Father and of the Son But to understand this truth we must inform you that the Word being begotten of the Father by the Understanding is his onely Son and that the Holy Ghost being produced by the Will is his Love The Father and the Son reciprocally love one another by this mutual charity they finde their happiness in this common dilection and should they cease to love they would cease to be happie Having a minde to exalt us to their happiness they raise us also to their love and pouring forth charity into our souls they make us capable of loving them For God is so great that he can neither be known but by his own Light nor lov'd but by his own Love the Holy Spirit must enlighten our Souls warm our Wills and by the purity of his flames purge away the impurity of our affections he transforms us into himself to make us happie This holy Love is a particular effect of the Holy Spirit the beams that heat us are an emanation from that Divine fire that burns the Seraphims and the charity that raiseth us above the condition of men is a spark of that personal charity wherewith the Father and the Son love each other from all eternity But that we may not challenge the Holy Spirit as sparing of his favours he hath vouchsafed to be the accomplishment of the Church as he is the accomplishment and perfection of the Trinity For though there be no defects in God though this Sun is never clouded nor eclipsed this Supreme Truth labours under no shadows nor errours this excellent Beauty hath no spots nor blemishes and this amiable goodness be full of charms and graces yet may the Holy Ghost be called the Complement thereof The Father begins this adorable Circle which the Son continues and the Holy Spirit finisheth he it is that bounds the Divine emanations draws forth the fruitfulness of those that cause his production and if it be lawful to speak of an ineffable mystery and to subject to the laws of Time Eternity it self God is not compleated but by the production of the holy Spirit He is the rest of the Father and the Son his person is the perfection of the Trinity and this Divine mystery would want its full proportion did it not include the Holy Spirit with the two Persons from whence he proceeded The holy Scriptures to afford us some light of this verity attribute all the perfection of the works of God to the blessed Spirit They represent him to us moving upon the waters in the Creation of the world finishing by his Fecundity what the Father and the Son had produced by their Power They teach us that it was he that gave motion to the Heavens influences to the Stars heat to the Sun They inform us that 't was by his vertue that the earth became fruitful and that from his goodness she received that secret Fermentation that to this day renders her the Mother and the Nurse of all things living And the Gospel to give this Truth its full extent instructs us that 't is the holy Ghost who by his graces in the Church makes up what Jesus Christ hath begun in it by his travels He is his Vicar and Lieutenant he came down upon the earth after the other ascended up to heaven nor hath he any other designe in his descension then to compleat all the works of Jesus Christ The Apostles were yet but embryo's in Christianity when the Son of God left them three yeers of conversation was not able to perfect them the greatest part of the discourses of their Divine Master seemed to them nothing but Aenigma's his Maximes Paradoxes his Promises pleasing Illusions every thing was a mormo to these timorous spirits ths name of the Cross scandalized them and so many Miracles wrought in their presence were unable to calm their Fear or heighten their Courage To finish these demi-works the Holy Ghost came into the world he descended upon their heads in the shape of fiery tongues to make them eloquent and bold he inspired them with Charity to cure them of Fear made them Lovers thereby to make them Martyrs he cleared their Understanding warmed their Will that light and heat being blended together they might more easily overcome Philosophers and Tyrants Finally he set up a Throne in their hearts that speaking by their mouthes and acting by their hands he might render them accomplisht pieces to the service of their Master And indeed we must acknowledge the Apostles changed their condition after the descent of the Holy Ghost their Fear vanished as soon as they were confirmed by his Strength the Cross seem'd strew'd with Charms as soon as they were kindled with his Flames they found Sweetness even in Torments Glory in Affronts Venit Vicarius Redemptoris ut beneficia quae Salvator Dominus inchoavit Spiritus sancti virtute consammet quod ille redemit iste sanctificet quod ille acquisivit iste custodiat Aug. Serm. 1. Feria 32. Pentec and Riches in Poverty This made S. Augustine say that the Holy Spirit came to finish in Power what the Son of God had begun in Weakness to sanctifie what the other had redeemed and to preserve what Christ had purchased If you seek saith the same S. Augustine what was wanting to the Apostles and what might be added to their perfection by the coming down of the Holy Ghost I will tell you Before that happie moment they had Faith but they had neither Constancie nor Fidelity they were able to forsake their possessions to follow Jesus Christ but they would not lose their lives to glorifie him they were able indeed to preach the Gospel but knew not how to signe it with their blood nor seal it with their death they were vertuous as long as they conversed with the Son of God up on earth but they were not grown up to perfection till the Holy Ghost had communicated to them his graces and adding force to charity had made them the Foundations of the Church the Fathers of the Faithful the Terrour of Devils and the Astonishment of Tyrants Finally 't is the holy Spirit according to the saying of S. John Damascen that perfects the Christians because 't is he that Quickens them by Grace and Deifies them with Glory So that we are obliged to confess that he enters into alliance with them that he is the same to the Church that he is to the Trinity and that after he hath been our Bond our Gift and our Love upon Earth he will be our Accomplishment in Heaven The Fourth DISCOURSE That the Holy Ghost seems to be to Christians what he is to the Son of God IT is not without ground that the Christian is called the Image of Jesus Christ since he is his other Self the one possessing by Grace what the other doth by
Nature For if Jesus be the Natural Son of the Father the Christian is his Adopted one if Jesus be the Heir of the Father the Christian is the Co-heir of the Son according to the expression of the great Apostle if Jesus be Innocent the Christian is Justified if Jesus be born of the Spirit the Christian is regenerated thereby and receives in his Baptism what the Son of God received in his Birth Inasmuch as this last wonderfully exalteth the glory of the Faithful I conceive I ought to bestow this whole Discourse upon this matter and to make it appear that the Holy Ghost by an excess of bounty will be to every Christian what he is to Jesus Christ Faith teacheth us that though Jesus Christ be the Son of the Everlasting Father yet is he withal the Workmanship of the Holy Spirit he that was barren in Eternity became fruitful in Time he that produced nothing in the Heart of the Father produced the Word Incarnate in the Womb of the Virgin and he that before the world began was the Spirit of the Son in the fulness of time became his Principle The Scripture insinuates this Truth when it brings in the Angel speaking these words to the Virgin The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee And the Church teacheth it all her children in the Symbole of her Creed in these terms He was conceived of the Holy Ghost Et licet aliud quidem ex te aliud ex Patre sit jam non tamen cujusque suus sed unus utriusque erit Filius Sanctus Bern. super missus est homil Thence it comes to pass that his conception is so pure that sin hath no part therein and that he is free from shame as the mother that bare him was from sorrow He was so born saith Tertullian that he need not blush at the name of Son This great priviledge is granted the Christian in his Baptism and his second birth is as holy and as noble as his first was shameful and criminal In the one he is a sinner before he is reasonable and the slave of the devil as soon as he is the subject of Jesus Christ but in the other he is happily born again by the vertue of the Holy Spirit he receives grace as an earnest of glory he is adopted by the Father for his son acknowledged by Jesus Christ for his brother treated by the Angels as their equal and exalted to so high a condition that the holy Spirit disdains not to be stiled the Author and Principle thereof This is it that holy Scripture holds out to us by these words Vnless a man be born again of water and of the holy Ghost I would enlarge my self upon this meditation had I not explained it already in another passage of this Work Neither would it be any hard matter to make it appear that the Regeneration of a Christian is little inferiour in this particular to the Birth of Jesus Christ The second advantage that is common to them is that the same spirit which is their Principle is also their Director and that he that gives them life gives them conduct and motion These two Things are inseparable in Nature and in Grace the same causes that make us live make us act these Starres whose influences contribute so much to our birth are not lesse conducing to our fortune and as they are the Principles of our Being they are in some sort the Guides of our life if they have no dominion over our spirit they have over our humour and if they force not our liberty they many times sollicite our inclinations But not to rest in second Causes it is plaine the creature depends as well upon God in his motion as in his Being he governs men whom he hath created he guides Princes whom he hath raised to the Throne and he as absolutely hath their wills in his hands as their Scepter By the same reason the Holy Spirit which is the Principle of Jesus Christ is his Director he undertakes nothing but by his conduct and as he received his being from his goodnesse he submits all his actions to his power The Scriptures furnish us with a thousand proofes of so important a Truth all the Evangelists are the faithfull Witnesses thereof neither doe they ever take notice of the designs of the Son of God Ductus est Jesus à Spiritu quia Humanitas Christi erat organum Divinitatis ideo ad omnia movebatur instinctu Spiritûs sancti hoc igitur motu ivit in desertum locum aptum or ationi Glossa ordin but they make it appeare at the same time that the Holy Spirit is the first mover of them For if he retire into the desarts to converse with beasts if he enter the list wherein he seemes to injure his glory to assure our salvation if he spend dayes and nights there in prayers and fasting if he suffer his slave to tempt him and if he refuse not to combate him upon Earth that he had driven out of Heaven 't is because the Holy Spirit engageth him in the conflict and layes an obligation upon him to beare the punishment of our sins to deliver us therefrom if he passe from one Province to another if he leave a rebellious City to instruct another more obedient to his divine sermons 't is by the direction of his guide Jesus returned into Galile in the power of the Spirit If he work Miracles in Judea 't is not so much to magnifie his power In Spiritu Dei ejicio Daemonia as to comply with the motions of the Holy Spirit and though these signall wonders cost him but a few words or desires he never wrought them but his divine Principle obliged him thereto by some secret inspiration if he unfolds the Mysteries of our Religion if he declare to his Disciples the will of his Father and discover to them those grand designes contrived from all Eternity In ipsa hora exultavit Spiritu Sancto dixit confiteor tibi Pater Domine caeli terrae quod abscondisti haec à sapientibus prudentibus revelasti ca parvucis Luk. 10. and which were not to be executed but in time 't is the Holy Spirit that animates him to this discourse and obliges him to manifest that to men which till then he would not impart to the Angels If finally the Son of God offer himselfe up upon the Crosse for our salvation if he drown our sins in his blood if he reconcile us to his Father by his death and satisfie him with the losse of life and honour 't is the holy Spirit that engageth him in this Agony and who inspires him with love enough to vanquish the ignomy and paine thereof He offered himselse without spot to God by the Holy Ghost so that the life of the Son of God was spent in a continued obedience to the Holy Spirit he undertook nothing but by his orders executed nothing but by his
advice and hee that at first was his Principle proceeds still to be his counsellour and director The Christian enjoyes this advantage with Jesus Christ whatsoever designe he conceives whatsoever resolution he takes whatsoever enterprize he brings to passe he is alwayes bound to call upon the holy Ghost He that hath given him his Being ought to give him motion he that hath begotten him in Baptisme ought to govern him in the Church and if he will not be wanting to his obligations nor renounce his priviledges the same Spirit that inanimates him while he lives must move and lead him in all his operations This is it that S. Paul so highly magnifies when he sayes Those onely deserve to be called the children of God who are acted by the Spirit of God Qui Spiritu Dei aguntur hi sunt filii Dei Whereupon * Ergo agimur non agimus respondeo imo agis ageris tunc bene agis si à bono agaris Spiritus enim Dei qui te agit adjutor est tibi agenti ipsum nomen adjutoris praescribit tibi quia tu ipse aliquod agis sed ne te extolleret humanus spiritus ad hoc opus se idoneum jactaret ideo subjecit quotquot Spiritu Dei aguntur hi snut filii Dei Aug. Ser. 13. de verb. Apost S. Augustine preventing two contrary objections which might be made against this truth saith That Christians are not onely lead by the Spirit but driven to the end they may know that He is rather the Principle of their actions then themselves and that in the way of salvation they are rather sufferers then doers But because this answer might sooth men up in idlenesse and give them an occasion to neglect good works expecting the enthusiasmes of the Spirit he adds They are moved that they might move they receive the impression of grace that they may act and that the Apostle expresly made use of this manner of speech at once to make them shake off idlenesse and presumption From this Priviledge is derived a third not so peculiar to Christ as not to be common to Christians For the holy Spirit is their Master he instructs them both in his school and they have the glory to be his disciples as well as his workmanship The Son of God hath two schools as he hath two births the first is Eternity where his Father is his Master and where he teacheth him his learning in communicating to him his Essence There by a strange Prodigie the Master is not more knowing then the Scholar nor the Scholar junior to his Master the science is learnt in a moment but that moment endures for ever and though it have no parts it includes neverthelesse all the differences of time this science though but one comprehends in it all sorts of truth the Master hides nothing from his Scholar he instructs him at the same instant he begets him the birth of this Son to speak properly is his instruction as he is born for ever so he learns for ever and he that conceived him in his bosome is eternally his Father and his Master This Son hath in time another school and a new Master he that produceth him teacheth him and the same Principle that forms his body fashions his understanding from the very first moment of his Conception He imitates the Father that teacheth him from all eternity he instils all things into him without succession or labour and conveying light into his soul Vir erat Jesus necdum etiam natus sed sapientia non aetate animi virtute non viribus corporis Bern. he hath no need of the mediation of the senses to render him learned This Pupill discourseth before he speaks he conceives truth before he beholds the light and his understanding is inform'd of all the secrets of his Father before he could pronounce the name of his Mother His knowledge grows not up with time because it had its just proportion and measure at the very moment of his Generation Experience hath not made it more evident nor age more assured and if he pronounced no Oracles in his Infancy 't is because he had a minde to conceal his Wisdom as he had concealed his Divinity Finally this Divine Master taught him a science which Politicians seek for and cannot finde for he discovers to him the secrets of the heart the motions of the will and all those thoughts and imaginations which though they never brake forth in words nor actions cease not to render men guilty So that should Jesus Christ neither be united to the Person of the Word nor illuminated with the light of Glory he would neverthelesse have an infused knowledge whereby he would be acquainted with whatever is most secret in Nature and in Grace in Time and in Eternity The holy Scripture also teacheth us that the holy Spirit that abides not alwayes in others rests upon Jesus Christ Requievit super eum Spiritus Domini Isa and he that distributes his Graces to others by measure communicates them to his Masterpeece without weight or limitation But this is no hinderance from his being the Master also of all other Christians from teaching them the science of salvation discovering to them the mysteries of Theologie the secrets of Nature and the maximes of the Politikes In effect 't is the holy Spirit that made the Apostles learned that spake with their mouthes that confounded Emperours and Philosophers with their answers and made them understand those Oracles which were nothing but Riddles to them whilest Jesus Christ conversed with them upon the earth 'T is lastly the selfe same Spirit which to this day teacheth the faithfull what they are to beleeve in Religion what they are to do or leave undone in the practice of their life and what they ought to hope or fear after death He cannot deceive them because he is the Spirit of Truth he cannot engage them in evill because he is the Spirit of Holinesse neither can he suffer them to wander in Errour or languish in infirmities because he is the Spirit of Counsell and of Strength Therefore is he the Master whom the faithfull consult with in their occasions 't is in his Schoole that they commence in vertue 't is under his Conduct that they grow up to perfection and by his advice that they defend themselves against errour and falshood Vbi Deus Magister quam cito discitur quod docetur Leo Serm. 1. de Pente Though this Science be so deep yet is it learnt in a moment his Disciples become Masters without paines Truth distils into their understandings without passing through their eyes or eares sleeping and waking they are equally capable of attention and this Doctor is so dextrously exact that bestowing the Spirit upon his scholars he repaires by Grace the defects of Nature But to conclude all these resemblances we affirm that the holy Spirit is the witnesse of Jesus Christ and of
Righteousness Poenitentia à poena nomen accepit quia anima cruciatur caro mortificatur Aug. For though it presuppose sin and that Man cannot repent if he have not done amiss yet is it a very present help against his Infirmity and an admirable Invention of Mercy to deliver him from his Transgression In the mean time the state of Innocence was deprived of it and whether these two priviledges were incompatible neither would God grant this favour to men who had no excuse for their sin because it was absolutely in their power not to commit it we see not that they had this Prerogative nor that Adam recovered from his Fall by the assistance of Original Justice His Conversion is an effect of the Grace of JESUS CHRIST If he bewailed his sin he is beholding to the merits of the Son of God Nullus hominum transit ad Christum ut incipiat esse quod non erat nisi cum poeniteat fuisse quod erat Homil. 50. and if he repented 't was not till he became Christian For the Divine Providence which turns our Evils into Remedies is pleased to make use of our weakness in the business of Repentance and fortifying our Liberty by the vertue of Grace settles us in a condition more humble indeed but more sure then that of Innocence Therefore is it not founded so much upon the Will as upon Grace drawing its force much less from Man then from Jesus Christ He it is that hath instituted the remedy in his Church by a Sacrament wherein the holy Spirit raiseth up sinners after he hath regenerated them by Baptism For as he is the Principle of our new life so is he the Restorer thereof as he gives it by his Grace so he repairs it by his Goodness he presides in this sacred Pool and working stranger Miracles then the Angel did at the pool of Hierusalem he convinceth the Obstinate enlightens the Blinde instructeth the Ignorant Indeed this Sacrament hath always been lookt upon by Christians as a chanel thorow which the holy Spirit pours forth his graces into the souls of sinners There it is that he works those prodigies which astonish all Christians there it is that he acts as God and by a victorious sweetness triumphs over the liberty of Criminals there it is that he changeth Persecutors into Apostles Wolves into Lambs Libertines into Believers and Lascivious persons into Continent In the Old Testament this Spirit changed men externally indued them with new strength made use of Samsons to tame Lions take Cities and defeat Armies The Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson aad he slew a thousand men He changed the minde of those that he lifted up to the Throne and putting the Scepter into their hands inspired the Politicks into their soul and taught them that Science whereby Soveraigns govern States and Kingdoms The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee and thou shalt be changed into another man But now he changeth the hearts he causeth a Metamorphosis less glittering but more useful inspiring into the soul Repentance and Sorrow for Sin This Change is attributed to the holy Spirit because being the personal Love Est Spiritus sanctus in confitente jam ad donum Spiritûs sancti pertinet quia tibi displicet quod fecisti immundo spiritui peccata placent sancto displicent Aug. all the effects which designe any goodness are particularly applied to him and our Religion knows none greater then that wherein God receives his enemy into favour where not considering his Greatness he prevents him by his Mercy nor minding the many sins he hath committed treats with him not as a Rebellious Slave but as an obedient Son This belongs to the holy Spirit because being that sacred Bond that unites the Father with the Son from all Eternity it concerns him to reconcile sinners to God who are separated from him by their offences according to the language of the Prophet Your sins have separated between you and your God Finally this effect is so honourable to him that he is pleased to take it for his Name For the Church in her Oraisons calls it the Remission of Sins And as to flatter the ambition of Conquerours they bestow upon them the names of those Provinces they have reduced under their obedience the Church is of opinion that worthily to praise the holy Spirit to his Divine Qualities this glorious Title must be added and to specifie the victories he gains over sinners to name him by way of excellence The Remission of sins This Maxime is so true and the pardon of our offences so particularly attributed to the holy Ghost that the Ministers who are employed in this Sacrament must be quickned with his vertue to blot out sins For as Saint Augustine judiciously observes the Apostles received not the power to absolve the Guilty till they had received the holy Ghost nor did the Son of God say unto them Remit sins till he had before said unto them Receive the holy Ghost that they might know it was through his Name that they wrought this Miracle and that they were onely his Organs when they dispensed Grace in the State of their Soveraigne This will not seem strange to those that shall consider there is no greater power in the Church then to forgive sins For 't is in a manner to act upon a Non-entity 't is to imitate the power of God and to extract Grace out of Sin as the World out of Nothing Besides if we believe Saint Ambrose the Conversion of sinners hath something more difficult in it then the Creation of men For though in both these works God act upon nothing David telling us that to change a heart is to create it Create in me O God a clean heart and Saint Paul assuring us that our soul is created in good works when we are converted Creati in bonis operibus It seems God meets with more resistance in Conversion then in Creation Nothing obeys God when it hears his Word if it contribute not to his designes neither doth it oppose them and no sooner hath God made known his desire but it thrusts forth out of its barren womb The Heaven with its Stars the Earth with its Fields and the Sea with its Rocks He spake and they were made he commanded and they were created But Sin is a Non-entity rebellious against God it knows his minde and contemns it sets up parties in his State deboists his subjects and intrenching it self in their heart as in a Fort disputes the victory with their Soveraign Moreover there is no body but knows that God acts far more absolutely in the Creation of Men then in the Conversion of Sinners For when he drew man out of Nothing he advised with none but Himself he had no respect to his Liberty because he handled him as a Slave and speaking imperiously to him obliged him to appear before his Creator But when he Converts him he uses some kinde of
being his Creatures under a double Title and he our Principle in Nature and in Grace there is no body but believes we have all the reason in the world to set up his Kingdome in our hearts and carefully to preserve charity whereby he lives in our soules Neverthelesse the Great Apostle of the Gentiles complaines that the faithfull of his time made him dye that they put out the candle of their life and by an ingratitude as great as their blindnesse committed a double murder in one and the same crime He begs their favour towards the holy Spirit and having presented them with the Obligations they owe his infinite goodnesse he conjures them not to choak him in their soules Quench not the Spirit This passage is diversly explain'd Nolite Spiritum extinguere 1 Thes 5. but equally weak'nd by our Interpreters For some are of opinion that Saint Paul made use of this word to quench because the Holy Ghost coming down upon the Apostles in the likenesse of Fire might be put out as fire by our negligence And if the vestall Virgins were guilty of death Vesta nihil aliud quam ignis cui virgines solent servire quod sicut ex virgine ita nihil ex igne nascatur Aug. for suffering the prophane fire committed to their charge to go out the Christians were certainly much more criminall to suffer this holy Fire to dye that kindled all vertues in their hearts and purg'd out all defects and inward defilements Others think it a kind of figurative speech the Apostle makes use of to aggravate the hainousness of the sinne they commit who do all that they can to extinguish the Holy Spirit and endeavour to imitate the cruelty of the Jews will signe their malice by a detestable parricide It seems Saint Augustine was entred into this opinion accusing not the sinner for the death of the holy Spirit but because of the will he had to do it and endeavouring all that was in his power to stifle him that lives and reigns with the Father and the Son from all Eternity But I conceive without doing violence to the words of Saint Paul or at all prejudicing the holy Spirit we may say He suffers death by sin and loseth life when we lose charity For the same Apostle teacheth us Nescitis quia templum Dei estis Spiritus Dei habitat in vâ—bis 1 Cor. 3. that the holy Ghost dwels in us by Grace that he erects an Altar in our heart makes himself a Temple in our soul and lives in us by his vertues All his Epistles speak this language and as often as he treats of the residence of the holy Spirit in our hearts he speaks of it as of a Divine life whereof he is the first Principle so that he lives in us after the same manner as we live in him and these two lives are so closely combined together that one cannot be destroy'd without the other Thus the holy Spirit ceaseth to live in the sinner when the sinner ceaseth to live by the holy Spirit As they have one and the same life so they endure one and the same death and as the sinner loseth life because he loseth Grace that united him to Jesus Christ so the holy Spirit in some sort loseth that life that united him to the Christian by Charity and receives death from him that inflicts it upon himself by sin Therefore is it that the Apostle useth such high terms to make us comprehend the heinousnesse of our crime and describes the death of our soul under that of the holy Spirit to the end that if we are not afraid to commit a simple Murder we may at least be startled from committing a Parricide The second Quality of the holy Spirit is that having been our Principle he will also be our Director and give us motion after he hath indued us with life I will not inlarge this Truth because I have already spoken sufficiently of it and discovered those advantages the Christian may draw from thence It shall suffice to add that Christians are exalted as far above Philosophers as Philosophers are above Beasts For Beasts are led meerly by sense the pleasure that tickles them transports them and what-ever flatters their appetite either in taste or sight overpowers them if they are not with-held by fear or grief Sinners are in no better condition then the Brutes they consult only their sense when they act Homo comparatus est jumentis Considerate vos factos ad Dei imaginem Imago Dei intus est non est in corpore non est in auribus istis eculis sed est factus ubi est intellectus ubi mens ubi ratio investigandae veritatis Aug. in Psa 48. their soul is alwayes the slave of their body neither do they perceive when they engage themselves in the love of pleasure or glory how they do no more then Buls that foam and fight for the enjoyment of a Heifer or to be leaders of the Herd Philosophers are a degree higher then Sinners and taking Reason for their Guide they think they cannot err Rationalc animal est homo consummatur itaque ejus bonum si id adimplevit cui nascitur quid est autem quod ab illo ratio exigit rem facillimam secundum naturam suam vivere Senec. Epist 41. they fancie proud ostentous designes they frame noble Ideas of felicity they call in the Vertues to their aid to compasse it and assisted with Prudence Justice and Fortitude they count themselves as happy and as perfect as God himself Illi Philosophi seculi vitium vitio peccatumque peccato medicantur nos amore virtutum vitia superemus Hieron Epist ad Rust These blind Opinators see not that their Reason is a slave to their Concupiscence that Vain-glory is the foul of their Vertue that thinking to avoid Sensuaality they fall into Arrogance and flying the sins of Men are taken with those of Divels But Christians humbly soaring above Philosophers take the holy Spirit for their Guide they subject their reason to his Inspirations and knowing very well that they cannot be the children of God unlesse they be the organs of his Spirit they undertake nothing but by the motion of his Grace Though this favour make up one of their greatest advantages they fail not sometimes to neglect it and to resist the Conduct of their divine Director They relapse into the condition of Beasts when they obey their senses are restor'd to that of Philosophers Haec est iniquitas cujus non miseretur Deus cum homo defendit quod Deus odit pecâ—atum justitiam asserit ut omnipotenti resistat omnipotens illi Bern. de Conse when they are led by their judgment and become sinners when they resist Grace 'T is from this impiety that all others are derived there is no wickedness a soul is uncapble of when it rejects the impulses of the Spirit neither were the Jews cast
off but because they stop'd their ears against his Oracles 'T is the crime St Stephen accused them of when they stoned him Ye always resist the Holy Ghost and 't is the punishment the Son of God threatens all those with that persevere in their sins The Third Quality of the holy Spirit is that of a Comforter for if our Body revolt against reason he supplyes us with strength to subdue this Rebell if Passions trouble our rest he layes the storms if we are in doubt of our Salvation he gives us assurances and whatever affliction exerciseth our Patience he is our Consolation and our Joy But as concerning the acknowledgment of this Grace we daily afflict him by our insolence and we compell the Successours of the Apostles to reprove us as Saint Paul did Grieve not the holy Spirit This advice which the Doctor of the Gentiles gives us is expressed in terms not easie to be understood For the holy Spirit being God with the Father and the Son is not capable of sadness he enjoyes a happinesse that cannot be disturbed the rebellion of his Subjects can neither shake his Empire nor diminish his felicity what-ever designe is undertaken against him he still remains absolute and his Power which equals his Wisdome makes the malice of his enemies serviceable to the execution of his Will Therefore is it Ira Dei non est ut hominis id est perturbatio concitati animi sed tranquilla justi supplicii constitutio Aug. Trac 124. in Joan. that Divines cannot comprehend the language of St Paul nor conceive how the holy Spirit that is the source of joy can be grieved by sinners Some explain it following the common Rule which placeth the effects of the Passions in God and excludes the imperfections for his Anger takes not away his Tranquillity he punisheth the Rebels of his State without the least commotion nor is he less calm when he punisheth the Divels then when he rewards the Angels But though he act with so much stayedness he makes his thunder roar over the heads of the guilty he makes the earth open under their feet and if these two Elements are not enough to destroy them he obliges the Sea to drown them by his Inundations Others conceive that Saint Paul attributes Grief to the holy Spirit after the same manner he attributes Groans that he more respects his Figure then his Person and considering him in that Dove Gemitus Columbae gemitus Spiritus sancti quia in figura columbae descendit Spiritus in Dominum in the shape whereof he descended upon Jesus Christ he applyes to him the properties of that innocent Bird For every one knowes that the Dove mourns that she hath no other note but sighs and when she is once separated from her mate her lamentation lasts as long as her life But St Augustine resolves this difficulty by the strict union between the Faithfull and the holy Spirit he attributes to him the grief he inspires into them and because the pity they expresse for the lost estate of sinners is an effect of his Grace he ascends to the cause and attributes that to the holy Spirit that he produceth in Christians But how-ever it is we afflict him that comforts us and not acknowledging the good he hath done us we grieve the holy Spirit because we sad the Church whom he inanimates Finally to conclude this Discourse One of the most eminent Qualities of the holy Spirit is that of the Remission of sins his Spouse making his Panegyrick honours him with this Elogie and Divinity teacheth us that he it is that prepares the Will of the ungodly that manageth their Consent by the endearments of his Grace and reconciles them to the Father by the merits of the Son which he applyes to them Thence is it that he presides in the work of Repentance that the Priests who absolve the guilty are his Ministers and the sorrow that blots out sin is an effect of his Mercy Ad ipsum pertinet societas qua efficimur unum corpus unici Filii Dei Aug. in Ser. de Blasph Spir. In the mean time we offend him that pardons us his indulgence makes us insolent and the easiness wherewith he receiveth Penitents encreaseth the number of Delinquents All the sins we commit check these Divine perfections and by the least of our offences we violate all his personall Proprieties He is the Unity of the Father and of the Son because he is that sacred bond that joyns them eternally together and Sin is an unhappy division that divorceth Man from God the body from the soul Peccatum origo mali nec sine peccato aliquid in natura malum est Aug. the Husband from the Wife The holy Spirit is Goodness because he proceeds by the way of Love and all the effects that bear the mark of that divine perfection are particularly attributed to him Sin is nothing but malice in the essence of it the Creature may be weak and ignorant by nature Sanctitas est ab omni inquinatione libera incontaminatissema et perfectissima puritas quae fine Spiritu saucto intelligi non potest in creatura S. Dyonis but he cannot be bad but by sin what-ever bears that shameful character takes its origination thence and men and Angels would be exempt from Malice were they exempt from Sin The holy Spirit is stiled Holy not onely because he sanctifies all Creatures but because being the Spirit of the Father and of the Son who are both holy it concern'd him to bear a name common to both and which may delineate forth the admirable secrets of his eternall Procession Sin is so opposite to Holiness that we cannot better define it then by its contrariety to this divine Perfection For sanctity separates us from the Creatures and unites us so mightily to the Creator that nothing can disjoyn us on the contrary Sin is nothing else but a being wedded to the Creatures and an unhappy separation from the Creator so that it thwarts all the personal Proprieties of the holy Spirit and renders men unworthy of all the Favours they have received from him Let us therefore combate this Enemy of Grace Quicquid fecit Christus ut destrueret peccatum fecit ita debet facere Christianus cui nullus hostis est praeter peccatum Chrys make warr against him that makes it against God let us shake off the yoak of this Tyrant that flatters onely to destroy us and acknowledging the obligations we have to the holy Spirit submit our selves to his divine qualities Seeing he gives us Life by Grace let not us make him die together with it seeing he is our Director let us yeeld obedience to his Ordinances since he is our Consolation in our discontents let us not grieve him in his just Ones and seeing he is the Remission of sins let us bewail those we have committed to give him satisfaction and commit no new ones further to
give a little light to this Speculation let us amplifie in this discourse what Saint Augustine hath wrapt up in this passage and unfolding all the evils derived from sinne discover the malignant influences of this Delinquent in chiefe upon his wretched members Ignorance seems to be one of the prime calamities of man 'T is born with him ever since he was born with sinne it sinks so deep into his soule that it cannot be expell'd thence but with labour and pain Children know neither their Creatour nor their Father they live some years in this sad condition we must expect till Nature ripen their senses and make them capable of the instructions of their Nurses or Masters that knowledge and truth may passe into their soules by the mediation of their eyes and eares Those that are born among infidels thinking to deliver themselves from ignorance are plung'd into falshood and fall into a mischiefe more grievous then that they labour to avoid when these two evils are associated together they heighten the bad inclinations of the Will of an offender they make an Opinator and adding obstinacy to malice throw him into a necessity of sinning If it have not this unhappy consequence in the faithfull who are instructed in the School of Truth it occasions another whose effects are no whit lesse tragicall For the Will feels a wretched impotency towards all those good things the combate of vices and the conquest of vertues makes him apprehend she complains that what ever is enjoyn'd is harsh and difficult what ever is forbidden easie and delightfull and having no strength to secure her selfe against griefe and pleasure Languorem istum culpa meruit natura non habuit quam sane culpam per lavacrum regenerationis Dei gratia fidelibus jam remisit sed sub ejusdem medici manibus adhuc natura cum suo languore confligit Aug. she loseth as many victories as she fights battles In the mean time all the children of Adam live in this misery what ever habituall goodnesse they acquire they never lose all that weaknesse they extracted from their Father assoon as Grace forsakes them they relapse into their former infirmity and being members of Adam they are always feeble and languishing But that which is most deplorable Concupiscence that so disables for good raiseth their appetite with so strong a propensity to evill that nothing seems difficult that appears under that notion The ambitious suffer with pleasure those great anxieties that accompany Glory this vain Idol makes them so couragious that they are true to it to the last gasp their constancy imitates that of Martyrs and they endure more hardships to conquer a Province then those generous Champions have to purchase Heaven The Covetous make our Penitentiaries blush their Interest costs them more then our Salvation Passion that swallows them up exerciseth so cruell a Tyranny over their wills that it obliges them to all the painfull severities the love of Jesus Christ disciplin'd the Anchorites to They fast to save charges they watch for lucre they leave their Countrey to traffique they venture their lives to assure their gains and lose their conscience to enrich their house Finally Haec cupiditas vana ac per hoc prava vincit in eis ac fraenat alias cupiditates Aug. Concupiscence works as many disorders in sinners as Charity does good in Martyrs it inspires them with vigour in tickling them with love it sheds a poison into their souls which blending weaknesse with strength makes them so unable for any good that the least difficulty that accompanies it astonisheth them and so valiant for evill that the greatest oppositions that attend it raise their courage to compasse it To all these mischiefs might be added the division of the soule and body the revolt of the passions against reason the treachery of the senses in respect of the understanding and all the distempers that arise from the unseasonablenesse of the weather or the strife of the Elements had I not largely describ'd them in discovering the miseries of man a Criminall But not to fall upon tedious repetitions 't is more usefull to consider the Head from whence we have derived our Benedictions and confront him against the other from whom we have received our Anathemaes Jesus Christ is that glorious CHIEF whom the Eternall Father is pleased to engraffe upon our Nature to deliver it from those miseries it grones under 't is from Him that all our advantages flow and as we are made guilty by descending from Adam we become innocent by being planted into JESUS CHRIST Our Redemption holds some proportion with our Fall the Mercy of God is regulated by his Justice and the Grace he bestowes upon us is a copy of our chastisement The first Man saith Saint Augustine received a Liberty void of all servitude God presented him with Fire and Water and gave him leave to chuse Man took Fire and rejected the Water God who is just let him grasp what he had chosen so that hee was therefore unhappy because he would be so See here an Expresse of the Justice of God Turn the Table and behold one of his Mercy For seeing that Man by the bad use of his Free-will had corrupted all Mankinde in his Person He came down from heaven not tarrying for his prayers and healed him by his Humility who had lost himself by his Pride he rectified the wanderers and put them into the right way hee call'd home the Banished and instated them in their Country that they might no longer glory in themselves but in that immaculate CHIEF from whom they derived their salvation This Verity is the Foundation of our Religion The beliefe of two Adams acquaints us with our Fall and with our Recovery Wee cannot know what we owe JESUS CHRIST unlesse we know what we lost in Adam nor can we ever worthily comprehend the obligations we have to our Redeemer unlesse we fully understand all the misfortunes accru'd to us by him that was our Parricide at the same instant that he was our Parent Therefore is it that the great Apostle never separates ADAM from JESUS CHRIST he always opposeth Grace against Sin be heightens the greatness of the Remedy by that of the Disease and that we may have a right estimate of the children of God he minds us that they were the children of wrath and vessels of dishonour Saint Augustine the faithfull Interpreter of Saint Paul admirably explains this Mystery in commenting upon the words of this Apostle As none saith he enters into the kingdom of Death that passeth not by Adam Siâ—â—t in regno Mortis nemo sine Adam ita in regno Vitaenomo sine Christo sicur per Adam omnes peccatores ita per Christum omnes justi homines sicut per Adam omnes mortales in poena facti sunt filii seculi ita per Christuâ— omnes immortales in gratia sunt filii Dei August ad Optat. so none enters into the
kingdom of Life but by Jesus Christ As all that are born of Adam are sinners all that are born again of Jesus Christ are justified and as all the sons and daughters of Adam are the children of the earth and death all the children of Jesus Christ are the children of heaven and of life This Maxime is so true that man makes no more progresse in perfection then according as he doth in allyance with Jesus Christ The more Faith he hath the lesse hath he of Errour and Falshood the more hope he conceives in the mercy of God the lesse confidence hath he in the favour of men the more he burns with the fire of Charity the lesse is he scorched with the flames of Concupiscence the more he is united to this innocent and glorious Head from whom all grace is derived the lesse is he fixt to that infamous and criminall Head from whom all sin takes it originall so that Christians as we have already proved ought to have no other care but to make Adam die and Jesus Christ live in their person if they intend to be innocent they must be Parricides if they will bestow life upon the Son of God they must inflict death upon their first Father if they meane to be quickned with the spirit of humility which raiseth men in debasing them they must renounce the spirit of vain-glory which lays men low in lifting them up and under a colour of making Gods of them makes them nothing but Devils or Beasts Finally mans unhappinesse flows from the shamefull alliance he contracted with Adam in his Birth Ex transgressione primi hominis universum genus humanum natum cum obligatione peccati victor Diabolus possidebat si enim sub captivitate non teneremur redemptore non indigeremus venit ad captivos non captus venit ad captivos redimendos nihil in se captivitatis ha bens sed carne mortali pretium nostrum portans Aug. de Verb. Apo. Ser. 22. and the Christians happinesse proceeds from the glorious alliance he contracted with Jesus Christ in Baptisme Thus the quality of a Chief in Adam is the source of all our Evils and the quality of a Chief in Jesus Christ is the Originall of all our Good and as Adam did not so much destroy us in being our Father as in being our Head neither doth Jesus Christ save us so much for being his Brethren or his Children as because we are his members because 't is in effect this quality that procures us all the rest neither is God our Father but because Jesus Christ is our Head The Second DISCOURSE Of the Excellencies of the Christians Head and the advantages they draw from thence THough all the alliances Jesus Christ hath contracted with men be as beneficiall to them as they are honourable yet must we confesse that the relation that unites him to them as their Head is the strictest and most advantageous 'T is much that he would be their King and giving them Laws had owned them for his Subjects 'T is more yet that he condescended to be their Brother and sharing his Eternall Inheritance with them made them Co-heirs together with Himself 't is more yet that he made them his Children and conceiving them in his wounds suffered death to give them life But 't is yet a more signall favour that he vouchsafed to make them his Members and joyning them to Himself in one body he is constituted the Head from whence they receive all those indearing influences which communicate to them the life of Grace and merit for them that of Glory Therefore also doth Saint Augustine when he examines the favours we have received from the Father preferre this before all others Nullum majus donum prastâ—re posset hominibus quam ut verbum suum per quod condidit omniâ— faccret illis caput illos ei tanquam membra coaptaret ut esset filius Dei silius hominis unus Deus cum patre unus homo cum hominibus Aug. in Psal 36. Ser. 3. and confesseth he never more sensibly obliged us then when he gave us his onely Son to be our Head God saith he could bestow no higher honour upon men then by uniting them with his Word by whom he created all things as the Members with their Head that he that was the Son of God might be the Sonne of Man and that by reason of his Divine Person subsisting in the Humane Nature he might be God with his Father and Man with his Brethren 'T is in effect from this glorious co-habitation that all our blessings are derived If the Father look upon us 't is because we are the Members of his onely Sonne If he hear our prayers 't is because Jesus Christ speaks by our mouth if he receive us into Glory 't is because he sees us cloathed with the merits of our Head if he admit us into his bosome 't is because the quality we bear renders us inseparable from his Word But if this alliance be beneficiall to Christians 't is honourable to Jesus Christ For though nothing can be added to his Grandeur who is equall to his Father and all the Priviledges he received from his Incarnation may passe for so many Humiliations Neverthelesse the dignity of being Head of the Church is so eminent that after that of the Son of God there is none so Venerable and August It gives Jesus Christ the same advantage over the Faithfull that the Head hath over the Members and to conceive what he is in the Church we must observe what this is in the Body The Head is the noblest seat of the Soul 't is that part of the Body where she acts her highest operations 't is there that she debates those subjects that are presented to her that she deliberates upon the accidents that happen 't is there that the memory preserves the species which may be called the treasures of wisdome and the riches of the Intellectuall faculty 't is there that the understanding conceives truths and the will pronounceth determinations In a word 't is there that the affairs concerning Peace and Warre Salvation or Damnation Time or Eternity are treated of Thus also is it in Iesus Christ that all those lights reside that govern the Church 't is in him that are shut up all the treasures of wisdome and from him that all Oracles proceed whereby the Faithfull are instructed The Head is the most eminent part of the Body Nature was willing that as it is the noblest so it should be placed nearest Heaven and the very situation should oblige all the other parts to shew it reverence It is the most exalted that it may more easily dispence its orders and that the spirits which convey sense and motion by the nerves may descend with more facility into all the parts of the body Iesus Christ also is in the highest place of his State he reignes in Heaven with his Father from thence he views all
he encouraged his Apostles to Martyrdom and providing Graces for all his Members inspired them with strength to vanquish pleasure and subdue grief For though the Son of God be the Head of men in all the conditions of life because he was so before his birth nevertheless he exerciseth this Office in a time when others cannot Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso Excedit humanum conditionem ista promissio nec tam de ligno Crucis quà m de Throno editur potestatis Leo. He founded his Church in dying he acted like a Soveraigne when they deprived him of life he pardoned offenders when they handled him as a delinquent he disposed of the kingdom of heaven when they disputed his kingdom upon earth and making his power appear in his weakness his innocence in his execution and his grandeur in his affronts he takes pleasure to confound the pride of his enemies But me thinks there is no quality makes him shine forth with so much pomp upon the Cross as that of being the Head For besides that it was in this place that he offered up himself for his Elect and by bonds as strong as they are secret united them to his Person that neither sin nor death can ever separate them from him it was there that he made that wonderful Bargain with them where charging himself with their sins he invested them with his merits and taking upon him the quality of a sinner communicated to them that of innocents There it was that he espoused the Church and accomplishing that Figure which preceded in the person of Adam and Eve he was willing to die that his Spouse might live For the holy Scripture not without a Mystery observes that Eve was taken from the side of Adam whilst he was asleep that all the world might know that the Church must proceed from the side of Christ when he hung dead upon the Cross God could saith S. Augustine have formed the woman of her husband whilst he was awake had there not been some Mystery couched under that Ceremony for if we say God chose that time to rid man from all sense of pain it was too violent not to awaken him and if we say man felt it not because God wrought the work he could as easily have taken away the rib when he was awake as when he lay asleep But he had a minde to express that in Paradise which was to be acted upon mount Calvary and teach us that as Eve issued from the side of her sleeping husband the Church should issue from the side of dying Jesus If this Mystery heightens the love and power of Jesus Christ we must confess it augments withal the obligations Christians have to death and sufferings For Christ conceived us in the midst of his wounds we are the children of his sorrows and his Church cost him much more pain and trouble then Eve did the first Adam Sicut dormienti Adae costa detrabitur ut conjux efficiatur ita Christo morienti de latere sanguis effunditur ut Ecclesia construatur communicantes namque corpori sanguini efficimur Ecclesia Christi conjux Aug. His spouse never broke his sleep she rose from his side without any pang or violence he found himself happily married when he awoke and he judged her a piece of himself more from his inclination then his grief But Jesus lost his life to bestow it upon the Church his body must be opened and his heart pierced to form his Bride this Maid was to be sought for in the bowels of her Father and an incision made into the side of the Parent to be the Midwife to this Posthuma As this Quality was dear bought and like David he was fain to mingle his own blood with that of the Philistims to purchase his Church his minde is that the children of so dolorous a Marriage breathe nothing but sufferings and remembring that they are the babes of a God dying upon the Cross they should pass their whole life in sorrow and tribulations For what likelihood is there that being born in pain and anguish they should seek after delights and pleasure That they should be crowned with Roses when their Head was encircled with Thorns That they should be ambitious after the glory of the world since he that gave them being died amongst ignominy and reproaches or that they should seek revenge for their injuries when he from whom they descend begged as a favour the pardon of his enemies Let us imitate our Chief because he is our Example let us remember that all our happiness depends upon our union and conformity with him Let us often meditate that the Father loves none but his onely Son That none can have a part in his Inheritance that is not united to Jesus Christ That he onely can ascend up into heaven that came down from thence That as there is but one Guilty man so there is but one Innocent and as all the Reprobate are involved in the sin of Adam all the Predestinate are wrapt up in the grace of Jesus Christ The Third DISCOURSE Of the strict Vnion of the Head with the Members and of that of Jesus Christ with Christians ALl Polititians acknowledge that the Soveraign being the Head of the State is united with his Subjects and that their union is so neer that their interests are in common He that offends the Prince wrongs the State he that attempts any thing against his sacred Person wounds all those that live in his Kingdom and as Nature teacheth all members to expose themselves for the preservation of their head the Politicks teach all Subjects to venture themselves for the defence of their Soveraign But forasmuch as the obligations are mutual and reciprocal the same Politicks read a Lecture to Kings that they are bound to preserve their Subjects to spare their blood and to handle offenders as corrupted members which are never cut off from the body but with sorrow and necessity The Prince must be sensible of every part of his State that perisheth every blowe that lights upon it pierceth his heart and his love towards it must be such that he be ready to lay down his life for them when he shall judge their safety to depend upon his death This is the reason Seneca sometimes made use of to sweeten the cruel humour of Nero and to instil clemency into the heart of that bloody Parricide Thou said he art the head of the Common-wealth whence thou mayst ghess how necessary Clemency is to thee since in pardoning others thou art pitiful to thy self and favouring thy subjects art kinde to him that lives in them as in his members If we believe this Philosopher there was a time when Nero profited by this advice and this Truth had so powerful an impression upon his spirit that he was witty to finde out pretences to spare the blood of delinquents For to use Seneca's own words When there came an offender before him who
among men the meat he eat assimilated into his substance every part took what was needfull for it and whilest his hands that were to work so many miracles were strengthned his legs that were to bear him over all Palestine were alike fixed and consolidated 'T is so with his Mysticall Body the parts that compose it grow according to their employments they take their bulk and nourishment from his Word and from his Grace nothing remains uselesse in that great Body every particular hastens to perfection and in the difference of conditions all the members receive their growth and dimension This is it that the Apostle had a minde to acquaint us with by those words which being well understood will greatly serve to the clearing of this mystery Speaking the truth in love let us grow in him thorough all things who is the Head Christ From whence we learn that we grow not in our selves but as much as we grow in Jesus Christ and that 't is from the union we contract with him that our greatnesse and perfection is derived Both these Bodies were a Sacrifice to God assoon as Iesus Christ was Incarnate he immolated himself to his Father in the Womb of his Mother he made it appear by the thoughts of his heart that he respects his body as a Holocaust and he testifieth by the language of his Prophets reported by his Apostles that he was cloathed with our flesh only to make an oblation of it Sacrifice wouldest thou not but a body hast thou prepared me His design is to supply the unprofitablenesse of the Law to offer to his Father a Victime well-pleasing to him and meritorious for us that finding our salvation in his losse we might be reconciled to God by his Death Id Sacrificium succedit omnibus illis sacrificiis veteris Testamenti quae immolabantur in umbra futuri propter quod dicit OblationeÌ„ noluisti corpus autem aptasti mihi quia pro illis omnibus sacrificiis oblationibus corpus ejus offertur participantibus ministratur Aug. lib. 16. de Civ Dei His mother who was as well acquainted with his designes offered him in the Temple in that Spirit and Simeon answering her thought speaks to her onely of her sorrows A Sword shall passe thorow thy Soul Iesus Christ exhibited himself as a Sacrifice during his life he entertains his Disciples with this Discourse and testifies he was not at rest till he should be offered up for an oblation He finished in the arms of the Crosse what he had begun in the Womb of his Mother he was immolated to his Father by the hands of the Executioners he made their fury serviceable to his piety and of a Gibbet erected an Altar of a Sacriledge a Sacrifice of a Patient a Holocaust he fully satisfied the Iustice of his Father Thus his Mysticall Body is a Victime which he daily offers for the glory of the same Father He will have every beleever immolated that the members imitating their Head may have the honour to lose their life in the holy severity of an acceptable sacrifice Therefore doth Saint Paul so often invite us to discharge this duty he speaks to us of nothing but Oblations and Altars he exhorts us to offer our selves to God in a sweet smelling savour and he would have us looking upon our selves as reasonable and living sacrifices our whole life should be but one continued Oblation Saint Augustine treading in the steps of his Master teacheth us the same Truth and far differing from their judgement who would mingle Roses with Thorns in Christianity tels us that the life of the Faithfull if it be ordered according to the Maximes of the Gospel is but a languishing and a painfull Martyrdome This Circumstance discovers another and the Sacrifice of these two Bodies leads me insensibly to their persecution For the Natural Body of the Son of God was not exempted from sorrow because innocent his Trials began with his Life he had Enemies assoon as he had Subjects and if he saw Kings at his Cradle paying their Homages Positus est in signum cui contradicetur Luc. 2. he saw others conspiring his Death He was forced to commit his Safety to his Flight to seek an Asylum in Egypt and to passe his minority in a Countrey where his people spent the years of their Infancy the continuance of his life was not much different from his beginning hee lived not in security but whilest he lived unknown hee purchased his quiet with the losse of his Glory nor did he see himself without Enemies but during the time he got his living by the sweat of his brows Assoon as ever he began to appear he began to be persecuted Passionem auteÌ„ Christi non illuÌ„ diem solum appellamus quo mortuus f it sed totam vitam ejus Tota enim vita Chriâ—i crux fuit Martyrium Bernard The Preaching of the Gospel drew upon him the hatred of the Pharisees the lustre of his miracles made an end of him they plotted his death when he had raised Luzarus from the grave and the rage of these cruell men ended not with this life for they made war upon him after his death they endeavoured to destroy his Mysticall Body having destroyed his Naturall Body and God suffered them to have successours in their malice that the condition of these two Bodies might be alike Indeed the Church never wanted persecutors she hath seen all the Princes of the Earth armed against her Children Three full Ages have exercised her patience she hath watered the whole Earth with her blood neither is there any corner in the world wherein she hath not given testimony of her courage The conversion of Heathen Princes hath not been the end of her persecutions Sinners have succeeded Tyrants the good have found tormentors in the person of the wicked Every beleever hath found by experience that the Maxime of Saint Paul is true and that it is impossible to live piously and not to be persecuted All those that will live godlily in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution Indeed their persecution hath appeared glorious and 't is in this particular that they have another resemblance to the Naturall Body of the Son of God For his Father glorified him upon the Crosse hee would have his Innocence known at his Death that his Executioners should be the first witnesses of it that to the confusion of the Jews the Judge that condemned him should make his Apology that the Theeves that suffered with him should publish his Royalty and the Soldiers that nailed him to the Crosse become his Adorers But as if so many miracles had not sufficiently magnified his onely Son he would have whole Nature weare mourning for him The Sun must bewail his Death and the Earth tremble with amazement the rocks cleave asunder with pangs of sorrow and all creatures celebrate the obsequies of a dying God Indeed there never was a more dolefull and more
august solemnity then what appeared at the Death of Jesus Christ Men lament the death of their Soveraigns they expresse some sadnesse though for the most part 't is either counterfeit or interessed Those that expected their liberality are afflicted at their death those that feared their power or their displeasure rejoyce But were they so generally beloved that the regret was universall at least we must confesse that Nature would not weep over their Funerals she would be insensible of their death nor would she disorder her Course to witnesse her Lamentation This honour was reserved for Jesus Christ There was never any King but he registred by quick and dead None but this Innocent drew tears from the Stars and the Son of God is the only Soveraign whose obsequies all creatures solemnly attended 'T is true his Mysticall Body partakes of this honour with him Nature hath many times wrought miracles to publish the Innocence of Martyrs the fire hath lost his heat that it might not be instrumentall to their punishment wilde Beasts have waxed tame at their feet Omnes Martyres Deus Spiritualiter liberavit neminem Spritualiter deseruit visibiliter tamē quosdā deseruisse visus est quosdam eripuisse sed ideo quosdam eripuit neputes illum non potuisse eripere ubi non cripuit secretiorem intelligas voluntatem Aug. Tract 8. in Epist 10. and acknowledging in them a Grace more powerfull then that of Originall Righteousnesse they have many times forgot that fiercenesse the sin of man indued them with The Sea hath suffered violence to preserve them hath gently transported them upon his waves or suspending his waters as it were into Wals and Arches hath erected them Temples in his lowest Abysses But the Scripture whose every word is an Oracle teacheth us that the death of the Mysticall Body of Christ shall receive the same honours at the end of the world that his Naturall Body received in Mount Calvary For when the number of the Elect shall be perfect when Jesus Christ coming to judge the quick and the dead shall cut off the corrupted members from his Mysticall Body and remove those from his person that were united to it only by a vain Character and an unprofitable Faith the same prodigies that appeared at his death shall appear at this Judgement and according to the language of the Fathers Nature that bewailed Jesus Christ in his Naturall Body shall bewail him again in his Mysticall Body and all creatures shall put on mourning for the death of their Soveraign Finally these two Bodies shall have the same destiny after their Resurrection as they had the same during their Life for the one shall be glorified as the other and they shall both receive the recompence due to their labours The Son of God rose gloriously out of his Tomb after he had given assurance to his Apostles he was taken up into Heaven to reign there eternally with his Father The Angels made a part of his Triumph the Captives he delivered from the Lymbo's waited upon him those gates of Brasse and Steel that had been shut since the sin of Man opened at his word and his Body that was pierc'd with the nails rent with stripes torn with thorns was set at the right hand of his Father upon a Throne whose ornament was Justice and the foundation Mercy His Mysticall Body shall always receive the same glorious entertainment the Faithfull are admitted into the company of the Blessed the Saints shall reign in Heaven with the Angels they shall be mingled in their Hierarchies according to their merits and as heretofore of the Jew and Gentile was made one Church Militant of Men and Angels is daily made one Church Triumphant The bodies of the Faithfull shall accompany their souls in glory in the generall Resurrection those members that have suffered in the quarrell of Jesus Christ shall be freed from all miseries the Divine Providence shall rouze them out of their dormitories by the clattering sound of a miraculous trumpet it will find in spite of the flames those that have been burnt to ashes in spite of the waters those that have been swallowed up in the deep and working as many miracles as there shall be diversities of death to overcome shall treat the Faithfull as it hath already treated Jesus Christ so that we may say of both the Bodies of the Son of God those glorious words of the Apostle Great is the Mysterie of Godlinesse Indeed 't is a Sacrament of Piety that the Word was pleased to be allied to our nature and to the Church to have a Naturall Body and a Mysticall Body Which was manifested in the flesh both of them were manifested in the flesh because it was requisite that the Word should be made Incarnate to Espouse his Church Justified in the Spirit Both of them were justified in the Spirit because they are purely his work and the Regeneration of Beleevers is an Image of the Birth of Jesus Christ Seen of Angels Both of them appeared to Angels in that the same Spirits that waited upon the Son of God assisted his Spouse and extend their care over all her children Preached to the Gentiles beleeved on in the world Both of them were preached to the Gentiles by the Apostles and the mystery of the Incarnation joyned to that of their Vocation hath made up the best part of the Gospel Both of them were beleeved on in the world nor hath any thing more perswaded us of our future greatenesse then the condescention of the Eternall world Received up into Glory Finally both of them were exalted into Glory there to reign everlastingly that the blessedness of Iesus Christ may have its accomplishment and he be as happy in his Members as in his Person The Sixt DISCOURSE That the Church is the Spouse of Jesus Christ because she is his Body and of the Community of their Marriage ONe of the ancientest qualities of Iesus Christ is that of a Bridegroom Tanquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo Psal 18. the Prophets have honoured him with this title in the Old Testament David in the forty fifth Psalm hath made his Epithalamium and Saint Iohn who was the end of Types and Figures and the Silence of the Prophets gave out that he was the Friend of the Bridegroom But Adam is the first that descovered to us this mystery and by his marriage represented to us that of Iesus Christ with his Church For besides that his wife was taken out of his side whilst he lay asleep as the Church was out of the side of the Son of God when he was dead we know that the Laws of that marriage more respected the second Adam then the first He having neither Father nor Mother was not obliged to forsake them to cleave unto his wife But Iesus Christ at his Incarnation left his Father when he took upon him the form of a Servant and his Mother at his Passion when he suffered death for
agnosce â—e in ipso tentatum te in illo agnosce vincentem Aug. Jesus Christ saith he was tempted by the evil spirit in the desart or rather we were tempted in him for 't is from us that he took Flesh from him that we derive Salvation 't is from us that he receives his Death from him that we receive our Life 't is from us that he had these affronts cast upon him from him that we have Honours conferred upon us 'T is therefore for our sakes that he suffered Temptation and for his sake that we carry away the victory Or to say the same thing in other words If we were tempted in him 't is in him also that we overcame the devil our enemy He certainly could have difcarded him from his person and using him like a rebellious slave have punished his rash boldness by commanding him to hell but had he not been willing to be tempted he had not taught us to overcome by his example nor had the combat he fought in the wilderness procured us the honour of a Triumph Thus the quality of Head is injurious to Jesus Christ and honourable to Christians because in that exchange it obliged him to make with them he endured the shame of the Temptation and purchased for them the advantage of the Victory Finally to conclude this Discourse The Son of God was willing to bear the reproaches of the Cross and to merit for us the priviledges of Glory For being charged with our iniquities he suffered death the punishment of them permitted Shame to be added to Cruelty that spoiling him of Life Si moriamur saltem cum libertate moriamur Cicero in Verâ—em de Crucis supplicio agens they might withal rob him of his Honour and he might give up the ghost as an Offender and a Slave together In the mean time his Punishment purchased our Glory his Death merited our Immortality and in stead of taking vengeance of our crimes he procures us his own advantages It seems saith S. Augustine the Father mistook himself he treats his onely Son as a Delinquent and handles Men as Innocents he crowns him with Thorns these with Glory and confounding the Sinner with the Just confounds Chastisements with Rewards But if we consider that the Son of God took our place and we his that he is our Head and we his Members we shall finde that his Father had reason to punish him and to reward us because having made a change with us he is become Guilty we Innocent Let us therefore be thankful to Jesus Christ who disdained not a quality which investing him with our Nature chargeth him with our sins and our infirmities and uniting him to us as to his Members obliges him to be tempted to make us victorious Ille quippe Christianorum caput in omnibus tentari voluit quia tentamur sic morivoluit quiae morimur sic resurgere quiae resurrecturi sumus Aug. in Psal 9. Serm. 2. and to suffer the death of the Cross to obtain for us the glory of Immortality The Ninth DISCOURSE Of the duties of Christians as Members toward Jesus Christ as their Head THough the duties of the Head and of the Members are reciprocal and that composing one Body they are obliged to a mutual correspondence arising from Necessity as well as Love yet there is no man but will acknowledge that as the Members receive more assistance from the Head ten the Head from the Members so are they tied to greater expressions of dependence Nature which is an excellent mistress in this matter instructs us that the life of the Members depends upon the Head and their very preservation obliges them to three or four duties without which they can no ways subsist Their Interest requires that they be inseparably fastned to that from whence they receive their life lest their division with their death deprive them of all those advantages which spring from the union they have with their Head Thus we see that the Hand which is one of the most ingenious parts of the body and which may be called the Mother of all Arts and the faithfullest Minister of the Soul loseth its dexterity and comeliness as soon as separated from the Head that enlivens it The Feet though not so noble as the Hands are yet as necessary being the moveable Foundations of this living building are destitute of all strength when they have no commerce with the Head This indeed ceaseth not to act and move though provided neither of Hands nor Feet when Nature fails it hath recourse to Art and being the throne of the Soul ransacks all her treasures of Invention to execute that by it Self Omnis salus omnis vita à capite in caeterae membra derivatur Galen was wont to be put in execution by its Members But though the hands are so industriously subtil and the legs so vigorously strong they are absolutely useless because their separation deprives them of the influences of their head This Maxime so notorious in Nature is much more evident in Grace For the Son of God hath no need of his Members 't is Mercy and not Necessity obligeth him to make use of them He is not at all more powerful when united to them nor more feeble when separated from them Faith tells us he can do all things without them whereas they can doe nothing without him Therefore is he compared to the Vine and they to the Branch to acquaint them that all their vertue flows from his and being pluckt from his Body can as the Branch expect nothing but the fire Therefore the first obligation of Christians is to unite themselves to Jesus Christ to seek their life in this union and to believe that their death is the infallible consequence of their division This is it that Saint Augustine represents us in this Discourse which though long cannot be tedious because there is nothing in it that is not delightfull and necessary As the Body hath many members which though different in number make up but one body so Jesus Christ hath many members which in the diversity of their conditions constitute also but one body so that we are always with him as with our Head and drawing from him our strength as well as our life we can neither act nor live without him We with him make up a fruitful Vine that bears more Grapes then Leaves but divided from him we are like those Branches which being good for nothing are destin'd to the slames when stript off from the Vine Therefore doth the Son of God so earnestly affirm it in the Gospel that without him we can doe nothing that our interests as well as our love Domine si fine te nihil totum in te possumus Etenim quicquid ille operatur per nos videmur nos operari potest ille multum totum sine nobis nos nihil sine ipso Aug. in Psal 30. may engage us to be united to his
Person For if it be true Lord addes Saint Augustine that we can doe nothing without thee 't is in thee onely that we effect all that we bring to pass all our ability is from thee 't is thou that workest what we seem to work and being convinced by these Truths we are obliged to say that thou canst do all things without us but we can doe nothing without thee These words happily express all the obligations of the Faithfull and make them clearly discern that liberty can doe nothing without grace and that the members divided from their Head with all their naturall endowments and advantages are good for nothing but to be eternally burnt in Hel. From this first obligation is derived a second no whit lesse considerable For seeing the members draw life from their Head and their division causeth their ruine they are bound absolutely to depend upon him nor to have any other designes then his As they live by a borrowed life they ought to act by a forain vertue and to abandon themselves so fully to him that inanimates them as to have no other conduct but his Thence it comes to pass that self-deniall is the first vertue recommended to a Christian that renouncing himself he may obey Jesus Christ and conceiving himself in a strange body may act by his motions who is the Head thereof Philosophy hath laid down this position that man ought to purchase his liberty with the expence of his riches that 't is better be poor then be a slave and that 't was a gainfull bargain where parting with the goods of fortune we purchased the quietness of mind she hath also judged very well that the body is to be tam'd when it grows rebellious against reason that nourishment is to be retrencht as provender from an unruly wanton horse and his stomack taken down by the ascetick discipline of Fasts and Watchings But it never enterd into her Theorems that to be happy a man must renounce his understanding unlord his reason to become learned condemn his judgement to become wise Indeed Philosophy knew not that we are the members of a Body whereof the Eternall Word is the Head and that this condition that raiseth us as high as the light of Faith forbids us the pure use of Reason commanding us to soar above our own thoughts to search into his mind who will be the Principle of our Life For there is no body but sees that this obligation is as just as honourable that since Christians are rather Gods then men because of the union they have contracted with the Word Incarnate they ought to act rather by his motion then their own reason and remember that seeing he is the Head that quickens them he ought to be the Principle that guides them The whole drift of the Gospel labours to perswade us this Truth all its commands and counsels insinuate this obligation into us and when the Son of God gives order to us to renounce our own will to combate our inclinations to love our enemies and to hate our friends 't is only to teach us that being no longer at our own disposall we ought to have no other mind but what he inspires into us by his Grace A Third Obligation slows from this which is to be conformable to our Head to imitate his actions having followed his motions and to be made so like him that he may not be ashamed to own us for his members Nature exacts not this condition from the parts that compose mans body she will not have them resemble their Head because there would be insolence and impossibility in the very desire 'T is enough that they receive his influences that they obey his motions and that their whole imitation consist in their meer subjection But Morality and the Politicks will have the members that make up a Mysticall Body adde imitation to their other duties that they be regulated by their Head as by their model that they study his inclinations and be the perfect copies of this first Originall Thus we see that Kings are the inanimate examples of their subjects the living Laws of their States and the prime Masters of their people Every one makes it his glory to imitate them they are perswaded that whatever they doe is lawfull and that those that are the Images of God may very well be the Examplars of men Though this Maxime be true yet it is dangerous For as Greatness does not always inspire Goodness Quid est aliud vitia incendere quam authores illos Deos vel reges inscribere dare morbo exemplo Divinitatis aut Majestatis excusatam lieentiam Senec. nor are Sovereigns the most perfect and those that may doe what they will doe not always what they should it fals out many times that the greatest are the most vicious and the readiest way to corrupt a whole State is to set before it the Examples of the Governours Therefore hath Philosophy invented Ideas of Wisdome and despairing to finde among men models which may be securely transcribed hath made a Romance of Princes by the same artifice discovering their irregularity her own impotency But the Eternall Father giving us Jesus Christ for our Head hath withall propounded him for our Example he will have our life fully conformable to his that his actions be our documents that we be admitted into his School when we are united to his Body that we seek for perfection where we found life and that we be as well his Images as his Members This is it that Saint Bernard acquaints us with Our Head shall not reign in glory without his Members provided they be one with him by Faith and conformable to him in their Manners Both these conditions are necessary Union without Conformity is but meer hypocrisie and Conformity without Union is pure vanity He that is united to Christ and imitates him not cannot escape a fearfull separation one day by an Eternall Anathema and he that imitates him without believing will perceive in time that his imitation was but counterfeit and that he was so much more opposite to Jesus Christ the more he appeard only conformable to him We must therefore joyn these two duties together if we will have them usefull and having been united to our Head by Faith conform to him by good works that we be not reproached to have despised him whom we cannot find in our hearts to imitate But the chiefest obligation the quality of being Members of the Son of God exacts from us is to expose our life for his Glory as he expos'd his for our salvation Nature and Politicks teach us the justice of this duty and we need only consider how the members carry themselves toward the Head and subjects demean themselves towards their Soveraigns to understand what is our duty towards Jesus Christ Though every part of the body love its own preservation carefully avoiding whatever is contrary thereto and by a naturall providence abominates whatever
may any way annoy it yet from a higher principle 't is informed that its life depends upon the Head and that 't is oblig'd to expose its self in his defence Thence it comes to pass that the hands ward the blow which is aimd at the Head that they readily oppose themselves to the danger that threatens it and forgetting their proper interests sacrifice themselves for the preservation of this Chief Thence it is that soldiers jeopard their lives in the quarrel of their Soveraign slighting the hail of Musquets the brunt of Pikes and the Thunder of Canons to augment his Glory or widen his State They are never more valiant then when his Person is in danger the greatness of the hazard heightens their courage and opinion or nature perswades them that living more in him then in themselves their death is less considerable then his Many times it fals out that he for whom they sacrifice themselves is some old Dotard spent with labour and age and hath but a few moments to live In the mean time because they know he is the soul of the State and the Head of his subjects they are perswaded they preserve themselves in dying in his defence and imagine that as Fathers live again in their children the members receive a new beeing in their Head This Paradox finds belief amongst all complexions there is not the meanest soldier but ventures his life upon this Maxime and I rather conceive their courage quickned by this consideration then by the hope of profit and reputation because all men are neither ambitious nor covetous but all being members of the State are instructed by nature to die for the defence of their Head Forasmuch as Grace is much more powerfull then Nature Vivificati sunt Martyres ne amando vitam negarent vitaÌ„ negando vitam amitterent vitam ac fic qui pro vita veritatem deserere noluerunt moriendo pro veritate vixe unt Aug. Concil 20. in Psal 118. it hath so strongly imprinted this Maxime in the soul of the subjects of Jesus Christ that there are no torments can wear it our For the Grace that makes them Christians secretly disciplines them that they are parts of the Mysticall Body of the Son of God that their condition obliges them to expose themselves for his Glory that they ought to be his Victimes because they are his Members and that they are bound to imitate the Wisdome of the Serpent that hides his Head with his whole Body knowing very wel that 't is the Fountain of Life and provided he may secure that can receive no wound that 's mortall The Martyrs animated with this Faith defended Jesus Christ who lived in them they sufferd death saith Saint Augustine to secure themselves from death they parted with that life they had received from Adam to guard that they had received from the Son of God so that it happily fell out that those who would not relinquish Truth to save their lives recoverd that in Heaven which they lost upon Earth and liv'd above eternally being content for the profession of the Truth to die here below miserably They laughed at all the threats of Tyrants and whilst they were covered with obloquies loaded with irons and burnt with flames they drew strength from him for whose sake they suffered and lifting up their now-expiring voice said If God be for us who can be against us When they were told as Saint Augustine saith how all the world was banded against them they answerd couragiously why should we fear the world who die for the glory of hâ—m that made the world What hurt can this hatred doe us who are environed with the love of God And why should we trouble our selves if our enemies spoil us of our bodies seeing he that defends our souls will restore our bodies in glory where being united to our Head we shall triumph over griefs and executioners Though persecution doe not exercise the courage of the Martyrs and the peace the Church enjoys suffer not the Faithfull to expose their lives for the quarrel of Jesus Christ they cease not to be obliged to this duty in a thousand opportunities if occasion present not it self they must preserve a will to it if they cannot suffer death they must suffer shame and confusion for his glory and when the world shall overturn the maximes of the Gospel to set up the maximes of Libertinisme or Impiety then is it that Christians must call to mind that they are the Members of Jesus Christ that they must prefer his interests before their own honour and if they be so happy as to sacrifice their lives for the defence of their Head they must be so stout as to sacrifice their reputation who requires this duty of them as the surest testimony of their love The Tenth DISCOURSE That all is common among Christians as among Members of the same Body AS Mans Body is the perfectest Image of the Church the Members that compose it are also the liveliest representatives of Christians Both of them live in unity depend of the same Head and are inform'd with the same Spirit Both of them preserve their differences in their Unity and exhibit in their mutuall correspondence that agreeable variety that sets an estimate upon all the works of Nature Though these Mysticall and Naturall members conspire altogether for the publick good they cease not to have their different employments Each particular acts according to its capacity they never trespass one upon another and as there are none useless they have all their severall functions which they exercise without confusion and jealousie their faculties are answerable to their employments Nature gives every one what is necessary for them to act according to her orders and Grace never refuses the others what they stand in need of to operate according to its motions But the most wonderful resemblance I find between the members of these two Bodies is that their good and bad occurrences are common and that living in a perfect society no sad disaster happens to one but all the rest are affected with it One sole blow makes a thousand wounds at once and though there be but one part set upon all the rest testifie their compassion The foot seems to be in the body what the foundation is in the building 't is not the noblest part though one of the necessariest and it seems by the distance 't is aâ— from others it should have less communication with them In the mean time if it be prickt with a thorn the pain is dispersed through all the body Every member affords it some good office and the care they have to assist it testifieth what share they have in the misfortune The Tongue complains for it this faithfull Interpreter gives advice to all the rest to shew how much the evil concerns her she speaks of it as her own and to hear her talk one would think she had been hurt too The Eyes being more delicate and
assistance to his creature to act with pleads no dispensation for himself from those Laws he hath prescribed nay is helpfull to his very enemies that he may not be wanting to his Word It seems that in the order of Grace he owes the same faithfulness to Christians that he is bound to assist them in all their actions and out of an obligation that no way injures his Greatness because worthy his Goodness he ought in some sort to concur with the faithful in all their operations Gratia redditur pro gratia cum Christiano propter Christi merita id quod petit conceditur Bernard For seeing they have the honour to be the Members of his Son seeing they are quickned with his Spirit and bear a glorious Character separating them from all other creatures why will he not at every moment indulge them a Grace necessary for their condition and as it were due to the dignity of their extraction I conceive this objection hath its full weight and I have set it forth in all the colours that may render it reasonable Let us see whether Truth will furnish us with Arms to batter it and whether the doctrine of Saint Augustine will warrant the Son of God from injustice when he refuseth his Grace to the Faithful To back our Answer we must suppose that the order of Nature and that of Grace are very different in the first order God seems to be in some sort responsible to his creature he never dispenseth with himselfe but by miracle when he refuseth his aid to a sinner makes the hand wither that is about to commit a Parricide or ties the tongue that was going to utter a blasphemy every one looks upon these effects as Prodigies But he owes nothing to his creature in the second order he entred not into it but by Grace nor doth he persevere in it but by Mercy In raising him to this state he is not tied to any rules what he hath once given obliges him not to continue and when he receives a sinner into his Church 't is with conditions which no ways prejudice his Soveraignty Inasmuch as he shews favour to whom he will we can plead no prescription against his Goodness he may every moment take away that succour he hath bestowed and he is so absolute in the order of Grace that when he deserts the just themselves they have no more right to complain then the guilty If they look upon themselves in Adam they are all sinners the sentence of their Condemnation preceded their Birth Vnde constat magnam esse gratiam quod plurimi liberantur quid sibi deberetur in iis qui non liberantur agnoscunt ut qui gloriantur non in suis meritis quae paria videntur esse in damnatis sed in Domino glorientur Aug. and when they were drawn out of the masse of perdition to be united to Jesus Christ 't is but for a time only if they be not written in the Book of Life in Eternal Characters This Answer is taken out of the pure Doctrine of Saint Augustine 't is founded upon his principles and he that makes a difficulty to receive it will not be a Disciple of that great Master But because it seems too severe to those that are not instructed in his School who consider not sufficiently the absolute power Divine Justice hath reserv'd to it self over the reprobate let us adde here this temperament and say that Christians have some right to Grace whilst they are united to Jesus Christ and that they may obtain it by Prayer when they find too much difficulty in good or too much engagement in evil But this Answer starts a new Objection and seems to combat the power of Grace in labouring to establish the facility of Prayer For if by the mediation of this vertue we can obtain every thing our salvation is in our own hands and we may purchase Grace by Supplication I acknowledge this Objection grounded not only upon the Principles of Saint Augustine but even upon the Principles of Religion it self For Scripture exhorts all sinners to prayer proposeth it to us as a help in all our needs Petite dabitur vobis quae rite invenietis pulsate aperietur vobis Mat. 7. and as a remedy for all our evils it seems 'tis enough to be a believer to be able to pray and that the Son of God having taught us the Lords Prayer hath furnished us with arms for our defence against the justice of his Father Saint Augustine following the steps of Jesus Christ teacheth us in a thousand places of his writings that the Law discovers vertue to us and Prayer obtains it that 't is the guard of Christians surmounting all temptations sweetning all difficulties and triumphing over Devils If then we are able to pray we are able to persevere if what is not due to our merits be granted to our prayers we may thereby obtain the Grace that is the Beginning and the End of our Salvation I confess this Objection puzzles me nor does the ordinary Answer made to it at all satisfie me For though Grace be requisite to pray though it is the Holy Spirit that puts the thoughts into our soul the affections into our heart and words into our mouthes though a prayer that is not warm'd with his heats is not acceptable to the Eternal Father we must neverthelesse confess either that Grace to pray is always offered to ns or that we have no means to make our addresses to God in our needs Therefore is it that Holy Scripture invites us every where to prayer The Son of God tels us that it offers a pleasing violence that it changeth his will sweetens his severitie and obtains all Graces it requests of him Si ergo vos cum sitis mali bona datis filiis vestris quanto magis pater vester qui in coelis est dabit bona petentibus se Mat. 7. Ne orationes putarentur praecedere merita quibus non gratuita daretur gratia sed jam nec gratia esset quia debita redderetur etiam ipsa oratio inter gratiae munera reperitur Aug. Epist ad Sixtum 105. I know indeed that Saint Paul teacheth us also that we know not how to pray as we ought unless the Holy Spirit teacheth us and that this Grace precedes our prayers as well as our good works Saint Augustine is of the same judgement when explaining that passage he saith in express tearms that to secure us from vanity which may perswade us that our prayer precedes Grace it is ranked by the Apostle among the gifts of the Spirit In this perplexity I can say nothing else but that the Grace of Prayer is more common then other graces that 't is frequently offered to Christians that God refuseth it none but those that undervalue it that 't is the principal cause of our Conversion and that if by this unhappy power which remains in us we resist not the
is often a disguised misery and a reall torment Among so many adversities Heaven that watcheth over the welfare of Christians hath furnished them with Hope which never confounds those it assists for it awakens their courage with recompenses stirres them up by the examples of former Saints quickens them by the shortness of their life and making them balance what they suffer with what they expect gives them occasion to say with Saint Paul Non sunt condignae Passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam quae revelatur in nobis But inasmuch as Jesus Christ is the principal object of this Vertue hence ariseth the strongest comfort it can bestow upon us for representing us his Shame and his Glory his Death and his Resurrection it makes us patiently suffer the afflictions of this present life in consideration of the advantages of the future The Son of God saith Saint Augustine becomes the hope of the Faithful they behold in him labour and recompence labour in his Passion recompence in his Resurrection and in these two states rather different then contrary they behold two kinds of lives whereof the one being miserable and present must be indured with courage the other being happy and future must be expected with patience Jesus Christ hath manifested the former in his Crosse the second in his Glory to the end that having born the former in this world they may hope to possesse the second in the other world Though this Example be able to encourage the most fearful and comfort the most afflicted we must acknowledge neverthelesse that the assurance we have that God wil not forsake those that are his is a powerful Consolation which is indeed the reason Hope makes use of to encourage Christians nor was ever exprest more eloquently then in the words of the Psalmist who representing them the power of their Soveraign obligeth them to hope all things and fear nothing Ideo nihil dicit ut omnia dicat tu omnia credas Spera in Deo ipse faciet In a word it mentions all in naming nothing and giving no bounds to its promises suffers us to hope every thing from God it instructs us by silence leaves us to think what it expresseth not and lest some favours might be forgotten in the rehearfall chuseth rather to be altogether silent then to forget any If I may serve for his Interpreter me thinks his meaning is that from the Almighty power of God we may expect every thing That he will stop the Sun shake the Earth remove the Mountains from their stations open the abysses of the sea and do an hundred miracles for our sakes if we hope in his goodness or this Vertue will have us understand that God will heal us if we be sick that he will comfort us if we be afflicted enrich us if we be poor restore us to liberty if we be in prison and deliver us from the grave when we are dead Finally we may hope all that he can do our hope is as large as his power and without rashnesse we may expect as many favours as he can work miracles Seeing this Vertue is as lowly as generous it keeps us from complaining when successes answer not our desires and teacheth us that there are two wayes whereby God assists us when we are persecuted the One is glittering and full of pomp showrs astonishment into the soul of our Enemies tameth lions that would devour us quencheth flames that would burn us to ashes and disarms Executioners that are ready to sacrifice us The other is more reserv'd and less splendid for not delivering us from torments it gives us courage to bear them makes us victorious by enduring and working the miracle in our selves sweetens not the cup of our punishment but increaseth our constancy whereby we triumph over it The former of these wayes appeared in the three Children who were thrown into a fiery furnace by the command of a heathen Prince The fire spar'd their clothes respected their bodies and having consumed their chains that they might walk at liberty sought out their Executioners to execute vengeance upon them The second appeared in the person of the Maccabees who vanquish'd in suffering tired their Enemies and in an age that trembles at the frowns of a Master laughed at the fury of a Tyrant Might I pass my judgment upon these two Miracles I would prefer the later and had I liberty to chuse I would rather be in the condition of the Maccabees then in that of the companions of Daniel But leaving this Digression to pursue my Discourse Hope is not founded upon promises but upon assurances it hath earnests that dissipates all doubts and considering what hath passed easily beleeves what is yet to come For though God be the supreme Verity though his words be Oracles and reason it self perswades us that he promiseth nothing to his subjects he does not perform yet is he so good he gives them earnest of his promises and as if he were afraid to weary their hope in making them expect too much he sweetens their anxious pains by pledges of affection which make up a part of that summ he hath promised them he gives us favours whereby we are enabled to hope for what remains behinde the death he suffered for us is an assurance of that life he prepares for us neither can we doubt saith St Augustine that we shall not reign with him in heaven seeing he was willing to die for us upon the Crosse For what Goods may we not expect when his death is a pledge of his love and an assurance of the happinesse we look for Let us hope then for his Kingdom and when the greatnesse of his promises shall raise any doubts in our soul let us consider the greatness of our Surety and we shall securely wait the accomplishment of our desires Having considered the necessity of this Vertue 't is just that we consider its Nature and consulting the Divines and Fathers be acquainted with its Definition Philo the Jew calls it the Fore-runner of Joy a Harbingerpleasure preceding the Eternall one an antepast of Blessedness so that following the opinion of this Philosopher he that hopes may boast himself happy before-hand The Master of the Sentences comes neer this sense when defining this Vertue he calls it a certain assurance of a future Felicity the certitude that accompanies it sweetens the pain which the remoteness of the Good it waits for occasions and she thinks her self happy because the felicity she promiseth is certain St Augustine calls it by a more magnificent name and making it passe for a view of the supreme Good seems with Philo to confound it with Joy for he saith that Faith cures the eys of the soul and that Hope makes her see what she desires But because things never appear so clearly as when they are opposed with contraries I conceive I cannot better discover the nature of Christian Hope then by confronting it with that that
his Obedience or his Rebellion and thus it is always true that Repentance is a favour reserved for man and if it leane not upon the unconstancy of his mind it is founded at least upon the length of his life which seems therefore prolonged that he may have time to repent But if Repentance be not natural to man 't is at least necessary for a sinner if it be not his difference 't is his remedy if it be not his propriety 't is his only refuge and as Tertullian saith 't is the Table after the Shipwrack Man in Paradise might save himself by his Innocence this acceptable convoy had brought him through a Garden of Roses he had found pleasure with vertue he had conquered without fighting and though he had had no enemies he had not failed to triumph But now there remains only Repentance which swims in bloud or in tears which is covered with earth or with ashes which blots out no transgressions but by lamentations satisfies not the Justice of God but by preventing his arrests nor gaines any battles but those that cost him fighs or wounds The sinner following the Counsels of this austere Vertue is always animated against himself his whole life is spent in sorrow and since he lost Grace he is obliged to bid adiew to all pleasure his very reconciliation with God dispenseth not with him from this severity To be a Christian Nullus hominiū transit ad Christum ut incipiat esse quod non erat nisi eū poeniteat fuisse quod erat Aug. intitles him to be a Penitent 't is enough that he hath sinned in Adam to live in sadness and being a member of Jesus Christ he is bound over to penance For though the union he contracts with this adorable Head in Baptism happily deliver him from all his sins that he recovers Innocence with Grace and be freed from all those pains which are prepared for offenders in Hel he becomes Penitent in becoming Innocent and the same Sacrament that ties him to Jesus Christ engageth him in griefs and sufferings The Son of God uniting the Divinity with the Humanity in his Person is pleased also to unite all things that seemed incompatible Having surpassed the difficulties that withstood the accomplishment of this mystery having accorded power with weakness Non-Entity with Beeing Life with Death he would make Innocence friends with Repentance and charge himself with the pains our sins deserved without interessing the holiness that made him impeccable he was the most just and most afflicted of all men he was equally divided between the blessed and the penitent his soul resented grief with joy and at the same time that he reigned with the Angels he suffered with Mortals According to his example the greatest Saints have laboured to joyne Repentance with Innocence His Mother the purest of Virgins the Holiest of Women bare the infirmities of our nature without contracting the obligations and to imitate her Son was content to be miserable though she were not criminal Saint John Baptist who was a sinner but for some months who received Grace in his mothers belly who after the Virgin was the first object of the miracles of Jesus who was born without sin nor brought into the world with him the ignominious quality of a sinner This great Saint I say was the example of Penitents he spent his whole life in the Desarts he had no other covering then that of Trees or Rocks Earth served him for a Bed Sackcloth for a Garment Water for Drink and Locusts for Food He added the labours of preaching to the austerity of penance he reproved sin with boldness his generous freedome procured him the hatred of the great ones and for a recompence of so many vertues he lost his head at the intreaty of an incestuous woman Thence it comes to pass that the Christian having the honour to be a member of Jesus Christ is obliged to Repentance the favour he hath received in the Church gives him no dispensation from this duty and if he have the use of Reason when admitted to Baptism his Contrition must precede that Sacrament and recover his lost Innocence by the assistance of this vertue His obligation continues with his life For as the Grace of Christianity does not enfranchise him fully from Concupiscence but he groans still under the weight of his irons sees his heart divided between Self-love and Charity that both these principles make him act successively and having obeyed Grace obeys Sin again he is bound to run to sorrow to deface his light offences with Tears and to spend his whole life in Repentance It is the opinion of S. Augustine who carries this truth on farther and imposeth a more severe law upon Christians for be will not have Innocence it self to exempt them from Grief he will have them sigh not because of their sin but because of their banishment he will have them bewail their exile as long as long as it lasts and condemning their coldness that can finde any pleasure in this sad abode saith that the Believer who hath not an aversion for this mortal and perishable life can have no love for the Eternal and Beatifical his regret ought to be an argument of his love and that it becomes him to bemoan his abode upon earth if he have a real desire of being speedily translated to heaven This great Master of Grace seeks no other motives of Repentance then the miseries of life he thinks it sufficient to sad our hearts that we live under the tyranny of sin that we feel the rebellions of the flesh and suffer the persecution of the Elements the justice of these continued pains teacheth us that we are guilty the Prayer that Christ taught us confirms us in this belief and seeing we cannot be his disciples except we daily say Dimitte nobis debita nostra we must confess we are not free from sin otherwise the Church would abuse the Faithful the Son of God himself had involved us in an errour and as S. Augustine saith asking pardon for a sin we never committed we should utter a blasphemy because we should lye in the midst of our most august mysteries We cannot doubt then that Repentance is necessary for a Christian nor can we deny that to the end it may be profitable it must be severe especially if the precedent sins have been notorious For as Repentance is a kinde of Justice it proportions the Punishment to the Offence it respects the quality of the delinquents considers the Majestie offended and casting its eyes upon the torments of the damned strives to make some resemblance of them in the revenge it takes upon Criminals Let us carefully examine all these Reasons see the just motives we have to punish our selves and not to slatter our lazie negligence in so important a concernment let us consider the qualities of this Vertue Repentance is a Judgement where contrary to the ordinary Laws the same Delinquent is Witness
a Government loseth all command when not obeyed there are a thousand Reasons which no less respect our own Interest then the Glory of our Soveraign which oblige us to this undisputed resignation If we consider the Word Incarnate we shall finde that his deportment towards his Father exacts this humble duty from us He doth nothing upon the earth but by his orders he consults his will before he undertake any thing and if the time he hath set him to work his miracles in be not yet come he rejects the intreaties of his mother who can receive no other answer from his mouth but these words Nondum venit hora mea But if we look upon the holy Humanity united to the Eternal Word we shall see that as it is despoiled of its proper subsistence it hath no other motions then what it receives from the Divine Assistant that sustains it Humanitas Christi non est sui juris sed verbi actiones enim sunt suppofitorum It is more a his devotion then at its own is guided by that that preserves it and having no dominion over its actions is in a submission equal to its love whatever it acts upon earth all is referred to the Divine Person and as there is no union more strict then theirs neither is any dependance more obedient then that of the Humanity to the Divinity The Word acts absolutely in this holy Humanity Aliud est inviolabile aliud est passibile tamen ejusdem est contumelia cujus est gloria ipse est in infirmitate qui in virtute Leo. he reserves the whole conduct thereof to himself appropriates all the Inclinations and whether the Humane nature suffer or be abased he will have us know and believe that a God suffers and is humbled with it Therefore are all Christians after the imitation of so rare an example obliged to despoil themselves of their Wills to renounce their Desires to submit to Jesus Christ and to manifest in their person an image of the Incarnation 'T was certainly this powerful reason that made the great Apostle to utter these notable words Vivo autem jam non ego vivit vero in me Christus and to teach us by his advice to derive our guidance as well as our glory from the Son of God Indeed the whole Abnegation of a Christian is founded upon the mystery of the Incarnation and when they consider how the holy Humanity is obscured in the desarts humbled in the Villages sacrificed upon Mount Calavary to be obedient to the person of the Word they need not think it strange if to doe Homage to Jesus Christ they are obliged to renounce their glory and consent to lay down their lives at his command But if this example be not powerful enough to perswade us we must be convinced by reason and confess that Christians have no quality that that doth not exact this blind submission from them For if we consider them as Temples of the Holy Ghost or Members of the Son of God we are forced to acknowledge that these two glorious qualities are as well the Fountains of their dependance as of their greatness Temples are only for the Divinity that honours them with his presence they breath forth nothing but his glory and were they inanimated they would act meerly by his motions Therefore inasmuch as Christians are the living Temples of the Holy Ghost they ought not to act but as guided by him they are unable to perform any thing but by his order and all their actions that have not his Grace for their principle are Criminal or profane We are no more the children of God but as far as we are quickned by this ever to be adored Spirit all our merit is from our acting by his Vertue and when he ceaseth to incite and stir us up we leave off to form good thoughts or perform good actions The quality of Members ties us not lesse closely to our Head then that of Temples to the Holy Ghost for according to the Laws of Nature the Members more belong to their Head then slaves doe to their Master they receive life and motion from his Influences they owe all their vigour to the communication they have with him aand whenever there happens any obstruction that hinders him from sending his Spirits into his Members they lose all sense and strength Besides he hath such command over them that he applies them according to his designs takes no notice of their wils employs the eyes to weep as well as see the hand to serve as well as command the tongue to manage meat as well as compose words and as if it were their greatest glory to perish for him there is not any Member but willingly exposeth it self to death for his defence or honour This submission is an Image of the dependance Christians ought to have towards Jesus Christ they are no longer their own when once ingraffed upon his person they receive an obligation to obey from the same quality that gives them a power to operate Quam in in Christo manes per amorem ipse in te per sanctitatis justitiae operationem in ejus corpore membris computaris Ber. they become Servants assoon as they become Members their liberty depends upon their servitude and by a happy occurrence they lose their own will by submitting to that of the Son of God As it is love that unites them to him so that their liberty is not interessed in their obedience they are never more their own then when they are their Heads they recover themselves in being lost possess themselves by forsaking themselves and by a strange adventure find a resurrection in dying Thence it comes to pass that they are never troubled to sacrifice themselves to Jesus Christ they account themselves sufficiently happy if they can be serviceable to his Glory it matters not though they lose their lives provided they obey him and knowing very well that in the State and in Nature subjects expose themselves for their Prince Members for their Head they are of this mind assoon as ever they enter into the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ â—â—t when they consider how he hath joyned the quality of Redeemer to that of Head and that to associate them to his person he hath delivered them by the losse of his own life they believe they can no ways acknowledge this extream obligation but in dying for his glory who was willing to die for their salvation Indeed we are the servants of Jesus Christ he hath bought us by his death we are the price of his bloud and we owe our happiness and our hope to his merits This is it that the Apostle represents to us in such emphatical terms when he saith Empti estis pretio magno and by a necessary consequence teacheth us that we ought to glorifie him in our body and in our soul Thence it is that he infers that those that live upon
will be all in all things he will poure out that in abundance which now he deals forth in measure and all the Saints possessing all the Vertues shall possesse God in all his perfections But the chiefest advantage of this Divine Banquet is that the Mess which is served up will be instead of all things as long as we live upon the Earth the misery of our condition or the frailty of our goods suffers us not to find our contentment in one single object That which allays our hunger quencheth not our thirst that which enlightens us covers us not that which serves us for a garment serves us not for a house and that which satisfies our mind does not always content our body But when we shall be in Heaven the Divine Essence will fill all our desires and being infinite will alone abundantly supply the fulness of all perishable Earthly goods Your God saith Saint Augustine shall be your All you shall feed upon him to satisfie your hunger drink him to quench your thirst rest upon him for your support make him your garment to cover you you shall wholly possess and he as wholly possess you you shall find in him all that others doe because both you and they shall be but one and the same thing in him For the last effect of this viand whereof we have but an essay in the Eucharist is that it will perfectly transform us into it self because all Scripture teacheth us that when we see God we shall be like him Scimus quoniam cum apparuerit similes ei erimus Joan. and that Glory having consumed all that was mortal and perishable in our nature we shall be happily swallowed up in him without ceasing for all this to be our selves Thus God nourisheth us in nature with the fruits of the Earth which maintain a body taken out of the Earth in Grace by the bloud of Jesus Christ which preserves the life he merited for us upon the Crosse In Glory by Divinity it self which is both together our food and our felicity The Second DISCOURSE Of the Nourishment of Innocent Man and of that of Man a Christian I If the state of Innocence be unknown to us by reason of its dignity or its remotenesse we must confesse that Original Righteousnesse and the fruit of the Tree of Life which were the chief priviledges thereof are so hid from us Immortalitas ista praestabatur ei de ligno vitae non de constitutione naturae quo ligno separatus est eū peccasset ut posset mori Aug. that we have but weak conjectures to judge of their properties or of their effects Saint Augustine that hath written most rationally confounds them so often one with another that he seems to attribute to the Tree of Life that which appertains to Original Righteousness For though we know that this united the soul with the body subjected both to God and preserving the one from sin exempted the other from death yet he forbears not to impute that to the Tree of Life which we impute to Grace and to allot it so many advantages that it seems the whole happinesse of man depended absolutely upon this miraculous Tree But having well considered the words of this great Saint I find his doctrine so conformable to Scripture that there is no doubt but it was suggested to him by the same Spirit that made Moses speak in Genesis For as nourishment is ordained to preserve our life we need not think it strange that it holds some analogy with the principle that gives it us and that there should be some agreement between the matter whereof we are made and that wherewith we are nourished Therefore may we say that the Tree of Life preserved in Innocent man all that Original Righteousness had indued him with and that the fruit thereof which certainly was a figure of the holy Sacrament repaired the wasts of the natural heat maintained man in his vigour and secured him from death Wherein I find a great resemblance with truth because it wrought that in man an Innocent which the Body of the Son of God doth in man a Christian For there is none but confesseth that this admirable fruit united the soul with the body that it entertained that good intelligence which made up a notable part of his happiness and subjecting the body to the soul by a necessary consequence subjected the soul to God Divinity hath not yet fully examined whether this Vertue were natural to this Tree or whether being but a visible sign of an invsible grace the Divine power produced this effect in man when he took of that fruit with the dispositions of a firm faith and an humble obedience If we take the Scripture for our Guide and Saint Augustine for its Interpreter it will be easie to judge that this effect depended not upon the disposition of Man but upon the Vertue of the Tree because we see in Genesis that one of the reasons why our forefather was driven out of Paradise was that he might not eat of that wonderful fruit and so the miseries he had contracted by sin be prolonged together with his life Saint Augustine explicating this passage makes us plainly see that man having lost Original Righteousness had not lost Immortality if he had continued to feed upon the fruit of the Tree of Life Thus we are forced to confess that this Tree had a secret Vertue which depended not upon the sole disposition of man and that it was capable of producing a quality in his body which desending him for a time from death had encreased his misfortune with his years But not to engage in a question more curious then profitable 't is enough to know that as this fruit of the Tree of Life subjected the body to the soul and the soul to God the Eucharist produceth the same effects in the Christian and being received with the dispositions requisite to this Sacrament calms the passions weakens Concupiscence enthrones reason For though Baptisme leave Concupiscence to exercise the Christian and this Sacrament which opens him the Gate of the Church gives him not victory together with life yet all the Fathers confess that the Eucharist more powerful then Baptism furnisheth them with forces to set upon this domestick enemy that it sweetens his fury in combating him and that the presence of Jesus Christ delivers him from this evil more obstinate then the Devil and Sin For whether the purity of his flesh cures ours by a holy contagion or whether Concupiscence tremble at the apprehension of a body which is the work of the Holy Ghost or whether lastly this Sacrament that preserves our life gives us strength and delivers us from that languishing impotency which seems the very soul of Concupiscence we find by experience that the body of the Son of God procures us the victory and prepares us the triumph If it defend us it nourisheth us and if it pacifie our disorders it repairs the devastations
had not this mystery been attended with other consequences and had not the holy Sacrament been added to the Incarnation the Man-God had not communicated to us his qualities and remaining still the children of Adam we had never been made the children of God This great effect was reserved for the Eucharist 't is in this mystery that whole Nature was Deified and we may say that if the Communication of the Word in the Incarnation was infinite it was not immense but in the holy Sacrament of the Altar There it is that we become Gods without committing a crime there Piety satisfies our Ambition there the union we contract with the Word imitates and honours That it contracted with the Father from all Eternity Finally there it is that the onely Son becomes the first-born and taking us for his Brethren makes us the Children and withal the Images of his Father After this great advantage 't is not hard to conceive that he was willing to content our third desire and having made us Gods hath indued us with Knowledge to bestow upon us in earnest what the devil promised us in jest For this Spirit who still retains so much light amidst the thickness of his darkness perceiving that the desire of Knowledge is one of the strongest Passions of Man perswaded him that God had not forbidden him the use of the fruit he advised him to eat but to keep him in ignorance and to deprive him of those innocent pleasures Science brings with it into the minde This temptation proved so powerful that it prevailed upon man for his consent and he that had resisted the promises of Glory and Life suffered himself to be charmed with the hope of Knowledge Indeed we must confess that of all the Passions this is the most reasonable Beasts are moved with the love of Life and Glory they fear Death and Dishonour They fight to be secured from both these and those that are accounted the noblest are as ambitious in their victories of the increase of their reputation as of the preservation of their life But the desire of Knowledge is peculiar to Man there is no creature but he that takes pains to be delivered from Ignorance His combats for Glory are not more famous then his disputes for Truth and Conquerors take less pleasure to gain Slaves then Philosophers do to purchase Disciples The contestation of Wits is nobler then that of Bodies and if there be any conflict among the Angels it more resembles that of Philosophers then that of Conquerors The Understanding and the Will are the onely Atms made use of either for offence or defence whole Nature is the Field the differences spring not from the divers interests of Soveraigns but from the contrary opinions of Masters the recompence of the Victors is not so much the Conquest of Glory as of Knowledge they are never more satisfied with their advantage then when of their Enemies they make their Partisans and delivering them from Errour and Falsehood enrich them with Knowledge and Truth Therefore did the devil make use of this stratagem to gain man to his side and believed that if any thing in the world would make him forget his duty 't was his desire to Know Good and Evil. In the mean time Man lost his Light by losing his Innocence the father of Lyes plunged him in darkness and falling into the pit of Sin by a just judgement he fell into the abyss of Ignorance But Jesus Christ all whose Promises are Truth opens the eyes of the soul to the Faithful that receive his Body he enlightens their Understanding and warms their Will he manifests himself to those that receive him in this Sacrament and leading them to Knowledge by the mystery of Faith may be said to give them sight by making them blinde 'T is in the breaking of this Bread that his disciples know him 't is by the vertue of this Drink that the scales are taken from their eyes and 't is by the Grace of this Food that the Just who are nourished therewith receive Understanding together with Life If Jesus Christ raign upon our Altars as a Soveraign he instructs thence as a Master if we are his Subjects in that condition we are also his Disciples and if he gives us Laws to regulate us he gives us Counsels to inform us From all this Discourse 't is easie to infer that Jesus Christ is the God of Truth and the Devil the Father of Lyes That the One promising us Honour Knowledge and Life involved us in Shame Ignorance and Death the Other giving us his Body made us Wise Immortal and Glorious The Fifth DISCOURSE That this Nourishment unites the Christian with the Son of God INasmuch as Unity is the most excellent perfection of God all the works of his hands bear the Character thereof there is no creature that in his composition maintains not this advantage he ceaseth to subsist or live assoon as he begins to be divided and if S. Augustine judged rightly that grief was nothing but the division of the soul we may say that death is nothing but the dissolution of the body Thence it comes to pass that God in Nature and in Grace that he may preserve his creatures maintains them in unity and makes his noblest operations and his highest mysteries serviceable to this design His Providence that guides the Universe takes no other care but to associate the creatures together that their union may compose the worlds Harmony As the Battles of Princes tend to peace the jar of the Elements wrangles out a concord if they recede from their contraries 't is to embrace their like and when they seem most incensed they intend not so much a mutual destruction as to remove those obstacles that hinder their alliance That which is done in Nature is effected in Grace all the operations thereof mean only to reconcile us to God Teneamus charitatem fine qua etiam cum Sacramentis cum fide nibil sumus tenemus autem charitatem si amplectimur unitatem Aug. This noble expression of the Divine Essence breaths nothing but Unity and these austere Vertues which seem to annihilate the sinner have no other end but to destroy his sin to re-unite him to his Principle All our Mysteries and all our Sacraments seek the same end by different ways Baptism unites us to Jesus Christ as to our Head Repentance as to our Surety the Eucharist as to our Beloved because compleating all the other unions it happily converts us into him that nourisheth us with his Flesh and Bloud This design hath excellently appeared in the choice he made of the matter of this Sacrament For the Bread whose substance is changed into that of the Body of Jesus Christ is made up of many grains of corn which being kneaded and baked together composeth that Sacrifice which is offered upon our Altars The Wine whose substance is turned into the Bloud of Christ is compounded of many Grapes which
being trodden in the same Press sends forth that juice which is exhibited in this oblation So that the Son of God prepares the heart of the Faithful by a sensible union to a spiritual one and teacheth them that he will unite them with him in a Sacrament whose outward appearances breathe nothing but unity The Flesh which the outward species cover is so one that its multiplication cannot divide it it is produced in a thousand places to re-unite those that receive it and contrary to that of Adam is one in its substance Omne bellum oritur ex carne homo enim si carnalis non esset nunquam cum alio homine pugnaret Aug. as well as in its effects For the flesh of our first Father is a fruitful and unhappy spring of division it is parted into as many bodies as there are children and we may say that all men are the wretched portions of this guilty flesh The souls are divided with it to inanimate it and acting by its Organs contract its bad qualities whence arise quarrels and disputes that distract States and Fam lies But the most Tragical division is that being the channel of sin it makes the souls guilty assoon as they touch it and separate them from God by an offence which was free in the first man and natural in all his posterity For 't is enough that they are blended with the flesh of Adam to make them become guilty 'T is from this unhappy mixture that those fatal rents issue and proceed which occasion all our disasters and if we did not communicate in flesh with Adam we should not partake of his sin nor be liable to his punishment But this of Jesus Christ more happy and more innocent then his heals our division and leads us to unity it is one in substance and though a part of Adams is exempt from all sin because the work of the Holy Ghost and the Word that sustains it renders it impeccable He that communicates life to it communicates innocence in so high a degree that he imparts it to those that receive it It s multiplication dissolves not the unity the same Word that produceth it upon our Altars gives it the impress of its qualities and contrary to all the rules of nature which cannot multiply things without dividing them finds a secret to give it a Beeing in a thousand places without impairing its unity There is this difference between Nature and a Word the former is fruitful only by division 't is wonderful how from a grain of corn she extracts a whole Harvest pays the labour of the Husbandman with usury recompenseth his pains with plenty and imitating the power of her Creator which makes all things of nothing makes a great deal of a very little But she cannot accord multiplication with unity she must divide whatever she produceth and her liberality is founded upon the fraction of her Presents A Word more powerful then nature is brought forth without partition it is communicated through the fullest Auditory without wronging its Unity and though always one fils the ears of all those that are within the sound of it It seems that the Body of the Son of God which produced by the Word Vnusquisque accepit partem suam unde ipsa Gratia partes vocantur per partes manducantur manet integer totus per partes manducatur in Sacramento manet integer totus in coelo manet integer toâ—us in corde tuo Aug. Serm. de Verb. Evang. hath borrowed this Vertue from its cause is multiplied in the world and is not divided it is received into the heart of all the Faithful and this kind of Immensity that multiplies its presence alters not its unity It is whole and entire under every part of the Hoast though they break it they cannot divide it but preserving its unity in the fraction of the species remains always the Numerical body of Jesus Christ Thence it comes to pass that it unites all the faithful that receive it For though they be as different in conditions as generations as contrary in humours as interests as great strangers in their inclinations as climates they doe notwithstanding make up one body because they are nourished with one bread and all eat the same meat which having the power to assimilate the feeder into the food communicates unto them a wonderful unity which composeth all their differences But to comprehend this last miracle we must remember that this viand being of another nature then common meat is not disgested by the natural heat nor converted into the substance of those that take it only the accidents that cover it resent that injury and yielding to that fire that animates and consumes us becomes a part of our selves Being impassible and glorified 't is free from corruption acting upon those that eat it and having the same effect upon them they have upon other nutriments converts them miraculously into it self Thus every Christian if he bring not resistance with him becomes another Jesus Christ he parts with the bad qualities of Adam to assume the glorious ones of the Son of God if he share not in his impassibility he does in his innocence if he become not immortal he becomes in some sort glorified and if he change not nature he alters at least his inclination Therefore is it that all the Fathers of the Church admiring the holy stratagems Jesus Christ makes use of to unite us to himself Qui vult vivere habet unde vivat accedat credat incorporetur vivificectur inhaereat corpori vivat Deo de Deo nunc laboret in terra ut postea vivat in caeâ—o Aug. call this Sacrament a Divine Transformation wherein man losing what he had of corruptible and criminal gains the advantages of the Blessed and is happily changed into him that nourisheth him Indeed experience teacheth us that nature and love have found out no better invention to convert Essences then Nutrition Every day the meat we eat is assimilated into our substance the wine altering its qualities by a natural Chymistry is turned into our bloud bread without any other additional supplement then the natural heat becomes our flesh and all the nourishments we take by a wonderful metamorphosis pass into our nature The union they contract with us is so great nothing can break it all the endeavours of men cannot dissolve it and it is easier for the cruelty of the Executioner to bray the chains that fasten the soul to the body then to unravel those links that doe consubstantiate the food with him that hath disgested it Being changed into his substance and blended with all the parts that compose him the inquisition must search for it in his Arteries and break his very bones to extract it with the marrow Love also that takes pleasure to imitate nature hath found out no more powerful means to unite lovers together when one of them hath bid farewel to the world then in making the
dead serve for a nourishment to the living and to give him a resurrection by an artifice which can find no excuse but in the excesse of that passion that gave it a being Thus we read that disconsolate Artemisia having lost her dear Mausolus Mortui cineres vino commistos ebibit memoriae ejus tam splendidum sepulchrum erexit ut magnifica monumenta deinceps Mausolea ab illius nomine fuerint appellaii Gelli lib. 10. cap. 18. could not satisfie her love but by swallowing his ashes thereby to be united to him and to make him still co-habit with her Her grief spared nothing that might comfort an afflicted wife in honouring the memory of so dearly a beloved husband she employed the most famous Orators of her time to sweeten her sorrows and to make the Panegyrick of him she had lost she erected a staely monument which passeth for one of the seven wonders of the world and having not seen any Tomb that can equal its magnificence gives a denomination to this day to those of the the greatest Monarchs of the Universe But inasmuch as nothing can content the extremity of love and ordinary remedies doe but aggravate a violent sorrow this afflicted lover resolved to drink the ashes of her dead husband Vt esset vivum spirans conjugis sepulchrū that changing them into her substance she might expire with him or he survive together with her Me thinks the Son of God compleated in the Eucharist what love engaged this amorous Princess to attempt For being united to us in this Sacrament and converting us into himself by the mighty working of his infinite Power we may say he re-animates ashes because he raiseth the dead and converts sinners So that of all the alliances he hath contracted with us we must needs acknowledge this the closest and most intimate 'T was certainly a great testimony of his love when he was incarnate in the chast Womb of his Virgin Mother and clothing himself with our flesh took upon him the burden of our sins and of the punishments due unto them it was a consequence of this love when he vouchsafed to converse with us and treating us as his brethren gave us part in the inheritance of his glory It was a proof of his compassion when he became our Advocate to his Father pleaded our Cause before his Throne and to purchase an act of oblivion for all our transgressions mingled his tears with his bloud in the garden of Olives It was me thinks the utmost expression of his love when he became our Surety upon the Crosse loaded himself with our sins to enrich us with his merits and made an exchange with us which cost him his life and procured us salvation Nevertheless all these favours united him not with men and when he was our Brother Cum autem datur in cibum unio perfecta est uniuntur enim in unitate corporis cibus qui cibum sumit Di. Tho. our Advocate our Surety he was not one person with us But in the Eucharist wherein he is our nourishment his love hath found out the secret of incorporating us with him he yet unites man with God he repeats the Mystery of the Incarnation he does that in favour of all men which he only did for Humanity and he works a thousand times one miracle in the Bosome of the Church which he acted but once in the Womb of his Mother For if we compare the Eucharist with the Incarnation we shall find that in the one God is made Man in the other Men became Gods In the one he is united to our nature in the other to our person in the one he is invested with our miseries in the other he apparels us with his greatness But because in all these Alliances we meet not with that of Mother he is willing that his body conceived by the Virgin should be also produced by the Priests upon our Altars that they might be his parents and might boast that the Incarnation hath no preeminence above the Eucharist For the Scripture teacheth us that Jesus Christ in his birth is the work of the holy Ghost and of the Virgin both these persons became mutually pregnant Mary restores to the holy Ghost what she received from him and when she became the Mother of the Son of God he became the Principle The same Jesus in his Passion is the work of sinners they condemn him to death by the mouth of Pilate nail him to the Cross by the hands of the Executioners and despoil him of his honour and his life by the outrages of the Jews In the Resurrection he is the pure work of his Father he it is that draws him from the grave who gives him the recompence of his labours exalts him to glory and makes him raign everlastingly with him But in the Eucharist he is the work of the Priests 't is their word that makes him present upon our Altars their intention that makes him descend from heaven in the name of all the Faithful these are the powerful Ministers that conceive him and bring him forth that this holy Sacrament may perfect all the Alliances the mystery of the Incarnation had begun and that we may have this consolation to know that there is no union in Nature we contract not with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist The Sixth DISCOURSE Of the dispositions the Christian ought to bring with him to receive this Nourishment IF it be a truth that great benefits require great acknowledgements we must confess that extraordinary Mysteries require extraordinary dispositions nor that they must otherwise be approacht unto then with that reverence which is due to sacred things 'T is a Sacriledge to have to do with them with a prophane spirit and we do but expose our selves to the indignation of heaven when we think to partake of them without that preparation their stupendious holiness doth require The Levites were not admitted to the service of the Altar before they were purified The High-Priest went not into the Sanctuary of the Temple till he had expiated his sins by the blood of a Sacrifice neither did the Prophets deliver Oracles to the people till the holy Spirit who spake with their mouth resided in their heart The Eucharist therefore being the most august of our Mysteries obligeth us to very great and reverential dispositions Each quality 't is attended with exacts a particular preparation and all the titles it bears demand of the receivers as many different vertues Inasmuch as it is the most hidden Mystery of our Religion whose wonders deceive our eyes whose lustre dazzles the sunshine of our neerest observation the manner of Christs residing there being altogether imperceptible to our Senses and unconceiveable to our Understandings we are obliged to bring along with us much Faith and little Reasoning a blinde obedience is a Sacrifice that must accompany this oblation of the Son of God upon our Altars and at the same time
by the Resurrection nor will the Faithful be truly consummated till he shall be transformed into God by the splendours of Glory Therefore doth Saint Augustine in his Comment upon that passage of the Psalmist Introibo in domum tuam in Holocaustis deliver these excellent words which serve greatly to illustrate this truth The Holocaust is a Sacrifice wherein the Victime is wholly devoured by the fire and the Church in the expectation she hath one day to be admitted into Heaven useth the same language and perswades her self that the fire of glory will consume her to the end that nothing of her self remaining in her she may be wholly her Beloveds This desire will not be accomplisht till the general Resurrection when our mortal shall be cloathed with Immortality and life shall triumph over death the Divine fire will produce this effect and consuming all our perishable being will make of us an Holocaust For nothing mortall shall remain in our flesh nothing culpable in our soul both of them shall be consummated by life that passing into a new being we may become the Holocausts of the Lord. That which ought to befall all Christians at the day of the generall Resurrection did happen to Jesus Christ at the day of his glorious Resurrection Death was swallowed in Life Glory consumed infirmity and leaving the likeness of sin he entred into the Majesty of God his Father But because this sacrifice would be impetfect if the Communion did not succeed the Consummation The love power of Jesus Christ invented a means whereby without departing from God he might communicate himself to the Faithful and make them partakers of his body and bloud This is done upon our Altars where offering up himself daily he finisheth the sacrifice of the Cross and by a mystery worthy of his charity he communicates not only the merits of his death but the very victime that was immolated upon Mount Calvary It bears the name of sacrifice not only because it finisheth that of the Cross which precisely contains nothing but the killing of the sacrifice but for that it exhibits all the marks of a true sacrifice For besides that it is the verity of the sacrifice of Melchisedeh instituted by the High Priest who hath commanded his Ministers to doe it in remembrance of him We may say without any offence to piety that it hath more shew of a sacrifice then that of the Cross because it begins with Prayer succeeds the eating of the Paschal Lamb as the substance the shadow contains an innocent victime is instituted by words dedicated to sacrifices and examining it seriously we shall find the oblation of the victime because there it is offered by the hands of the Priest His mystical death because immolated not by the knife but by the Word of God its perfect consummation because in a glorious condition which rescues it from all humane miseries and its communion because taken into the bosome of God Sacrificium corporis sanguinis Christi successit omnibus sacrificiis veteris Testamenti quae immolabantur in umbra hujus futuri Aug. and the mouth of the Faithful But though all these conditions should fail it would be enough to say that as the death of Jesus Christ though but the killing of the victime ceaseth not to be a true sacrifice that of the Altar though but the communion of the victim ceaseth not to be also a true sacrifice though to speak properly both of them make but one perfect sacrifice according to the true sense of those words of Saint Paul Vna oblatione consummavit sanctificatos and that one and the same Jesus is continually the victime but in such different conditions that they give occasion to Divines to make them pass for two distinct sacrifices The Ninth DISCOURSE Of the difference between these two Sacrifices and what the Christian receives in the one and in the other THough it were very easie to demonstrate the wonderful resemblances which are found between the sacrifice of the Cross and of the Altar and without doing violence to Scripture we might make it appear that one is the image of the other that the same victime is immolated in Both that the Eternall Father is equally honoured in Both and that the Faithful receive thence like advantages yet because things are illustrated better by their differences then their similitudes and that which distinguisheth them from others is always more particularly theirs I have designed this Discourse to unfold the oppositions Nature and Grace hath placed in these two sacrifices Quod autem mortuus est peccato mortuus est semel quod autem vivit vivit Deo Ro. 6. which though one and the same thing in their ground and foundation are notwithstanding different in their circumstances whereof the first is that that of the Cross was never offered but once and this of the Altar is offered every day For the right understanding of this difference we must know that the sacrifice of the Cross is a sacrifice of Redemption Qui non habet necessitatē quotidie quemadmodū sacerdotes prius pro suis delictis hostias offerre deinde pro populi hoc enim fecit semel se offerendo Hebrae 7. where the victime is charged with the sins of the world satisfies for them by the infiniteness of his merits appeaseth the Justice of the Eternal Father and delivers men from the tyranny of the Devil Inasmuch as all those things are no otherwise performed then by the death of Christ which cannot be repeated without a miracle and the Glory whereinto he is entred suffers him not to die a second time Saint Paul tels us that he redeemed the world by that one only sacrifice The Priests of the Old Testament were bound to reiterate their sacrifices because the merit of the victime was limited and to speak properly were neither acceptable to God nor meritorious for men but because they were the Figures of Jesus Christ But inasmuch as the Sacrifice he offered to his Father upon the Cross is of infinite merit he need not repeat it and having sufficiently expiated all the sins of the world it had been useless to pacifie God who was no longer offended and to satisfie for those faults which were already pardoned Thence it comes to pass that the Sacraments which exhibit the death of the Son of God and are applicatory to us of their merit imprint a Character upon us and are never performed twice Baptism is administred but once not onely because it is the Christians birth which cannot be done over again but also because it is the Figure of the death of Christ which according to the language of S. Paul Sicut semel Christus moritur in Cruce ita semel Christianus moritur in Baptismo Aug. cannot be readministred without offence Therefore is it that the same Apostle condemning those that gave themselves over to sin in hope to make an atonement by a second Baptism said to the
Vanity but such as imprint Characters or produce effects in their souls they are as solid as glorious they raise men up to heaven make them heirs of the Eternal Father and brethren of his onely Son Their greatness depends not upon the opinion of people though they are unknown they are notwithstanding honourable sometimes Contempt augments their reputation and the less splendor they bear amongst men the more respect they finde with God Therefore I should betray the honour of the Christian if having spoken of his Vertues I should not speak of his Qualities and having described his Labours and his Sacrifices I should say nothing of his Rewards and Recompences True it is that as the parts of this work are mutually interwoven and the remotest have secret links that unite them all together in speaking of the Christians Birth I have handled his Noblest Qualities and have made it appear that he was the Brother and the Member of Jesus Christ that he was the adopted Son of the Eternal Father and the living Temple of the holy Ghost In making the Elogie of his Vertues I shewed that Faith made him a Believer Charity a Lover Austerity of life a Penitent so that having already spoken of these advantages there remains onely to supply what is behinde to compleat his Portraicture which I cannot better begin then in demonstrating in this Discourse that the Christian is the Image of Jesus Christ For the happier explaining of this Verity we must know that the Word is the Image of his Father the Character of his Substance Qui videt me videt Patrē Joan. 14. the Express of his Greatness He gives himself this Title in the Gospel and teacheth his Disciples that in seeing Him they see his Father in his person Our Divines abound with Reasons of this Assertion to prove that this Elogie is not unworthy of the Eternal Word and that his being the lively Image of his Father no way hinders his being equal with him But not to trouble my self in the proof of a Truth Faith obligeth us to believe it is enough with the great S. Athanasius to let you see that this Divine Image hath none of those defects which are inseparably incident to those of our Carvers and Painters for Existimavit Philo Judaeus prohibitas esse à Deo picturas quia sunt mendacia the most exact Pieces that come from their hands are false because they are not that which they represent nor can all the industry of Art make them other then agreeable Illusions Though they are Lyers yet are they mute painting cannot make them speak and the highest commendation can be given them is to say that nothing but Speech is wanting to them Lastly they are dead Art less powerful then Nature cannot inanimate them what ever dexterity it useth it cannot enliven them they are children that expire in their very birth and could they speak would complain of the rigour of their Parents who in stead of making them Men have made them onely Idols Now this Image that so lively represents the Eternal Father hath none of these imperfections It is very far from a Lye because it is so conformable to its Original that 't is as well his Truth as his Copie It is not dumb because it is the Interpreter of the Father his Eternal Panegyrick his subsisting Word all whose works are so many expressions chanting forth the praises of their Authour It is not dead because it is the Fountain of Life wherein the Creatures before their birth and after their death live and by a perpetual Miracle enlivens all those works it hath produced Imago ista non falsa est quia Veritas non muta quia Verbum non mortua quia Vita Lib. de Incar Verb. This is it which S. Athanasius saith with as much pomp of Eloquence as Learning and Piety This Image is not mute because it is the Word not false because it is the Truth not dead because it is Life This same Son who is the Image of his Father is by a necessary consequence the Idea of all the Creatures they are all formed after this Divine Examplar and according as they more or less participate of his likeness they are more or less noble in their nature Men and Angels have no advantage above the rest but because they are the Transcripts of this Idea and others at most but the Footsteps thereof The Scripture teacheth us that Man was formed after this primitive Image that he was made after the similitude thereof and that in the very Creation he belonged not to the Father but by the mediation of the Son This Greatness was the occasion of his Fall for sollicited by the devil he was not content to be the Image of the Word but would also be that of the Father and pronounce these words which are onely true in the mouth of the Son Ego sum similis Altissimo This Crime was the cause of his disaster the Father to revenge his Son drove this Insolent that had encroached upon his rights out of Paradise and reduced Him to the condition of Beasts who had impudently aspired to the equality of his Word So great a misfortune had utterly ruined us without any hope of recovery had not the Son of God who was the Innocent occasion been also the Charitable remedy For seeing that men were become guilty in striving to imitate him that to revenge Him his Father had destroyed Them he resolved saith S. Bernard Per me Pater recipiat quos propter me amisisse videtur ecce venio talem me eis exhibebo ut quisquis gesticrit imitari fiat ei aemulatio in bonum Bern. to put himself in a condition wherein he may be securely imitated and where the desire of being like him being no longer a Crime is become a means to arrive to happiness He was made Man to serve for an Example to Man he submitted himself to his Father to teach them obedience he was abased to the shame of the Cross to teach them Humility and he forgave his Executioners their putting him to death to oblige them to pardon their enemies Therefore is it that S. Paul discovering the secrets of Predestination saith that his designe is to render the Elect conformable to his Image and to bestow Graces upon them which satisfying their desires may make them without committing a fault like his onely Son For this reason Tertullian says that the same Eternal Father forming the body of the First man at the Creation of the world Quodcunque limus exprimebatur Christus cogitabatur homo futurus Tert. de resurrect carn was taken up with Jesus Christ that the Slime represented him the Incarnation of his Word and that foreseeing the sin of Adam he already provided him a remedy It is true then that the Christian is the Image of the Son of God that Nature and Grace obligeth him to imitate this Pattern and that his perfection consists in
Son of God he ought to breath only after his honour to act for his service to speak for his glory and as a Criminal whom the Prince hath pardoned remains a living monument of his clemency so a Christian whom Jesus Christ hath redeemed is an inanimated picture of his mercy nor ought to have any other design then by the lustre of his actions to manifest the goodnesse of his Divine Redeemer The Second DISCOURSE That the Christian is a Priest and a Sacrifice LOve hath made the Son of God so liberal that he possesseth no qualities which he communicates not to the Christians If he be God by his Essence we are by his Grace if he be the Son of God by Nature we are by Adoption if he produce the holy Spirit from all Eternity we produce him in Time if he confer Grace in the state of his Father we confer it in his if he be Priest and Victim in his Sacrifice we partake these two qualities with him and the Church bears no Christians in her womb who may not boast that in some sort they are both Priests and Victims Gens sancta regale sacerdodotium 1. Pet. 2. The Scripture gives them this honourable title by the mouth of S. Peter the Saints glory in the Apocalypse that the Grace of Baptism hath made them Priests and Kings Fecisti nos regnum sacerdotes Deo Patri so that we cannot question this title as not belonging to the Christian unlesse we question the Authority of the Scripture nor can we doubt that the Son of God hath honoured them with this Character but we must withall doubt of his love or of his power Indeed the Fathers of the Church have professed that the Christians were Priests that their Baptism was their Priesthood Sacerdotium Laico um Baptisma Hieron and that in this Sacrament which separates them from the world they were consecrated to Jesus Christ Therefore doth the great Saint Hierome writing against the Luciferians honour the Laity with this title and cals their Baptism their Priesthood Saint Augustine is of the same mind and though he was not ignorant of the difference between the Laity and the Clergy he forbears not to style all Christian Priests because their Name denotes their Unction and their Grace makes them the members of the High Priest Jesus Christ And certainly he that shall consider the employments of Priests will find that they are common to the Laity and though they have neither their character nor their power they are with them admitted into the dispensation of the Sacraments They may administer Baptism in case of necessity communicate the Grace they have received and bring forth children to Jesus Christ Though they are not raised to that pitch of dignity which makes the Priests Judges in the Tribunal of Repentance and have not any Authority from the Son of God to remit sins neverthelesse it hath sometimes fallen out that the Faithful being not able to meet with a Priest have confessed themselves to Laicks and the Laicks have endeavoured to obtain Grace for them by means of Prayer which in some sort supplies the vertue of Absolution Saint Thomas authoriseth this custome and exhorts Soldiers that enter into the field Mariners that are surprised with a storm not to neglect this remedy and to fly to this kind of confession when they want the ordinary one He confirms the use thereof by his reasons and tels us that the sorrow and the humility Christians epxresse in this occasion is not unprofitable to draw down upon them the Divine mercie The Laity in some sense may be said to sacrifice daily in our Churches If they pronounce not the Sacramental words with the Priests they joyn themselves with their intentions and accompanying them with their vows have a share in the producing of Jesus Christ on our Altars For the Priests representing the whole Church in this Sacrament they are the Syndics or Proctors of the Faithful acting in their name they require their assistance and conjure them to joyn with them in an action which equally concerns them all All the words of the Masse confirm this truth The confession which is common to Priest and people testifies that the sacrifice is common The oblation of the Host wherein the Priest requires the attention and consent of the people is an evident proof of the part they bear in it the very Canon wherein the Priest treats in secret with God where he interposeth the credit of the Saints that reign in Heaven authoriseth this belief For he speaks in the name of the Faithful and even then when he offers this sacrifice in their behalf testifies that he offers it with them and that he is at the same time the Minister of Jesus Christ and of his Church Finally Christians are Priests as we have said because they are ordained daily to offer up sacrifices Perum Sacrificium est omne opus quod agitur ut sancta societate haereamus Deo Aug. and according to the language of Saint Augustine all vertuous actions are so many holy oblations which they present to the Eternal Father He that sings with the Priest offers the sacrifice of praise he that gives Alms to the poor makes a sacrifice of his goods he that is sorrowful for his sins offers a sacrifice of his heart and he that endeavours to wash them away by his tears offers a sacrifice of his eyes But not to reckon up all the actions of the Faithful it is enough to say with the same Saint Augustine that their whole life is a sacrifice and that they begin to be Priests assoon as they begin to be Victims These two qualities were inseparable in the person of Jesus Christ he bare them from the very first moment of his Incarnation and assoon as ever he held the language of a Priest A Domino Deo missus Christus sacerdos noster assumpsit à nobis quod offerret Domino ipsas primitias carnis ex utero virginis Aug. he had the dispositions of a Victim He began his sacrifice with his life he offered himself to his Father in the chast womb of his Mother and having received that Divine Unction which constituted him High Priest he protested that he would be a publick Victim He finished upon the Crosse what he had projected before his Birth and joyning these two qualities in his Death taught us that we should not separte them during our life Therefore are all Christians obliged to be Victims and after the example of Jesus Christ they ought to find in their person the subject of their sacrifice They have no remainders of Adam which may not happily be subservient to this design Whatever they hold of this wretched Father ought to be consumed by the flames of Justice or those of Charity Purgatory will burn that which the fire hath not and Heaven finishing what these two had begun wâ—â— reduce the Victim to an estate where nothing will appear in
according to our desires propounds Honours to us if ambitious Riches if covetous Pleasures if wanton He perswades us that our Revenges are just our Inclinations reasonable and our Recreations innocent and hiding Vice under the mantle of Vertue hinders us from reforming or defending our selves To secure us from so redoubted an enemy who sets upon us so many different ways we must oppose our Prudence against his Cunning our Patience against his Fury we must countermine his Stratagems penetrate his Intentions and discover the hook which lies under the sugar'd bait we must also bless the Justice of God who exerciseth us by the cruelty of this Executioner put our confidence in his goodness and remember that in this Conflict we can overcome onely by suffering Having obtained this victory we must arm our selves against the world which is the most dangerous enemy the Christian can have He set upon Jesus Christ in his birth and being true to his Tyrant knew not his lawful Soveraign even then when he came to be his deliverer In mundo erat mundus eum non cognovit He persecuted him during his life nor lost any occasion wherein he might doe him a mischief Mundus me odit He conspired his death with the Devils and expressing himself by the mouth of the Scribes and Pharises charged him with calumnies before the Tribunal of Pilate cast fear into the soul of that cowardly Judge and forced him to condemn a man whom he acknowledged innocent Therefore neither had Jesus Christ any commerce with the world he protested he had nothing to doe with it Ego non sum de mundo and that contrary his to maxims he could neither approve nor suffer it He would not so much as pray for it when he prayed for his executioners Non pro mundo rogo He boasted in the presence of his Apostles that he had subdued this rebel and defeated this enemy Confidite ego vici mundum Finally he promised his Disciples that he would destroy the world in the dreadful day of his vengeance so that professing to imitate the Son of God we are obliged to hate what he never loved and to defend our selves from a Traitor who employs lying grief and pleasure to gain us to his party He tries to deceive us that so he may corrupt us he sets up Maxims which under a pretence of maintaining society introduce Libertinisme amongst men he makes debauches passe for recreations revenge for greatnesse of courage Duplicem aciem mundus producit coutra milites Christi blanditur ut decipiat minatur ut frangat ad utrosque aditus occurrit C ristus non vincitur Christianus Aug. de sanc vinc impurity for a lawful affection If he cannot seduce us he goes about to terrifie us casts pannick fears into weak souls makes them apprehensive of grief or infamy perswades a young man that chastity is a blemish to his reputation a woman that modesty spoils the lustre of her beauty a Gentleman that the forgetting of injuries damps his courage and being a Tyrant makes use of fear to keep his Subjects in obedience But when he meets with generous souls who reject his Maxims and contemn his Threats he hath recourse to pleasures and employs charms to soften the obdurate This last battery is the most to be feared because the sweetest This is it that enervates the Sampsons masters the Davids and triumphs over the Solomons Engageth these great men in a lye by blinding them terrifies them by making them Cowards and breeding fear in their hearts with love causeth them to apprehend the losse of those things he makes them passionately affect He lays before their eyes whatever may allure them makes pleasure enter in at their senses and forgetting no artifice to render wickednesse agreeable widens his Empire and encreaseth the number of his Subjects If we be Christians indeed we must combat this enemy oppose the Maxims of the Gospel against his falshoods destroy error by truth protest that being the subjects of Jesus Christ we acknowledge no other Laws but those of his Church To evacuate those terrors wherewith he shakes our courage we must discern true honour from false fixe our glory in our duty and remember that the true Disciples of Jesus Christ ought always to prefer vertue before honour and conscience before reputation To defend us from the pleasures the world tempts us with we must look upon their end and represent the shame and grief that never forsakes them Finally we must beg Grace of Jesus Christ who hath overcome the world that assisted with his favour we may vanquish his enemies with all the errours wherewith he would seduce us the fear wherewith he would astonish us and the pleasures wherewith he would enchaunt us For it is not enough for the Christian to be a soldier if he be not also victorious his condition is more painful then that of soldiers For though these are the Victims of Glory and of Death that for a little pay they expose themselves to a thousand dangers they are not responsible for the successe of the battle and provided they lend their heart and hand to their General there is nothing more can be expected from their valour But the Christians are such soldiers as must be victorious 't is not enough that they fight they must win the field they must overcome here if they mean to-reign with Christ hereafter 'T is true he hath this advantage over all other Captains he inspires courage into his soldiers and gives them victory who engage in the combat so that 't is their fault if they be defeated and the glory of their Commander if they remain Conquerours Their birth obligeth them to this duty for the Scripture teacheth us Omne quod natum est ex Deo vincit mundū Joan. 16.5 that those that are born of God overcome the world that Grace which contains Glory in the seed is able to preserve them from sin and that leaving them to the spirit that inanimates them they remain impeccable in his hands S. Bernard is of this mind and will have their victory over temptation a certain proof of their adoption The vertues themselves they have received at their Baptism are helps which facilitate the defeat of their enemies For faith is not only their strength but their victory and renders them as well Conquerours as Soldiers Hope heightens their Courage and giving them the Almighty for their Second makes them gain as many Victories as they fight Battails Charity that finds nothing impossible which measures its power by its courage and more prevalent then death overturns whatever resists it inspires them with so much force that they vanquish all griefs and master all difficulties But if there be any vertue that renders them invincible we must confesse 't is their despoiling themselves of the goods of the Earth For Satan never catcheth us but by those things that engage us he seduceth only by those things that
the Captives that pine away for the loss of Liberty in prisons and those Miscreants that are broken upon the Wheel endure the extremity of Torments but because their sin is the cause of their punishment they may be sufferers but they cannot be Martyrs To deserve this Quality Nemo se extollat glorietur de passione nam si attendamus solâ—s passiones coronantur latrones si de passione gloriandum est potest ipse diabolus gloriari Aug. the interest of God must be mixt with Grief and the suffering takes its estimate from the justice of the Cause The Macchabees are Martyrs because they suffered for the Law of God and rather then violate it courageously lost their lives S. John Baptist augments the number of these glorious Champions because he died for the defence of Chastity and is the first victim this excellent vertue receiv'd The Saints who have spilt their blood in the Churches quarrels and have fought against Infidels or Hereticks for the interest of Faith justly deserve the quality of Martyrs and the Christian happily shares it with them because he suffers in obedience to Jesus Christ For when he pardons those that persecute him stifles those just resentments which are occasioned by injuries when he gives Calumny leave to blast his reputation and loseth Goods or Honour because he will not break the Commandments or violate the Counsels of the Son of God Non Martyrium sola effusio sanguinis consummat necsola dat palmam exustio flammarum pervenitur non solum occasu sed etiam contemptu Carnis ad Coronam Aug. Ser. 46 de Sanctis he is not less worthy of the name of Martyr then those that have shed their blood for the defence of his honour 'T is of such a one that we may say Occasion was wanting to his Will and that he had been in the Catalogue of Martyrs had he lived in the time of persecution But not to betray the Cause that I defend I am obliged to say that to be vertuous is title enough to be a Martyr For since Nature is corrupted by sin there is no Vertue that is not accompanied with Grief We learn Vices without a Master we carry the seeds of them in our souls and preventing bad examples we act wickedness before we have seen it But Christian vertues are so difficult that their conquest costs us much labour and travel we learn them with much ado forget them easily preserve them with care neither is it Nature nor Art but Grace and Sorrow that forms the Habit in us They cross our Inclinations we must fight to gain them and seeing wickedness is passed into our Nature Vertues are become our Torments The Darkness we come into the world with clouds the light of our Prudence the infirmities we have inherited from our first Father make the victory over Strength extremely difficult Interest which is inseparable from Self-love is an opposition naturally set against Justice and this heat without which we cannot live and by a deplorable unhappiness entertains the flames of Impurity is an obstacle to Continence It produceth thoughts which stain the lustre of this Vertue motions which trouble its rest so that S. Augustine had great reason to say that of all the Trials of a Christian the most furious was that of Chastity where the Conflict is so long the Victory so rare and the Danger so great I would adde to the words of this holy man without varrying much from his conceit that 't is the sharpest Martyrdom a Believer can endure because he confesseth in another place that to mortifie the Flesh to tame Pride makes up the best part of the Martyr 'T is perhaps upon this ground that the rigid Tertullian who hath defended the advantages of Chastity with the prejudice of Truth it self hath acknowledged this vertue so austere that 't is easier to die for her Majus est in castitate vivere quà m pro castitate mori Terâ— then to live with her As if he would tacitely insinuate that 't is a harder matter to be chaste then to be a Martyr and that a Christian who hath overcome impurity may easily subdue grief If having considered the severity of the Vertues we consider the rigour of the Gospel we shal finde it cannot be obeyed without the badg of Martyrdom Every People hath its Laws and there are none so barbarous whom Nature or Custom have not furnished with some Policy The Greeks lived according to the Laws of their Sages The Romanes followed the Twelve Tables and those that had neither Kings nor Law-givers have had for their guide the light of Nature which is a relique of Innocence The Jews were governed by the Law of Moses which if it gave them not strength enough to combat sin it gave them light enough to know and avoid it But the Christian hath so severe a Law that if Love did not sweeten the severity thereof it would drive men to despair and more tragical then Judaism would occasion not onely prevaricators but obstinate and hardned disciples For it hath not one Article which is not a Paradox and which thwarts not the Reason as well as the Inclinations of sinners The First is that to love God aright we must hate our selves and bestowing all our affection upon him reserve nothing but hatred for our selves The second is to renounce our Will that is to say to quit all the advantages Nature hath endued us with not to reason in our Mysteries not to listen to our Inclinations in the practise of Vertues The Third which is not less rigid and seems to violate the sweetest Laws of Nature obligeth us to forsake father and mother and to trample upon the belly of her that bare us to follow the voice of him that calls us to his service But the Fourth which hath to deal with the dearest and most violent of our Passions commands us to pardon our enemies to forget the injuries they have done us and to stifle all those just resentments the love of honour or of life can possess us with Who will not pronounce these Laws so many tortures these Commandments so many Pursuivants making inquisition after our Inclinations into the very inmost recesses of our Wils and one while lopping of love another while Hatred subjects us to as many sufferings as Martyrs undergo whose arms or legs were chopt off by the cruelty of Tyrants This made S. Augustine confess that the life of a Christian was a painful Martyrdom Vita Christiani si secundum Evangelium vivat crux est Martyrium Aug. nor that any man could observe the Laws of the Gospel but must condemn himself to a punishment as grievous as that of the Cross For this reason also will I make it appear in this following Discourse that Christians suffer more then the Martyrs These glorious Heroes of the Church suffered for the most part but in the body their souls were quiet in the midst of
their torments God hindered the commerce that Nature had placed between these two parts whereof we are composell a contented mind inanimated a wretched body love divorced him from his prison and by a kind of prodigious extasie disingaged him from all the painful vexations of his slave In every Christian might be seen an Image of Jesus Christ and as he during his life accorded pleasure with pain in his person and his glorious soul enlivened his passible and mortal body this miracle was repeated in favour of the Martyrs who preserved their joy in the midst of their torments They made Invectives against Tyrants laught at the weaknesse of their Executioners and lifting up their soul to him that inspired them with strength breath'd forth his Panegyrick whiles the flames devoured their bodies or the wild Beasts tore them in pieces But the Christians are bound to make war against both bodies and souls to struggle against their inclinations and their senses to exercise their just indignation against these two Delinquents nor to divide those in the correction who were united in the crime These Martyrs had only grief to master and having tamed this unruly enemy were certain of a triumph But the Christians are engaged to combat pleasure and as this pleasing enemy knows the secret of gaining love it is very hard to stand out against his charms Grief is violent astonisheth those that it sets upon quels their courage by the pomp of torments and he that is assisted with strength cannot resist the fury of its onsets In the mean time experience teacheth us that it is oftner foiled then pleasure and that there are more Christians fit to be Martyrs then to be Continent The soul barracadoes it self against grief but lyes open to pleasure The will stands out against the evil that would force her but gently surrenders to the delectation that would corrupt her her forces are rallied close when she combats grief but lie scattered when opposed to sensuality Grief holds no intelligence in the place it sets upon to facilitate a surprisal but pleasure finds a thousand passions that favour her entrance follow her motions Donat Deus ut delectatio peccati justitiae delectatione vincatur Aug. and sight under her ensigns Thence it comes to pass that when God intends to gain a soul or the Devil to seduce one neither of them employ any other thing then pleasure and knowing very well that they have to doe with a free creature make use only of allurements to win his consent without forcing it God deals only with Grace in the conversion of sinners and 't is by this victorious suavity that he gains the Conquest where honour is the Trophy of the Conquerour and profit the reward of the vanquished The Devil also employs no instrument but Pleasure to corrupt them he studies their inclinations followes their humours flatters them to their destruction and being not ignorant what sway pleasure bears over the wil promiseth glory to the ambitious riches to the covetous or in a word proposeth to every sinner the accomplishment of all his desires Therefore we need not wonder if the Christian suffer more then the Martyr because he hath a more redoubted enemy to grapple with nor can hope for any recompence except he triumph over pleasure The great Saint Augustine hath pronounced sentence in their behalf and comparing believers with Martyrs hath said that not to diminish the honour these have purchased by their constancy he did verily believe that a Christian who mortified his body resisted his inclinations and defended himself from pleasure might lawfully pretend to the Crown of Martyrdom But if the sweetness that accompanies pleasure give Christians such an advantage above Martyrs we must confess that the glory which accompanied the Conflict of the later greatly lessened their sorrows Nature who hath no other conduct then that of Providence hath been pleased that whatever was difficult should withall be glorious Quae pulchra difficilia quae difficilia gloriosa Pla. that glory which is attended with so many charms may give us strength to master the difficulty she hath so well linkt these two things together that they are inseparable and wherever she hath planted pain she hath hedged it about with honour It is a hard matter to perswade men to change their minds to calm their passions and to reduce them to their duty Thus is it glorious to be eloquent to be acquainted with all the secrets Orators make use of to conquer without armes and to gain obedience without violence 'T is a business of much industry to rule States to govern people to prescribe laws which may keep them Loyall without interessing their Liberty 'T is also a high honour to know the mystery of the Politicks and to pass for a great Prince or a wise Statesman There is nothing that labours under more difficulties then to tame Nations subdue Rebels force Enemies to submit to the Conditions of Subjects or Allies Neither indeed is there any thing more illustrious then victorious proceedings and the glory which is but faintly and in part bestowed upon Orators and Politians descends unanimously and in a full gale upon the head of Conquerors We see nothing in the Church more Noble then Martyrdome 't is the highest form of Vertue the last expression of Charity and when a man hath shed his bloud and parted with his life for Jesus Christ there is not any instance can farther be expected from his love Justly therefore may we acknowledge nothing more august in Religion then Martyrs They are the Heroes of Christianity the Gallant men of this State the Noblest parts of this Mystical Body there is no greatnesse that gives not way to their dignity whatever we admire is below their merit and according to the opinion of one of the wisest Fathers of the Church Plus est esse Martyrem quam esse Apostolū Cyp. 't is more to be a Martyr then to be an Apostle Neither hath any thing been ever more honoured in the world Heaven hath wrought a hundred miracles to discover their innocence Wild Beasts have respected them the flames have spared their garments Tyrants have admired them and many times their Executioners have become their Disciples insomuch that these renowned Champions had great reason to be afraid of vain-glory at the same time that God delivered them from sorrow But Christians want this consolation in their Martyrdom they suffer more then they fight they are Martyrs because they endure pain to master pleasure they give proof of their courage because they resist temptation but their Martyrdome is secret it passeth in silence or in solitude they have no witnesse but their Judge If the Angels surround them they are invisible and if they undergo the hardships of Martyrs they have neither their comforts nor their indearments For as Saint Augustiue saith the soul of a Christian hath inward conflicts and domestick enemies she struggles with grief and expects her crown
only from his hands who sees her thoughts and knows her courage But the highest advantage of the Christian above the Martyr is that this mans trial endures but a few days Nature is so good a mother that she hath provided remedies for her children against the violent irruption of discontents she hath made the chains that unite the soul to the body so brittle that the least torments are able to break them tortures quickly end or we end with them and experience teacheth us that a punishment cannot be long when violent and extream Criminals must be husbanded if you will have them endure they must have respite if we intend to torture them for any long time their weaknes will rid them of their Exeeutioners and death stepping in to the succour of these wretches delivers them from their persecutors Therefore is the punishment inflicted upon Martyrs short many times one day saw both its beginning and its end and when Grace wrought no miracle for their preservation Nature used her endeavours to succour them But the Martyrdom of Christians lasts the best part of an age Repentance that afflicts them imitates the Divine Justice it makes an agreement between life and death lengthens that to prolong their misery and draws out the thred of their sorrows to prove them more durably miserable For mortification which constitutes the chiefest exercise of penitents is it not a long and cruell death which Disciplines the body afflicts the spirits nor gives any intermission to the disconsolate Penitentiary but to heighten his austerity This made S. Bernard say that the mortification of the flesh was a kind of punishment not so cruel indeed but much more irksome then that of Martyrs and recompensing the sweetnesse by the duration makes the penitent languish as long as he lives But after all these differences we must confesse that the Martyrs having been Christians as well as others have suffered a double punishment and living in penance were prepared for Martyrdom For as Tertullian observes the course of their life was a severe probation wherein they disposed themselves to grief by austerity to the prison by solitude to a short death by a long mortification Therefore tortures never startled these men who provided for them by a witty cruelty and in so happy an age the Church had no children who were not the Martyrs of Penance when they could not be of Persecution The Seventh DISCOURSE That the Christian is a Lover THere is none but knows that the Son of God is a new Man that he is prodigious in his Constitution assembling Heaven with Earth Time with Eternity That he hath a God for his Principle and a Virgin for his Mother that he is the Son and the Father of his Spouse that he gave her life upon the Cross and receives life from her upon the Altar That he is the Priest and the Victim of his sacrifice the Judge and the Advocate of his parties and by a strange prodigy the Brother and the God of his Subjects As he is New in his composition he is New in his Councels and his Commandements Ille qui ven't vetustatem nostram sua novitate solvere mandato novo fecit hominem novum Aug. Serm. 39. de Temp. He will have his Disciples mutually love one another and Love to be the Fundamental Law of his State It seems he would alter nothing neither in Policy nor in Morality and leaving men in the Light Reason and Faith had already inspired them with was content to bequeath them a New Love His intendment is that all his Disciples be Lovers that all their Qualities be included in this and that the Christian find his full perfection in sole Charity 'T is in effect the only vertue recommended to us and when Jesus Christ lays the foundations of his Empire Charitas omnia suffert omnia credit omnia sperat animo sustiuet 1 Cor. 13. he requires nothing but Love from his subjects S. Paul confounds all the vertues with Charity and teacheth us that he that Loves is endued with Faith with Hope with Fortitude S. Augustin his faithfull Interpreter acknowledgeth but one vertue and if he gives it different names it is to express its divers effects or different qualities All the rest are reduced to this one and as the Passions are nothing but the motions of love we may say that the vertues are nothing but the Ministers of Charity The morality of a Christian is easie and succinct he is not bound to exercise himself in Patience to be established in Justice to be instructed in Prudence Charity gives him an interest in all these glorious Qualities and being a Lover he may boast himself Couragious Just Prudent Assoon as he knows how to Love he is able to guide himself his Light encreaseth with his Heat and without consulting the mysteries of the Politicks he becomes a Statesman assoon as ever he falls in love with Jesus Christ As pleasures cannot corrupt him grief cannot astonish him His Love inspires him with Magnanimity and Temperance and being united to God by Charity neither the Promises nor the Threats of the world are able to separate him he is incapable of committing an injustice as long as he keeps his affection and rendring his Soveraign his due learns at the same time to carry himself fairly towards his Equals and Inferiours If Love constitute the Christians vertue it constitutes his difference also For as Reason distinguisheth Man from Beasts makes him equall with the Angels and in Nature is accounted his principal advantage we may say that Charity divides the Christian from the sinner and being his richest ornament is also his noblest difference All the Faithful are clarified with the Light of Faith they receive in Baptism a Character which time cannot deface they flatter themselves with a hope which though unjust is notwithstanding sometimes true The Church which comes short of the Knowledge of her Beloved admits them to the Participation of her Mysteries and being unable to read their hearts suffers sacrilegious persons because she cannot tell how to hinder them Nay Jesus Christ himself honours them many times with his choicest favours discovers the secrets of Futurity to his enemies gives them an absolute power in his State and suffers those that offend him to drive away Devils and to cure the sick But Charity is the priviledge of his Friends 't is the glorious mark distinguishing them from Reprobates and the only vertue that is inconsistent with sin A man may be burnt in the flames and give testimony of his Courage in the midst of torments though he be not at all acceptable to God a man may dive into all the Mysteries of Religion and not be affected with them may give his goods to the poor and have his soul full of vain-glory But a man cannot have Charity and be upon ill terms with Jesus Christ those that love him are his Beloved and if he indulge some favours to those that fear
or serve him he cannot refuse Heaven to those that die in love with him Thence it comes to pass that Christians who know that all their advantage consists in Charity make this vertue their principal employment they despise not others for they possess all in this one But being fully perswaded it must be their felicity in heaven they make it their business whilst they are upon the earth These Divine Lovers can do nothing but love they imitate the Seraphims whose Essence and Exercise is Love they burn with the same Fire that makes them live they swim in flames and as if they had forgotten all the vertues to learn one they spend their whole life in this amorous entertainment If they fear 't is to offend him whom their soul loveth if they hope 't is to possess him if they rejoyce 't is for being united to him if they are afflicted 't is for being separated from him When they have to do with their Neighbour 't is upon this wheel that they move they look onely upon God in his Creatures and upon Jesus Christ in his Members if they sometimes adhere unto them out of a natural inclination Divine Love furnisheth them with wings to soar above them and with strength to be disentangled from them Finally Love so well manageth the whole course of their life that leaving Respect to Domesticks Hope to Mercenaries Fear to Slaves Light to the Learned they reserve onely Charity for themselves and are of the humour of that faithful Lover who being confined to solitude had no other diversion but her Love In consideration whereof Dei unicum opus est se intueri se amare Plato I finde their condition very glorious because they treat with God as God doth with himself for his whole happiness consists in knowing and loving Himself and should he intermit this employment he would cease to be happie He sees the Creatures in seeing himself he loves Them in loving Himself and without going forth of his own Nature he findes his felicity in his Knowledge and in his Love The Christian by an admirable priviledge is advanced to this high degree of glory Solus est Amor ex omnibus animae motibus in quo poteâ— Creatura respondere Creatori de simili mutuam rependere viâ—eÌ„ Bernard he enters into society with God treats with him as with his Peer and it seems being no longer his Slave becomes his Equal in becoming his Friend Greatness is so opposite to Love that Kings are fain in a manner to depose themselves when they have a minde to love their Subjects That Majestie wherewith they are encircled is fitter to strike Fear and Consternation then Confidence If they descend not from their Throne lay not by their Crown and Scepter they can have no Friends because no Equals Therefore hath Aristotle observed that Subjects could not contract Alliance with their Soveraigns that the disparity of their Conditions permitted not those privacies which maintain Friendship among men and as long as Kings remain in their Grandeur Subjects must continue in their Respect In the mean time Charity findes out an Expedient to unite the Christian with God exalteth the One without debasing the Other equals in some sort their conditions and as it obliged God to make himself Man hath given Man a power to make himself God Nor must we think it strange that this Vertue is the original of our Happiness because it is the source of our Merit and nothing makes us more commendable then Love Though every thing have its estimate in the Church Order banisheth Confusion and in this vast Body every part hath its priviledge and employments nevertheless the whole perfection consists in Charity he that knows best how to love is most accomplisht and without respecting his actions or his sufferings we consider onely the measure of his Love The Son of God would not have our merit fastned to those conditions which depend not upon our selves nor that Greatness or Riches should difference his Subjects He would not place Perfection in Alms because the Rich onely can dispense them he would not tye it to Preaching because that Gift is reserved for his Ministers he would not limit it to Austerity because that requires a strong Constitution he would not fix it in Martyrdom because that depends upon Persecution with which the Church is not always afflicted But he hath established it in Charity where nothing is easier then this Vertue The Ignorant and the Learned are equally admitted to it Kings are not more capable of it then their Subjects and if Martyrs pretend some advantage above the rest of the Faithful they have a greater obligation to their Love then to their Torments The greatest Saint is not he that hath Suffered most or Done most but he that hath Loved most All his Merit consists in Charity if occasions be wanting he hath recourse to his desires and he may boast that being a Lover he is Liberal in Poverty Learned in Ignorance a Martyr in the Serenity of conversation Though all these advantages oblige us to Love that which God witnesseth to us is the greatest endearment of affection for there are conditions in his Indulgencies which cannot be found in our Expressions and his love is so powerful and so noble that 't is easie to judge it cannot proceed but from an abyss of Goodness It is Eternal and before all worlds God expects not till we subsist to shew his kindness towards us his love makes inquisition after us in the confused heap of Nothing as well as his power he cherisheth us in what he is pleased to put into us and separating us from all those Creatures which shall never see the light makes us the objects of his Liberality Our Crimes stop not the current of his Love he loves us in our Delinquency and that which ought to provoke his Justice to punish us provokes his Mercy to deliver us In Non-entity he loves Ignorant Creatures in Sin he loves ungrateful ones to the former he gives Being to the later he gives Grace and to both of them he makes it appear that his Love is Eternal and Fruitful Men Love nothing but what is lovely either really or in shew they discover in their friends those qualities they plant not there and whatever height of greatness fortune shall advance them to they can bestow upon them only riches or honour if their favorites have any blemish in soul or body they cannot mend it and unhappy in their affections they are constrained either to hate the man for his imperfection or to love the imperfection for the man But God whose love is equally powerful and pregnant makes that amiable which he pleaseth to set his love upon he himself forms his own object he puts that in his friends which he means to esteem and by a prodigy which surpasseth all wonder Meretricem invenit virginem fecit faedam amavit ne faeda remaneret Au. he
in love with his Countrey that doats upon his Banishment or should have any passion for Heaven when he is strongly wedded to the Earth If he be stricken with Divine Love he spends his whole life in sighs he never beholds the stars but he sheds tears and though there be nothing below that afflicts him 't is enough that he is in a strange Land to account himself miserable His Banishment is his Torment and without inventing other racks to exercise his patience 't is enough to make him complain that he is condemned to travel David enjoyed a profound tranquillity when he sent up his sighs towards Heaven Heu mihi quia incolat us meus prolongatus est His state was not divided by a Civil War the Grandees had not conspired against his person his children had not as yet driven him from his Palace and the people at his detion were not cheated with the false promises of an unlawful Soveraign In the mean time he forbore not to lament and the remoteness from his Countrey was the sole cause of his tears Si amatur patria magna poenae illium si autem non amatur patria pejor est cordis poena Aug. Therefore had S. Augustine reason to utter these gallant words that to a man that loves his Countrey Banishment is an insupportable pain but yet he is more wretched who cherishing his Banishment contemns or forgets his Countrey Finally Pilgrims see nothing during their journey more agreeable then their Countrey the affection they bear the place of their Nativity ever defends its cause in heir heart Though it be but a rock environed with precipices they have some secret charms which makes them wish well to it and in the midst of fertile fields they have a longing for the air they first drew their breath in Christians are in this particular better grounded then Pilgrims For they see nothing here below that can equall the beauty of their Countrey whatever is presented to their eyes is but the shadow of that happiness they wait for there Earth is therefore fruitful because it receives the influences of Heaven and all that ravisheth here below owes its worth to the heat and light of the Sun Nothing can damage their Countrey but its greatness their understanding is too weak to conceive its Excellency and if it be not sufficiently esteem'd 't is because it is not sufficiently known Nevertheless 't is enough to love it to be acquainted as Saint Augustine saith that it is a blessed City whereof the Angels are the Citizens the Eternal Father the Temple the Son the Brightness the Holy Ghost the Love that 't is a City where men are never born nor ever die where perfect Health banisheth all Sickness where satiety expels hunger and thirst where rest admits of no labour and where we have nothing else to doe but to live reign and rejoyce eternally with God The Hope of this Happiness sweetens our present discontents and there is not any Pilgrim or Exile upon Earth who takes not courage when he thinks that after his tedious wanderings he shall enjoy a felicity that nothing can interrupt nor ever shall have an end The Ninth DISCOURSE That the Christian is a Penitent IF Baptism did wash away self-love together with sin and the Grace we receive in this Sacrament cleared us of ignorance and weakness as well as of malice we might boast that being innocent Repentance were useless But seeing there is no Christian who after his Baptism feels not bad inclinations which carry him to sin there is none but have need of this vertue and who after the imitation of the greatest Saints ought not to joyn the Quality of a Penitent to that of a Sinner For though light offences rob him not of Grace he is obliged to be troubled at them because they are displeasing to God and as long as he feels rebellions in his soul or in his body he must have recourse to austerity to stifle them But if sin make him lose the life he received in Baptism Repentance must give him a Resurrection and coming to the relief of this first Sacrament recover Grace by Sorrow and Contrition Thence it comes to pass that the Fathers have called Repentance a laborious Baptism because the sinner is washed thereby in his tears and obtains that with much difficulty which was easily gain'd in Baptism He is obliged to mingle his bloud with that of Jesus Christ and to apply the merits thereof by painfull and dolorous works of satisfaction His whole life ought to be spent in lamentation Poenitentia est Gratia vel virtus qua commissa mala plangimus semper odimus iterū plangenda committere nolumus for assoon as he ceaseth to be a Penitent he becomes a Sinner For Repentance according to the opinion of Divines is a Grace or a Vertue whereby often bewailing our sins we always hate them and constantly resolve never to commit them again This definition contains four things which happily express the nature of Repentance and remarking what it hath common with other vertues discovers also what it hath proper and peculiar to it self It is called Grace because it is the gift of God and finding us in a crime cannot be an effect of our merits For in that wretched condition we are rather objects of Gods Hatred then of his Love and when he delivers 't is of his Mercy and not of his Justice It is also called a Vertue because it fals under the Law combats sin and obtains our pardon It seems to belong to Vindicative Justice because like it it pronounceth sentences and invents punishments to torture offendors In a word it hath no other employment but to prevent the indignation of Heaven and to oblige it to clemency by its own severity It enters into the interests of God chastiseth that in time which he would chastise for Eternity and endeavours to proportion the correction to the offence of the transgressor But though in some things it agree with Vindicative Justice in others it is far different For Justice is in the Judge it pronounceth sentence from his mouth Non impunitum erit peccatum meum sed ideo nolo ut tu me punius quia ego peccatum meum punias Aug. in Psal 50. and borrows the hand of the Officer to put it in execution Repentance on the contrary is in the offendor resides in his soul expresseth it self by his mouth acts by his hands and contrary to all Natural and Civil Laws obligeth the Criminal to condemn and punish himself Justice cannot make sufferings welcome to those that undergo them though just yet are they compulsive and did not the Judges use force in their administration all crimes would pass unpunished But Repentance by a wonderful dexterity makes afflictions agreeable mixeth some sweetness with their severity and causing the guilty person voluntarily to embrace such penalties finds an expedient to make them suffer without murmuring Finally Justice
the parts of his body He imitates those that are transported with anger and as they find no vengeance that can satisfie them nor any punishments that equal their injuries no more can he any sufferings that content him nor any chastisements that equall his offences From anger he passeth to hatred and fully to satisfie the Justice of God handles himself as a Criminal or as an Enemy he exerciseth acts of Hostility against his body and finding nothing more ignominious nor more cruell then the Cross condemns himself unto it and willingly embraceth it For Saint Augustin teacheth us that the true Penitent ought to be crucified while he lives that the Counsels and Precepts of Christ are the nails that must pierce his heart that every inclination is a foot or a hand that he is bound to fasten to the Cross of Jesus Christ and that it is a crime to take out the nails as long as we live upon the Earth The Great Saint Leo is of this mind and though he were of so mild a spirit he is so severe in this point that he cannot judge us worthy to be the Members of the Son of God if our flesh be not crucified with his He will not have us the same after Repentance that we were before but out of a severity which he believes founded upon the Sacrament of our Reconciliation he will have us put off the old man and put on the new and renouncing all pleasure make our body become the Image of Christ crucified When he is arrived to this degree of severity he hath no more to do but persevere that he may become worthy of the glorious name of Penitent For the sorrow is not true unless it be constant the Repentance is not sincere unless it be faithful and he is rather a Deceiver then a Penitent who having testified some desire of amendment of life commits with pleasure the offence he had bewailed with grief Many saith Saint Augustin protest that they are sinners and continue still to sin This acknowledgment is indeed a Consession but no Correction Irrisor est non Poenitens qut aduc agit quod poeniteat non minuit peccata sua sed multiplicat Aug. Ser. 1. de Poen they accuse themselves but they labour not after a cure and as another Father of the Church adds they appease not the Divine Justice by their prayers but provoke him by their insolence For a man therefore to be truly Penitent he must lament his sin in lamenting it he must punish it in punishing it he must hate it and that this severity may not be reproached as counterfeit it must last as long as our life and our forsaking sin with a perseverance in good must be the certain proof of the Truth of our Repentance The Tenth DISCOURSE That the most glorious Quality of a Christian is that of a Christian IT is hard to determine Non minus se debere Aristoteli quam Philippo dicebat Alexander Plut. Whether we have more obligations to our Tutors or to our Fathers for if the one fashions our Body the other fashions our Minde if the one give us Life the other gives us Reason and if we receive from the one our Riches from the other we receive our Vertues Therefore in all Antiquity Disciples bore the name of their Masters as well as of their Fathers nor were they less jealous of the Learning of those that had instructed them then of the glory of these that had begotten them This difference hath no place among Christians Because he that gives them Life gives them Grace and the same Jesus Christ that hath conceived them in his Wounds hath taught them in his School He is the Father and the Master of the Faithful and as these two Qualities oblige us to bear his Name they oblige us also to relinquish our own He is jealous of this honour and whatever part his Ministers take in his advantages he hath never been willing to let them share in this The Apostles never transferred their name to their disciples these faithful servants wrought all their gain for their Master knowing very well that all their power was derived from him they laboured onely for his glory and when they had brought forth children they named them by the name of Jesus Christ and not their own They imitated saith S. Augustine the Israelites who marrying the widow of their brother made their children bear the name of the dead Jesus Christ died upon the Cross his Ministers are his Brethren and to accomplish his designe they beget children for him by preaching but they owe him so much respect that they baptize them in his Name and call them Christians Inasmuch as this advantage is great it carries great obligations along with it and all the Faithful are bound to imitate the Son of God This honourable Title exacts this duty from them 'T is in vain saith S. Augustine Ex Sacramento Christi descendit hoc nomen quod ille frustra sortitur qui Christum minime imitatur Aug. to denominate themselves from Jesus Christ if they strive not to conform their life to his It is lawful for Infidels that know not the true God to seek for Patterns among men because they can finde none among the gods and they may regulate their actions according to the example of the Socrates's or Cato's But 't is a crime for a Christian to transcribe any other copie then that of Jesus Christ He that hath formed them ought to guide them and as his Death is their Glory his Life must be their Morality I can not endure that the greatest part of Believers should seek for vertue among Heathens and dazled with a false sparkling that decejves them quit the Humanity of the Son of God to imitate the Vanity of Pagans For besides that their vertue hath its imperfections that Self-love is the Principle Pride the Soul and Glory the End thereof she is accompanied with so many Vices that labouring to render them Vertuous she makes them Criminals Alexander was valiant but his Anger made him dye his hands in the blood of his Favourites Pompey was wise but ambitious Caesar was merciful but lascivious Cato was generous but he drank many times somewhat too liberally and not being able to finde consolation in Philosophy sought it in good company But neither are the Saints themselves to be our Models any further then they are conformable to Jesus Christ When S. Paul invites us to follow him 't is after he hath assured us that he imitated our Exemplar and endeavoured to exhibite himself a Copie of that divine Original Imitatores mei estote sicut ego Christi So that it is the Son of God always whom we look upon they are his actions that regulate ours and his Person that serves us for a Pattern For this reason he chose a life which may minister instruction to all men and carried himself so that Rich and Poor Learned and
Ignorant Bond and Free may securely imitate him Had he lived deliciously Talem se in omnibus rebus praebuit ut oivina clementia quò porrigi humana insirmitas quò possit evehi sentiremus Aug. de util Cred. he had disheartned the Miserable had he conquered Kingdoms and commanded Armies had he heaped up Riches or sought after Dignities the Poor and Fearful had never followed him and had he preferred Pleasure before Grief or Glory before Humility he had had none but the Ambitious or Voluptuous for his Disciples But having placed the felicity of the earth in the contempt of Pleasure and Honour there is none but may be of his School The Distressed comfort themselves in his sufferings they endure Persecution with complacency when they consider his Cross and finding their strength in his weakness they are not troubled when afflicted because they worship a God who was willing to live and die in sorrow The Great and the Rich also may imitate him for besides that they may forsake their goods and instate themselves in a voluntary poverty they ought not to esteem what Jesus Christ hath undervalued and if they are fully perswaded that he is the Eternal Wisdom it becomes them to believe that the condition he hath chosen is the surest and most holy Thence it came to pass that the Primitive Christians that had no other Morality then the Life of the Son of God distributed their goods to the Poor when they entered into the Church and were of opinion that it was to doubt of the Maximes of their Master not to follow his Examples Though Piety be now grown cold we have still light enough to know that the Christian is obliged to contemn Present things and to hope for Future He hath not embraced Religion to finde his acquiescence in this world He is no sooner admitted into the School of Christ but he learns that the earth is his Banishment and heaven his Country nor that he is to make any account of perishable goods further then they may conduce to the gaining of eternal he useth his Riches to purchase the glory of heaven endures persecutions as Trials embraceth poverty as an Advantage grief as an Exercise fasting as a Remedy and setting no estimate upon things but as they relate to his end accounts those most beneficial which take him off from the world and fix him upon Jesus Christ The true Christian saith S. Augustine never need trouble himself to grow rich if his ancestors have left him any possessions he ought to account them false that he may long after true ones and that the contempt he hath of Those may raise the opinion he hath of These For 't is a certain Maxime as the same Saint goes on that the man that loves Earthly goods hath but little minde towards those of Heaven and that he that is besotted with the delights of the present world never dreams of the pleasures of the world to come Finally the Christian is not Regenerated in the Church to seek for his happiness upon Earth he makes no reckoning of what the Wicked possess and he perceives that Riches and Honours are not the rewards of the Just Non ad hoc sumus Christiani ut terrenam nobis felicitatem quaetamus quaÌ„ plerumque habent latrones scelerati Aug. because God bestows them upon his enemies He suffers Infidels to raign to instruct his Disciples he abandons the fairest part of the world to them that persecute him to teach us that Heaven is our Patrimony and as he punisheth not all Crimes here belowe neither doth he recompense all Vertues to perswade us that there is another life where Misery and Happiness are real Therefore is it that all the Faithful finde not here matter of Joy and Rejoycing they use transitory things with so much discretion that they no way prejudice those Eternal ones they look for and believing themselves Pilgrims upon earth are afraid to meet with some Charm which making this Exile too agreeable may occasion them to lose the remembrance of their dear Countrey As the Christian ought to contemn Pleasures so is it his part to prize Sorrow and to remember that his two Births though never so different oblige him equally to suffer The First exposeth him to the persecution of the Creatures to the unfaithfulness of the Senses to the revolt of the Passions and because Criminal engageth him in Misery and Suffering Man is born of a woman Homo natus de muliere ideo cum reatu brevi vivens ideo cum metu multis repleretur miseriis ideo cum fleiu Bern. saith S. Bernard with Job therefore is his nativity mixed with shame and sin and whoever is the son of a woman is miserable and guilty he lives but a short time thefore spends his yeers in fear and trembles lest every day should be his last He is overwhelmed with miseries therefore he weeps continually and following the course of the Distressed endeavours to appease his Judge or mitigate his Pain with his tears His Second birth obligeth him to Sorrow Jesus Christ gave him life upon the Cross the Church conceived him in Persecution and his father and mother joyntly engage him in the Combat he is no Christian if he do not suffer he is unworthy of so fair a name if he be not afflicted nor does he yet believe if in the midst of his rest he resent no displeasures For as S. Augustine saith excellently well if he be truely faithful he must be zealous for the glory of Jesus Christ he cannot see his Person dishonoured or his Commandments violated but he is grieved at it Bad examples trouble him the Kingdom of Satan torments him the impiety of his Ministers vexeth him and when he hath none of these rude trials his being yet at a distance from heaven is enough to make him account himself miserable In the mean time he hath no other felicity but pain though he groan he knows that Delights are more tragical then Discontents he is glad of persecution and storming his spirit changeth his complaint into grateful acknowledgements because he is perswaded that Vertue is not preserved but by infirmities For his comfort he many times entertains himself with this Maxime he labours to establish himself in the belief of this Paradox and blesseth afflictions because if just they increase his Merit if guilty serve for his Correction And certainly we must câ—â—fess that in all these dispositions he imitates his Divine Pattern For as S. Augustine judiciously observes the Son of God despised riches to teach us that they are not solid goods and chose sorrow to let us see that they were not true evils He hath given us no counsel which he hath not practised beforehand all his admonitions were confirmed by his examples and knowing very well that actions perswade better then words he would have his life the pattern of ours If his Disciples imitate him not if they fear
us more happie They promise pleasures to the Wanton Inflant animos divitiae superbiam pariunt invidiam contrahunt luxui serviunt Sen. and conspire with him to corrupt Chastity they furnish Arms and Seconds to the Furious to take vengeance on their enemies they raise the Ambitious to offices and employments and complying with all Passions engage men in all kinde of impiety Therefore he judged aright who said that to give a sinful man Riches was to put a Sword into a mad mans hand or present poyson to a Desperado because not being under the command of Grace he will make use of them only to satisfie his ambition or to content his brutality So that the Philosophers preventing the Divines rightly discovered that Poverty was more Innocent then Plenty and that it was easier for men to preserve their liberty in the leanness of want then in the affluence of riches For besides that they wed us to the earth Multis parasse divitias non finis miseriaruÌ„ fuit sed mutatio Senec. Epist 17. they expose us to a thousand accidents which can neither be foreseen nor avoided and give fortune game at our person Therefore is it that Seneca said Those that will be happy must either be poor or like those that are so they must possesse their goods without being possessed by them and use them as Stewards rather then Proprietaries and they ought to be alwayes ready to part with them because they have them but in trust Religion out-bids Philosophy and requires farre other dispositions from her Children then this does from her Disciples For she will have them acknowledg that in Adam all is lost that they are fallen from their rights by his sin and being guilty are become miserable Perswaded of this Truth they live in the world as in a strange Country they possesse riches upon Loan and since their Goods were confifcated to their soveraign they enjoy them meerly from his mercy Though Jesus Christ re-instate them in their goods and being made Co-heirs with him may dispose of heaven and earth as their Inheritance yet are they obliged to regulate themselves by his Example and not to make use of their rights till after the generall Resurrection He carried himself thus during his life though Heire to his Father he disposed not of his estate a Cratch received him at his birth and a Cross served him for a Death-bed he lodged in a borrowed house and was buried in a strangers Sepulchre If he wrought some miracles for the Glory of his Father he did none for his own Interest when he created a piece of money in the mouth of a Fish it was to pay Tribute and when he commanded his Disciples to take the Asse which served to carry him in his triumph it was with the consent of the Owner Paupertate Christi non additur pecunia sed justitia Divitiae verae immortalitas ubi enim vera copia ibi nulla indigentiâ—â— Aug. He put not his absolute power in execution till after his Resurrection nor did he enjoy the priviledges due to his Birth till he was entred into Heaven The Christians tredding in his steps pretend nothing in this world but reserve the fruition of their right for the next They are content with the promises of Jesus Christ and living here upon hope expect the effects thereof in glory During this time they look upon Poverty as an innocent Usury which gives a value to what they give or part with here for the Son of God for they know saith S. Bernard That Jesus Christ who is a New Man is come down here below to teach us new things and that those that obey him finde rest in labour liberty in servitude and abundance in Poverty Their Goods are multiplyed in being distributed and as the husbandman casting his seed into the earth promiseth himself a hapgy harvest the Christian in communicating his goods to the Poor expects a great recompence at the generall Resurrection Till then he comforts himself with the advantages Poverty bestows upon him for he perceives that if riches have their good use they have also their bad They acknowledge the Custody of them troublesome the love of them contagious the losse of them sensible and if there be pain to get them there is more to keep them This made some Philosophers rid themselves of such attendants and gave comfort to others whom injustice or fortune had made bankrupt for as Seneca sayes excellently well We gain much in losing our riches if with them we lose our covetousness and we fail not continually to gain something even when we lose it not because the subject that entertained it being taken away there is some ground to hope either that it will dye for want of nourishment or at least do no hurt for want of power The Poverty of Christians is happier in this point then that of Philosophers for being inanimated with Grace they lose the desire of evil with the meanes of doing it nor are they innocent only out of impotency but out of deliberation They make their Poverty meritorious in making it voluntary if they choose it not they endevour to accept it and a misfortune or a chastisement they husband into a vertue The losse of their Goods causeth the assurance of their salvation and the rest of their souls they cease to fear assoon as they cease to love and they draw this advantage from their poverty that being no longer engaged to the Earth by their affection they are no more troubled with fear nor abused with hope But their greatest happiness is that they learn from Scripture that their condition is a holy Asylum and that heaven hath promised a particular protection to the Poor Evangelizare pauperibus misit me Luc. 4. They know that Christ came down from heaven to instruct them that his care of teaching them is a proof of his Missions that he hath pronounced them happy in his Sermons chose them for his Disciples hath designed them his favours made them the objects of his love and hath so particular an affection towards them that a man must be poor in deed or in desire to be taken notice of in his State Let us love Poverty then and despise riches seek Felicity in want and if Nature hath not brought us poor into the world let us become like those that are poor either by unbottoming our selves of our Goods or distributing them that raking part in the reproaches of Christ upon Earth We may be partakers of glory in heaven The sixth DISCOURSE That the Happinesse of a Christian upon Earth consists in Humility rather then in Glory THe Ambitious will hardly agree as concerning this Maxime and it will pass into their minde as an Errour rather then a Paradox Merces virtutis gloria honos alit artes omnesque incenduntur ad studia gloriâ For they believe that Honour is the nourishment of Vertue that she droops and languisheth when deprived of