received into the eternall Tabernacles as when you had more of the Mammon of iniquity to make a greater number of friends And thus while you are freed from all the temptations of riches you are possessed of their greatest advantages Old Tobyas saw this light in all his darknesse and poverty Toby 4.8 when hee counselled his sonne As thou shalt be able so be mercifull if thou have much give abundantly if thou have little study to impart also a little willingly for thou dost treasure up to thy selfe a good reward in the day of necessity And they who thinke seriously on that great day of necessity will thinke little of their momentany incommodities but in contemplation of providing their part in that day will easily offer with Saint Peter John 13. not only their feet but even their hands and their heads to the will of their master they will not onely disperse faithfully what they can spare conveniently but also deny their owne wants somewhat of their demands to supply greater necessities which call to them in the person of one much worthyer then themselves one from whom they have received themselves and from whom they expect himselfe for retribution O how blessed a thing is charity that hath no lesse then God for the subject it worketh upon in time and no lesse then the becoming like God for the salary in eternity CHAP. XI Of the dilection of enemies THis last tincture whereinto we have now infused the minde is very neere the colour of the more perfect dye of Charity ingrained in the love of enemies For this disposition exerciseth it selfe upon our friends in a respect wherein they have sometincture of enemies as thâ—irs when the acting of our charity requireth such a crossing and offending our selves as to strain our owne sufferings upon our selves Then our fellow sufferers who demand this selfe-distressing are in this regard adversaries to our nature that repugneth against incommodity whereby our friends in this case may be said to be proposed to our love with some colour of enemies upon them So that they who overcome their nature in this aversnesse to offend or incommodate themselves in preference of the ease of their fellowes are well advanced towards the loving of such direct enemies as doe violently impose sufferings and prejudices upon them For they are already half way being arrived at the loving them who are the occasion of some sufferings and inconveniences unto them and so the other moiety is the easilyer reached which is but the loving all that contribute to their injuries and offences And such who are thus rectified in the sense of the matter of sufferings are well prepared to advantage themselves by all the manners of them for having their senses exercised as the Apostle saith in the discernment of good and evill they will facilely accommodate themselves to the measure of evills whereby they are to be exercised being perswaded that the proportions of spirituall goods are raised to them by the same degrees that the difficulties of their performances are heightned against them so when they are to straine their charity up to the love of all enemies and maligners they doe not deliberate so much upon the pleadings and redargutions of their nature in this case but resolve upon the expresse precept of the author and Judge of nature who maketh this love of enemies a necessary concomitancy with all our good offices to friends to form that complete summe of Charity which we are to account to him wee owe our redemption paid in this species of Charity to enemies and if even when we were his enemies Christ reconciled us to God by his dying for us Rom. 5.10 we may well be reconciled to this kinde of love to which we owe our eternall life Considering then our obligation to this sort of love we may say our uncomplyance with the love of enemies falls under the same vice as our unworthinesse to friends for it must needs be an high ingratitude not to correspond with that quality whereunto we owe our redemption which is the love of enemies and it was not severity but even excessive charity to us that imposed this love upon us for it was ordained by Christ rather to assimilate us to himselfe then to sentence us to a penalty And to cleare this point to us he hath set this love under such a relation as may justly make it agreeable even to our nature our enemies being proposed to us as fellow-members of his body for it is under that notion he enjoyneth us the loving them not in the respect of their being enemies So that when our reason examineth this injunction we may finde that this excellent virtue hath not so much as an ill aspect to avert us from it For when we look upon Man as the image of God on the one side or as the copie of Christ on the other either of these sides of the medall are lovely objects in Christians who have this double signature of God upon them and so cannot be prospects of aversion on either of their sides for this colour of enemies is but as it were an over-lay of colly upon a statue which doth not alter the forme and this ill colouring is cast upon the figure of man by the hand of the enemy of his nature the which foule cover we are not required to love for as men offend and injure one another they are the devils engins in that respect not Gods images and therefore simply as enemies they are not presented to our love for so they are ills which God cannot recommend to us but the vitiating of our nature doth not efface the character of God in it and that is the object of our love in all men So what we are obliged to love hath the impression of good and amiable upon it if our passion doe not stay upon the superficiall deformity appearing in our enemies which exteriour supervesture is the devils artifice not the work of God therefore our minds looking upward to God pierce this veyle of private injuries and look through it either on the image of God or upon the figure of Jesus Christ in which they see the injuries they themselves have done him born with love and moreover they find this charity of suffering patiently the same provocations reflecting to them a new love from Christ And thus there remaines nothing unlovely in his view of enemies After all these considerations how deplorable is it that there are so many Christians of whom we may say in the point of this precept of loving enemies as the Apostle saith of the Jewes in respect of the Gospel unto this present day when this commandement is read 2 Cor. 3.14 a veile is put upon their hearts for a great part of Christians are as studious to find evasions out of the unpleasing sense of this precept as the Scribes and Doctors of the Law were unfaithfull in the explication of the commandement of loving our
neighbours as our selves and out of which this position of Christ is naturally deduceable And yet the depraved natures of the Scribes would extend the love designed by God to all his images no farther then the twelve Tribes nay within this circle they made a second circumscription of their loves within the tormes of mutuall friendship teaching that their loves were not obliged to goe further then to a correspondency to them that affected them and against others that provoke their passions they let them loose upon them in this prevaricating sense of Gods commandement Mat. 5.4 our Saviour we know found the people when he reproacheth them the being mis-led by this license apprehended of hating their enemies wherein he rectifieth them commanding them in expresse termes to love their enemies and to doe good to those that hate them Therefore Christians who have not this latitude of the term of Neighbour to shift senses in being positively restrained and coupled as it were in this bond of love with enemies by a formall command of their Law-giver Since the subject whereon they are to act this charity cannot be mistaken are very studious to mitigate to their vitious nature the displeasing part of this order by restraining this love in the proportions whereof they cannot dispute the adjudgment to the persons and therefore many are very inquisitive in the kind and the quantity of love assigned unto enemies so as now a dayes they who are as willing to justifie themselves as the Lawyer in the Gospell Luk. 10.30 and cannot aske the Church this question who are we to love since the case is so plainly ruled as the very Samaritans are not excluded now they put her this case how much are we to love our enemies and what exteriour testimonies are we obliged to render of our Charity The rule of forgiving enemies is so much exempted from dispute among Christians as they dare not claime of God any discharge of their sinnes but by the measures of their own compliances in this duty Our Lords Prayer hath set this condition upon all our petitions for mercy to aske our reconciliation to him only in the same degrees we are conformable to this order of our releasing the debts of our offenders You then who sue to God still in the Lords Prayer cannot be undisciplined in the precisenesse of this duty of forgiving enemies Those who make little use of this forme of prayer may have more excuse for their pretermitting this observance and so are likely to give you the more occasion to remember this duty wherein your faithfull discharge will provide you a better condition then any have that are so truly unhappy as to furnish you with the matter of this excellent practice wherein these times afford you the means of exercifing this fidelity in the suptemest degree which is in the forgiving of friends and kindred And in this case holy King David testifieth the difficulty and consequently meritoriousnesse of the act when he faith If myenemy had spoken ill of me I would verily have born it but when his guide and his familiar was the tempation he professeth that was the greatest stresse of weather his charity could be put to steere her course in and as this case was figurative in David so we know it was accomplished by Christ upon the provocation of the man typified in the Psalmes in these words Of him who had walked in the house of God with consent and how did Christ behave himselfe to this man He received him with a strange benignity treating him still with the termes of familiarity and love Mat. 26. Friend wherefore art thou come Amice ad quid venisti That even under that notion of a perfidious friend which is the most demeriting irritation of our nature he might exhibit to us a pattern of this perfection of forgiving injuries But alas too many are proner to follow David after the letter in this case then the Sonne of David after the Spirit and apter to take these words from Davids mouth Psal 4.16 Let death come upon them and let them get downe quick into hell then to draw their copie from Christs mouth of meeting with a kisse and receiving Judas with Friend Wherefore art thou come Whereupon it will not be alien from our subject to cleare David of those suspitions of animosity of which he may be indicted upon the letter of his expressions in this and divers other encounters with his enemies For in this case the blind and the lame doe often resort to this City of David to take sanctuary in his precedent for many intemperate asperities in these occasions Wherefore to vindicate David in these imputations we must understand all the literall imprecations we meet in his mouth in one of these three manners First that his maledictions in some places are by way of prediction of what shall happen to his enemies not in order of his prosecution against them Psal 9.18 as when he saith Let sinners be turned into hell here he denounceth as a Prophet that sinners shall have this judgement and doth not solicite this sentence against them upon his provocations In a second manner they may be conceived as wishes but so as the desire is not referred to the paine of the persons but to the justice of the punisher Psa 57.11 as when he saith The just shall rejoyce when he shall see revenge he shall wash his hands in the blood of a sinner this appetency of revenge is in order simply to the honour of Gods justice for God himselfe doth not delight in the destruction of the wicked but in the exercise of his justice Or in a third sense these wishes and optatives of evills may be assigned and directed to the removing and suppressing of the crimes only that the persons may be preserved and the faults abolished In one of these three senses all Davids vehement insectations of sinners are to be accepted and none of them afford any patronage of personall malevolence or animosity against enemies not under the pretence even of fighting under Gods Colours and wounding them in this quarrell For David being sincerely comprehended suggesteth to us no countenance of any private malignity Saint Augustine unto some who it seemeth sought to extenuate the foulnesse of those sinnes in themselves wherein they had truly Davids precedent answereth that they who are bold to sinne because David did doe that which David did not that is sin by precedent or seek to palliate his offence by example I may then well say that they doe much more perversly that wrest and bend David into a patronage of any rancour or virulency to his enemies for they must be guilty of traducing him as wel as of transgressing the precept when they upon misconstruction vouch his authority for this licence of maligning enemies I shall request then every one in all their desires or prayers respecting their enemies to follow this unquestionable precedent of David in
Non nobis Psa 113.9 Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy name give glory Domine non nobis sed nomini tuo â—a gloriam and so you may glorifie God as well in your suffering charitably under your enemies as in executing Gods judgement upon his enemies when that shall be ordainded you as the active part of your militancy for him Having given you this key to all the Psalmists imprecations which may be said to be the harder ciphers the plainer they seeme in the letter and alphabet of ordinary curses and maledictions I will cast back upon the two queres which may perplex many well affected sufferers which are What degrees of interior love we are obliged to afford our enemies Secondly what actuall evidences we are bound to exhibit of this charity To give a solution to the first question we may consider our love to enemies in three respects the first is as they are simply enemies and we are not called to love them in this regard for this were rather repugnant then consonant to charity to love any thing in that respect wherein it is an evill which the enmity it selfe of our enemies alwayes may be reputed The second notion under which we may contemplate them is in the nature of men images of God or members of Christ and in this consideration we are bound in pain of the breach of charity to love all our enemies and to serve them with all the offices that appertain to this acception of them that is not to exclude our enemies out of those benevolences spirituall or temporall we afford to the generall of our neighbours The third maner may be to consider enemies in this respect of being moved with a particular affection to them to such a degree as in reference to the love we owe God we attaine to surmount and overcome the aversion of our nature and to be touched with a sensible kindnesse even to our adversaries This excellent degree of charity is rather of perfection then of expresse obligation thus much is onely of necessity required that we prepare our minds in case our enemies necessity should demand such an expression of our love to render them this testimony of it But the actuall conferring of this kind of love upon an enemy for Gods sake without the point of this necessity belongeth to perfection not precisely to the precept of Charity What wee are then absolutely bound unto in the behalfe of our enemies is to remit entirely all their offences and violations of us never to pursue any reprisall or retaliation upon them in reference to our offences and to comprise them in all our generall charities distributed to our brethren either in spirituall succours or materiall supplyes so as not to exclude any never so ill affected to us not so much as by our wishes out of any common benefit which we dispense to our brethren either in alms or in any other accommodations whatsoever These are the bands we are engaged in to our enemies by precept which relateth to the interiour disposition of our minds to wards them and so resolveth the first demand The second concerning what exteriour ministeries we are obliged to afford our enemies is partly determined in this discussion of the first But for more elucidation we may proceed to deliver it to your further explicated The particular benefits and kindnesses then with which we pleasure friends as all sorts of solaces and gratifications which are the commerces of friendship are not due to enemies but in cases where their necessities and exigences require such correspondencies as when our enemy hungreth or thirsteth then the feeding and refreshing him is obligatory and this rule holdeth in all other distresses of our enemies consisting with the charity wee owe our selves But beyond these cases of necessity to straine the course of charity to pleasure and accommodate our enemies is passing into the upper region of perfection which indeed is truly evangelicall The other in respect of this may be termed but legall performances remaining in the infirm and barren element of absolute obligation for the bare defiring not to be overcome by evill savoureth somewhat of the apprehending Christ but as ansterus home Luke 19.12 An austere man and proposing to bring in as much onely as will just serve for a discharge but the industry to overcome evill with good Loved much relisheth much of the fervent Magdalens Multùm dilexit and the forgivenesse of many of our injuries to God is assigned thereunto 1 Pet. 4.8 Charity covereth the multitude of sinnes For in this exercise of it we may justly say Charitas operit multitudinem pecatorum Having shewed you the measure of the Sanctuary which you are obliged to compleat I doe not meane to countenance the giving no corollary or surplus but rather to solicite you all to presse downe the measure and give it running over into the bosomes of your enemies for in the same measure the charity of God poured forth into your hearts by the holy Ghost shall be meated to you This spirituall Manna of charity differeth much from the materiall in these properties that if we doe not fill our Gomer what we have gathered of it is so far from becomming our just proportion as all we have provided corrupteth and putrifieth and all we lay in above the precepted measure multiplyeth and bettereth all our provision For if we render any lesse then our precise obligation in this duty all we present is of no acceptation and what we offer above our debt augmenteth and sanctifieth all the rest Whereupon I must beseech you to remember that the love of enemies is not performed after the manner of gathering Manna in the Law but after that of managing the talent in the Gospel For it doth not hold in this charity 2 Cor. 8.15 that he who hath much aboundeth not and he that hath little wanteth not but this other rule is verified herein that to every one that hath shall be given and he shall abound and from him that hath not that also which he hath shall be taken from him since any deficiency in the precepted part of this charity which I have delivered you invalidates all the rest of our performances The least graine of malice to any one enemy voideth all our acquittances in this obligation and every graine of love given above measure proveth an increase of our stock 1 Cor. 13.7 Heb 6.9 We confidently trust of you my best beloved better things and neerer to salvation although we speak thus as it is seed of new grace which is the root of that excellent charity which suffereth all beleeveth all hopeth all and sustaineth all Whereupon in order to that charity I owe you I will put on S. Pauls confidence of his Countrymen and say Confidimus de vobis dilectissimi meliora viciniora saluti tametsi ita loquimur I will beleeve that you doe play the good husbands in that
remoter kindred of this blessed Testator who hath left the whole Catholike stock of the Country proportionate meanes to their callings of being edified by his Testament the which you must endeavour to dispense to them according to their severall qualifications and while you doe providently manage this portion of example he hath left you you may enrich your selves so as if Christ shall please to call you to the honour of drinking of this his owne cup you may also leave this rich talent of Martyrdome improved to your survivors and heires that every Martyr may seeme to adde somewhat to the stock of the Nations merit to counter-balance in the sight of God somewhat the provocation of the other part and that by the descent of this spirit of sacrifice amongst you there may be a successive provision made of such holy hoasts out of this family of God the which will alwayes propagate by this generating death to the end this spirituall progeny may be continued by the fruitfull seed of Martyrdome untill it shall please God to regenerate the whole Nation by that way which may seeme strange to many Nicodemuses by making her enter againe into her mothers wombe Wherefore I may lawfully charge all you that are his heires and executors with this Commission from him Take an example Jam. 5.10 brethren of labour and patience the Prophets which spake in the name of the Lord Behold we account them blessed that have suffered And for that part of you which remaines in the outward court of the Tabernacle and so are not appointed to the Altar of Holocausts you are called to take an instruction from this sacrifice which may silence all your complaints to wit that your clothes as it were are but used as this your brothers person was for it is your goods onely that are quartered and drawne from you so that if you should seeme too sensible of that separation it might be reproached to you that your worldly substances were more inviscerate in your hearts then the hearts of those your brothers were in their bodies whereof they so cheerfully accept the sequestration I beseech you then by the bowels of Jesus Christ to act your parts as graciously and to bring in your offerings with as much alacrity every one according to the severall divisions of graces 1 Cor. 12. and the same spirit that each of you may be as S. Peter saith a good dispenser of the manifold grace of God And thus while you offer your different oblations with the same fidelity the service of the temple may be consummate between you when one part of the body furnisheth the blood and the other the fat of the sacrifice Psal 65. My mouth hath spoken in my tribulation holo causts with marrow wil I ofter to thee By this consort of zeale in all parts the Church among you may sing with the Psalmist I ocutum est cor meum in tribulatione mea holocausta medullata offeram tibi And this is the most promising course can be pursued to plead for a mitigation of Gods chastisements on his little flock and to mediate the reduction of the straying part of the Nation into the fold Wherefore the Apostles advice to his Countrymen is very apposite in this occasion of yours Meb 13.7 Remember your Prelates who have spoken the word of God to you the end of whose conversation beholding imitate their faith I will not follow this invitation which seems to call me to say over the office of the Martyrs in honour of this supremest vocation of Christianity since I may presume that all those among you who stand candidat for this dignity of whitening their robes in the bloud of the Lambe are better qualified then my selfe for this election Wherefore I will rest in this payment of my humble reverence to this particular Saint who hath so lately overcome with the same armes of the Lambe of God slaine from the beginning so is now according to his promise Apoc. 3.21 sitting with him on his throne invested with power over nations humbly beseeching him to intercede unto his Head Christ Jesus for those hands unhappy unto themselves that have been so beneficiall to him and to solicite him for his brothers remaining in the foulenesse of this earth that those who are not called to the honour of washing their robes as he may at least be furnished with the grace of watching and keeping their garments Apoc. 16.15 that they walk not naked and shew their turpitude but may be found in all their temporall despoilments and devestures clothed with that silke which is the justification of the Saints and so may be dressed in their wedding Garment for the marriage supper of the Lambe Apoc. 19.8 And this which is my supplication to Christ by the intercession of this Saint desires all that be witnesses of it to be partners in the same petition to the Lambe of God and to him who sitteth upon the throne After this little usuall Parenthesis which stands like an Island in a stream that rather beautifies the river in breaking a while the course of it I wil carry you on in the same current of Motives to joy we were upon which I designed to branch out into severall channels that might run through and refresh the different estates of the sufferers among you unto all which the Apostle offereth this generall congratulation Phil. 1.28 To you it is given for CHRIST not only that you beleeve in him but also that you suffer for him These are words that do highly extoll the grace of sufferance for Saint Paul paralleleth it here with the grace of beleeving nay it seemes an exaggeration of that of suffering to a degree above the other his saying that to them was given not only to beleeve but to suffer as some superaddition of an extraordidinary gratification from God And surely if we reflect considerately upon the grace of suffering virtuously for Christ we shall finde that it is the accomplishment of our faith and the last term of Christian perfection in this life for it is not only a demonstration of our faith and hope but an unquestionable evidence of our love For what the Apostle Saint James saith of beleeving and working James 21.18 supposing the occasion holdeth adequately between loving and suffering for to any who shall confide in their untryed love I may say with the Apostle You have love and I patience shew me your love without patience and I will shew you my love by my patience you love God while you are benefited doe not the heathens doe the same This application doth quadrate me thinkes to this case for indeed it is not possible to shew our love when we are called to suffer without manifesting it by a religious patience and by that we doe cleerly evidence our love Therefore it is excellently said by a holy man That a Christian who knoweth not how to suffer knoweth as little how
to love for as love is the soule of Christianity so suffering is the soule of love God himselfe who could not be prescribed this way of expressing his love chose it from eternity So as to doubt of this Verity is to shake the whole frame of Christianity Wherefore we must not desire to try our loves by those affections we may feele to act for Christ when we are in the state of induring for him for it may often rise from naturall propensions 1 Pet. 4.13 Communicating with the passions of Christ rejoyce that in the revolation also of his glory you may be glad rejoycing this promptitude to action but the acquiescence to privation and suffering is most assuredly the operation of Grace Therefore you ought now to judge of the proportion of your loves by that measure of conformity you finde in them to this advise of the Prince of the Apostles Communicantes passionthus Christi gaudete ut in revelatione gloria ejus gaudeatis exultantes For every different state of sufferers among you shall be râ—ted by their recompenses not by their proportions of paines they have endured but by the measure of joy they have felt in suffering for Christ for it is the manner of their acceptance not the matter of their impositions whereupon they are to be adjudged their reparation In so much as in your cases I may invert Christs words to distinguish his true Disciples amongst you from the worlds adherents saying Iohn 16. The first shall rejoyce and the other weep and lament and this gladnesse shall be turned into more joy and that sorrow into more discomfort for they deserve not heaven that 〈◊〉 are so farre from giving all they have for it as to lament the being assisted in the purchase by Gods owne hand in taking from them as much as he asketh and demanding only their good will to the bargaine Whereupon in this exhortation I may use the words of the Apostle in the same manner I have done those of our Saviour 2 Cor. 2.2 Who is it can make me glad but he that is made glad by me The first estate I will present in particular this parabien of their sufferance shall be that which we have neerest in our eye of the refugiats of our nation which have taken sanctuary in Catholike Countries whereof there are even from the Cedars of Lihanus to the rushes of the fields and I conceive the Queene her selfe may be presented under this notion for I would to God Catholike Religion were as much naturalized in England as I have heard she is to the Nation and it were me thinks unjust not to assigne her a due proportion of joy who hath so large a portion of the nationall suffering in this particular respect of Catholike Therefore I doe humbly present her with the parabien of all her crosses and vexations relating to her Religion for even the defeature of her hopes in this life may arme her the better for that victory she cannot faile of by but vertuously accepting all her defeatures For though it hath not pleased God she should have the Emperour Constantines successe yet she hath the same signe to promise her a more glorious Empire for looking up by faith she shall see in all her clouds the Crosse with this inscription In this signe thou shalt overcome It is at the feet of the Crosse then I lay that joy I offer to her present condition presuming she looketh often there and so will not faile to find it I could easily shew her many Queens in this procession of the Cruciad charged with heavier crosses then hers but I doe not desire to ease her by the consideration of what she doth not suffer but by the right apprehension of what she doth for that is the most noble and most christian manner of solacing her not to lighten her burthen in her imagination but to strengthen her will for the bearing and toleration of it that she may think her crosse commodious in respect of the hand that layeth it on not of the company that hath carryed it with her and so aspire to be a greater Saint then she is a sufferer And the way to attaine to this soveraigne prerogative is to expresse a religious and Christian joy in this her state of communicating with the passions of Christ whereby she may supply this defect of her present condition the inability to relieve her Catholike Subjects the way she hath formerly by communicating to them now joy in their tribulations by the vertue of so operative an example and thus while she remaineth suspended from the propagating of Catholike Religion among her Subjects by way of amplification or extent she may still advance it in degrees of intention and eminence And I may truly without endangering the blotting these lines with flattery that are drawn towards her give her joy also of the great improvement of her piety in the opinion of all competent judges in this time of her tryall and probation in so much as I cannot doubt but her soule acknowledgeth to God with King David Psal 118.17 It is good for me that thou hast humbled me that I may learn thy justifications So I beseech God to advance her to that degree in the understanding of the Crosse as her heart may avow with that holy King Psal 86.7 The habitation in thee is as it were of all rejoycing There is another here in these our asyles whose eminent quality may justifie a particular salutation and welcoming into the society of the Crosse and this may seeme the more due to her in regard of her names being so notorious for temporall felicity not onely in our Nation The Lady Dutchesse of Buckingham but the rest of Christendome and now we look upon her as a wreck of Fortune cast upon these coasts whose secular ruines may serve to disabuse the commercers in the unfaithfull sea of this age and whose spirituall composure and virtue may be usefull towards the inlightning of lower ranks in the benefits of adversity wherein she seemeth so illuminated as she is retreated further out of the world then misfortune could chase her and hath taken sanctuary as it were within the inward veile of the Tabernacle and so doth not onely piously beare her owne Crasse but zealously take upon her another voluntary crucifixion seeming not to seek case but rather activity in the way of the Crosse by her adventuring so vigorously to repaire to a more sanctified manner of suffering wherein she is now ingaged and doth act in this course as vigilantly as if she had neither quality nor persecution to recommend her So as from her virtue there may be these two publike utilityes expected the silencing of many complaints that have farre lesser sufferings to claime pitty upon and the exhibiting this reccipt to others of curing the injuries of the world by the contempt of it For truly nothing takes out so well the fire of tribulation as