heart by our mouth and by our hand by being beloved with the first blessed by the second and benefited by the last And in all these acts of charity Christ Jesus hath exhibited his life and his death as a mirrour of reflection to cast back these rayes of love upon our hearts as the Prince of the Apostles expresly intimateth to us urging our vocation to these duties in this respect 1 Pet. 2.21 because Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you may follow his steps who when he was reviled did not revile when he suffered he threatned not So as those who think this a hard saying and goe back upon it are if they consider it aright guided by their enemies as much as they are led aside from the steps of Christ and are made in effect followers of their maligners rather then of their maker For when they are drawn by the example of those that leave Christ to follow their passions they seeme to credit even those whom they hate more then Christ whom they pretend to love These incongruities are found in the passion of hatred the deferring more to the example of those we professe to disaffect then even to the pattern of him we pretend to adore Those then who will not follow Christ in these paces of his love to enemies must know they follow the enemie of their nature and their owne accuser and he that insisteth upon the foot-steps of Christ avoideth such a leader as he ought to take this course if it were for nothing but to fly from such a guide and taketh such a guide as he ought to follow though he had no ill to avoid How much the more then is he obliged to this course when both these are coupled to follow the best and to fly the worst to incline to God and to decline Sathan So as by a just hatred to this unalterable enemy we may well reconcile our selves to all convertible adversaries For this reason Christ Jesus loved us not for any good that invited his Charity but for the goodnesse whereof our nature was susceptible which capacity in us was sufficient for Gods innate goodnesse to diffuse it selfe into the loving us and for this reason God seemeth to have enjoyned all those that we injure and offend to love us that our nature might not be withdrawn from evill by this most powerfull attractive of undeserved love which gives a most naturall cause of re-affecting even to the worst natures the being first beloved so undeservedly in proofe whereof it was said of S. Athanasius the great touch-stone of this sort of love that he was Percutientibus adamas dissidentibus magnes by being an adamant to his offenders he became a load-stone to his dissenters and thus remaining unmoved with injuries he removed heresies copying well his Master who cured greater wounds by bearing of lesser to which imitation you may addict all your charities to your enemies But abstracting from this effect who can account this precept rigorous when every modest soule may conclude there is more remitted to him then exacted of him by this generall injunction to all men to forgive and love one another since it were arrogance to beleeve himselfe lesse peccable then others and so likelyer to be sinned against then himselfe to sin against his brother Humility then will easily shew us we have rather a good bargain then an unequall burthen in this command of Love your enemies Mat. 7.44 doe good to them that hate you pray for them that persecute you that you may be children of your Fathern who is in heaven since you have this mark upon you of your legitimation the being under the correction of your Father I beseech you to endeavour the producing this other compleating note thereof the dilection of your brothers There is a memorable precedent of this sort of charity in S. Gregory Nazianzen being Bishop of Constantinople who allayed the heat of his Catholike flock in a high provocation and in a faire conveniency for revenge upon their enemies the Arrians who in the time of Valence an Arrian Emperour had bitterly prosecuted the Catholikes and upon his death and the succession of Theodosius a Catholike Prince the people designed to put the law of retaliation in force against their enemies to which intention their holy Bishop opposeth himselfe in these termes It is not this my deare flock that CHRIST requireth nor what the Gospel teacheth us let this be our revenge to solicit their salvations who very probably have furthered ours by their injuries therefore let us knowingly confer benefits on them who unawares by their malevolence have contributed to our benedictions But if your minds doe so estuate with anger as they cannot be turned to this benevolence doe at least the next best to this refer your revenge to Christ reserve it for the future Tribunall since the Lord saith Revenge is his and he will retribute And this exhortation did so prevaile upon the people as they resigned their animosities and did acquiesce unto his temper and I may expect your acceptance of this proposition for I hope you are as good Catholikes as they and I am sure you want halfe of their temptation which is a present commodity for revenge that is not the weakest part for the provocation Wherefore it may be easier for you to retaine the quality of Lambs when you have no capacity of playing the Lions And to dispose you towards the complyance with this condition of Lambes in your minds you may recogitate with what nature our Saviour chose to qualifie his Disciples who were to work upon perverse adversaries he sent them as he saith Mat. 10.16 as sheep among wolves Upon which words S. Chrysostome saith elegantly Let them be ashamed who like wolves prosecute their adversaries when they may behold troops of wolves overcome by a few sheepe And truly so long as we are sheep we easily get the better of our enemies but when we passe into the nature of wolves then we are overthrowne by them for then we have no longer the protection and succour of our Pastour who doth not feed and patronize wolves but sheepe I pray remember then that while you suffer like your Pastor you overcome by his victory and when your angers and hatreds will assault your enemies you quit Christ who is much stronger then your adverse party and undertake of your selves who are much the weaker side and thus you wave the priviledges of Catholikes to defend your selves by the infirmities of men If you will then secure to your selves an admirable reparation of all the violences and injuries of your enemies you must remit them all from your hearts and offer up to God not onely your continuall prayer but even all the merit of your religious sufferings to mediate their conversion and if you prevaile for any you draw out of the good you doe them incomparably more advantage then from any wish that could succeed
against them for if you bring an enemy to heaven he giveth you eternall satisfaction for all his joy shall be set upon your crowne as an enrichment of it and that improvement of your glory shall also be an addition to his joy These then are designes fit for the members of Christ Jesus and the temples of the holy Ghost to raise our enemies up to our owne joyes and to exalt our joyes by this elevation of our enemies This was the method of Christ Jesus our head Phil. 2.9 by humbling himselfe and preferring his enemies he heightned himselfe 1 Joh. 3. as the Apostle telleth us For the which thing God hath also exalted him and hath given him a name which is above all names And all these actions were designed by Jesus for the converting enemies into friends and they who pretend to be made like him when they see him must procure to looke like him now upon their enemies that having sanctified themselves as he is holy and being translated from death to life by this love of our brother 1 Thes 4.17 we may be thought worthy to sit together with him in heavenly places when his enemies are his foot-stoole when the destruction of enemies affordeth a joy perfecting our charity and untill then we must endeavour to accomplish our charity by procuring to our utmost power the lessening of the number of these enemies that remaining in charity in this life we may be admitted into that region of love where life everlasting is in eternall charity and where we shall never see an enemy enter nor a friend depart Wherefore I will hope in God that you endeavour by your charity to bring your present enemies into that eternall tabernacle and by this course though you should faile of drawing your brothers they cannot of carrying you unto more elevated mansions in your Fathers house CHAP. XII Motives of joy to all sorts of Religious Sufferers HAving giving you this Evangelicall safe convoy through your enâ—mies quarters Rom. 12.20 by shewing you how the danger of this passage consisteth in your acting not enduring hostility since Saint Pauls precept agreeth with Elishahs practice in this point of not striking but setting bread and water before enemies blinded with their passions now at the end of this narrow way I shall endeavour to shew you how the issue thereof openeth into the spacious place the Psalmist saith his feet were put into which is spirituall joy tranquility and enlargment of heart For upon faithfull compliances with these duties I have discoursed I may present respectively to each of your conditions this Evangelicall congratulation of Gaudete exultate Mat. 5.12 Be glad and rejoyce for your reward is great in heaven quia merces vestra copiosa est in coelis To those that contested the procession of Christs Doctrine from God he proposeth this cleare decision of the question the observing first the will of God whereby they should discern the verity of his asseveration If any Iohn 7.17 saith he will doe the will of him he shall understand of the Doctrine whether it be of God And I may in like manner boldly put this doctrine of the blessednesse of affliction upon the same triall affirming that whosoever shall doe the will of God Iam. 1.11 shall evidently perceive this to be a principle of Divine verity Blessed is the man that suffereth tentation Wherefore upon supposition of your conformities to the rules of Catholike doctrine which have been delivered you in the manner of your sufferings it is that I adjudge unto you this assignation of Christ Mat. 5.10 Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice for theirs is the kingdome of heaven of Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam quia ipsorum est regnum coelorum So that you may convert all the Ordinances that dipossesse you of your transitory tenures in your country into evidences to entitle you to this Kingdome and make your enemies your best Stewards of your estates and consequently you may be accounted the only blessed party in this conjuncture What an advantage is it for those who are in this pious paine of the Psalmist of What shall I return to our Lord for all he hath bestowed to have God vouchsafe as I may say to serve himselfe and take from them that which is made more worthy of him by his taking then it could have beene by their giving For even in the sacrifice to God of all their estates they might peradventure have been mistaken in the application of it to the most acceptable designe of God upon theÌ„ but they who part cheerefully with what God taketh from them are sure it is disposed in the way of his choice and this is to give to God according to his owne election which is much securer then our owne designation I am not ignorant of the preference given to active Charity in this point in strict comparisons yet this seemeth an advantage which privation for Gods sake hath above action that we are certain of our vocation to that sort of service which God declareth to us by his imposition of it and we cannot be so secure in any project of our own for his glory that the time the manner and other circumstances are rightly consorted to Gods present purpose whereas in suffering religiously what is actually inflicted by God there can be no mis-judgement in these circumstances This is then an advantage every one may be assured to make in accepting piously their losses and deprivements to conclude their goods are more infallibly imployed according to Gods present will then their own hands could have addressed them to Gods purposes and so their devotions may be solaced in this desire of retributing somewhat to God even after their hands cease to be ministeriall in that office For they give him by this faithfull resignation all he resumeth and present him with their acceptance of the manner of his pleasure which is more valuable then the matter of any oblations Blessed are they to whom it is given to know these misteries of the kingdom of God for Afflictions seem not onely Parables but even Paradoxes to such as have not the key of the Crosse of Christ wherewith to open them 1 Cor. 1.18 for the Word of the Crosse to them that perish will be foolishnesse but to them that are saved that is to us it is the power of God and to finde the power of God in all your crosses I must desire every form of sufferers among you to examine it by this Principle That Crosses are not to be judged of according to the Praedicament of Quantitie but of relation that is you must not amuse your selves with thinking how much your are afflicted but apply your minds to finde how much you make of your afflictions The first is to stay with the Murmurers in the Gospell pondering the heat and burthen of the day the other is to weigh with S. Paul
to accept the injuries of his maligners without converting all the dutifull offices of his adherents into seed of affliction This was the uneven and painfull way wherein Christ chose to passe through this life who is the way the truth and the life of Christians and since one drop of his blood had been a price sufficient for our redemption shall not the effusion of it all and the immensity of his griefs and labours be sufficient for our example It being especially notified unto us by the Apostle 1 Pet. 2.23 That he suffered for us to leave us an example that we might follow his steps wherein this print of sorrow seemeth unto me one of the most admirable markes of it that he suffered not so much by his passion as by his compassion He felt the torments of the Martyrs the miseries of the Confessors and the distresses and desolations of his Church which he foresaw in all ages more then the persons themselves who are under them can doe Vere labores dolores nostros ipse tulit He truly bore all our labors and our griefs All the anxieties and contristations that now oppresse you were in a sharper degree pressing upon his heart and since he was content to aggravate all his sufferings by taking on him the sense of your grievances may not you very easily alleviate all your heavinesses by taking into your mind the resentment of sufferings which were designed for your succor in your tentations by the reflection upon his precedent so that his example is not a simple injunction on you to suffer but a conferment of an ability to sustaine it and a meanes to improve and ameliorate your state in your coinheritance with him For the Apostle enforceth this Doctrine with this energy of 2 Tim. 2.12 A faithfull saying for if wee bee dead with him wee shall live also together if we sustain we shall also reign together Fidelis sermo si commortui sumus convivemus si sustinebimus conregnabimus This deserves well our contemplation that the fulnesse of the Divinity did inhabit in Christ and the cleere vision of God did alwayes illuminate him notwithstanding this it was so miraculously disposed by God that the affluence of joy springing from the Deity should not overflow his body and possesse the inferiour portions of his soule that there might be left room for paine and anguish the which was manifest in his Passion insomuch as stupendious miracles were requisite for an admittance of so much sorrow into his most sacred minde if God were pleased thus to multiply miracles that affliction might have accesse to his beloved Sonne in whom he was so well pleased shall we with whom he hath so much cause to be displeased wonder at any calamity or tribulation whereby he is pleased to correct us especially when it is a marke of our filiation and fraternity with Christ We who cannot be exempt from sufferings without a miracle as we are sons of Adam shall we be astonished at any imposition under this notion of Brothers nay even members of Christ In which respect S. Bernard saith excellently That delicate and tender members are not decent and becomming a head stuck full of thorns Therefore the pressures and pungencies of this life make the symmetry and proportion of the body of Christianity to the Head Christ Jesus who since he did not so much as speak one idle word all his praises and beatifications of the poore and the afflicted must needs verifie the good of adversity Mat. 5. And surely Christ did much lesse doe any idle deed and if the exemplary life of his labours and onerations had not been directed to our conformity therein there might seeme some supervacuousnesse and redundancy in his continuall hardnesse and asperity of life Would God have afflicted his onely Sonne so Rom. 8. if it were indifferent to doe or not to doe as he did or that it did not concerne those whom he had fore-known and predestinated to be conformable to the image of his Sonne in this point that he might be the first-born of many Brethren Our fraternity therefore is derived to us by this similitude Our sinnes might have been effaced not onely by a drop of Christs blood but even by a drop of his sweat wherefore this seemeth one of the chief reasons that did induce the atrocity of his passion and the austerity of his life the necessity of such a pattern for our imitation since our nature was grown so degenerous and effeminate as no lesse then Gods participation of all the sorts of grievances and injuries thereof would serve to forme in us a cheerfull disposition to the sufferings and infelicities of this life God therefore did not intend to vex us when he placed our salvation in difficulties and in our natures aversions for to sweeten the bitternesse of this strong necessity which was to work upon our nature to purge us from the love of this world he was so gracious as to infuse the company of Christ into this receipt that the tast of his society might make more pleasant to us the ill savour and acerbity of the remedy Well therefore may we say A greater then Elisha is here who hath mended these waters by but tasting of them and hath left neither death nor barrennesse in them for they are become rather waters springing up to life everlasting And we may observe that in conformity to Gods method with his Sonne Christ continued the same style to his Mother for she whom all generations were to call Blessed was not allowed any of what this world calls Blessings for She who had borne the Redeemer of the whole world was not able to go to the highest rate of the Temple for his Redemption her poor estate did not reach to pay so much as a Lambe for the Sonne of God and the Lambe who was to take away the sinnes of the world had not so much as a Lambe for his ransome The lowest price that was set for any of the Children of Israel was the rate her low condition was taxed at None was set at lesse then a paire of pigeons or a paire of turtles and the Mother of God was in this inferiour forme of the daughters of men This may serve to sweeten the bitterest waters of poverty When we ponder this that Christ would not allow his Mother to taste of any other spring and though he would not let her taste of the sowrenes of the forbidden fruit yet he fed her more then any other with these bitter leaves which grew out of the same root that is though he was pleased to exempt her from sinne yet he would not dispense with her in sufferings which we know are but the productions of sinne and so she whom we may suppose to have been excepted out of the rule of sinners was exalted above any in the state of sufferers And this seems to be very consonant that as she was Mother to the
humbled me Luke 16. I am tormented in this flame shadow over to us everlasting miseries Whereupon many come to confesse with the Psalmist Bonum mihi quia humiliasti me and too many to complaine with the rioter in the Gospel Crucior in hac flammâ for having wanted the gentler fire of this life Thou didst receive good things in thy life time Iob. 21. They lean their dates in mirth and in a moment they goe down to hell and having had too much of Recepisti bona in vitâ tuâ For alas how many doth this sentence of the holy Spirit surprize Ducunt in bonis dies suos in puncto ad inferna descendunt Although prosperity in this life be not formally an evill yet as there are many aliments which are in themselves sound and harmlesse yet unhealthfull respectively to severall constitutions so the felicities of this life find very few such constitutions as can digest them and convert them into the increase of the body unto the edifying it selfe in charity This is the advance and growth which is expected from the members of Christ Ephes 4.6 the augmenting in charity whereof we may too truely say at least Iob 2 8. It is lately found in the land of them that live pleasantly Rarò invenitur in terrâ suaviter viventium Wherefore holy Saint Bernard upon the rich mans being cast into flames and the reason being given him that he had received good things in this life infers from thence That the blessing of suffering must be greater in this world then that of fruitions and argueth it thus That the Divine judgement did not cast Man out of the garden of pleasure to allow him by humane invention to contrive another Paradise for himselfe out of the earth but left him with a sentence of being borne to labour and so if he decline travaile and pains as he avoideth what he was borne to in this world so he shall be excluded from what he was designed to in the next In which consideration S. Gregory saith A man who passeth carelesly on crowned with roses through this life is like a Prisoner carryed through pleasant fields and delightfull gardens who being amused with the agreeable objects in his passage forgets what he is and whither he is going So dangerous a conveyance is worldly felicity as the Devill dares trust that even alone without any provocation but even plenty it selfe to bring us to him For the adherence to the commodities of the earth quickly raiseth such a damp and indevotion in our spi its as there needs no crying sins to mend our pace This very stilnesse stupefaction and spirituasi Lethargie which we sleepe our selves into in the love of this world is one of the safest wayes the Devill can wish us into Wee may therefore fitly say of the state of many mens prosperities that which S. Basil said elegantly upon the cleernesse of the skye in a great drouth producing a famine that It was a sad serenity in which the very fairenesse and purity was a punishment So the smoothe and undisturbed felicity of many fortunes proveth an unhappy calme occasioning a great sterility in all spirituall productions Our love to Christ thrives best in such a mould as his to us was planted in which we know was an abundance of all sorts of passions and such a soile is so much more proper for our faith and charity to prosper in as the same temptations which master us in felicity are defeated by us in adversity as S. Gregory noteth in Jobs tryall saying that Man who was overthrowne in Paradise overcame upon a dunghill there the Serpent overcame him by a woman here he vanquisheth both the Serpent and the woman So as we may say That sufferings seeme to render even our decayed nature stronger then felicity could preserve our intire For Adam was ruined by the same attaques which Job repulsed Scarce any thing can endeare the vertue of affliction or raise the obnoxiousnesse of prosperity above this instance And surely although there were not so much facilitation towards our being perverted in temporall happinesse yet me-thinks this defect which is so notorious in it should discredit the affectation thereof for it is evident that we cannot have so good a tryall of our loves to God whilst we are under his sensible caresses as under his severe corrections We see Satan had so much colour for that argument that in prosperity there can be no tryall whether a man love God or no as he presseth it even to God himselfe in Jobs case asking Doth Job feare God for nought alleadging that Gods benefits did not admit of a totall probaâ—tion of that servant whom God himselfe commendeth Therefore he putteth God to the tryall and examination of his love when it hath nothing but pure duty and no temporall interest to feed it and it seemeth God allowed this as a good argument when he changed his condition into that which was the properest for the examination of his love and might prove an irrefragable evincement of his sanctity For a patient acquiescence and a faithfull praising God in affliction doth not only silence even Sathan himselfe in his office of accuser but setteth us so much out of his command as to render us his impeachers and accusers before the throne of God For there cannot be a higher charge against his contumacie in his beatitude then mans returning praises to God in his miseries You may see then that Affliction doth not onely furnish us with armes defensive against our enemie but also ministreth offensive armes in Gods cause against his Rebell for nothing woundeth Lucifer deeper with this point of his ingratitude then a Lazarus playing the Angel finging Gods praises in all his sores and provocations And it seemes very equitable that they who are to possesse the estates of the delinquent Angels should serve God thus here on earth against them whose confiscations are assigned to them And in order to this we may observe how God hath alwayes imployed his dearest followers in this service to shame and confound the Devils first impatient pride by their equanimity and calmnes of Spirit in all their pressures and desolations making the praises of the scourger as S. Augustine saith the plaister of their wounds For which cause holy Iudith when she undertaketh to comfort her brethren in a desperate extremity suggesteth to the Priests to represent to the people that their fathers had alwayes been tempted to try whether they did sincerely love God and biddeth them remember how Abraham was â—â—proved by many temptations and so made the friend of God and Isaac Jacob and Moses passed the same way of probation And concludeth with this inforcement of the vertue of afflictions Judith 8.2 All that have pleased God through many tribulations have passed faithfull Omnes qui placuerunt Deo per multas tribulationes transiverunt fideles We may remark also that among all the Patriarks and Prophets who had
pillar and strength of truth That as the Prince of the Apostles adviseth his Disciples in your conditions 1 Pet. 8.9 you may be all of one mind lovers of fraternity modest humble not rendring evill for evill nor curse for curse but contrariwise blessing that in that which they speak ill of you they may be confounded which calumniate your good conversation in CHRIST This practical part of your Religion is that which falls within every one of your capacities this is the good fight you are to fight wherein you are not disarmed by being manacled For me thinks I may say as Seneca did of Seaevola That he was happyer in suffering then he could have been in acting as it is a more admirable thing to overcome an enemy by suffering the losse of our hand then by that of striking with it So this your suffering estate may prove more successefull to you then that desperate design of some few acting many years agoe which no good English Catholikes doe justifie for by your patience and equanimity charity for your Countrey in all your losses and sufferances you may perhaps overcome that is sweeten and mitigate the fiercenesse of your enemies by the most admirable and most Christian way that can be projected And thus proving your selves innocent of those combustions wherewith you are charged you may become holy incendiaries of true zeale and charity in your Country by these virtues shining and flaming in your sufferances In the close of this proposition to you I must recall to your memorie that as by these evidences of your solid virtue you may adorne the doctrine of our Saviour God in all things so there is no accesse unto these holy dispositions but through the entry whereunto I have directed you of humble and sincere sorrow and contrition for your sins whereof I shall not now need to inlarge any advises since it is a subject well handled by every body though the precepts are seldome well observed even with the help of affliction to enforce them Therefore I must close up this point presenting you with part of the three childrens prayer upon the occasion of their tryall in Babylon which may be apposite in many circumstances to your conditions in regard of the terrours and comminations you are now exposed unto Dan. 3. Because O Lord we are diminished more then all nations and are abused in all the land this day for our sinnes and there is not at this time nor sacrifice nor oblation that we may find thy mercy but in a contrite mind and spirit of humility let us be received so let our sacrifice be made in thy sight this day that is may please thee CHAP. X. Instructions in the duties of fraternall dilection SUpposing you now purified by this Christian ablution of sincere penitence having had as the Apostle saith your hearts aspersed with this cleansing water I will lead you to the Altar of Christ to make your oblation of Charity to your brethren as well as to those who are but your half brothers being of a diverse mother as to those who have their uterine fraternity with you as children of the Catholike Church And because there are two principall articles of your present examination your behaviour concerning the domestikes of faith and your discharge of the duties of your faith relating to the aliens of Israel I conceive it very pertinent to my subject the endeavouring by the grace of God to present you some brief animadversions in these two Christian offices and your present conditions facilitate your compliance with the first as they bring impediments to the correspondency with the later of them for the association in sufferings conducteth to the straightning of the bands of Charity between persons thus combined but the pressures of afflictions doe naturally loosen and relax our minds in those tyes whereby Religion conjoyneth our Charity to our enemies so that this unfortified part of our nature requireth a strong guard of Grace to defend it against our spirituall enemy when he stormeth it by the injuries of our owne brothers and headeth his fiery darts with the asperity of our owne former friends When the great Maligner of our nature bringeth in such enemies for the imbraces of our charity we had need have our brests well stored with those flames which many waters cannot extinguish when streames even of our owne blood Cant. 8. are thus powred out in enmities upon them and it requires surely much of that love which is stronger then death to return love to that animosity against us which is so much stronger then nature in friends and brothers In this case it must needs be specially requisite that you who are thus assayled by these most powerfull temptations should be furnished with the armour of God Ephes 6. for no lesse then the shield of the Catholike Faith to which is coupled the helmet of salvation can be of proofe against these fiery darts whereof there are now vollyes flying against you As touching the first of these two dutyes I may say as Saint Paul saith to the Thessalonians in the like occasion concerning the charity of the fraternity We have no need to write to you 1 Thes 4.9 for your selves have learned of God to love one another The remisnesse of our vitiated nature in this precept is commonly quickned and invigorated by the same degrees that a common persecution is strained upon us wherefore I may trust even Vox populi in these times to preach fervour to you in this practice It will be then more requisite for me to insist upon what the Apostle proceedeth to recommend in the same place That you walk honestly towards them that are without I shall then onely stay to set up some few lights before the shrine of this sort of Charity referred to your friends and fellow citizens of the Saints Eph. 2.16 and domestikes of God and proceed to the saying of the office more amply of the other part of Charity the dilection of enemies But indeed both these duties are but divers branches which have a continuity and unity in the same shaft before they part and break themselves into these two severall armes of acting for friends and affecting of enemies and so we cannot touch the one without some report and relation to the other For these two exercises are but lower and higher boughes growing upon the same shaft of the charity of God powred forth in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given us Heaven is the orbe of mans joy and earth the element of his misery and love is both the conveyance of man to heaven and the consummation of his joy there and the holy Ghost contriveth the raising of this our conducting love very often out of our consortings in the miseries of this life for society in suffering here exalts mutuall love as communion in joyes there doth heighten reciprocall charity which is some accession to the blisse of heaven And in
estate of strangers and persecuted affordeth you freedome in your Religion and commiseration to your persons when you balance your present estates and your vocations together you will find this yoke sweet wherein Christ hath not onely drawne in person but is still drawing with you by a consociation of his grace of whom you should rather implore the grace of well disscising your selves of that native earth you carry about you then the being restored to that whereof you are dispossessed And you may judge of your dispositions towards this point of Christian perfection by the rule given by an holy Father of the Church to his fellow pilgrims Hugode S. victore He is yet too tender to whom his native country seemeth sweet he is strong to whom every land seemeth his country and he is perfect to whom the whole world seemeth an exile The first hath fixed his love in this world the second hath dispersed and scattered it upon it the last hath extinguished his love to it And why should I not hope for your aspiring to this perfect relinquishing of the world when you are assisted by so much improbability of ever returning to any tempting portion of it Therefore the steps of these your peregrinations must not be halting between two wayes turning your heads backward upon that country from which your bodies are removing This looking awry may easily cause you to stumble in your way therefore for Gods sake keepe the whole man straight alwayes advancing forward in the easiest and safest posture looking to that home from whence you are truly exiled and are the more distanced the more you account this your remove from your earthly habitation to be a bainshment Remember Christ marching before all his Disciples up to Jerusalem with so much vigour and alacrity as they who followed him were astonished at his diligence When you set your hearts after this disposition of Christ in your travailes this your Law-giver will give you blessings and you shall goe from vertue to vertue having disposed ascension in your heart in this vale of teares and they among you whose hearts as the Apostle saith confesse they are pilgrims and strangers upon earth and say these things signifie That they seeke their true country Wherefore for the close of this peculiar instruction I offer you with Saint Paul the reflection on your father Abraham whom you resemble more specially then others in this feature of your peregrination You know if he had been mindfull of the Land from whence he was called forth he had time and convenience to return which is more temptation then you have and yet he continued faithfull in his sequestration from his country beholding the promises much farther off then you doe now and saluting them with a beleeving acquiescence to his word that had promised them for as the Apostle saith Heb. 10.40 for you God hath provided some better thing a present issue out of this strange sejourment into the land of promise Therefore you are more obliged to that faith is required of you which hath a shorter tryall and a sooner recompence As farre then as you are the onely legitimate sonnes of Abraham in point of faith doe I beseech you to doe the works of your Father in point of perseverance and longanimity Heb. 6.14 that out of Abrahams tents you may remove into his bosome who by patiently enduring obtained the promise Now looking over into England For prisoners the first place a messenger from the Crosse ought to land at is the Prisons of the Country for there he is the likelyest to find those he seeketh therefore I make there my first salutation giving them joy of these bonds and irons that are appertenancies to the Crosse of Christ for as the Church triumphant hath orders and degrees of beatitudes so hath the Church militant formes and stations of sufferances which qualifie every one respectively for that preferment which is to be answerable to the degrees of similitude to the passions of Christ which every member attaineth unto in this time of crucifixion In the figure of Christs life which is the exemplar of all our dispositions in sufferings we find but a little glimpse of imprisonment from which we may draw a copy of our comportment in that state for there is but one nights bondage in all his life extant and exposed for our study so as this condition seemeth one of the least exemplified and innobled portions of the Crosse by Christs person but in recompence to honour this state of suffering he is pleased to be personated by every prisoner and so this state of durance which hath been honoured but a short time by his person may be looked upon as dignified by a continuall representation of him And surely Prisoners have this particular meanes of meriting the being put to represent Christ in one of the postures which is the most averse to our nature being the losse of liberty and so may expect a commensurate elevation of their nature in the state of the liberty of the sonnes of God And the difficulty of your parts seemeth raised by this circumstance of being debarred all manner of acting for God or exteriour worship of him This removall from his presence in his ordinances is a privation you may boldly pretend a great restitution upon and out of all the unpleasantnesse of your parts you may derive this consolation That it is a crosse hath nothing of your election in it and so the likelier to have the more of Gods designe and consequently to prove the more purgative and depuring of your nature for imprisonment is a crosse of such a quality as it is often the most proper expedient for our improvement in grace and yet it is not possible for us to take it without being helped to it by some necessity therefore we should alwaies ascribe this state to Gods knowledge of our want thereof since our nature may very often require this receipt and can never know our wanting it but by experimenting the operation of it for Gods designe upon us may demand the severing us from some adherence which we could not judge opposite to the order of our grace untill we finde our selves by degrees disingaged from it for we may be appointed by God to some vocation we could not imagine till he had by meanes appropriated for that qualification inlightned and prepared us for the discharge of such a calling In many cases no lesse then the losse of what we could not part with but by force which is our liberty is requisite to conveigh to us what is better worth then all we could have wished before we had received that addition which is an inlargement of grace and a straighter inclosure of our wills within the pleasure of our Creatour Wherefore we ought alwaies to attribute the deprivement of our liberty to some speciall purpose of God which we must enquire by the best use we can assigne our time unto which is prayer