cast an eye into their own consciences And since we are aptest still to be thus rash over enemies therefore the perfection of charity was under the notion of mercy premised before this subject of rash judgement was fallen upon by the Evangelist 42. The Evangelist neatly winds up all the bottome of doctrine this day intended to us upon the button of mercy which then lieth smoothest when it is shewed towards our enemies and then indeed we shew both mercy to them and discretion towards our selves when we spare censuring their little faults by introspection into our own much greater besides we run upon impossibilities when we pretend to see moats in other mens eyes that have beams in our own which take away all our sight from us and therefore in this verse the Evangelist askes how we can with any front or confidence go to looke moats in our neighbours eyes that have beames in our own The intent of this question is to make us absolutely forbear all rash judgement since we see the sight of our own reason is quite taken from us by our irrationall trespasses against the Law of God for upon the matter every sinne is an act against nature because it propends to the nothing out of which our nature was educed when we were created to be alwayes doing something in honour and glory of our Creatour And least we should not apprehend the Evangelist to be in earnest when he beats down this common errour of the world this correcting others in things we are our selves more faulty in then they this tyrannizing over our enemies by taking advantage of their small faults he calls it plain hypocrisie in us to go about censuring any body else untill we have purged our selves of all faults especially of all that are greater then those we hypocritically reprehend in others as if we were free from any such who yet abound in many far greater then they are which we rebuke our neighbour for To conclude by this Art the Evangelist cuts off all rash judgement for ever since he forbids it till we have lesse faults then those we find in others which no pious soul will ever judge of it self and consequently she will forbear all rash judgement which being commonly practised upon our enemies under the mask of hypocrisie to rectifie their errours then we shall hope we may begin to love them when we see we must not reprehend them rashly as for the most part men are prone to do So adding these instructions of perfect dilection which the Gospel affords to the former given us in the Epistle the doctrin proves compleat and we if perfect in it shall hope to be perfect as God is perfect who sent us his sacred Son to perfect us in such heavenly doctrine as this is The Application 1. WE have seen sufficiently the drift of the Expositours upon this present Text how they all conclude under the notion of mercy to recommend unto us the love of enemies and that no doubt because the strongest act of Faith should be accompanied with the most perfect act of charity as in the Illustration above was observed but the rather because as this day closeth up the Feast of Pentecost by making the Octave thereof sacred to the B. Trinity so we being supposed to have received newly the Holy Ghost into our Hearts should at this time especially give demonstration of it by producing the best act of charity thereby to shew how strongly his holy peace doth operate on our rebellious wills 2. And then assuredly we shall be able to work by the holy Ghost most strongly when we put all our Hope in his assistance when we acknowledge our own impotency and have recourse to his Omnipotency and when we humbly beseech his goodnesse to give us his holy grace that our first act of love after his departure from us may be such as aymes at least at the highest charity which is the love of enemies 3. It is St. Austins special counsel and that which commonly all ghostly Fathers give their Penitents that we set upon the amendment of our lives by proposing to our selves some one vertue which we will endeavour to perfect in us and by that meanes to conquer the opposite vice thereunto no way doubting if we can arrive to the perfection of any one vertue though we spend our whole life therein but that we shall dye Saints and get the victory of all sin whatsoever by being perfect masters of any one vertue If we will give holy Church leave to choose for us and surely she is best able to make the best choyce behold to day she chooseth charity for the vertue she would recommend and the best act of charity the love of enemies why should we be faint-hearted be it that beloved what if we begin imperfectly to do as we are bid even against our wills we shall in time be willing doers of God Almighties will herein If with holy Church we now begin to practise that for which we pray to day to perfect our actions by the perfection of our wills by doing good willingly for the love we bear to God and his Commandements On Sunday within the Octaves OF Corpus Christi The Antiphon Luk. 14.21 GO out quickly into the high wayes and streets of the city and compell the poor and feeble blind and lame to come in that my house may be filled Alleluja Alleluja Vers He hath fed them with the fat of wheat Alleluja Resp And hath filled them with honey out of the rock Alleluja The Prayer MAke us O Lord equally to have both a continual fear and love of thy Holy name because thou doest never leave them destitute of thy government whom thou doest instruct in the solidity of thy Law The Illustration WIth great reason this Prayer begs that we may equally fear and love the name of God since it is a Prayer as well adapted to the day of our Lord being the second Sunday after Pentecost as unto the now flowing Feast of the Blessed Sacrament in the Octaves whereof we are at present And since all Sundayes are dayes set apart for the service of God we do most properly on this day pray that we may ever sayntifie his holy name with equal fear and love unto the same which is as much as to say we should never receive the Blessed Sacrament now exposed in all Churches where Catholick Religion is freely practised but that we should as well have a regard to the fear we ought to have of Christ our Judge as to the love we ought to bear to the name of Jesus our Lord and Saviour who is most properly so called now because in the Blessed Sacrament we are in a manner actually saved by having heaven come down to us even before we are able or fit to go up to heaven And therefore this prayer beggs we may as equally at least love God under his best of names that of Jesus by which he is now exposed unto
a present Beatitude After which followes well the end of the verse that we should nor fear nor be troubled at our unjust persecutours because by our patience we are as it were out of their power which aymes onely at our affliction and vexation and failing thereof leaves us free from fear of any mischief they can do us S. Laurence on the Gridiron was a good proof of this 15. It followes we do then sanctifie Christ in our hearts when they are wholly set upon him and regard not any mischief hell it self can do us when our hearts are inflamed with the love of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord. The Application 1. THe Illustration upon this Prayer tells us at how great a height of perfection S. Peter aymes in the Text of this Epistle when no lesse then an absolute sayntity is the rule he gives for Christianity And this is evident whilest we see the Apostle exhort not onely to all manner of positive but even to negative sayntity withall not onely to have us do all sort of good but to have us decline all kind of evill whatsoever not onely alwayes to do well but also never to do ill not onely finally to be Saints but never to be sinners after we have once the happinesse to be Christians 2. And to this purpose he lights up all the lamps of vertues which you see him recommend to day unto us advising that our charity march alwayes through the wildernesse of this wicked world as men do rest by night in deserts when to secure themselves from the ravenous beasts that hunt their prey by night they make a ring of fire round about them and so sleep securely now in regard we have a Noon-day devil hunts our souls by day as well as night therefore S. Peter circles us about not onely in the never dying fire of brightest charity which the devil hates and flies but with the lamps and torches of a many other virtues burning bright about us so to prevent us from the Fiends mid-day incursions as well as from his seizures in the night because the least light of virtue the least glimmering of saintity dazels the eyes of this foul fiends iniquity and makes him run away 3. Now in regard all men are apt to dwell upon their present objects with delight and to delude themselves that every sinne they do commit hath an apparent goodnesse in it at the least of pleasure or of profit therefore to day lest we should be deceived with semblances of that which is not true lest we should run after the folly-fires of the devil as after virtues or follow his flying light of seeming saintity and so lose the society of reall virtues in the desert of this world holy Church makes her prayer particular against allurements of all appearing good whilest she draws our thoughts and eyes to things invisible as if nothing we see were worthy our beholding nothing that we have worth our possessing and so perswades us altogether to covet what we have not yet to wish for what we see not to hope for what is promised as being far above what ever is or can be here possest And that we may do this she begs in the prayer above as a speciall gift of God to give us a desire of loving him unseen and the Invisibles that he hath promised us surpassing all our own desires as farre as they do our possessions The Gospel Matth. 5. v. 21. c. 21 For I tell you that unlesse your justice abound more then that of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter into the kingdome of heaven 22 You have heard that it was said to them of old Thou shalt not kill and who so killeth shall be in danger of judgement 23 But I say to you that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of judgement And whosoever shall say to his brother Raca shall be in danger of a Councill And whosoever shall say Thou fool shall be guilty of the hell of fire 24 If therefore thou offer thy gift at the Altar and there thou remember that thy brother hath ought against thee 25 Leave there thy offering before the Altar and go first to be reconciled to thy brother and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift The Explication 21. THeir justice was onely an outward shew of virtue a ceremonious observance of their own rather then a religious keeping the Law of God whereby they became servile to one another rather then children of God and therefore Christ tells us that unlesse we become more just then they were we cannot be saved unlesse our internall eye look directly at Gods honour rather then at mans will and pleasure we cannot enter into heaven which is the kingdome of God and not of man so our justice must be internall and reall not onely externally apparent as theirs was This our Saviour proves by examples out of the letter of the law as they took it without regard to the spirit thereof as we observe it or as we should at the least 22. This is clear by what follows for the Pharisees never expounded the law forbidding murder further then as to expose the murderer to the sentence of a temporall Judgement and death but in the Christian sense not onely the murtherer is 〈◊〉 guilty of eternall damnation but even he that shall without murthering as follows 23. Be passionately angry with his brother meaning so angry as to seek unjust revenge upon him in any way of violence at all much lesse of murther he shall be guilty of the severe judgement of God and not onely of man for if his anger be a mortall sinne it shall suffice to damn his soul if he die unrepentant of the sinne if but a veniall sinne yet it shall suffice to make him guilty of Gods adjudging him for it at least to the temporary hell of Purgatory fire a far greater punishment then to die by sentence of the law of man But if he shall in his anger call him Raca expresse any outward contempt or scorn of him he shall be guilty of a Councill This alludes to the order of justice among the Hebrews who punished faults of injustice by three severall sentences according to the quality of the fault and by three severall benches of Judges The first fault was call'd pecuniary or injury in money matters the Judges of that were but three The second was murder whereupon three and twenty Judges sate The third was heresie idolatry blasphemy or the like whereupon seventy two Judges sat Our Saviour who waves the first alludes to the second and third to shew the perfection of his law and compares the excesse of a contemptible expression to our neighbour besides our anger against him for so is understood by Raca to the severest of all the three judgement seats of the Hebrews which was that they called Councill when they were to consult how severely they should punish the offender for this heynous
Such as may prepare the way for Jesus Christ to come amongst us that by his coming we may deserve to serve Almighty God with purified Souls How purified By loving him and so deserving to be his Fathers Servants in a high degree indeed as fore-runners to his Sacred Son as Baptists as Angels sent before his face to prepare his wayes and consequently as men than whom greater did never arise amongst the sons of women Blessed God! to what a height of perfection doth holy Church invite her Children to day being but on Sunday last raised from their dead sleep their trance of Sin and yet no marvell for Christianity is in truth the summity or top of all perfection and of all Christians we know the Catholike to be Top and Top-gallant that is to say the highest of men which consequently so purifies their Souls as they become at least the lowest of Angels since in true morality the highest of the inferiour arrives to the perfection of the lowest of his Superiours whence we read of Saint John Baptist That he was an Angel sent before the face of Jesus Christ to prepare his wayes Luke 7. ver 27. Now lest this discourse seeme but gratuite and to have little or no connexion to the whole service of the day however we finde it genuine enough perhaps unto the Prayer see what Lessons of Purity and sanctity of Soules the Epistle gives us insisting altogether upon the highest of Sanctity mutuall peace and charity such as made the two most discordant people in the world united perfectly in one the Jew and Gentile who before they were in Christ united and had their hearts raised up to heavenly affections detested one another but once meeting both in the love of one God they became in Christ one Thing one Body of that undivided Church which hath the onely Son of God to be the head thereof our Saviour Jesus Christ Nay see further how this dayes Gospel makes of humane Soules thus raised up by mutuall love by having all one God and beleeving equally in the doctrine of his sacred Son Baptistick Saints and consequently spirits Angelicall whilst what is read to day of Saint John Baptist is spoken to us as either being or invited to be like him fore-runners to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ voices crying out in the desart of this world prepare the wayes of our Lord. O Christians O Catholicks at least remember we are now in holy Advent a time set out apart to prepare us for a worthy receiving of our Saviour at his Nativity into this world be it therefore spent as Saint John Baptist did imploy his dayes in pennance fasting praying in purifying of our Souls in raising mortall man up to the purity immortality and sanctity of Angels so shall we pray as all our Pastours preach to day which is I hope a sufficient adjusting of this dayes Prayer unto the following Epistle and Gospel of the day bidding us with one mind and one mouth glorifie God which then we doe when our practice and our Prayer is answerable to what our Pastors teach and preach unto us The Epistle ROM 15. ver 4. c. 4. VVHat things soever have been written to our learning they are written that by the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we may have hope 5. And the God of patience and of comfort give you to be of one mind towards one another according to Jesus Christ 6. That of one mind with one mouth you may glorifie God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 7. For the which cause receive one another as Christ also hath received you unto the honour of God 8. For I say Christ Jesus to have been Minister of the Circumcision for the verity of God to confirm the promises of the Fathers 9. But the Gentiles to honour God for his mercy as it is written Therefore will I confesse to Thee in the Gentiles O Lord and will sing to thy name 10. And again he saith Rejoyce ye Gentiles with his people 11. And again Praise all ye Gentiles our Lord and magnifie him all ye people 12. And again Isaiah saith There shall be the root of Jesse and he that shall rise up to rule the Gentiles in him the Gentiles shall hope 13. And the God of hope replenish you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope and in the vertue of the holy Ghost The Explication 4. SAint Paul alludes here to what was written in the old Law and makes it all wholly and entirely to have been a lessen for our instruction at least though not a rule to our actions since the abrogation of it and if he say thus of the abrogated Law much more ought we to receive and read for our instructions all thâ—â— is written in the new Law which shall remain to the worlds end unaltered But he applyes this speech particularly now to what he said in the immediate verse before citing the Prophet Davids words Psal 68. The curses of those that curse Thee have fallen upon me making Christ speak these words as taking upon his own person the Curses and Sins of the people committed against his Heavenly Father to restore to God as it were his lost honour if we may so say by assuming these Curses to himself as also by his suffering to appease the Divine wrath and in this sense he applyes his speech to the Romanes that they might convert to their instructions and comfort this which in their behalf our Saviour took upon himself namely the guilt and burthen of the Gentiles Sins as well as those of the Jewes so to ingratiate them also to his heavenly Father By the patience and consolation of the â—criptures meant the patience they teach us in their singular examples thereof and the comfort they bring us in letting us see we may by following the said examples hope for the like rewards which now the Saints in Heaven have for so the last words of this verse import 5. The Apostle calls him the God of patience and of comfort because he is infinitely patient infinitely comforting and because his Vertues are not as in Man his Ornaments but his Essence so that he is patience it self comfort it self and more if we could more express Then we are most properly of one mind one towards another when we wish and do as well to others as to our selves According to Christ as Christ was to us and as he gave us command to be saying Love one another as I have loved you This is indeed absolute perfection and this is the true Badge of a perfect Christian 6. That of one minde with one mouth c. Then we do truly glorifie God when we conforme our selves in all things to his holy Will and this we can not all do unless all our mindes be one as he is in us all to that one effect of glorifying him so when one pretends God is glorified thus and another will not
we lack but also whatsoever we can rationally ask of him who is no niggard of his favours and while the blind man askes his sight we may conceive he askes as much as his life too for a blind man is like a visible death to all other men and a sensible one unto himself since he can feele misery on all sides but see comfort no way to which purpose see Tobias Cap. 5. ver 12. and heare Saint Ambrose Uti tristes sunt c. As the day without Sun-shine is but sad and the nights without Moone-light not so pleasing so is the life of man deprived of the light of his body his eyes for they the Sunne and Moone are as it were the eyes of the world and without their lustre the heavens themselevs do suffer a deformity of blindnesse And S. Austine upon this place saies Tota igitur vita c. Our whole lifes exercise therefore is but to cure this eye of the heart to this end hath Almighty God instituted all the holy Mysteries to this end is the word of God preached to this end tend all Ecclesiastical exhortations c. Let us therefore all cry out O Lord give us the light of Grace to see the turpitude of sinne the vilitie of concupiscence the exilitie of pleasure the atrocity of hell fire the beauty of virtue the happinesse of Paradise the eternity of Glory Amen 42. No marvel our Saviour gave so speedy a reward to so strong a Faith the cause taken once away the effect must needs cease the cause of this corporall blindnesse was spirituall coecity the blind-mans infidelity which taken away by Faith he enjoyes immediately his corporall sight and so hath the effect gone upon surcease of the cause nor need we scruple to make this exposition when our Saviour saies in expresse termes This mans Faith was his cure for if so then Infidelity was his disease 43. We cannot read this story without being moved to imitate the gratitude of the blind man in giving thankes for the benefit received as we shall be forward enough to imitate his importunity in calling to God for help in our necessities and what was his gratitude his following our Saviour magnifying and praysing of him as also did all the people that were witnesse to the benefit received that we would our selves thus testifie our own gratitudes thus get all the world to help us expresse our thanks for such benefits as they all see we receive daily and hourly from almighty God since we have an assurance if we goe as farre with him as this blind man did to his passion to his Cross to his death to his grave he will raise us with him to a new life of grace here and to an eternall life of Glory in the next world The Application 1. AS it was this blind mans Faith that made him corporally whole so was it his love and charity that made him spiritually sound that did shake off the Fetters of his affection to sinne and kept him by that meanes from all adversitie while it fastned him to the purchaser of all prosperity our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ 2. It was indeed his Charity that made him leave all other company to follow Jesus and to magnifie his Deity by proclaiming his mercy in having delivered him from misery And whither did he follow him To Hierusalem to his Passion to his Death to his Sepulcher 3. O lively Faith that did not die in this poor man when Jesus dying for him left even his Apostles tottering in their Faith O burning Charity that like a flaming lamp hung ore the Sepulcher of Jesus dead and buried Adoring then and magnifying the Divinity which never did forsake the sacred corps of Christs Humanity though his living soul had left his dead body in the grave O admirable way to shake off the shackles of sinne and to keep us free from all adversitie thus firmely to believe thus ardently to love and so to follow Jesus from his grave into his glory O for this purpose well adapted Gospel of Faith to an Epistle of Charity O well adjusted Prayer as above to both On the first Sunday of Advent The Prayer called the Collect. ROwse up we beseech thee O Lord thy power and come away that from the emiâ—ent dangers of our sinnes thou protecting we may deserve to be freed and thou delivering us we may be saved Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen So end all Prayers The Prayer called the Secret MAy these Sacrifices O Lord by their powerfull vertue bring us cleansed and more pure unto their purifying fountain The Prayer called the Post-Communion LEt us receive O Lord thy mercy in the midst of thy Temple that we may prepare for the future solemnities of our reparation with congruous homages On the second Sunday of Advent The Prayer ROwse up our hearts O Lord towards preparing the wayes of thy onely begotten Sonne that by his coming amongst us we may deserve to serve thee with purified Souls The Secret VOuchsafe O Lord to be appeased by our humble Prayers and Offerings and whereas we have no title of merit succour us with thine own supplyes The Post-Communion BEing filled with the food of Spirituall Almes we humbly beseech thee O Lord that by the participation of this Mystery thou wilt teach us to contemn Earthly and to love Heavenly things On the Third Sunday of Advent The Prayer LEnd we beseech thee O Lord thine ear unto our Prayer and enlighten the darknesse of our minde with the Grace thy Visitation The Secret MAy the sacrifice O Lord of our Devotion be continually offered up both to perform the precepts of this sacred Mystery and admirably in us to produce thy saving work The Post-Communion VVEe implore O Lord thy clemency that these Divine helps may expiatâ— our sinnes and prepare us to the future solemnities On the fourth Sunday of Advent The Prayer O Lord we beseech thee raise up thy power and with thy mighty vertue come away to our succour that by the help of thy Grace what our sins retard the indulgence of thy propitiation may accelerate The Secret ORdain O Lord we beseech thee being by these present sacrifices appeased that they may avail to our Devotion and Salvation also The Post-Communion HAving received thy bounties we beseech thee O Lord that by frequentation of thy Mystery the effect of our salvation may increase On Sunday within the Octaves of the Nativity The Prayer OMnipotent Sempiternall God direct our actions in thy good pleasure that in the name of thy beloved Son we may deserve to abound in good Works The Secret GRant we beseech thee Omnipotent God that the offering which we have made in the eyes of thy majesty may obtain us the grace of holy Devotion and bring unto us the effect of a blessed Eternity The Post-Communion BY the operation of this Mystery may O Lord our sins be purged and our just desires be accomplished On Sunday within the
the good works that help to Sanctifie the First weeks Fast of Lent Chastity of Body and Purity of Soul The Second The Love of Enemies Declining evil Talk and evil Company Hearing the Word of God keeping it in our Hearts and Speaking forth the Praises of our Lord The Third Alacrity of Soul joyn'd with Contrition Decency and Order in the Rights of Holy Church and the Fruit of Joy if not all the other twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost after Communion the Fourth Compassion and a perfect Resignation to our Saviours Passion Integrity and Innocency of Life The Passion Week Adde now to these this Holy Week to make the Fast Compleat Patience Humility and Obedience besides the Contempt of the World recommended in the following Gospel so shall we do as we are taught this holy Time of Lent and as we Pray we may to share in the Joyful Resurrection according as we Fasting thus condole with Jesus in his Sacred Passion 2. Let not the first Verse of this Epistle stagger us beloved seeming to require not onely these three Vertues from us for the accomplishing our Holy Fast but those in some degree of perfection answerable to the like Vertues in our Blessed Saviour so that it is his Invincible Patience his Profoundest Humility and his most Prompt Obedience we are to imitate His Patience St. Paul 2 Thes 3. presumes to bid us pray for saying Our Lord direct our Hearts in the Charity of God and in the Patience of Christ His Humility himself bids us imitate Matth. 11. v. 29. Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart His Obedience we come neerest to at greatest ease in loving one another since he says Joh. 15. ver 12. This is my Precept That you love each other as I lov'd you and this obedience we bring neerest home to his when as he dy'd for us all in obedience to his heavenly Father we dye for one another in Testimony of our obedience to this his Precept as all Martyrs do or when we rather choose to dye to Nature by not sinning then to Grace by breaking our obedience to his least Commands 3. Thus shall we with a general view see what we ought to have been at this time of Lent and with a particular regard behold our present duty proper to this Holy Week that being dead to sin we may live to Grace that being buried with Christ we may rise with him to Glory since onely they deserve to share with him in the Joy of his Resurrection who by imitating of his Vertues are partakers with him in his bitter Death and Passion According as we pray above we may The Gospel Matth. 21. v. 1 c. 1 And when they drew nigh to Jerusalem and were come to Bethphage unto Mount Olivet then Jesus sent two disciples 2 Saying to them Go ye into the town that is against you and immediately you shall finde an Ass tyed and a Colt with her loose them and bring them to me 3 And if any man shall say ought unto you say ye that our Lord hath need of them and forthwith he will let them go 4 And this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet saying 5 Say ye to the daughter of Sion Behold thy King cometh to thee meek and sitting upon an Ass and a Colt the fole of her that is used to the yoke 6 And the Disciples going did as Jesus commanded them 7 And they brought the Ass and the Colt and laid their garments upon them and made him sit thereon 8 And a very great multitude spread their Garments in the way and others did cut boughes from the trees and strewed them in the way 9 And the multitudes that went before and that followed cryed saying Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the name of our Lord. Hosanna in the highest The Explication 1. NOte that St. Mark Mark 11. ver 2. and St. Luke Luke 19. ver 29. relating this Passage mention Bethania which yet is here omitted the reason they speak of it was for that Bethania Bethphage and Ierusalem are all three neer together and St. Iohn Cha. 12. v. 1. makes mention of our Saviours Supping the night before in Bethania so they name the place whence he came as well as those he passed by and went unto Jerusalem whereas St. Matth. mentions onely those places he passed by which were Bethphage and Mount Olivet before he came unto the valley of Josaphat which lay just in view of the City through which valley runs the river Cedron As for Bethphage it is so called as signifying the Mouth of the valley because it is placed just at the entrance into Iosaphat and is as it were the mouth thereof so it is called the House of the Mouth in the Hebrew Tongue because through a little narrow passage out of Bethphage close by the Mount Olivet they go into the valley of Iosaphat and then at a Golden gate in to the Temple which stands without the City of Jerusalem Hence Bethphage is thought to be the place where the Priests of the Temple living all provisions for Sacrifices were made ready Lambs Goats Oxen Pigeons Turtles and the like and therefore Christ was pleased to pass this way through the Golden gate into Jerusalem to shew he was the lamb of God who came to be sacrificed for the sins of the people and that it was his sacred Person whom the Paschal Lamb did prefigure As also for this cause he came from Bethania when he had a little before raised Lazarus from his grave and passed now triumphantly through the valley of Josaphat into the earthly Jerusalem to declare that in the same valley he was to come much more triumphantly as Judge over all the dead who should at the latter day be raised and carrying the Blessed onely with him into the heavenly City of Jerusalem would leave the wicked to eternal confusion as those who now conspired his death after this Triumph were to be left over to utter destruction both â—â—ey and their famous City what two Disciples were sent is not certain some say Philip and Peter some Peter and John it boots little who they were though the two latter are more likely because they were those for certain that went afterward to provide the Pascal Lamb which Christ did eat with his Disciples 2. Whether Christ spake these words between Bethania and Bethphage or after he came past Bethphage is uncertain if before then probably he meant by the Town against you Bethphage if after then he meant some little village by it for certainly all agree it was not meant of Jerusalem because in the Latine it is called a little Castle 3. In this verse is shewed both the Deity of God and his Dominion or power over all things the first that he could see things absent the second that he could command them to be presently brought unto him without any contradiction onely
that number who according to holy Davids example Psal 118.109 have their soules alwayes in their hands that is to say who make account their every thought word or deed ought to be such as together with the same they are ready to deliver up their very souls into the hands of their Creatour and those souls so regulated as in this sodalitie we are taught according to the pattern of the blessed Virgin Mary Luke 2.19 who conserved in her heart every word that fell from the mouth of her sacred Sonne and as we shall then appear to conserve the same when out of the abundance of his holy word lodged in our hearts we make our mouths to speak and this we do whilest all our prayers are abstracts of the Word of God and all our conversation answerable to those prayers as if we can observe the methode of this book they will be And if beloved you but look upon the first contriver of this devotion Saint Gregory the great you will not undervalue it because it had so mean a reviver as my self Know it was he that called the Prayers of holy Church Mysteries Sacraments and surely for this one reason amongst the rest because they did mysteriously couch the sense of holy writ as we have hitherto assayed at least to shew and as to day we hope to make it appear this prayer above contains the sum of both Epistle and Gospell following though I confesse no soul would think it at first sight for in all the book there is not any prayer which holds a lesse visible proportion with the holy Text then this and yet if I mistake not we shall find it comes as home as heart can wish to our designe when once we shall resolve what is meant by the fruit of the divine work for that 's the key to all the treasure of Devotion couched in this prayer What if we say that fruit is our salvation since this is a work so truely divine that there is none indeed but God himselfe can bring forth such a fruit and yet so good a God we serve that he is pleased we shall our selves prepare this fruit and serve it up unto his heavenly Table while we are bid pray this day that since our understandings are already sufficiently instructed in our duties what they are and ought to be to God our wills may be stirred up to a performance of those duties to the more diligent preparing the fruits of the divine work the salvation of our soules that by redoubled diligence we may receive the greater remedies of God Almighties mercies meaning so much of his grace in this life as may secure us of his glory in the life to come which when with all the diligence imaginable we do obtain 't is still a mercy to us and must be gratis given or else we may justly fear to go without it so great a work it is to save a soul and therefore well is it called a work divine But what are we the nearer now for adjusting this Prayer unto the Epistle and Gospell of the day Admit this be the genuine sense of the Prayer above what report hath it to Judgement which is the subject of the Gospel Why this at least that the best preparative to save a soul is to remember the dreadfull day of doome and therefore when the Prayer beggs to have our wills stirred up to a more diligent preparing the fruits of the divine worke the salvation of our soules the Gospell puts us fitly in minde of the day of Judgement so to fright us into this diligence least through our sloth the Judge do want that crop of fruit which then he comes to gather And thus we seem to draw a little more neare at least to the end of our designe But if we reade the latter end of the Gospell comparing the day of Judgement to the sprouting out of a figg-tree we shall come nearer yet and if we hearken to the Expositours upon the 32 and 33 verses of this Gospell how sweetly they expound that Parable we shall then come fully home to the sweetest harmonie imaginable between the Gospell and the Prayer And for the Epistle it is nothing else but an exhortation of Saint Paul to the Colossians and in them to us how to prepare our soules to salvation even in the very language of the Prayer for example how to fructifie in all good works that we may at the latter day of doome whereof the Gospell minds us now be made worthie to partake of the lot of Saints to be delivered from the power of darkenesse and translated into the Kingdome of the Sonne of Love in whom we have redemption the remission of sinnes in a word the salvation of our soules or the ripening of that fruit which we must with all diligence prepare for the heavenly Table as beeing the worke of our heavenly Lord. When I say we doe consider this then we shall need no more to seek for a connexion between the preaching and the Prayer of holy Church to day in this period of our work wherein we were almost at a losse even now that we stood in greatest need of making good our whole designe in the close thereof And who can marvell now that this sweet Prayer should be suitable to the sower day of Judgement when we see that dreadfull story in the Gospell closed up with the gladsome Parable of a fruitfull Spring And why to shew that to the Blessed the day of doome is a time oâ— Joy and that the just alone are of consideration with Almightie God In a word please but to reade the Expositours upon that point as in the glosse below you find them and tell me then whether this Prayer doe want connexion unto that glosse of theirs if not then you will grant the Prayers of holy Church to be as Saint Gregory calls them Sacraments mysteries indeed of Pietie but such as when explained are sweet as honey and facile as we can desire For what more easie now then to see this Prayer alludes to Judgement in the same sense that holy Church desires her children should be ready for it that is to be prepared fruit for the heavenly Table and by that preparation to be worthie to receive the greater remedies of God Almighties mercies at the day of Judgement against the corruption of humane nature namely his gifts of glory added to those of grace And thus we shall close up the Ring of our devotion with the same Christian dutie we began it whilest mindfull of the day of doome we pray our wills may be raised up to an alacritie in our Christian dutie as they were by the same spirit of Prayer raised upon the same subject on the first Sunday of Advent which this foure and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost inclines unto in like manner as all parts of a circle bow to meet each other with a plie to circularitie and so the dutie of a Christian is then best performed
eternall glory and by our cooperating with him give us the rewards of his own operations in us whom he makes labour in his vineyard here a while that he may set us in eternall rest at his own heavenly table where though he be pleased to delight in us yet we shall be the onely gainers by enjoying him for he gets nothing but to be content that we get all by being but willing to present our selves to him as the humane subjects wherein he is pleas'd to produce the divine work of our salvations while he is satisfi'd to call us his fruit that he may be our food for all eternity Thus we are taught in the prayer above and may saying it with the same spirit that made it saint our selves as is desir'd we should by the holy Ghost who gave us this sainting prayer for that holy purpose FINIS On VVhitsunday The first Prayer O God who on this day hast taught the hearts of the Faithful by the Illumination of the holy Ghost grant unto us in the same spirit to relish those things that are right and ever to rejoyce in his Consolation The Secret SAyntifie we beseech thee O Lord our offered gifts and mundifie our hearts by the Illustration of the Holy Ghost The post-Communion LEt the infusion of the Holy Ghost O Lord purifie our hearts and fertilize them by the inward aspersion of his heavenly dew On Trinity Sunday The first Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who hast granted to thy servants in confession of the true Faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of Majestie to adore unity we beseech thee heartily that in the firmnesse of the same Faith we may ever be defended from all adversity The Secret SAyntifie we beseech thee our Lord God by the invocation of thy holy name the Hoste of this oblation and render us thereby unto thy self an eternal present The post-Communion GRant O Lord God that the receiving of this Sacrament and the confession of the sempiternal Holy Trinity and of the undivided unity thereof may avail us to the health both of our body and soul On the first Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God the strength of those that trust in thee be mercifully present to our prayers and because without thee mortal infirmity is of no ability grant the assistance of thy grace that in doing what thou dost command we may please thee both in word and will The Secret VOuchsafe appeased we pray thee to accept of these our offerings dedicated to thee O Lord and grant that unto us they may afford perpetual help The post-Communion BEing filled with so great gifts grant O Lord we beseech thee that while we receive these wholsome boones we may never cease from praising thee On Sunday within the Octaves of Corpus Christi being the second after Pentecost The first Prayer MAke us O Lord equally to have both a continual fear and love of thy holy name because thou dost never leave them destitute of thy government whom thou doest instruct in the solidity of thy Love The Secret MAy this oblation sacred to thy name purifie us O Lord we beseech thee and from day to day carry us to such actions as conduce unto our heavenly life The post-Communion NOw that we have received thy sacred gifts we beseech thee O Lord that together with frequenting this mysterie the effect of our salvation may increase On the third Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God who art the Protectour of those that hope in thee without whom nothing is valid nothing is holy multiply we beseech thee over us thy mercy that thou being our ruler thou our guide we may so passe by the temporal goods of this world as not to loose the eternal of the next The Secret LOok we beseech thee O Lord upon the offerings of thy suppliant Church and grant that what we are to receive may by perpetual sanctification prove unto the health of thy believing people The post-Communion MAy thy holy things O Lord received quicken us and prepare us being expiated for thy everlasting mercy On the fourth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer GRant us O Lord we beseech thee that by thy order our course in this world may be peaceably directed and that thy Church may enjoy a quiet devotion The Secret BE pacified O Lord we beseech thee having received our oblations and propitiously compell unto thee our even rebellious wills The post-Communion MAy the received mysteries O Lord purifie us and by their bounty defend us On the fifth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God who hast prepared invisible good things for those that love thee infuse into our hearts the desire of thy love that loving thee in all things and above them all we may attain unto thy promises which surpasse even all our desires The Secret BE O Lord propitious upon our supplications and take unto thee benignely these offerings of thy servants of both sexes that what every one hath presented in honour of thy name may profit all of us to our salvation The post-Communion WHom thou O Lord hast filled with thy heavenly gifts grant we beseech thee that we may be cleansed from our hidden sinnes and delivered from the snares of our enemies On the sixth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God of powers to whom all belongs that is best ingraft in our breasts the love of thy holy name and grant in us the increase of Religion that thou mayest nourish those things which are good and being so nourished maintain them by the practise of pietie The Secret TAke unto thee O Lord benignely these oblations of thy people and be propitious upon our supplications and that no ones desires be frustrate no ones request in vain grant we beseech thee that what we ask faithfully we may obtain efficaciously The post-Communion WE are O Lord full with thy gifts we beseech thee grant that we may be cleansed by their effect and defended by their help On the seventh Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God whose providence is so disposed as it never can be frustrated remove we humbly beseech thee all things that are hurtfull and grant whatsoever may be beneficiall unto us The Secret O God who hast concluded the diversity of the legall hosts under the perfection of one sacrifice receive the same from thy devout people and sanctifie it as thou diddest the offerings of Abel that what every one tenders thee in honour of thy Majesty may avail to the health of us all The post-Communion MAy thy medicinall operation clemently free us from our perversities and bring us to those things that are right On the eighth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer GRant us O Lord we beseech thee propitiously the spirit of thinking and doing what is right that as we cannot be without thee so we may live unto thee The Secret REceive O Lord we beseech thee what of thy
this Book yet is it out of the true Gospell of the Day and the reason why I did presume to alter that dayes Gospell in this Tome is because I intend God willing to explicate the four long Gospels of the Passion that are read in holy Week in my third Tome as was said above in regard they will doe better altogether then apart Besides the Gospell I have here inserted though it be not directly upon the Passion as that of Palme Sunday is yet it reports unto it and is as it were the very mouth to that Red Sea so not incongruously placed here but suiting very well both with the true Epistle and Prayer of that day and is besides the very Gospell read in Blessing of the Palmes But further as to this particular of Antiphons the Reader may be pleas'd to understand that many times the words of these Antiphons are rather the sense of Holy Church than the absolute letter of the Text yet so as part if not all is ever taken according to the letter it self and again whereas I cite one verse onely for such Antiphons as many times runne through sundry verses this is done but for brevity sake since the diligent Reader will easily trace it out in his perusall of the Text it self Nor must our Adversaries presume to tax the Church with corruption of the Text in some of her Antiphons because she doth not alwayes professe to deliver the ipsissime letter but onely the sence thereof which is a priviledge no dutifull Child can deny a pious Mother who as she is the Spouse of Christ hath absolute authority to order the devotion of her Children according to her own pleasure and piety True it is I cannot retrive who set the order of the Antiphons before the Prayers but this we find in the Bull of Pius Quintus before the Breviaries that as the Councell of Trent referr'd the ordering of the Breviary to his said Holinesse so he consulting some Fathers of that Councell and other the best Antiquaries in Rome did let forth the Breviary as now we have it according to the Records in the Vatican containing all the Traditions of the Primitive Church for order of the Publick Prayers and consequently the Antiphons in the Primmer which are these we now treat of being the same with those of the Breviary were undeniably the same which now they are And what ever we may say of these Antiphons in particular at least we shall find Saint Ambrose a celebrated Father and Doctor of the Church to have been the Institutor of that Piety to sing in the Quier an Antiphon before the beginning of every Canonicall Hower in the Priest his Office grounded on the Vision which Saint Ignatius the third successour to Saint Peter in his chair of Antioch had of Angels thus Antiphonising and then alternatively singing sweetly one after another as now the Divine Office is sung in the Quier over all the Catholike Church And for this reason sure the Lay-people have their Antiphons out of the Epistles and Gospels to shew their work of Prayer which followes immediately is grounded on the charity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in whom they are to Love to Pray to doe for each other as they would doe for themselves And hence we may piously presume the Versicle and Responsory following every Antiphon is to incite the Church Militant to answer the Angels of the Church Triumphant inciting us to Pray and praise our Lord with them especially by such a Prayer as doth not onely exhaust the Epistle and Gospel of the Day but accompanies withall the Praying and the Preaching Priest amongst us the Angels and the Saints above us nay the Mediating Jesus Praying then and thus to his Heavenly Father in our behalfs as was said above Forasmuch as concernes the Epistles and Gospels themselves I have not dared to alter them in the least tittle out of a Reverentiall regard unto the Reverend and Learned Translators of the Bible into English though in many places perhaps if the same men were now alive they would themselves render the Language here and there more gratefull especially to curious Eares and yet keep as exact a sense of the Learned Languages of the Originall Tongues as now they have done which yet I dare not be so bold to doe The suiting of these Epistles and Gospels as now the Church hath ordered them was the work of Saint Hierome commanded so to doe by Saint Damasus Pope and Confessour Anno. Dom. 367. and this may suffice for a sufficient glosse upon the respective parts of this Book and why it is framed in this Methode Now the reason why I intitle it the Christian Sodality is because I would by that Name invite every Christian to be a member of it and to make profession of this Practise of Piety which is grounded on the Word of God and on the publick Prayers of Holy Church which certainly were not made without a deep design if yet that were any other than what I have guessed at who shall be glad to hear of a better for I am nothing wedded to my own conceit herein I shall not presume to give any Rules at all to our Sodality though I doe humbly suggest the saying Thrice a day the Trinity of Prayers in the end of every Part of this first Tome for the Reasons above and for this one more which I shall add because by a reverent rehearsall thereof they shall even kiss as it were in little the Picture of our Blessed Lord drawn out of the full Proportion it hath in the Epistles and Gospels of the Day as also by their weekly reading each respective Sundayes work belonging to the week they shall make themselves in a short space perfect masters of so much Scripture and be able not onely to sum it up in their daily Prayers but to season their discourse with it throughout the week throughout the year from year to year indeed throughout their lives Now that they may more zealously doe this I shall desire them to beleive the first Founder of this Sodality was Jesus Christ the Confirmer of it the Holy Ghost the first professed Member the B. Virgin Mary Keeping all the words of her sacred Son within her heart and listing with her self the twelve Apostles all the Disciples and Friends of our Lord Saint Mary Magdalene with her Sister Martha and the other two Maries celebrated for their zeale to Jesus Christ and so making up the Primitiae or first Fruits and Members of this same Sodality which every Christian is inrowl'd a happy Member of at the Holy Font nor can he be dismembred or cast out of this Sodality but by deserving excommunication unlesse he first renounce his Christianity and cast off Jesus Christ by turning Infidell Heathen Atheist Turk or Jew As for designing our Sodality into this method of Prayer abstracting all the other Parts of Holy Churches Services I am so farre from the vanity of
because they were commanded absolutely by the Patriarchs and Prophets being themselves servants of God though masters of the people who were indeed Lords of all Gods graces and favours since no nation shared thereof beside the Jews 2. The Apostle follows his example and proves there is no difference between a Lord under the command of Tutors and Governours and a meer servant since this Lord or heir is not all the while of his Minority to rule and command but to obey his stewards and governours who are then the Fathers and shall after be their young Pupills servants too and this time in those dayes of the old Law lasted till the heir was twenty five yeers of age 3. The Apostle here applyes this argument to himself formerly of the Jewish Religon and consequently an infant or little one in the line of those that are Gods true servants namely Christians serving God onely under the Alphabet of a religious Law that is under the letter or Elements of the world which were the old Law all the rule men had to serve God by and then saith the Apostle we were like little ones young lords and masters by birth-right of our Judaism yet nothing different from servants since we had that Law but as an Usher to bring us up and deliver us over to another much better indeed a most perfect Law of Grace whereunto the old Law was a meer type or figure a meer Element or Alphabet of a true Law Note by the Elements of the world are here understood the letter of the law given to the men of the world in those at least who were the select thereof the Jewes for if the world were here taken for other than the men thereof the Elements of the naturall world were to bee understood earth aire water and fire but since by the world is meant the people thereof therefore Element here stands for the letter of the old ceremoniall and servile Law whence the Apostle here useth the word of serving very aptly for there are three servings in this word related unto The First that of heathens serving their Idols as their Gods The second that of the Jews serving God by their impure creatures ordered unto Gods service The last that of Christians serving God by pure creatures not by Idols nor by bloudie sacrifices but by such as in Sacraments are sanctifyed and so are more than Jewish Elements of sanctity as the Rhemists Annotations have at large expressed though true it is many by the elements here understand also the festivall and solemn dayes moneths and yeares which the Jews very superstitiously observed and made themselves indeed not onely servants thereof but even slaves unto them and this because in the tenth verse of this Chapter S. Paul mentions their formalities upon these dayes moneths times and yeares 4. By the fulnesse of time is here literally understood that time when Christ by the authority of his Father sending him for that purpose came to abrogate the servile law of the Jews and to deliver us a more filiall law of love liberty and grace for then was the time of the old law filled up when it was no longer to remain when we were no more to bee under the Ushers and Tutors of Religion but under Christ himself the true Lord and master of the whole and specially of the Christian world That the Son of God sent unto us is here said to be made of a woman wants not a deep sense namely to shew he was not begotten nor conceived of his fathers seed but was made and framed wholly out of the pure substance and blood of his blessed mother the Virgin Mary where we are to note the word woman in this place doth not signifie any commixture or corruption which doth accompany the losse of virginity when maids passe from their virginal purity to the impurer state of corrupted woman but woman here signifies directly the sex or female kinde of man and so in that sense is competent even to a virgin who is also of the female Sex again he was said to be made of a woman to declare the falsity of the Valentinian and Anabaptistick heresies teaching Christ to have been made of some aeriall and not of an earthly substance as if he had brought his body ready made in the heavens out of some aeriall combinations into the womb of the virgin and had not received his flesh from her whereas the true Christian doctrine teacheth he was flesh of her flesh and bone of her bones He is further said to be made under the Law not that by right he was subject thereunto even as man because his person was divine by the union of his two natures making but one onely sacred and divine person so called from his principal his divine nature but that indeed he was pleased to subject himself to the law though of right he were above it and thus he vouchsafed also to undergo voluntarily the law of circumcision rather to take it honourably away than to subject us to so dishonourable a slavery as that of the Old Law was 5. This Verse reports to the former and makes that to be the cause why Christ subjected himself to the Law of servitude namely because by his so doing he might redeem those who truly were under the servile Law and that by this Redemption we might all receive the Adoption of Sons and by a new filiation become the children of Grace nay even Heirs of God and Coheires of Christ who were formerly bastards and slaves of the Devil whence Saint Bernard sayes well upon this place Therefore God became Man that Man might become God And we must further note here that this our happy Adoption which is made by the means of Grace doth not onely give us right to the Inheritance of God but to a participation even of the Divine Nature it self according to S. Paul Rom. 8. ver 15. where it was said we became True Sons of God by the holy Ghost communicating himself unto us and so making us true Children of Christ God and Man if any doubt of this truth let him read what Cornelius à Lapide excellently proves to this purpose upon the place of Saint Paul his Epistle above cited and what will be said more to this purpose on the eighth Sunday after Pentecost in this Book We are lastly to note that not onely the just who are now under the Law of Grace but even those just who were under the Law of Moses were also the Adopted Sons of God however the Apostle calls them here Servants and not Sons First because though they were the true Sons of God yet they were not in the state of liberty competent unto such Children Secondly because they had not their right to this inheritance or fâ—liation by vertue of the Law under which they lived but by a speciall prerogative of Grace and Faith infused into them of Christ his being to come and so they were rather belonging to
thence retrive that sweet connexion we are at a seeming losse of and shall conclude the key we want to open this connexion lyes hidden in the preamble of this Prayer in the very courtship we use when we call upon God as moderating at once heavenly and earthly Things that is making the earthly obedient to his will when he pleaseth to have them suitable to those that are heavenly Things Thus water by the heavenly will of God became this day wine thus all the materiall parts of this dayes service became as it were immateriall that is to say spirituall Thus the Temporall gifts mentioned in the Epistle of Prophecy Ministery Teaching Exhorting Ruling Mercy Love Joy Hope Patience Prayer Almes Hospitality Vnanimity and Humility are made spirituall in being ordained to a spirituall end by conformity in us earthly creatures to the will of our Creator which is effected by vertue of that moderation God hath set between heaven and earth when he so moderates humane minds and actions as they become subservient to his heavenly will Thus carnall pleasure between man and wife is in them limited by Gods holy grace moderating the excesse and intemperance in that pleasure which indeed carnall men commit but spirituall men avoid God moderating fleshly appetites in them so as they shall not intrench upon spirituall duties but give way to serving God though with abridgement of their own delights and this is done when Saint Pauls counsell is followed Let those that have wives be as if they had none 1 Cor. c. 7. v. 29. when God Almighties service so requires as when attending first to prayer they afterwards return to the same corporall pleasure they forsook to pray and this is called a spirituall continence even in the bed of incontinency not as that term imports sin but as it argues lesse perfection than virginity or absolute containing from all corporall commixture but further and more prodigiously yet this miraculous moderation between heavenly and earthly Things is seen when married people have liberty allowed them for their due and seasonable mutuall pleasures with one another and yet withall at the same instant they have a limit set them beyond which they must not passe but like to flowing Seas must ebbe just at their own bounds and fall to the low-water of a non-temptation towards any other carnall pleasure than between themselves Here I say if ever more eminently than other it doth appear God moderates heavenly and earthly Things at once for here is a kind of continuall miracle betwâ—en man and wife when Saint Pauls counsell is followed as above and since the Story of this dayes Gospel runs upon a marriage and the Prayer concludes with begging peace here is the grant of that petition when man and wife thus moderated live happily together not defrauding one another here is further that peace granted to all sorts of Christians when they apply the Temporall gifts recited in the Epistle to spirituall to heavenly ends and when in the prayer we say Grant us thy peace in our dayes it is no lesse than the peace of that God who at once moderates heavenly and earthly things which we demand Now if any would dive further into that peace let them look back to the seventh verse in the Epistle on the Third Sunday of Advent and to the Explication thereof There they shall see how ravishing how plentifull a peace it is And having thus wrought out our design of connexion here where it was so seeming hard at first but now to flowing from every part like honey from the Combes of this dayes Epistle and Gospel upon the bread of the Prayer let us never despair of as good successe all the year along nor can there be a sweeter Prayer than this thus glossed and in this sense reiterated as often as we find reluctancy in us between nature and grace For then thus to call upon God as moderatour between heaven and earth is to quell all rebellion of nature against grace which God grant we may doe by praying as above The Epistle ROM 12. ver 6. c. 6. ANd having gifts according to the grace that is given us different either prophecy according to the rule of Faith 7. Or ministery in ministring or he that teacheth in doctrine 8. He that exhorteth in exhorting he that giveth in simplicity he that ruleth in carefulnesse he that sheweth mercy in cheerfulnesse 9. Love without simulation hating evill cleaving to good 10. Loving the charity of the Brotherhood one toward another with honour preventing one another 11. In carefulnesse not sloathfull in spirit fervent serving our Lord. 12. Rejoycing in hope patient in tribulation instant in prayer 13. Communicating to the necessities of the Saints pursuing hospitality 14. Blesse them that persecute you Blesse and Curse not 15. To rejoyce with them that rejoyce to weep with them that weep 16. Being of one mind one towards another not minding high things but consenting to the humble The Explication IN regard there was reference made to this place on Sunday last concerning the rule of Faith therefore we shall here take hold of the last part of this verse first and having premised what is peculiarly necessary upon this which is hugely controversiall we shall then proceed in our wonted manner for expounding the rest of the Text. We are therefore here to note That by the Rule of Faith is not understood onely the Apostles Creed branched into twelve Articles as we have received it from age to age but a set Form of life delivered by word of mouth unto the People by the Apostles who had first held Counsels about it amongst themselves and stood resolved all their teaching should be conformable thereunto And this Rule is not as Hereticks will have it the holy Scripture written by the Apostles for this Rule was made long before any Scripture was written and it was never delivered abroad but by word of mouth in their preaching and exhortations so it is properly called the Apostolicall Tradition which is yet even unto this very day the Rule of Faith to the whole Catholick Church to the Decrees of all Councels to the sense or exposition of the holy Scriptures and consequently Scripture cannot be as Hereticks pretend the sole Rule of Faith though true it is there must be nothing nor is there any thing at all in holy Writ contrary to this Rule or Apostolicall Tradition which was much larger than the written Word and therefore it ever was and still is even to the sacred Word a kind of Rule or Test to try it by since before the Apostles issued out their written books of Scripture those books were examined by this Rule of Faith which was framed by common consent of the whole number or Colledge of Apostles whereas all of them did not write nay two onely of the twelve were Evangelists or Writers of the Gospels for Saint Mark and Saint Luke the other two Evangelists were not dignified with the stile
and this to externall and temporall government for that of Internall and Spirituall is the Pastors not the Deacons office which office chiefly belongs indeed to Archdeacons for though his personall care bee mixt with the spirituall Regimen of his Parishioners yet it is his office to see his Deacons carefully administer this Temporall governement wherein he doth imploy them The perfection of attending the Sick or Hospitalls or of shewing mercy consisteth in alacrity of Spirit in cheerfulness that thereby they may oveâ—come their own Tedium or wearinesse in so laborious an office and by the cheerfulness of their own looks exhilarate and comfort those who are sick and comfortlesse and that by the affability of their words they may incourage the sick to believe they are not displeased with the unpleasing attendants on diseases such as are nastie smells horrid spectacles of their sores or the like and so more confidently to beg their helping hands according to that of the Wiseman in Ecclus 35. v. 11. In all thy gifts to others let thy countenance bee cheerfull and all this to Churchmen hitherto 9. See how the Apostle begins the Lay-mans gift of Ministery with a recommendation to him of dilection or love of his neighbour as the principall vertue that must render his ministery acceptable to God and man Such dilection as S. Iohn Epist 1. Chap. 3. v. 18. mentions saying Let us not love in words onely nor in language but in deed and in truth which place will be explicated at large on the Sunday within the Octaves of Corpus Christi Whereunto is here added a hatred of evill in those wee love and a speciall adhesion or cleaving to their good example if any such be given by them for so far shall we advance in imbracing vertue as we proceed in the detestation or hatred of vice 10. As naturally Brothers love one another so all Christians being brothers in Christ their common Father the Apostle here requires the love that intercedes between them though of a supernaturall order should follow the rule of brotherly love which is naturall but when hee exhorts to a mutuall preventing one another in this fraternall dilection theâ—e he elevat s the course of nature which is dull and raiseth it to that of Grace which is quick and nimble brooking no delayes not expecting to be first obliged but obliging before wee receive any other obligation thereunto than what our Christian duty recommendeth to us indeed commands us to use as for point of love Though as for preventing each other with honour that being an Art of Heroick perfection it is here onely counselled and not commanded 11. Here Governours are exhorted to a carefulness to a sedulitie or diligence in their offices least by their sloath any under their charge perish and to be boyling as it were with a fervour of Spirit and devotion towards acts of charity not simpering or standing still as if the fire of love in their souls were quite extinguished and did not propend them to rise upon all occasions administred of doing good to others day or night The marks of this fervor are first that our minds be wholly attent to the good action in hand next that we covet the doing it as much as any other can desire to have it done Lastly that we continue constant in such actions and doe not flaccess or grow weary of well doing and this must be with regard to God as if in serving man wee served God in man for else our service might be servile and not filiall performed more for fear than love serving time rather than eternity whereas if we make it a part of our duty to God that we serve man then it will bee boyling and fervent as it ought because it riseth from a supernaturall heat or motive more active than any naturall one can be 12. The hope that must cause our rejoyceing to be accomplisht ought to be that of the Heavenly joyes for the higher we make the expectation of our reward the more alacrity shall we have in doing well and therefore Christian joy ought to be of a higher strain than any the present or future emoluments of this world can suggest into us but such should be our joy and hopes as the Prophet David speaks of Psalm 4. ver 10. calling it a singular puesto that we are placed in or an expectation of singular hopes not ordinarily or ever indeed here arrived unto but laid up for us in the magazine of Heaven where the least of all rewards are infinite and besides unattainable if our joy here at any time be such as may not hope for eternall joyes to accompany the same but if such then our vain wordlly joyes or felicities all of them that are truly vain would be laid aside and we should rather content our selves with patient suffering which the Apostle recommends after he had taken away in his former words all vain joyes than with shaking these sufferings off to seek contents or comforts from this world which we could not hope to enjoy in the next but making it our joy to suffer and bringing that suffering to the perfection of an incessant or instant Prayer by referring all our actions to Gods Honour and Glory for in so doing we shall follow close the counsell here given us in this Verse of persisting in Prayer and the like given by Saint Paul 1 Thes 5. ver 17. Pray without intermission and of Saint Luke commanding such Prayer chap. 18. ver 1. while he said we must alway pray 13. Some understand this place as meant by praying for our own or our neighbours necessities and in so praying availing our selves and our neighbours of the Saints intercessions so as by the necessities of Saints are meant here their memories of us which we doe want Thus Saint Ambrose thus Origen thus Saint Hierom all after the Greek text who take memory here in a double sense first as to availe our selves of our remembring the Saints examples given us here and the reward of glory given to them in Haven to incite our selves to the like sanctity in hope of the like reward secondly as we availe our selves of their remembring us while we implore their aide by making memory of them in our services as in the Canon of the Mass is dayly done In these words Communicating and revering the memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the holy Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul c yet the more literall sense is that of the Latine Text alluding to our relieving others here or in Purgatory in their necessity the one by Prayer the other by Almes and these as Saints we are bid Communicate unto or relieve that is as presuming they are so rather than judging them to be Sinners because their name at least of Christians is Holy what ere their Lives are so by Communicating is here meant exchanging our workes of Mercy for their workes of Merit who are in want Pursuing hospitality that is
I of a slight command can doe much by vertue of this power what mayst thou O Christ by thy command who hast perfect and absolute power over Heaven and Earth and art under no command as I am who can deny but this stile was used purposely for our morall instruction that hearing this we should remember if at any time we have command ovâ—r others yet we are commanded our selves by many more above us and again to advertise us that the Soul shall then best command the Body when she her selfe moves not but as commanded by God and moved by his holy grace And if she rebell against God no marvell the body requoiles against her as in Adam and his race was and still is apparent 10. Since Admiration or Wonder is an effect of ignorance and Christ as being God was omniscient and had in perfection all the three Sciences that could render him perfectly knowing as man namely Beatificall Infused and Experimentall certain it is his Admiration here could not be a proper wondring at what he seemes to make exceeding strange of as by professing he had not found so great faith in Israel rather indeed to excite and stir up others to admiration and imitation of the like than that he was or could be seised on by the surprisall of any new notion accruing unto him which he had not before So Saint Austine sayes well These operations in Christ were rather signes of his actions upon others than of his passions from them of his teaching us not of his being taught himself by any thing that could happen unto him new or strange and what followes is to be taken strictly as spoken to those common people who were then present for else it could not be meant of all others or spoken to them that were absent For example when he said to those that followed him I have not found so great Faith in Israel meaning among such as you are that now behold the Faith of this Centurion for certainly he knew the Faith of his blessed Mother of Abraham of Moses and of John the Baptist was greater yet than this of the said Centurion so highly commended so much admired by our Saviour 11. This following Verse illustrates the latter end of the former in the sense as above for here Christ gives Abraham Isaack and Iacob as presidents for singular Faith rewarded with eternall glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and sayes Many shall come from East and West meaning from all corners of the world and share with Abraham c. in the like reward for their like Faith so here our Saviour alludes to the calling of the Gentiles unto the Faith of Christ and gives for their encouragement this encomiastick or superlative praise of the Centurion for the first fruits of the Gentiles vocation or beleeving in Christ Iesus the adoration of three Kings arguing not so much Faith as the Profession did so what he said to his followers in the Verse above may by adjoynder of this unto it be conceived as if Christ had said he never found so great Faith in any Gentile whom he had met with amongst the Israelites as he found in this Centurion for the three Kings were not Israelites admit their adoration could argue like Faith in them 12. He pursues the incitement to like Faith of this Centurion saying Those Gentiles who believe as he did shall succeed in the Kingdome of Glory to be dis-inherited Heirs thereof namely the Israelites or Jewes whom he calls the Children of the Kingdome in two regards first because as descended from the loynes of Abraham they were heires to his promised earthly kingdome of Iudea next as for the same reason they were heires to the Heavenly Kingdome of glory likewise promised to his issue in like Faith to his as who should say the forraign Gentiles shall inherit the two Crowns whereunto the Jewes were born heirs by Promise and this by reason the said Gâ—ntiles shall receive the faith of Abraham which the Jewes had deserted and apostatized from So as the Gentiles shall be saved in reward of their Faith and the Jewes damned in punishment of their incredulity which damnation or hell is here called outward darknes as often elsâ—where in holy Writ it is because hell as it is the most remote part from Heaven so is it the darkest and outmost in respect of the inhabitants in Glory whose Beatitude consisting in their beholding the inward light of the Deity by means of the outward light of Glory argues the damnation of the wicked consisteth in their being deprived of all light either of Glory or of God and consequently are out-casts from Heaven wallowing in the deep hell of outward darkness And as by this darkness is understood their pain of damnation or pain of loss consisting in an absolute privation of the sight or light of God and consequenly of all light so by weeping or gnashing of teeth is understood their pain of sense best expressed by those termes which alwayes betoken sorrow and horrour 13. Christ concludes giving the Centurion all he askes in reward of his Faith so curing his Boy at a distance in vertue of his sole Word as was observed that just when Christ spake those words Be it to thee as thou believest then the child was wel recovered hence we are to learn that according to the firmnesse of our Faith we may measure the greatness of our hope in God and mystically we may apply this passage of the Centurion to our selves who are commanders of our senses and powers which make up a spirituall Militia in this life Iob 7. if therefore any of these languish or grow otherwise diseased let us make our addresses by our Friends the Saints in Heaven and Good men on Earth to God beseeching him to cure that sick sense or faculty which is in danger to let in upon us the death of Sin and look with what Faith with what Hope with what Love we make our applications to Almighty God either by our selves or others we may rest assured our help shall be answerable thereunto The Application 1. CHrist cures the Leper to Day by a touch of his sacred Hand to shew he had cured the leprosie of sin in all humane nature by touching it with his nature Divine in the mystery of his Incarnation 2. Being intreated he cures the Centurions son by saying I will come and cure him however by the humility and faith of the Centurion he was not suffered to goe but desired by his Word to doe it at a distance This argues the power of Christ to be as operative as his Person and that by his Power given to Priests he cures all humble and believing Souls in the Sacrament of Pennance as he did the Centurion whose corporall infirmity was here but a figure of Sin-sick-souls 3. O happy Christians who have against all humane diseases a Cure Divine The touch of all the three Persons of the sacred Trinity in the Blessed Sacrament
of the holy Altar and the touch of all their Omnipotent Powers in the Sacrament of Confession See now Beloved how aptly we doe pray to Day to have the Right-hand of the Divine Majesty extended over our infirmity when the Preachers tell us by the touch of the Deity we are cured of all Diseases On the fourth Sunday after the EPIPHANY The Antiphon MAT. 8. ver 25. O Lord save us we perish Command and cause O God tranquilitie Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who knowest us to be set in so great dangers that we cannot through humane frailty subsist grant unto us health of minde and body that what we suffer for our Sins thou helping us we may overcome The Illustration THe last Sundayes Prayer exhibited the horrour of sin unto us under the notion of diseases This of dangers which we finde so great and wherein we are so openly set that humane frailty considered wee are not able to subsist And therefore against these extrinsecall dangers we beg of God this day as an intrinsecall Protectrice health at least of body and of mind that since in punishment for our sins wee must suffer to be thus exposed to dangers we may be able Gods holy grace assisting us to overcome them This may suffice to render unto every soul the sense of this delicious prayer what remains will be to shew how apposite it is to the Epistle and Gospel of the day which Two are generally allowed to have a pious report to one another and consequently if the prayer be set to the tune of either it must agree with both by the undeniable rule of Schools When any two things are one and the same with a third they must both be so with one another but here the Prayer agrees cleerly enough with the Gospel therefore it cannot be discordant to the Epistle and indeed what more pat to the Gospel relating th Apostles dangers in a tempest at Sea than this prayer altogether deprecating dangers so the difficulty will be to make a harmony between the Epistle and it wherein there is no sillable of danger openly expressed and yet upon reflection we shall find regard enough to danger therein for first the grand Pellitorie the most potent repeller of all dangers meets us in the Van of this Epistle Love whereof S. Paul sayes It is the chaser of all fears out of doors and consequently must needs bee free from all dangers which ever inforce fears upon us timorous Leverets of corrupted nature but further see a prohibition palpable in our eyes in the next Verse of this Epistle Thou shalt not commit Adultery and prohibitions are ever opposites to dangers indeed preventers of them so 't is a sign the Epistle hath regard enough to those dangers which the Prayer deprecates but the last verse comes home to this sense telling us The love of our neighbour worketh no evill that is no danger for evils are the greatest of all other dangers therefore love is the best buckler against dangers in regard it is the fulnesse of the Law which is never made but to prevent the dangers we incurre by the prevarication thereof For to the Iust there is no Law put 1 Tim. 1.9 And thus wee see from first to last a totall exhausting of the Epistle and Gospel by the admirable Piety of this dayes Prayer The Epistle ROM 13. vers 8. c. 8. OWe no man any thing but that you love one another For he that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the Law 9. For Thou shalt not commit advoutry Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not bear false witness Thou shalt not covet and if there be any other Commandment it is comprized in this word Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self 10. The Love of thy neighbour worketh no evill Love therefore is the fulness of the Law The Explication 8. SOme misunderstand this place as if it did argue obligation to pay the debt of Love but that all other debts were with all speed to be payd whereas in very truth the sence of this place is quite otherwayes and imports as much as if the Apostle had said what other debts soever you are able to discharge yet never esteem your selfe quit from the debt of Love which you must alwayes owe unto your neighbour though you clear all other accounts debts or scores with him because when this debt in part is payd it inflames the reckoning for the part behind just as fire being blâ—wn or made use of doth more and more enkindle whereas if rak't up in the ashes it soon dies So the more we use charity the more we enkindle and increase it therefore the Apostle saies well that we can never be out of this debt to our neighbour since if we pay him the Love we owe unto him for this day to morrow we shall find our debt of Love inflamed and and grown greater by the very agitation of that divine fire which is the mutuall Love of one another To which purpose S. Augustine Epist 62. ad Coelestin hath an excellent saying SEMPER DEBEO CHARITATEM QUAE SOLA c. Love I must alwaies owe which of all debts though payd yet still keeps a man in bonds And againe CHARITATEM LIBENS REDDO c. I do willingly pay Love and as willingly take it in payment it is a thing which when received I count not my self fully satisfied nor when I repay it discharged Hence we may see how absurdly the Anabaptists and Trinitarians Heresy exploded by this Text all debts of Justice and onely required the debt of Love to stand due for if Charity oblige to doe ultroneous and voluntary good deeds how much more to do Justice but so perfect a payment of all debts is commanded by this place as we see the Apostle saies Who loveth his neighbour fulfilleth the Law because we cannot love him but we must love God for himself and man for God's sake as we love our selves 9. And to confute further the Heresy above mentioned see how this whole verse insists upon Acts of Justice to our neighbour rooted in the commanded Love to them aforesayd Whence some conceive the Apostle alludes onely to the law of the Second Table because here is no mention of any one of the three precepts belonging to the First Table importing our duty to God but S. Austin contends that the love of man being but subordinate to the love of God 1 John 4. v. 7. imports and includes both grounded on those words of S. John Children love one another repeated over and over againe to his friends and being asked why he did so he replied because it is the Precept of our Lord and if this alone be done it is sufficient For our love to God and man is like the lines drawn from the Center to their Circumference be the Center God the Circle man the Lines our affections see then how they
flow between these two extreames the more they approach to the Circle the wider they are but as they recede from the Circle the closer they go till at last they are all concentred in one point Almighty God and so made one heart and one soule amongst our selves hence we see that all the motion our affections have from man to God growes still more and more vigorous and more perfect So S. Austine concludes DILIGE ET FAC QUOD VIS. Love and do what thou please Tract 7. in Epist 1. S. John whereas the Apostle sayes if there be any other precept meaning of the Second Table for of the three belonging to the First Table and that of honouring our parents the first precept of the Second Table he had spoken before at large under the title of Superiour powers Princes and others ending that subject in these words To whom honour honour for that command is in these words Honour thy Father and Mother under which title are included Elders Betters Superiours especially Princes spoken of at large from the first verse of this Chapter to the end of the seventh ending as above to whom honour honour I say whereas the Apostle saies if there be any other Precept it is included in this word Love your neighbour as your selfe we are to note the Precept of love to our neighhour is bipartite as divided into two branches the first whereof is affirmative grounded on these words of S. Matth. Chap. 6. What you will have others doe to you doe you the same to them The second negative in that of Tobit Chap. 4. v. 16. What you hate to have another doe to you see you never do that to another not that this Precept commands an equality but onely a similitude of love to your neighbour with that you beare to your self that is to say as all you desire is honest good delectable to your selfe so desire the like to your neighbour not in equall proportion but in exact similitude distaste him not hurt him not rob him not as you desire he should not distaste hurt nor rob you so the allusion is to similitude not to equality 10. The reason of this is because the object of our love being good the effect thereof must be good also for as none can love evill for evills sake so none can love good for evills sake because true love both makes good the end and medium of its operation as who should say doe I finally ayme at good then good must be the medium leading thereunto so it being good to love our neighbour the operation of this good love cannot be a bad thing Therefore the Apostle concludes The fullnesse of the Law is Love that is to say if we love we fulfill the Law or as Tolet saies The scope or end of the Law is Love or as S. Augustine because love forceth a man to fulfill the Law hence we see Faith alone sufficeth not to satisfie the Law without Acts of Love how absurd is it then to say as hereticks do the Commandements are impossible to be kept when by onely love they are all fulfilled not that so perfect a love can here be hoped for as shall exempt us from veniall sinnes against the Law since such is onely reserved for the next world and performed in the state of Bliss but that we may forbeare mortall sin even in this life if we but love our neighbour as our selves and God appretiatively at least above all things that is to say not so well to love any thing but still to resolve we will rather leave to love it than for its sake cease to love God and surely thus all good Christians doe appretiatively Love God above all things The Application 1. WEll is Love said to be the fullnesse of the Law because the Law commands us nothing else but that we love So to love it to prevent the danger of the Law which is never broken but under paine of penalty Wherefore as last Sunday bids us fly sin as a disease this bids us fly it as a danger 2. Well is the danger of the Law expressed in these negative Commandements for prohibition is the best prevention of a mischief Hence we say forewarn'd and arm'd against all danger whatsoever as new we are especialyl against the dangerous temptations unto what is here prohibited 3. Well doth S. Paul conclude as he began exhorting us to love because love workes no evill now amongst evills danger is not the least and onely not to love is hugely dangerous since we are taught 1 John 3. vers 14. and 1 Cor. 16. v. 21. that he who loveth not remaines in death in the death of that sin he commits against the Law for lack of loving God above all things and his neighbour as himself Say now the Payer above and see how suitable it is to this Epistle The Gospel MAT. 8. v. 23. c. 23. ANd when he entered into the boate his disciples followed him 24. And loe a great tempest arose in the sea so that the boate was covered with waves but he slept 25. And they came to him and raised him saying Lord save us we perish 26. And he saith to them why are ye fearfull O ye of little faith Then rising up he commanded the windes and the sea and there ensued a great calme 27. Moreover the men marvelled saying what an one is this for the windes and the sea obey him The Explication 23. IT was his usuall custome to preach in a boate a little off from the shoare but here it seemes he took boat to avoid the multitude of people that followed him and so both to flie popular applause and to give occasion to this following miracle he took boat and put to Sea with his Disciples 24. Probably our Saviour himself raised this Tempest purposely First to shew he was Lord of all the world both sea and land the figure of which passage S. John in his Apoc. Chap. 10. v. 2. recounts telling how an Angell set his right foot upon the Sea and thereby commanded it at pleasure Secondly to inure his Disciples to tribulation as well at sea as land Thirdly to confirm his Disciples in their Faith of him and some others besides in the company and these may be all true reall causes of the tempest but figuratively wee may believe this Tempest to have been raised to shew the future persecution of the Church of Christ and of a devout soul in temptation and how as by his permission it comes so by his power it shall passe away even when it seemes most severe and when Almighty God seems as it were asleep and not to regard it till by the joynt prayer of the Church he be wakened and made propitious For Seneca himself sayes A mans life without temptation seems like a dead Sea so called for the stillness thereof as if there were no life in the water of it and indeed as in a storm at sea the best man aboard is
that where there wants a will a wish sufficeth Say then beloved can you wish at least ability to rise from Death of Sin into the Life of Grace O wish it then for shame and wishing Pray as above with Holy Church that having had from God the grace of such a wish he will vouchsafe to prosecute it in you till you come thereby to such a Glory as you cannot wish to have a Greater The Gospel Mark 16. v. 1 c. 1 And when the Sabbath was past Mary Magdalene and Mary of James and Salome bought Spices that coming they might anoynt Jesus 2 And very early the first of the Sabbaths they come to the Monument the Sun being now risen 3 And they said one to another who shall role us back the stone from the door of the Monument 4 And looking they saw the stone rolled back For it was very great 5 And entring into the Monument they saw a yong man sitting on the right hand covered with a White Robe and they were astonied 6 Who saith to them Be not dismayed you seek Iesus of Nazareth that was crucified he is risen he is not here behold the place where they laid him 7 But go tell his Disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee There you shall see him as he told you The Explication 1. THat is when Saturday night was past for Saturday was the Sabbath of the Jews then and not till then lest they should be said to violate the Sabbath they bought Spices to anoint Jesus Here is to be noted the Sedulity and Diligence to be used by Christian Souls to take hold of the first minute of time allowed for devotion and not to loyter any instant thereof away since these pious women watched purposely all night to lay hold of the first stroake of the clock which strook twelve that then they might freely call up the Shop keepers to sell them oyntments when the last minute of the Sabbath was past Note these three women were Mary Magdalene the sister to Martha and Lazarus Mary of James that is the Mother of James the lesser so called for distinction from the other Iames the greater who was also an Apostle and Salome wife to Zebedeus Mother to James the greater and to John the Evangelist the favourite of Jesus and whether or no Salome be her Christian name here or her surname is not cleer by the Text For she may have been Mary Salome wife to Zebedeus above which is not unsuitable to the common Tradition of the three Maries that visited the Sepulcher of Christ and to whom in recompence he after appeared by this action we see the ancient custom of Pilgrimage to Holy Places and reverencing of Reliques however those who deny that to be lawful distinguish between the Reliques of Christ and others because Christ was God and it was besides an ancient custom of the Jews to embalm dead bodies to make them odoriferous and sweet so this was not done by them to Christ as God for indeed they did not then firmly believe in his Deity but were passionate Lovers of his Holy Person and as they esteemed him a man of Blessed Life so to shew their devotion to him they went as it were to embalm his Body and his Tombe which they revered as Reliques of man not of God and as this gives a literal avowment to Pilgrimages and worship of Reliques so it is a Tropical Example for all Christians to carry the oyntments of their Vertues and good Works about them as shewing they desire therewith to embalm the Memory of Christs Death and Passion and those who shall be diligent in this Art of Piety may hope with the first to see Christ in Heaven for the reward of their attending so Religiously on the Grave of his Death and Passion in this life 2. It seems they had been stayed in their journey to the Sepulchre either in the buying their oyntments or upon other accommodations for their holy purpose that it was Sun-rising ere they came to the Monument how ever they were going thither from midnight to that time of the day and had assuredly the merit of a more speedy arrival though by Divine providence it was appointed Christ should be out of his Grave sooner then any the most faithful Soul could get thither to see whether he was risen or not according to his promise if yet they were not retarded by the same Providence for a punishment of their want of Faith that came with intent to finde him there and as man to embalm him whom as God they ought to have believed was risen and needed not those pious expressions towards his humanity which this Resolution and Action in these holy Women did represent 3. Here again they betraied the weakness of their Faith as if God could not remove all obstacles in the way to his own Service as it seems really he did by the hands of his holy Angels who St. Matth. cap. 28. v. 3. sayes had rolâ—ed this stone away before they came which yet the Angel did not by any his Corporal Touch but by making an Earth-quake purposely to do it and joyntly to shew the terrour all the Earth was in for having covered the glorious Body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and by this we see the Power that Angels have over all Corporal Things when they can even by the Touch of their Vertues or Powers make the whole Earth to quake not that there was need for the Angel to remove this stone that Christ might rise for he did rise before the Stone was gone by the same Power wherewith he came out of his Mothers Wombe without the least violation of her Virginity but meerly that by the stones removal the coming Maries and others to follow might see Christ was risen and why may not Christs Body be as well all under the Little Wafer of the Consecrated Hoste as it was able to pass through the Virgins Wombe a Childe and through the Stone a Man without any Division in either Quantities or Bodies through which it passed Note though these Maries were solicitous who should help them to role away the stone yet they went on with their Holy Resolutions to shew us we are not to desist from doing good though we finde huge Difficulties in our way but to proceed and put our trust in God that to those who Love him even every thing in Nature will co-operate towards the expression of their Loves 4. This Verse gives an excellent Proof of what was said last for see they no sooner look to have the stone removed but they finde it done to their hands by the Angel as above though they knew not who did it and therefore here is mention this Stone was very Great because we should not despair of overcoming any the greatest Difficulties in the way of a willing Soul to serve Almighty God 5. See they lose no time to ask or wonder how the stone was gone their
seen the Example of Humane Frailty in the chief Pastour of Gods Church that since the Sword of spiritual Power was put into their hands they might also have reason to shew mercy and not to retain other mens sins being penitent fiâ—ding their own were remitted upon Repentance and it was not without Reason that Christ foretold his Apostles he would rise again and appear to them in Galilee because he knew after his Death the Apostles and all the rest of his Disciples or Friends would be both afraid to meet together in Judea and that the Jews were so malicious against Christ as they would not suffer so great a number of his Disciples as Christ had above the eleven Apostles to appear amongst them much less to make assemblies Again the Apostles were most of them Galileans and so Christ knew they would be retreating to their own homes when he was gone or soon after if he rose not presently Lastly he had himself done many miracles in Galilee and therefore chose to get belief of them all at once by this one above all the rest his rising from the dead to Life again besides Galilee imports as much as transmigration and Christ passing from Death to life chose to do it in a place proper to the mystery which was yet redoubled by his appearing to multitudes at once in Galilee to shew he found the Jews no longer worthy his aboad among them and so he passed from them to the Gentiles where he had left many Disciples besides those Twelve he chose Apostles and whereof Judas was turned Apostata and dyed despairing so when the Angel said to the Maries Go tell his Disciples he meant tell all his Friends who are many in Galilee and St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. v. 6. seems to say that at the first apparition of Christ in Galilee there were more then five hundred of his Disciples or Friends and such as believed religiously of him whom therefore he rewarded by making them undoubted witnesses of this most doubtful and much controverted Truth his rising from the dead The Application 1. THe scope of all this Gospel is to prove the real Resurrection of our Blessed Lord and by that means the Immortality of Humane Souls so to wean them from their Temporal desires and plant their Loves upon Eternity the doubt if not the ignorance whereof made them embrace the Transitory Pleasures of the World and laugh at those for fools who thought of any happiness or misery to come when this life had an end by Death 2. Hence when the Apostles preach't our Saviours Resurrection it was held a scandal to the Jews and a folly to the Gentiles because it brought the tidings of Eternity to men that knew not any thing before but fleeting time and so for want of hoping in eternal Happiness by leading holy Lives fell headlong in a trice to everlasting Misery by living viciously according as the Royal Prophet said They lead their days in Jollity and in an instant they descend to Hell 3. As therefore when our Saviour died good men began to think it folly to be good because their Vertue was not able to maintain them living still So when he rose again bad men began to fear they might as well revive to misery as happiness and consequently were more easily reclaimed from Vice and brought in Love with Vertue so that Eternity we see is made a special Root of Christianity when even a desire to live eternalâ—y is held a motive strong enough to work a Sanctity into our Souls Since Holy Church makes it her rule to day that as by Christ his Resurrection the door was open to a blest Eternity so our desires thereof may be preserved in us by him that gave them to us by his prevenient Grace On White or Low Sunday The Antiphon Joh. 20. v. 26. AFter eight days the doors being shut our Lord entring in said unto them Peace be to you Alleluja Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who have accomplished the Pascal Feasts may retain the same in our Manners and Lives by thy bounty inabling us so to do The Illustration WE heard last Sunday the Churches Prayers were now to run in a peculiar Channel of Life-giving Waters those of the Resurrection of our Lord See therefore this days Service sliding sweetly down that stream but in this Prayer I finde a Phrase so strange as needs a gloss to make it understood though it speak plain English too for how can we retain a thing that 's past as is the Paschal Feast and yet this is it we pray for to day and not onely to retain this feast in our memories but in our manners and our lives sure then the meaning is we must retain those good desires which we besought God to prosecute in us in our last Sundays Prayer and which as by his preventing grace they were afforded us so by his continued bounty we now beg ability to continue or retain them in our manners and lives Now albeit this makes the Prayer above to be as it were a recapitulation of the last Sundays Prayer since the Octave Day is a closing up one and the self same Feast that began seven days before yet we must finde a deeper sence in this days Prayer such as petitioneth we should retain the Vertues which did occur to the accomplishment of the Paschal Feast as the good desires to those Vertues and if we look back to what those Vertues were we shall finde them to be sincerity and verity or rather in a word perfect Sanctity such as might make the old Leaven in us of sin to be White Manchet of Sanctity as if it were nothing for us to make yearly Memory of Christ his Death and Passion and of his Resurrection for in these two Mysteries consist the Paschal Feast unless our selves did remain ever dead unto sin and ever alive to God by vertue of our resurrection in his holy grace assuredly this must be the sence of our Prayer to day for this is truly to retaine in our manners and lives the Feasts of Pasche that are past when we make our selves Paschall Lambes by the Sincerity and Sanctity of our lives and manners For thus we shall first by our Faith overcome the world and next by our good works give the testimony of Gods Holy Spirit being in us which this dayes Epistle so much insisteth on as the effect of our Faith and of our Victory over the world by the same Faith And to the Gospell this Prayer is literall whilst it beggs we may retaine in us that Paschall Feast which is the whole scope of this dayes Gospell telling us how our Saviour appeared in confirmation of his Resurrection to his Apostles and in the narration of Saint Thomas his infidelity exhorting us to a firmer Faith in that and in all the other mysteries of our Redemption To conclude
to day mixeth the Lay mans duty with that of the Priest to shew us that what in an eminent degree Christ taught his Apostles and consequently their successors the Pastors of Gods Church who by office have care of soules in some sort at least the layty was to imitate namely that heroicall or rather that divine Act of Faith which is required to Martyrdom For albeit the Priest be bound to many duties which do not oblige Lay people yet there is no man or woman whatsoever that is not rigorously bound to lay down life it selfe the deerest thing they have rather then deny their faith in Jesus Christ 2. Againe however the Lay-man is not bound to that perfection of charity and Justice which the Priest ought to have nor to excell in many other vertues essentially proper to the Priest as zeale of soules especially yet this dayes Epistle tels us that every Christian whatsoever stands obliged thus far to imitate the perfection of Jesus Christ himselfe as to preserve the proper vertues of the Paschall Feast sincerity and verity which is as much as to say some degree of saintity as was declared in the exposition of the Epistle upon Easter day and consequently if all be bound to saintity none are priviledg'd to sinne but every one is to avoid it as is told us in the second verse of this Epistle none is priviledg'd to beguile or defraud his neighbour for that is contrary to the Paschall sincerity and verity which all the Lambs of Christ are obliged unto 3. To conclude as all Christians are rigorously bound to a profession of the Faith of Christ with hazard of their lives so this Epistle instructs them all in that particular duty of suffering for Justice in testimony of their Faith and for that purpose layes before their eyes in what manner they are to suffer just as Jesus did following his steps therein Not reviling those that revile them not straying away for fear but like believing Lambs to follow their Pastor the Bishop of their soules their Jesus and their God to whom they are converted by their faith in him for whom they are to dye if need be as he hath dy'd for them and by his humble death hath raised them to the hopes of an eternall life and of everlasting joyes therein Which ever living comfort they Petition for to day emboldened thereunto by a pious memory of our Saviours death and Passion since from his Sepulchre as was said before flow all the hopefull streames of our eternall happinesse for the head and spring of Faith is our Saviours Resurrection from his grave The Gospel John 10. v. 11 c. 11 I am the good Pastor The good Pastor giveth his life for his sheep 12 But the hireling and he that is not the Pastor whose own the sheep are not seeth the wolfe comming and leaveth the sheep and flyeth and the wolfe raveneth and disperseth the sheep 13 And the hireling flyeth because he is an hireling And he hath no care of the sheep 14 I am the good Pastor and I know mine and mine know me 15 As the Father knoweth me and I know the Father and I yeeld my life for the sheep 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall heare my voyce and there shall be made one fold and one Pastor The Explication 11. GOod Pastor is here taken for most excellent prime or indeed onely Pastor as from whom all others derive that name because his death is reall life to his sheep whereas the death of other Pastors is 〈◊〉 a due sacrifice for the dyer and an example for the liver to follow rather then to flye from faith so that Christs life was not onely given us as an example but as a satisfaction for our sinnes 12. By Hireling here mystically understand those Priests who serve their Flock more for love of their Fleece then of the Sheep more for base gain then for souls salvation as who should say this very Act renders a man no true Pastour though by his place he be so yet literally by hireling is understood those that are not really true Pastours but usurpe the places of them Namely Hereticks who neither have Orders nor Mission and yet live upon Tythes as if they were truly intituled thereto for to such the souls of men do not truly belong however they take an usurped charge over them and those men commonly in time of persecution flinch steal themselves away and leave their sheep the souls they pretended right over unto the tyranny of the devouring wolfe the persecutor of Gods holy Church Note the true Pastour is said also to flye when he is silent and doth not rebuke his erring Flock by the Wolfe is understood Heresie or the Devil the father thereof ravening and snatching this man to luxury t'other to gluttony a third to murther and so disperseth them from the Flock and Fold of orderly Sheep making them wander till they fall into the pit that cryes Vae soli wo to the lonely 13. St. Gregory says the Name shews the Nature and so gives the cause by giving the Name for to be a hireling is cause enough to flye from danger since it argues he loves his hire better then his cure his profit better then his Office nor is he truly said to have care of his Sheep but of himself and therefore by his flying from his sheep he shews he had indeed no care of them 14. See the mark of a good Shepherd is to know his sheep and to have his sheep know him he knows their vertues to incourage them to more he knows their Vices to dehort them from the same and they know his Love and Doctrine to follow both since as his Love leads them freely so his Doctrine leads them safely again as a Pastour leads his sheep to new Pastures so must the Priest feed them with new Exhortations as the Pastour keeps the Wolfe from his Sheep so must the Priest his Souls from the temptation of sin and the Devil as the Pastour cherisheth his Lambs more then ordinarily so must the Priest cherish his children with frequent Catechisms and his new converts even as children as the Pastour cures the Diseases of his Sheep so must the Priest the Infirmities of his Souls Lastly as the true Shepherd will fight to Death rather then be beaten from his Flock so must the Priest in persecution dye rather then flye from his Parish and in case of Plague the Pastour is rather to run the hazard of it then to leave the people unprovided of Priests and in this case particularly the Pastours are bound ex officio by office to stay when Regulars that onely help ex charitate out of charity as it were may flye in point of danger if they please and that without sin 15. See how he follows this mutual knowledge comparing it to that wherewith God the Father knows his Son and that
did not agree to this so important a truth and article of our Christian beliefe But now to our maine designe see how this Prayer like an Invisible Soule gives life to all the body of the Churches Service on this day whilest it tels us in generall termes the duty of good Christians which more particularly is summed up in the Epistle and Gospel following For what is that which Saint Peter in the former sayes more then this Prayer containes while he bids us walk here like Strangers and Pilgrimes and refraine carnal desires then that when we remember Christ his resurrection we should follow the light of that verity to prevent our going astray after carnall desires what meanes the so much inculcated good conversation among Gentiles in rhe Epistle but that we who are Catholikes and therefore by profession esteemed the best of Christians should give example of good life to all other sorts of Christians to all Gentiles Turkes Jewes and Infidels and should by the example of Christ his obedience to his Parents and to the powers of his time learn to be subject to every humane creature 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 13. though thereby we suffer even unjust oppressions as our Saviour did this is to be the good Christians that by profession we are esteemed This is to eschue things contrary to that most honourable name and to pursue what is most agreeable thereunto according as the Epistle exhorteth us To conclude this is also to beare patiently the vicissitudes of joyes and sorrowes mentioned in the Gospel if a while we See comfort and if a while after we See it not This is to be content Christ shall depart from us so the Holy Ghost come amongst us in his roome This is to be like teeming women groaning here and in Travell with the children of persecution paine torments and death it selfe for Jesus Christ and rejoycing when we are delivered of the manly and heroick acts of vertue the babes of grace which will bring us a comfort that no man can take from us a peace of conscience here and a crowne of glory in the world to come So we see how home this Prayer comes to all the whole Service of the day besides The Epistle 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 11 c. 11 My deerest I beseech you as strangers and pilgrimes to refraine your slves from carnal desires which war against the soule 12 Having your conversation good among the Gentiles that in that wherein they misreport of you as of Malefactors by the good works considering you they may glorifie God in the day of visitation 13 Be subject therefore to every humane creature for God whether it be to King as excelling 14 Or to Rulers as sent by him to the revenge of malefactors but to the praise of the good 15 For so is the will of God that doing well you may make the ignorance of unwise men to be dumb 16 As free and not as having the freedome for a cloak of malice but as the servants of God 17 Honour all men Love the Fraternity Feare God Honour the King 18 Servants be subject in all Feare to your Masters not onely to the good and modest but also to the wayward 19 For this is thank if for conscience of God a man sustaine sorrowes suffering unjustly The Explication 11. IT seemes there were in those dayes faigned devotes of women who under a pretence of piety intruded themselves very officiously into the company of Church-men but oftentimes it appeared their pretended piety was but carnality covered under a vizard of devotion and it is with speciall regard to such singularities and dangerous conversation with women that the Apostle here speakes both to Church-men to those women and to all good Christians in generall beseeching out of his humility though he might have commanded them that they never let fall the memory of their being but strangersâ— pilgrimes meere passengers upon this earth since they are members of Christ who as a stranger came into the world when at his first birth he was stranger-like cast out of doores and not allowed a place in any house to lay his head in so he was content to be borne in a manger that by this meanes he might shew us he came to looke us out who were stragled from Paradise banished thence indeed and made like strangers wander over all the world And seriously it is a deep word if well reflected on for Christians here to call themselves strangers since they have here no dwelling place but are Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem and all their life time being as a pilgrimage through the desert of this wicked world The Apostle strongly perswades when he bids them take heed of setting their affections upon creatures here for how absurd were it if a pilgrim or passenger whose life lay at stake to be at such a place by such a time where he was promised a preferment should yet doat upon some miserable bondslave in the road and thereby not onely lose his way home but his preferment too and binde himselfe Prentice to an eternal bondage or slavery And the Apostle speakes all this very pathetically very briefely under the notion of carnall desires which are indeed the greatest enemies the soule hath and doe clap the Irons of captivity soonest and fastest upon her no vice so surely so speedily inthralling souls as carnality doth See therefore how strongly the Apostles charms under this notion of Pilgrim since the very name shews the nature of the man one that hath no right at all to any thing he sees one that even to ease his own labour makes it his study to keep his right road that longs for nothing more but to get home that for this purpose is content to toyl and moyl continually and never to take long rest that dares offend none he meets lest as a stranger all the natives rise against him to revenge the injury he did to any one of them That looks on all he meets as strangers to him since he knows himself so to them that gets ready tacklings for his tedious journey and casts off all things else as cumbersom that finding himself laught at by most he meets with especially all youth for the Exotick habit which he wears regards not their flouts nor scorn but bears them patiently Thus thus the Apostle exhorts all Christians to walk through the wilderness of this World Note by carnal desires which above all he bids them refrain he means all the works of the flesh all vice indeed gluttony as overloading venery as over-wasting anger as retarding while others in revenge stop his journey and so of all the other fleshly works as St. Paul enumerates them Gal. 5.19 which shall be explicated on the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 12. Since by Gentiles here are understood all the Nations of the World the Apostle tyes up Christians to a very good and a close guard when he allows him not to use the least miscomportment before
our being by the word of truth begotten since the Apostle doth close this verse with telling us how to make our selves more apt to receive the word of truth into our soules or as who should say since wee are begotten voluntarily by the word of truth let us endeavor by all meanes to preserve in us this regeneration this inborne word in us this filiation to God this adoption to glory and by the name of uncleanness the Apostle here alludes to concupiscence drawing us from the life of this word unto the death of sinne by the name of malice hee alludes to the sinne of anger before inculcated as hindering our justice such as by meekness we produce in our selves and so preserve the inbred word our filiation to God which must be our finall salvation of our soules by taking in or receiving the ingraffed word is here meant keeping it for this was spoken to those who were already Christians and the allusion is pretty which is here made to a graft for as by ingrafting on the body of an Apple-tree the gardiner if he please brings forth a Plum or Peare so the word of God ingrafted into our soules brings forth the fruits of grace which are the Seeds of better fruit of glory if any aske what is this ingrafted word we may say it is God incarnate for his incarnation is as it were an ingrafting or inoculating God into the hearts or soules of men since as the graft is alwayes of a better kinde then the Stock it is ingrafted on so the Divinity is much more sweet and fertil then our sowre Crab of humane nature whereas by the Hypostaticall union God and man in Christ became one person as the Tree and the graft become one body when the Sap unites and cements them together againe as all grafts are first cut from their own homogeneall Stock before they be ingrafted into another so the second person of the Trinity was taken as it were out of the hosome of his eternal Father to be ingrafted in the wombe of the Blessed Virgin Mary and so was brought out of his heavenly to be planted in our earthly Paradise or rather wilderness indeed for such it was when he came downe to earth and as from the sowre Stock of a Crab-tree we must first cut a branch before we can ingraft a better fruit upon it so was there cut off from Christ his humane hypostasis and he made to subsist by the hypostasis divine besides as the graft and the Stock are bound together till they fasten into one another so by the hypostaticall union was the divine graft bound to our stock of humane nature that thereby God and man might grow into one person consisting of two natures others will have this ingrafted word to be the Blessed Sacrament united to our Soules others understand it to be Christ crucified on the Cross others contend it is the word of God ingrafted by the Preachers into the hearts of the Faithfull The Application 1. THe two first verses of this Epistle point directly at the gift of Faith which is indeed the Best and most perfect gift eminentially called the gift of God and is such a Light to our Reason as can come from none but the Father of Lights in it selfe the Blessed Trinity but as to us we may say it comes from the Father of our Light that is of our Faith our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath indeed voluntarily begotten us by the word of Truth the Holy Writ the Record of our Faith whereby we have our first beginnings of being God Almighties creatures 2. The two next verses tell us with what Alacrity and Promptitude we should hear this Sacred word of God as also with what Patience we should bear the Rebukes and Checks it gives our Consciences when it reprehends our vices In plaine termes we are told that to be Angry at any holy reprehension is an evident signe of our not being Right beleevers since by our operative Faith we are made just as we have often been taught and nothing is less consistent with justice then Anger 3. The last verse tels us what effects Faith ought to work in us namely Purity Love and Meekness for without these we are not capable of saving our soules by the ingafted word of God in us which yet of it self is sufficient to save us if received with that Purity which renounceth all mixture of Heresie Schisme or Infidelity for these are the Obstructions to the unity of minds which Faith worketh in the soules of true beleevers making them therefore all of one minde because they are all of one pure and impermixed Faith such as is only in the Catholicke Church and the effect whereof is to make them therefore love even the hardest commands of that good God they do beleeve in and to covet ardently what he promiseth unto them in requitall of their love who amongst all the allurements in this world fix their hearts only upon heavenly joyes which are promised in the next world not on such shadowes of joyes as we possess here in a word not to fix their hearts upon our present loanes but upon our future promises for God here doth not properly give us any thing how ever he lends us all we have his gifts are for eternall enjoyment not for temporary uses onely Now that we may doe this see how fitly Holy Church Prayes as above The Gospel John 16. v. 5 c. 5 But I told you not these things from the beginning because I was with you And now I goe to him that sent me and none of you asketh me whither goest thou 6 But because J have spoken these things to you sorrow hath filled your hearts 7 But J tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I goe for if I goe not the Paraclete shall not come to you but if I goe J will send him to you 8 And when he is come he shall argue the world of sinne and of Iustice and of Iudgement 9 Of sinne because they beleeve not in me 10 But of Justice because I goe to my Father and now you shall not see me 11 And of judgement because the Prince of this world is now judged 12 Yet many things I have to say to you but you cannot bear them now 13 But when hee the spirit of truth commeth hee shall teach you all truth for hee shall not speake of himselfe but what things soever he shall heare he shal speake and the things that are to come he shall shew 14 He shall glorifie me because he shall receive of mine and shall shew to you The Explication 5. TO understand what the Apostle meanes in this verse we must know the meaning of the foregoing words and though many wil have these things to report unto what went before namely our Saviours having told them they should be persecuted and punished to death for his sake after he was gone which he told them of that when it
The whole house was filled with this noise to shew all their hearts who were within should be filled with the Holy Ghost for thus the Text affirms immediately saying vers 4. and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost Note it is said they were Sitting both to shew the rest and quiet Gods holy Spirit bringeth with it and to shew that prayer of expectation and such this was is perhaps best when it is performed sitting thus S. Bernard a great Saint was noted to proceed in his deepest meditations 3. By parted tongues is here understood tongues divided amongst many not in themselues as commonly Painters make them thinking thereby to expresse the activity of fire rising up in many-pointed flames but the reasons why the Holy Ghost would have the forme of a tongue to declare his coming are many First because the Apostles were by this coming confirmed to be the Preachers of the Gospel and the proper instrument of a Preacher is his tongue So the gift of tongues was first expressed by the species of a tongue where we are to note this gift includes three properties the first the knowledge of languages the next the true signification of the words of different languages the third a volubility of tongue adapted to the several articulations requisite to several Languages and consequently a prudence to use all these in a right way The second reason is because a tongue hath a great affinity with a word as therefore the Holy Ghost was the Spirit of the VVord so he came in the species of a Tongue and as by the word of the mind is produced the voyce of the tongue so from the Divine word did proceed the Holy Ghost whence the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. vers 3. sayes no man can say Jesus but in the Holy Ghost The third as the tongue distinguisheth tastes so doth the Holy Ghost truths from falshoods heavenly from earthly things insomuch that St Paul tells us The Animal man doth not perceive the things of the Spirit 1 Cor. 4. Lastly because the tongue is both the best and worst instrument of man Proverb 12. Death and life are in the hand of the Tongue Prov. 16. It is in man to prepare his heart but the government of the tongue is from our Lord wherefore there was great reason to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to tame rule and sanctifie the tongues of men As for the tongues themselves whether they were true fire or true tongues is questioned yet resolved best that they were not truly fire but only fiery forms like unto tongues as some ayr condensed and made into that form and illuminated so as to seem fire but not to burn because it was to set upon the heads of those it fell upon Of their pyramidal form we give many reasons First to shew the Spirit of God only penetrates all deep and hard mysteries Secondly to shew it penetrated the very hearts of those it fell upon and made them cordially love Almighty God Thirdly it made them aspire from earth as high as heaven Fourthly that the very tongues of those who had this gift should penetrate the hearts of men to their conversion Lastly to shew it should give them the discretion of spirits that had this gift to distinguish betwixt good and bad inspirations in themselves or in those they were to direct spiritually And these tongues were rather fiery then of any other kind to shew God is all a flame of Love as Deut. 4.24 Thy God O Israel is a consuming fire And therefore as the Law of Moyses shewing Gods Will was given with the Circumstances of Thunder and Lightening so the Law of Christ now was to be confirmed by the holy Ghost with like signes to shew it was the Will of the same God abrogating the former and constituting this new Law Secondly as all the old Prophets were authorized by circumstance of fire Isaias his lips being touched with a coal of fire became as we read Chap. 6 ver 6. like fire and his words seemed all fiery too and Elias being carried up in a fiery Chariot into heaven 4 Reg. 2.11 and of Hieremias it is said from above he sent fire into mens bones and thereby instructed them Thren 2. v. 13. and Ezechiel foretelling of Christ his Chariot supported by four Cherubims of whom he sayes Chap. 1. v. 13. Their looks were like fire coales all which were but types of the more univocal fire that did accompany the election confirmation and conversation of the Apostles true Prophets of the new law foretellers of heavenly things Thirdly to shew Christ his law was a law of love of charity of coelestiall fire Fourthly to shew the effect of this love was to produce the fire of love divine in all Christian souls Fifthly to shew the spirit of God was searching as fire the most subtle worker and penetratour that is in nature The reason why these fiery tongues were said to sit in the singular number not plurall upon the Apostles was to shew that though the tongues were and must be many for each to have one yet the Spirit giving them was one and not many namely one onely God And this Spirit was rather expressed setting then otherwise to shew the constancy of Gods holy grace and gifts in those he pleaseth to bestow his speciall favours on and their ease and rest in the possession of that Spirit as also that the holy Ghost was to rest in the hearts of the Faithfull to the worlds end 4. They were all replenished whereas before they had received the grace of God now they had the plenitude thereof not all alike but some more some lesse according as was requisite to their callings No marvell then if the Apostles being full of grace and the gift of tongues they could not contain themselves but say The Things which we have seen and heard we cannot but speak nay so much they spake that some believed they were drunk with new wine and so it was indeed with the wine of the heavenly grape the holy Ghost not otherwise and as they were inforced to speak the praises of God by the irrefragable impulse of this holy Spirit so they spake to all purposes that is to the capacity and understandings of all hearers of what nation soever for they spake all kind of languages or tongues which some will understand as if each Apostle speaking a severall language among them all they had all languages others conceive that they speaking onely in their own Syro-Hebraean tongue all the several nations understood them as if their languages had been various as in this manner S. Vincentius Ferrerius preaching in Spanish was understood by severall nations as Italians French Flemish English c. each conceiving they heard him in their native tongue grounded in these words following v. 11. We hear them speaking in our tongues But the true sense is they did really and truly speak upon occasion all languages by the gift
fearing Judgment we fall into the errour of heretiâ—ks who presume they are certain of their salvation By fear therefore is here meant despair such as dejected consciences use to have whereas none such enters into those that have perfect charity Secondly he alludes to that fear which in Eccles 5 v. 5. we read of even for remitted sins be not without fear which yet a perfect lover needs not fear but this is said to imperfect lovers of God Thirdly he means servile fear such as makes us serve God meerly for fear of hell not filial fear for that is compatible with nay essential unto perfect love as we read Eccles 1.28 who is without fear namely filial cannot be justified because who ever truly loves is ever afraid to offend his beloved Fourthly this fear is worldly or humane such as men have to loose their estates or friends affections when to preserve these temporal trifles they hazard the losse of eternal blessings Fifthly this fear is scruple whereas perfect charity abandons all scruples and proceeds freely and frankly in her Actions according to that of St. Paul Rom. 8.15 You have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear but the spirit of adoption of sons wherein we cry Abba Father Lastly Charity banisheth all fear of punishment although it allowes fear of the fault that may deserve punishment for the soules in Purgatory are not troubled at their pains so much as they are to have deserved them by their faults which they are even willing to expiate so when he concludes this verse saying fear hath pain he means fear in these senses as above such as is said of war that the fear of war is worse then war it self and all fear which brings pain is opposite to charity that brings ease and content along with it not solicitude nor anxiety which shuts up mens hearts whereas perfect charity opens and dilates them 19. 20. 21. These three last verses are as it were recapitulatory and winding up the clew or threed of this amorous discourse which lead us into the delightful maze of love and hath brought us out again according as we heard in the exposition of the sixteenth verse adding here it is not only a counsel but a command from God that we love one another that we love our neighbour lest men should pretend it were enough to love God onely whereas indeed all the scope of St. John in this Epistle hath been to draw us to a love of one another by shewing how God hath loved us all without respect of persons and taught us to love even our enemies lest we should excuse our selves from that complement of perfect dilection which is a friendly loving of our enemies to shew we have no enemies at all but our own sins the onely things if we may so call them that we are or can be allowed not to love and indeed may perfectly hate them nay the more we do hate them the more we shall love our neighbours as finding we have no enemies of any but of our selves Note the Evangelist tells us we are lyers to say we love God if we love not our Brother because love is a passion leading us by the eye to the embracements of the objects that we see before our eyes if therefore a man looking upon God Almighties picture which himself hath made as he confesseth like himself and do not love that picture which he sees how can he love the prototype or original thereof God himself whom he sees not And truly the Logick of this discourse is convincing because love is first rooted in the object seen if therefore we do not love that object of God which we do see how can we without a blush be so impudent so irrational as to say we love the object which we do not see at all as well a blind man might tell us he sees and loves darknesse which is nothing but a privation of sight and light The Application 1. HAving now given for respect to the B. Trinity the religious preference this day to our first Act of Faith when according to the order of holy Churches services charity is held forth unto us as the chief vertue we are to exercise without intermission from hence forward untill Advent Sunday see now with how strong a flame of love the beloved disciple of our Lord opens his loving heart to day whilest his whole Epistle to us from the very first verse to the last is nothing else but a continual eruption of the burning charity within his loving breast O how necessary is it then for us to strike out of our flinty hearts some sparks of love at least to day who knowes but in time with frequent lesser acts we may at last produce the greatest that of love unto our enemies see how the eleventh verse above doth animate to this bidding us love each other as Christ hath loved us Alas what was there in us but enmity to him when he began to love us were we not all at that time children of wrath Search then beloved out to day the man or men you least affect nay those if any be that bear you hatred and so are brothers of wrath shew but a smiling countenance to them in testimony that you look upon them as Jesus lookt on you when least you loved him when most you hated him indeed then shall you best apply the present Text to your emolument 2. Do not say you hate dissimulation that you cannot smile on him you love not or on him that hateth you lest you seem base and abject minded lest you make your enemy insult the more to see you fawn upon him Fie fie beloved these are but the subtle arts of him that is our common enemy by these devices he deludes us into hell and robs us of our best inheritance this is to do as holy David sayes To search excuses for our sins 3. Say rather with St. Paul I can do all things in him that strengthens me say though this be against thy own corrupted nature yet it is most sutable to his who took upon him thy infirmity that he might help thee with his fortitude Hope then in heavens helping hand hope in the Holy Ghost hope in his holy Grace he came but lately with a magazin of Love to leave thee store enough to love thine enemies if thou canst not at the first both smile and love do thee but that and hope he will do this who can do more the holy Ghost I mean shew by the deed thou hast a wish at least to do it willingly that he may by his holy grace give thee a will to execute this hard command of his to love thine enemies as he hath loved thee frankly freely willingly Let no man say this is a good but not a proper counsel now When is it more proper Then when we pray as above that we may do it Then we best apply the Text to us when we apply our selves
us in the B. Sacrament as we must fear him under his severer name of our Judge if we now fail of such equall love unto him O happy Christians who at the same time when they are bid to fear Christ are taught to love Jesus and consequently their love and fear must be as equal as Christ Jesus is to Jesus Christ But the reason why we beg this equality of fear and love is because Christ doth never leave destitute of his government those whom he instructs in the solidity of his love that is Christ our Judge will sweetly rule us if he find we do solidly love him and we were last Sunday taught the solidity of that love did consist in loving God above all things and not only our neighbour but also our enemies as our selves which lesson was then given as a preparative to this Feast now flowing in the Octaves thereof and alluded unto in this prayer teaching us in brief what the Epistle and Gospel tell us more at large The first that who loves not ought to stand in fear of that death which he abides in by not loving Nay more so confident must our Love be that we must rather not fear to dye for our neighbour then we must dare not to love him and to this we are incited by the example of Christ whose love made him dye for us that were his enemies Again we are told this love must be real and true not verbal onely and that it cannot be so if we relieve not our neighbour in his necessity when we are able so to do This argues indeed that we are not left destitute by our Governour Christ Jesus who instructs us in this solidity of love from one end of the Epistle to the other And since it is the general consent of all Expositours that the Supper mentioned in this dayes Gospel is a figure of the Blessed Sacrament sure that is a mystery as full of solid love as is expressed in the Prayer above teaching us never to go unto this Supper without equal fear and love and so the Prayer stands excellently well adapted both to the Sunday to the Feast to the Epistle and to the Gospel of the day For if we can by saying this prayer fervently obtain the equal fear and love which it petitioneth assuredly in recompense thereof Almighty God will so govern us as we shall not for humane ends excuse our selves from our duties to his Divine Majesty but shall come so religiously to the Supper of the Sacrament here as we need not fear being shut out at the last Supper of eternall rest in glory which again the Expositours will have the Sacramentall Supper to be a signe of And thus as well every sense as every letter of this Gospel is included in this most admirable prayer of holy Church The Epistle 1 Joh. 3.13 c. 13 Marvell not Brethren if the world hate you 14 We know that we are translated from death to life because we love the Brethren He that loveth not abideth in death 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer hath life everlasting abiding in himself 16 In this we have known the charity of God because he hath yielded his life for us and we ought to yield our lives for the Brethren 17 He that shall have the substance of the world and shall see his Brother hath need and shall shut his bowels from him how doth the charity of God abide in him 18 My little children let us not love in word nor in tongue but in deed and truth The Explication 13. THe Evangelist had in the precedent verses told us the difference between the children of God and those of the devil and how there was mortal enmity between the one and the other instancing in Cain killing his Brother Abel for no other cause then envy to him seeing the sacrifice of Abel was acceptable to God and his was not in regard Abel was a child of God and Cain a child of the devil and so no marvel if his offerings were not acceptable to God Almighty But the Apostle proceeds further and bids Christians not wonder if the world hate them because of their good deeds since for that reason Cain representing the malignancy of the world hated Abel who was a figure of a good Christian offering grateful sacrifice to God besides the Apostle here alludes to what he had said in his Gospel Chap. 15.18 If the world hate you know it hated me before it hated you and therefore here he concludes they should rather expect then wonder at it if they found the world did hate them since no Son can hope for love from him who hates his Father and the foregoing Verses of this Epistle were all upon our happy filiation with God But we may observe the causes remarkable why the wicked for those are understood by the world so called from the greater part thereof that are wicked indeed do hate those who are good The first is the dissimilitude betwixt vice and vertue which begets a hatred as similitude begets love and affection for we see all worldlings puffed up with pride and ambition contrariwise all good Christians are meek and humble The second is Envy for wicked men seeing they cannot arrive at purity and sanctity envy those who do attain thereunto The third because the good men do further reprehend the vices of the wicked as the holy Ghost doth inspire them in imitation of his example whose coming shall argue the world of sin as we heard John 15.8 The fourth because the world sees good men flye the company of the wicked The last because their affections are contrary one doating upon the world altogether the other wholly inamoured on Almighty God so they must needs be as opposite as two Contraries are as heat to cold as dry to moist and labour to overcome each other but with this difference that the good man labours the conversion of the bad the bad man indeavours the perversion of the good 14. The Apostle doth not here say we know by any divine Faith or certain knowledge as hereticks will needs interpret this place but onely by moral certitude we know that if we love one another for Gods sake we must needs love God much more and as by sin against him we dye so by love of him we detest sin and are by that meanes translated from the death of sin to the life of grace in this world and to the life of glory in the next So that all the certitude we have of this is the testimony of our own consciences telling us we are not guilty of any defect either in our love to God or to our neighbour Yet because St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. v. 4. no sooner said he was not guilty then he added yet in this I am not justified the Catholick Church teacheth our assurance of our being in the state of grace is onely moral not divine And three signes
there are of Justifying grace inhabiting within us The first if we perfectly hate sin The second if we mortifie the flesh The third if we have zeal to our neighbours good such as St. Paul had saying Who is sick and I am not distempered with him also 2 Cor. 11. insomuch that here St. John presumes to say he that loves not remaines in death that is if when he is bound to shew his love either to God or his neighbour he doth it not he remaines in death in the guilt at least of that past sin which he committed by omitting to do his duty when he was bound to do it out of which guilt since there is no going but by the help of grace therefore he is said to remain in death untill by an Act of love he revives from the death of that guilt which he remained in by not loving when he was bound to do it Nay the death of our body is but a shadow of death to that of our soules so the Apostle needs not scruple to say men living in sin remain in death because they are truly dead to grace and glory as long as they continue in their sin be they never so vigorouslâ— alive in body 15. He is a murderer of his own soul because as was said above he that loves not remains in death Where note not to love is esteemed to be as bad as to hate and consequently who hates his neighbour actually kills himself and in effect his neighbour too though not in Act not unlike him that coveting his neighours wife is an Adulterer in will though not in fact Yet others will have this hatred to be onely murder in disposition not reduced into act but who so loves danger shall perish in it and therefore to dally in such dispositions is to indanger at least perishing in them Let no man wonder the Apostle should say he that murdereth hath not life everlasting in him when he that is in this world freest from all sinne hath not here everlasting life abiding in him whence it follows by life everlasting is here understood that life of grace whereunto everlasting life and glory is due whereof none can have so much as a hope so long as he remains in hatred or murder as above 16. Not content to instance in lesse then the highest perfection the Apostle here tells us what is perfect charity perfect dilection to lay down our lives for our neighbours souls as Christ did his for ours But not so as we can loose our spirituall life to gain the like life to our neighbour no this is against the rule of charity which ever regards it self but reserving our spirituall we may loose our temporall lives to gain our neighbours souls And not onely may but are here exhorted thereunto if we say commanded the text will bear it in case we see our neighbours soul in danger unlesse we venture our lives And in some cases men may and are bound to hazzard at least their own to save anothers life as first a souldier may rather choose to die in the place then yield to his enemy the advantage of that ground his commander trusted him to defend the like is of a citizen in defense of the whole city for the part is not of equall regard with the whole so Samson did as we reade Judg. 16. who oppressed himself with the ruine of a house thereby to oppresse the Philistines also and to save the people of God from their captivity and though they are not many examples of obligation yet we have many of election shewing divers have died to save the life of their friend divers have rendered themselves captive to redeem others from bondage divers have lost their lives to preserve the chastity of others as esteeming the life of grace in their neighbour more pretious then that of nature in themselves 17. Having shewed in the precedent verse that we are bound in some cases to poure out our blouds for our neighbours no marvell if here it be concluded he cannot have charity who seeing his neighbour in necessity shuts up the bowels of his mercy from him and will not allow him any relief And yet because this is so usuall a thing therefore to confound those who have such stony hearts the Text compells them to the necessity of doing the lesser upon all occasions by shewing before they were obliged to a much greater act of charity upon some particular emergencies as who should say though it be hard to lay down your life for another yet it must be easie to lay down your purse or some equivalent relief if you will merit the name of a Christian and give proof by your acts of mercy that the authour of mercy is within you and that your self do live spiritually by relieving your neighbour corporally Whence most Divines hold a man is bound in conscience to give alms more or lesse and that not onely in extream but even in common reall necessities as of meat drink clothing housing or the like grounded in that of Eccles chap. 4. v. 1. Child defraud not the poor man of that Alms which is due unto him from thee for indeed the portion of the poor is in the rich mans hands and God gives riches to the end rich men may have the merit of poverty by giving their goods away and poor men the benefit of riches by what they receive out of the surplus of others And because it is too long for my present purpose to inlarge upon this point I referre the reader to the fourth book of Salvianus dedicated to the Catholick Church wherein he shews how great a sinne it is for Church-men to inrich their kindred with the Churches treasure and for rich persons of the world to starve Christ in the persons of the poor while they feast the devil in the excesses of the rich by leaving their estates to such as will not make at least pious uses thereof I do heartily therefore recommend this Authour to all those rich persons who find flesh and bloud prevail more in them then pietie to the poor for if I be not much mistaken they will thank me to have done this charity to them who thought perhaps they did not stand in need thereof but their minds may be other after reading the solid pietie of this learned Authour Salvianus upon this particular subject 18. Lo here the word is opposed to the work the tongue to truth as if we did want charity that onely gave good words to the poor without alms or as if they wanted truth who fed the poor with words of comfort onely when they were able truely to satisfie their hunger and would not Not but that he is truely charitable who instructing feeds the soul at least when he cannot feed his body but that to do both is the duty of a Christian when both may be done and where both are wanting So the meaning of this text is that our charity ought to
that is be full fraighted as she could possibly sail and then we might hope she would enter safe into the harbour of eternal rest when the labours of her militant state would be converted into the repose of her state Triumphant 8. 9. 10. Onely Peter of all the rest astonished as they were at the miracle expressed himself more then others did thereat fell immediately at our Saviours feet to adore that power which had wrought this miracle and for this his singular Faith and humiliation see him exalted and made head of all the Church to shew we cannot out do Almighty God in goodnesse his rewards are never short but alwayes above our works And 't is worth observing that S. Peter here desires Jesus to go from him because he is a sinner and doeth not deserve the honour of his presence A high expression of humility in him and of his reverence to the person of his Lord as if he had rather lose the honour of Christ his presence then so great a Majesty should be dishonoured by so unworthy company as his and all the rest that were as the ninth verse sayes all astonished at the greatnesse of the miracle in such an unexpected draught of Fish whom our Saviour comforts up in the tenth verse and bids Peter cast off his fear because he should be from that time a fisher of men of soules which he should bring in as great shoales to heaven as these fishes came to his net 11. What marvel they left all to follow so good so great a Master who did not alter but exalt their trade by innobling their draught which was formerly food onely for mens tables but henceforward they should take Fish that should be served up to the table of the King of heaven of God himself The Application 1. THe sum of this Gospel is the demonstration of our Saviours charity to his Apostles and of his like love to all the world by their Ministry whom he professeth here to make Fishers of men converters of soules by their teaching and preaching according as himself instructed them in that art by his own Sermon to them and to the multitude that followed him So we are not here to seek for charity where so high an act of love is exercised that of saving soules by preaching to them the word of God 2. But what we are to observe here is that the Apostles left all they had in the world to follow Christ and to seek after souls so that hence we see Church men especially Pastours and missionary Priests who by office have the care of soules lye upon them are to renounce all other cares or thoughts whatsoever are to divest themselves of all worldly cloggs or interest and to dedicate themselves wholly and solely to their Pastoral Functions 3. Neverthelesse they are not to rob the world of their suffrages prayers and sacrifices for in them they are still to have a memory of the whole world and to beseech God that he will blesse and prosper every private condition every peculiar state and all the general ranks and orders of the Universe that it may be in each with every one and through the whole as God in his Goodnesse and Wisdome hath ordained with Kings as best is for their Majesties with States as most conducing to their safety with subjects as befits them best and that so Temporalities may be ordered by Almighty God himself as the Spirituality be not interrupted nor molested but that all Church-men may be free to pray to preach to sacrifice and give the Sacraments to all as though the world would never be in order if the Church-men were disordered or not allowed peace and tranquillity in their devotions Sure this must be the meaning of the Text when it is the petition of the Prayer to day On the fifth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 5.24 IF thou offer thy gift at the Altar and shalt remember that thy Brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the Altar and go first to be reconciled to thy Brother and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who hast prepared invisible good things for them that love thee infuse into our hearts the desire of thy love that loving thee in all things and above them all we may attain unto thy promises which surpasse even all our own desires The Illustration SEe see beloved how little those that professe to love God ought to set their affections on creatures when by this Prayer they are told the good they ought to aym at is as invisible to them here as God himself is to our corporal eyes though in that God are contained all things that are good and worthy of our love See how because we cannot naturally love that which we see not we are bid to beg it as a boon of God that we may at least desire to love him and that this desire may be by him infused into our hearts so that loving God in all we do see and above all we can imagine we may thereby hope to attain unto the fruition of that Invisible good we see not which yet we are created to enjoy and which is so great as it surmounteth all our own most vaste desires A gallant and an easie way to heaven by onely loving what is onely worthy of our love the Invisible God who is the Authour and giver of all that can be good visible or invisible And since we may easily loose the hopes we have of attaining our spiritual good we are by this Prayer taught to love nothing visible that may indanger us to loose the invisible treasure which is hoarded up for us that is not to love any thing visible but as it relates to what is invisible namely to Almighty God and as thereby we may honour and glorifie God by loving it which rule can never be observed by loving creatures but even equally to their Creatour and yet commonly we love them and dote upon them much more God help us whereas if we follow the rule of this Prayer we shall not onely cure that disease in us but further attain to the height of perfection and sanctity which consisteth in loving God above all things and all things else for his sake not for their own respects since we cannot lawfully so much as love our selves but onely in order to God O admirable solidity of devotion O admirable profundity of spirit in the prayers of holy Church Let us now see how this Prayer is adapted to the Epistle and Gospel Excellently well to both For what is the Epistle else but a rule of perfection which this Prayer begs we may observe what else is the Gospel but a rule of more perfection in us Christians then ever God required at the hands of his chosen people the Jewes and what is this Prayer but a petition of the highest perfection and
fault as if God did esteem himself contemned when any that bore his image was vilified by us So that in the balance of Christian perfection any the least sinne of anger is veniall the expression of it in ill terms as Raca is doubtfull and worthy of Councill whether veniall or mortall any notable expression as fool is doubtlesse mortall and so damnable if it be so expressed as that thereby we really desire to exasperate and provoke our neighbour to indignation against us for if in jest 't is otherwise if it be to such persons as we may jest withall but if to our betters there such jests are odious and not to be used by any means 24 25. These verses close up the difference of perfection between the Pharisaicall and Christian Laws the former taught that by sacrifice and oblations at the Altar into the hands of the Priest all their sinnes were expiated whether they made satisfaction to the parties offended and injured by them or not This our Saviour beats down and forbids us to hope for pardon from him by any our sacrifices or approchings to the Altar and to Priests unlesse we make our selves worthy to partake of our own offerings to God by a previous justice done unto the world unlesse having abused thy brother by Raca or fool as above thou first ask him pardon much more must we do justice if the injustice hath been yet greater The reason of this is that justice is alwayes of necessity sacrifice many times of devotion onely Where note this doctrine of our Saviour is not onely as some pretend a counsell but indeed a precept because reconciliation is necessary by way of precept sacrifice not alwayes so and because God is never reconciled to us whilest our neighbour is justly offended at us Note this precept obligeth onely when with discretion it can be fulfilled when without scandall amongst other obstacles so that you may receive though you have given a private offence to one absent without going from the Altar to ask pardon provided you resolve to do it when you meet the offended and be actually then sorry for it yes you may in such case receive and are not bound to discover your guilt to others but without this internall sorrow and purpose of a reall externall satisfaction in time and place convenient there is no offering sacrifice to God at lesse danger then of sacriledge in pretending a pledge of peace for such is a sacrifice where God sees there is no peace at all The Application 1. BY the drift of this Gospel it will appear I made no streined application of the prayer above unto the genuine sense of the Epistle for what else is the whole scope of this Gospel which must ever be the same with the Epistle but a putting out of the Ignis fatuus of the feigned saintity of Judaisme by the true fire of Christian charity much as the sun-beams falling on the dimmer light of brightest fire seem to extinguish it and make the flames thereof invisible 2. The Scribes and Pharisees forbidding murder under the servile fear of humane judgement unto death was in regard of true Religion like the dimme light of fire placed in the beams of the Meridian sun The Sonne of justice Jesus Christ forbidding murder not so much for fear of death as for fear of putting out the fire of charity to God and to our neighbour and of taking in our hands the Glow-worm of wrath and anger a passion that seems to have a flame indeed but 't is a flame of hypocrisie of Ignis fatuus of folly-fire onely not of reall virtue 3. To conclude see how the Gospel strikes it yet more home when even the seeming flame of sacrifice and offering at the Altar is a cheat to charity is a Pharisaicall but not a Christian duty of Religion unlesse we light the lamp of brotherly love withall unlesse we be at peace with one another we cannot hope to have a peace with God O beloved who so short-sighted now as not to see appearing saintity is nothing worth unlesse it be as reall as it seems to be Philosophy teacheth us this lesson of Christianity A thing is good when it is made so by the integrity of its cause good every way so is it with a Christian he is good to God when he is made so by beeing also good unto his neighbour but he cannot be so while he offers sacrifice to God with his hand and to the devil with his heart at the same time such is our receiving the blessed Sacrament before we are perfectly reconciled to all the world it is not the visible good action of receiving that makes a good Christian unlesse his invisible good intention make him so that is unlesse he privately forgive all the world and resolve at least publickly to do it when first he meets with any man that he hath odds withall So still we see the reality of our goodnesse consists more in the invisibility then in the outward apparence of it and for this cause Holy Church in her prayer upon this dayes Gospel begs an affection to the Invisible God to the yet unseen good things which he hath promised as if all we see were nothing worth in comparison of things invisible which we are promised On the sixth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Mark 8. v. 2. I Have pitty on the multitude for that behold they have now attended me three dayes neither have they what to eat and if I shall dismisse them fasting they will faint in the way Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God of virtues to whom all belongs that is best ingraft in our breasts the love of thy holy name and grant in us the increase of Religion that thou mayest nourish those things which are good and being so nourished maintain them by the practice of piety The Illustration HOw properly do we to day petition that the love of Gods holy name may be ingrafted in us who are as the Epistle tells us baptized in that holy name and in virtue of the said Baptisme are not onely dead but even buried with Christ to sinne and raised to a newnesse of life by a new resurrection with him into a state of grace How singularly home doth the next petition of the prayer come to all the rest of the Epistle when we beg in the second place the increase of Religion in us whereby we do truely live to God in Christ Jesus as in the close of the Epistle we are said to do How excellently also doth the third petition of the prayer exhaust the whole Gospel of this day whilest it begs a nourishment in us of those things that are good when the said Gospel runnes all upon miraculous food and nourishment which our Saviour gave to day unto four thousand persons that had constantly followed him for three dayes together in the wildernesse This nourishment beloved is dully
at all so we ought not to move the least step towards sinne when once we are by Baptisme dead unto it and therefore it followes well that all our vitall motion should be towards God towards his honour and glory in Christ Jesus lest we fall back from the life of grace to the death of sinne which we can never do if in imitation of Christs life we square ours For that is understood by living to God in Christ glorifying God by following the footsteps of his Sonne our Saviour Jesus Christ who so lived after his resurrection that he never died more and desires we may so live in grace as never to die in sinne again being once freed from it by holy Baptisme The Application 1. IT stands with all the reason in the world that where the increase of Religion and Practise of Piety are petitioned there should be laid the ground-work of Religion to build an increase upon see how this whole Epistle is for that purpose nothing else but the very basis and foundation of Christian Religion our death to sinne by holy Baptisme and our resurrection to the life of Grace by the practice of Piety which practice will increase Religion in us according as we do petition 2. If any aske what is the best practice of Pietie whereby we shall most advance and increase Religion in our souls I shall conclude confidently out of this holy Text that the greatest men and saints of Gods holy Church must be made such by becoming Infants and children again by going backward if we may so call it and down the hill of Humility by retreating to the holy Font where first they received life to God since it was of such that our Saviour said Let the little ones come to me and so important he made their comming as Matth. 8. v. 5. we see he excludes from Heaven all that do not make themselves as holy Infants in his sight saying Unlesse ye become like these little ones you shall not enter into the Kingdome of Heaven 3. To conclude then This Text exhorteth all good Christians to become as new born Infants coveting the milk of their mothers breast 1. Pet. 2. v. 2. desiring rather to live babies of grace then men of sinne indeavouring a dayly growth of that love to Gods holy Name which was ingrafted in their breasts in holy Baptisme by that God of vertues to whom all belongs that is best from whom all those best graces vertues and gifts proceeded which were bestowed upon us at the holy Font Namely Originall Justice for the primary effect thereof a rectitude to God when we were adopted his children who before were slaves of the devill The three Theologicall vertues Faith Hope and Charity The four Cardinall vertues Prudence Justice Fortitude and Temperance The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost Wisedome Understanding Counsell Fortitude Knowledge Piety and the Feare of God As also Pennance Religion and all such other vertues as being supernaturall like these are not acquiâ—able by any humane indeavours and therâ—foâ—e â—he habits of them are held probably to be all infused in holy Baptisme So that it is by the work of Charity properly called the practice of Piety by the exercise of these vertues in the frequent Acts thereof that we increase our Religion and nourish what is good in us and rightly called Best in God from whom all goodness flowes all vertue springs as from the proper fountain thereof Say now beloved doth not holy Text beeing all upon Baptisme and the effects thereof give a fit occasion for holy Church to pray to day as above The Gospel Mark 8. v. 1. c. 1 IN those dayes again when there was a great multitude and had not what to eat calling his Disciples together he saith to them 2 I have compassion upon the multitude because loe three dayes they now indure with me neither have they what to eat 3 And if I dismisse them fasting into their home they will faint in the way for some of them came afar off 4 And his Disciples answered him whence may a man fill them here with bread in the wildernesse 5 And he asked them how many loaves have yee who said seven 6 And he commanded the multitude to sit down upon the ground And taking the seven loaves giving thanks he brake and gave to his Disciples for to set before them and they did set them before the multitude 7 And they had few little fishes and he blessed them and commanded them to be set before them 8 And they did eat and were filled and they tooke up that which was left of the fragments seven maundes 9 And they that had eaten were about foure thousand and he dismissed them The Explication 1. IN those dayes signifies here about that time and doth not determine exactly any day For what was now done was not the work of one onely day but of divers wherein many people had flocked together to behold our Saviour and his prodigious works as also to hear him speak and preach unto them so attractive was all he said or did as we see here they were even carelesse how to subsist when our Saviour himself was the first that proved solicitous about them And by calling his disciples he shewes us example to consult with our Brethren and not to rely onely upon our selves in difficulties 2. In this second verse he tells his Disciples he had compassion of the multitude that had row indured with him three dayes and had not what to eat Blessed God! how tender is thy heart to those that suffer purely for thy sake as these did if yet their suffering were not rather a content to them then otherwise For 't is not saith S. Chrysostome that they had fasted three dayes without refection but that they had now nothing left to eat yet happily some amongst them had nothing at all and did really in zeal fast three dayes and therefore 3. As in the third verse is said if they had been dismissed fasting they might have fainted having some of them far to go home See here the reward of perseverance in good works how our Saviour requites but three dayes susteining with a miraculous banquet And indeed his aym was more at feeding their soules by the miracle then their bodies by meat however his disciples understood him to mean onely a corporal repast unto the people when they replyed as followeth 4. In order to the corporal food that it was not to be hoped for in the desert or wildernesse This incredulity our Saviour permitted in his disciples both for their own and the peoples greater satisfaction afterwards when beyond all humane hope he had provided a feast in the desert for his servants as God had done for the Jewes when even Moyses their leader despaired of it as the disciples now did 5. The Interrogatory in this verse argues not any his ignorance of the number of loaves that were amongst them but he asks the question that by
therein Just thus it is with holy Churches preaching admit a million of people be assembled to one sole Preacher in the pulpit is his Sermon ever the worse because it dynts the soul of every hearer there and moves him so as if the Preacher knew the heart of every auditour he had whom yet he never saw in all his life nor knowes him now he sees him would any man condemn this Preacher No admire him rather and in him adore Almighty God who with one speech could touch the quick of every soul alive And so it is with holy Churches prayers the commoner they are the more peculiarly they touch each pious persons soul if rightly understood they seem to reach as far as all the preachers of the Church can scrue into a soul and farther too for who so sayes them with a zeal suitable to the Spirit whence they flow he like a river runs into the sea whence all the waters have their spring and is not lost although he beâ— not found but rather swells to be a sea of spirit while he falls out of his private devotions into the Ocean of the Churches prayer and sayes to himself Matt. 23.23 These things ought to be done and those things ought not to be omitted O Christians what a sovereign cure have we to day against the worst contagion in the Church the spirit of division of faction Say but this prayer devoutly read but the lessons of the other services of holy Church to day agreeable to this prayer and I shall hope to hear no more of faction in the Church of division in the house of the Holy Ghost of dissention among Roman Catholicks much lesse amongst the Priests of holy Church for in them it were a contagion worse then diabolical who as they are all Ministers of one onely God so should they all agree in one to guide the souls they are to govern in the spirit of peace and unity of love and charity which they shall never teach better then when they give example of it to their flocks The Epistle Ephes 4.1 1 I therefore prisoner in our Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called 2 With all humilitie and mildnesse with patience supporting one another in charity 3 Carefull to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace 4 One body and one spirit as you are called in one hope of your vocation 5 One Lord one Faith one Baptisme 6 One God and Father of all which is over all and by all and in us all 7 Who is blessed world without end Amen The Explication 1. THe cause why he beseecheth them is in regard they had the happinesse to be made of Gentiles Christians and so equall with the Jewes that were the chosen people of God He calls himself prisoner in our Lord because he was in prison for our Lord for teaching the faith of Christ Walking here is understood living Note the word Vocation is of speciall regard and so imports a speciall obligation they had to comply with their said vocation which was indeed their conversion from Gentilisme to Christianitie 2. This verse specifies the eminent marks of Christians from Gentiles the one proud harsh furious quarrelsome the other therefore humble milde patient loving that so it might appeare a religious change to come from one contrary to another Supporting each other imports bearing with each others infirmities In Charitie is to say by or with Charitie repending good for evil 3. By unitie of spirit is here meant unanimitie that is though in bodies divided yet in mind they should be one and make it their studie so to be thus to comply with the care thereof commended if not commanded also This verse is hugely against all schismaticall division in the Church receding from the common Doctrine to follow the fancies of private spirits By the word bond is understood removing private sense in point of religion for a bond imports a tie between parties and so abandons singularitie when it must binde many together in the peace of unanimitie 4. This verse is exhortatorie stirring up to be all as one body and one soul that as you are called to one hope of Heaven by this your vocation to Christianitie so you goe all thither as one man since the Church is properly called one civill man while all the Members of it are regulated by one Law of Christ by one holy Spirit And indeed Saint Paul useth a huge Art telling us we have all one hope namely Heaven thereby to make us tend all one way to the attaining thereof 5. One Lord Christ Jesus one Faith that which the Apostles preached one Baptisme that which is given in due matter and forme applied with due intention water accompanying these words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost according as holy Church intendeth when this Sacrament is administred 6. In this verse the Apostle summes up all he said before As we have but one God who is our common Father so we must have but one spirit lest we degenerate from being his children who will own none but those that are one in him and one to one another all others are bastards and cannot be brothers because not begotten of him that knowes no division but consists of unitie and simplicitie No God is above all men by his Majestie and Deitie he is through all things by his power and efficacie in them penetrating and passing through them all as freely as we doe through the Aire in all things by his essence and being in us Christians by his grace which makes us be his children and by his glory which makes us be his heires Others understand by this triple division the Apostle means that God the Father is above us all by creation God the Sonne by redemption runs through us with the Sea of his passion God the Holy Ghost is in us all by his sanctifying grace The Application 1. SAint Paul being by his imprisonment separated from his Converts the Ephesians and desirous in litle to send them much counsell how they might walk worthy of the vocation in which they were called summes up here those virtues that are most necessary for new converted souls Humilitie as the foundation whereupon they must build their monuments of a blessed Eternitie in imitation of Almightie God who raised all the fabricke of humane salvation upon the Basis of his own abasement Mildnesse in testimony they were no more children of wrath and indignation but of their milde Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ A charitable Patience that is to say for love of God supporting bearing with one another as the onely means to keep themselves in favour with Almighty God whom they hourely much more exasperate then any man can do them And Unanimitie as the badge of perfect Christianitie testifying they are onely true lovers of one another who are right believers in Jesus Christ
once would let us know the dead child being a Jew represents the expiration of the Jewish Synagogue by the plantation of the Church of Christ For as this diseased Gentile fell sick when Jairus his child was born so the Gentiles fell to their brutish Idolatry figured by the Bloudy Flux when the Jewes were born to right belief in Abraham and therefore as Christ went to raise this child from death to life and by the way first healed the diseased woman so he came first to the Jewes yet the Gentiles received and believed in him before the Jewes whose conversion or being raised from the death of infidelity to the life of Faith is not to be till after all Gentiles are first reduced and then at last even the Jewes shall generally be converted This is the mystical sense of the present story prosecuted in these three verses onely we are to observe by this womans Faith that the Gentiles are of much more easie and entire belief then the Jewes besides this place gives a great ground for the Catholick doctrine of revering reliques since here the woman was cured by the onely touch of our Saviours garments hemm and Eusebius writes that she in memory of this favour shewed unto her made a coat like that of our Saviours and kept it religiously in her house and that diverse who were diseased went away from her perfectly cured upon the sole touch of this garments hemm also 23. 24. The musick our Saviour found here was onely such as usually in those dayes did accompany all burials Our Saviours saying the child is not dead did not deny but she was so for all that onely his meaning was she should live again and therefore he accounted her death but a sleep in the sight of God because her soul was not summoned to the barre of Judgement being to return and lead a longer life in this world though this saying of Christ might also import his modesty in not making difficult his works to get thereby popular applause However they knew and so did Christ the child was really dead to all humane power of recovery but that they might see death to God was but as sleep to nature since he that could out of nothing make all things could much more easily out of a dead body make a living creature and so as to God death and sleep are much alike in respect of privation of life whence it is frequent for Christ to call death obdormition or sleeping onely thus he did in Lazarus his case after he was four dayes buried Joh. 11.44 and thus you see here he doth in this present case of the dead child But as commonly men judge of all things by outward appearances and of other mens powers by comparing them to their own so here these mourners laugh at Christ for saying the dead child was onely asleep as who should say they held it impossible for him to revive her which argues they were sufficiently satisfied she was truly dead to all this world 25. 26. Note his bidding them depart when he sayes she is not dead argues that their diffidence in his power did not deserve the honour to be eye-witnesses of the miracle how it was done though afterwards they had proof enough it was most true and again it argues he was not seeking popular applause when he went in alone leaving the company without taking onely the child's parents and his disciples with him S. Mark sayes Peter James and John to shew it was not ultroneous fasting that conferred sanctity of which you heard before but a lively Faith and an ardent love to God wherewith his Apostles were endowed and so fit to be now witnesses of his and after workers of as great miracles themselves though they did not run the vain-glorious wayes of Pharisaical fasting or the like Note the Scripture phrase is here pathetical saying Christ held the childs hand in such sort probably as officers take hold of such as they arrest to carry away with them and so shew their power over them for thus our Saviour seemed to snatch the body of this child from death and to command her soul from entring into hell but to animate again the body thereby to shew he had perfect dominion over life and death And it seems the manner of this was extraordinary when the story of it ends by saying it was divulged all the countrey over for a famous miracle though St. Mark sayes Christ gave the girle to her parents bidding them say nothing Mar. 5.43 to shew his modesty and that he sought not the worlds applause but onely Gods honour and glory Yet their disobedience in this was not unseemly The Application 1. THis Gospel of the Jewes and Gentiles Infidelity is as we heard in the Explication made a whole Type of all Iniquity whatsoever and yet is most peculiarly proper to the Epistle inculcating so sincere a sayntity as above because as to that sayntity pardon of iniquity is necessary and this pardon is mystically represented in the raising Jairus his daughter from the brink of death which is the natural punishment of sinne so to the said sayntity there is also necessary a detestation of all affection to sin which detestation is also represented by the cure upon the woman sick of the Issue of bloud not unfitly likened to reiterated or accustomary sinne which argues a huge affection thereunto 2. What then more proper for Christians at the reading of this holy Text then first to procure an act of contrition for all guilt of sinne upon their soules and next to detest all affection to any sinne whatsoever especially to those which have been formerly to them accustomary for those are properly bonds which we have sealed to the devil while we hamper our selves with giving them up as our well advised acts of our yet most abominable wicked deeds 3. Say now beloved if our holy Mother have not fram'd a fitting Prayer when to this purpose she brings charity to day upon her knees preparing her self for the grand account she is next Sunday put in mind to make By petitioning as above an acquittance of her sinful debts by absolution from the guilt thereof and a cancelling of all her bonds to the devil by teating her affections to sin in pieces and planting her love from hence upon Almighty God above On the four and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 24.34 AMen I say to you this Generation shall not passe untill all be done Heaven and Earth shall passe but my word shall not passe saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer STirre up we beseech thee O Lord the wills of thy Faithful that they more diligently preparing the fruit of thy divine work may receive the greater remedies of thy mercy The Illustration WE are this day closing up the Ring of our devotion which we desire all the devotes of our sodality to wear in testimony they are of
any legall servitude imposed on man as punishment of his sins against God for this servitude tooke hold on the Individuals of humane nature not of the nature it selâ—e and since our Saviours Individuall person was one with that of God the second person of the Blessed Trinity he was not a Servant by any legall servitude falling on his person and so even his humane nature though servile as a creature was not yet servile as a sinfull man because he had not the least guilt of sinne in him and thus we see in captives humane nature is no slave though the man that is taken be made so when then we say humane nature was corrupted in Adam we doe mean every childe of Adam received a contagion or corruption from him and yet humane nature in the line of a creature to God was not corrupted so as to be a less perfect creature then it was before for that had been to corrupt the Essence not the Persons of mankinde whereas sin onely corrupted his State and not his Essence the Persons contracting Humane Nature and not the Nature of man it self for if so Christ being man made of that Humane Nature must have been corrupted in that nature at least which yet he was not By the Similitude of man in this verse we are to understand literally the external shape of man not the accidental or phantastical as the Hereticks said but the substantial and real shape though St. Augustine takes it here as for the predicament of habit which consists in Garments or Clothing and likens Christs Humanity to be as a Garment covering his Divinity or as Iron is made fiery or as Gold is made a Statue and even in that Sence the thing is as true as it is ingeniously expressed by St. Augustine By being made as man is not to say onely like man and not to be truly such but like here signifies to be so like as it is the very same as if a Statue should from a dead Stone be made move as a man moveth eat as a man eateth speak as a man speaketh why still by every one of these gradations the Statue becomes more like a man then it was before and when at last it had all the Faculties of a man it became as man indeed that is to say not onely like but really and truly man In this Sence our Saviour was said to be as man as if we said though he were truly God yet he did not appear to be so but appeared onely to be as man which truly he was as well as he was God 8. This humility was not an Act of God the Son to God the Father for so there is no commanding Power in the one over the other but of his Humanity both to his own Divine Person and to his heavenly Father too by dying on the Cross in vertue of this command Christ did humble himself as low as could be in regard no death was so vile and contemptible as that on the Cross was in the esteem of man in those days though since even for reverence no man is executed in that kinde so Christs Humility made this contempt become reverentiall 9. For the which Act of Humility and Obedience God hath exalted him his Humanity for his Deity could not be exalted and given him a name Here we are to note Calvins pervisity who took such a hatred against the Church for the Doctrine of merit that he hence denied Christ the honour of meriting this Exaltation by his Humiliation but says that for which is to be taken consecutively or consequently not causally as who should say after his Humility God rewarded him by exalting of him but not for his Humility or for the merit thereof which yet is an abominable Impiety and Heresie whereas we allow Christ by his Death not onely to have merited for mankind redemption whereof himself had no need who was from his first Conception Blessed by his Hypostatical Union but even for himself the Glory of his Body and the endowments of a glorious Body the highest place in Heaven above Saints and Angels nay the very setting at the right hand of God the Power to Judge all the world and the dominion over Heaven and Earth which were not onely due to him as united to his Deity but as merited by his Passion further he merited to have a name that is above all names and such a name it was when Christ was called God and the Son of God the name of the Messias so famous in this world lastly the name of Jesus and Redeemer of all mankinde which name though it were given him in circumcision yet it was not divulged to all the world till he was crucified so then he was truly said to have merited that name of Saviour and many times names are given to foretell what such men will merit before they dye thus was the Blessed Name of Jesus given to Christ foretelling how richly he would deserve to be called Saviour of the world 10 In the name of Jesus every knee shall bow because this name is greater then ever any other was for Jehovah which signified God creating and was the greatest that ever had before been heard of is not so great as God redeeming and that is meant by the name of Jesus whence the Church boldly says it had nothing availed us to be born unless to have been redeemed had made our birth availing to us So it is a greater abuse to blaspheme the name of Jesus then the name of God because God gave us more Grace and Benefit by our Redemption then he did by our Creation and Jesus includes both God and Saviour which God alone doth not whence the very Angels who were not redeemed bow their knees to the name of Iesus as convertible with that of God and therefore all mankinde hath much more reason so to do for the Devils they would refrain to honour it perhaps if they could but as it is they cannot since if no otherwise they must adore Man in the Person of God ever since Iesus took Humane Nature upon him 11. And every tongue not onely all Nations upon the Earth first or last shall confess that our Lord Iesus is in the Glory of his Father but every tongue of Angels and Devils as well as of Men and by saying he is in the glory of God the Father is understood more then that he sâ—tteth at his right hand namely that he is equal in Glory to God the Father since Iesus is not onely Man but joyntly God withal So that the summity or highest pitch of Iesus his praise is indeed this that the Man Iesus being God as well as Man is though as man much inferiour yet as God even equal to the Heavenly Father in Glory Power Majesty Goodness and all the other Attributes Divine which are given to Almighty God The Application 1. MOrtification Prayer and Alms-Deeds Perseverance in good Purposes The Fear of God and Holy Poverty were