we cease not to have just apprehensions of our fall For though God never forsakes the sinner till the sinner first forsake him though he be faithfull in his promises nor is ever wanting to the Treaty he made with us in Baptisme Neverthelesse there remains in us a wretched faintnesse that so weakens us in temptation that without a continued assistance of Grace we cannot hope for victory Concupiscence always sides with sin it labours to revive what it first gave birth to and over-spreading all the faculties of the soul and members of the body it sollicites all of them to rise-against Grace its Fruitfulness is equal to its Malice it contains in it the seeds of all sins and when Temptation hatcheth them there 's not so much as one whereof man may not become guilty As long as he carries about him this enemy his salvation is in danger he groans under its tyranny and knowing that there wants but one meer act of the Will to be the midwife to sin he would willingly not be free that he might not become criminal For all Theologic confesseth that Concupiscence is not taken away by Baptism That it is left with the faithful to exercise them That it continually provokes them to evil That it contributes as often to their fall as to their glory and if it increase their merit it swells their danger Though it be not a sin in Christians it keeps them still in breath they are equally afraid of its smiles and of its frowns and whether it flatter or frighten they have still reason to fear lest it render then delinquents In a word Is it not a sad condition for a man always to carry his enemy in his bosome to be obliged to fight without any assurance of getting the better and to know that Grace with all its supplies may enfeeble him but never utterly defeat him If Man account himself miserable in Nature because he carries the principles of his death in himself and that the opposition of the elements which make him live must one day make him die Is not the Christian very unhappie in grace it self when he sees how he bears about the source of sin in his soul That Baptism sets him not free from slavery That Vertue engageth him to fight and at the same time that Hope promiseth him Victory Fear appales him with the apprehension of a Defeat This vexation is redoubled by a troublesome division which his second birth hath not composed For the Christian is unfortunately parted between Concupiscence and Grace he never sights with his full strength and when he hath a minde to obey Charity there is always some part of Himself that holds with his Enemy The Flesh always faceth the Spirit Man is the Theatre of this dreadful combat he cannot disarm those that trouble his rest though he sometimes prevail over them he fears lest rallying their forces they triumph over their conquerour 'T was this inseparable misfortune of the Christian that made S. Paul sigh 't was this potent enemy that made him long for death and supposing that 't were better die then sin he desired to lose his Life to preserve his Integrity But admit the Christian were delivered from Concupiscence that torments him and from Sedition that divides him he is still exercised by another trial which Baptism leaves him to grapple with For he is subject to Illusion Errour as well as Truth steals into his Understanding his giddy and unfaithful Senses side more with Wickedness then with Grace and these parties for the most part holding intelligence with the Devil threaten him with Blindness and Ignorance 'T is by this gate that the devil surpriseth the Will 't is by our eyes or by our ears that he seduceth us and having these rebels always at his devotion we need not wonder if he gain so many victories against us When he tempted our first father in Paradise he set upon a place where he had no intelligence the Senses did not all assist him against the Intellectual faculty nor Passions against Reason Mans forces were united and when his Will pronounced the definitive sentence he found as many ministers to execute it as he had Faculties But now he hath scarce any members which are not instrumental to his enemy his Grace though never so powerful stamps no faithfulness upon the Senses nor obedience upon the Passions he hath no submission but by violence and reigning in a state where Concupiscence lives still he meets with more rebels then subjects All his stability consists in Grace instructed by the defeat of Adam he has recourse to his divine Redeemer and knowing very well that his forces are weakned by sin he findes no better expedient to vanquish his enemy then to confess his impotency Haec una praesentis vitae perfectio est ut te infirmum imperfectum agnoscas Hieron ad Ctesi He remembers that Vertue is preserved in Infirmity that the Distrust of himself is the mother of Safety and that in a Religion where we live not by our own spirit neither do we overcome by our own strength But whatever artifice our Humility makes use of to defend it self yet must we confess that 't is an extreme affliction to know that the devil that tempts us can trouble our Imagination and make a part of our selves serviceable to his malice For in conclusion Concupiscence is a trusty minister which executes all his commands sets all the Passions in a commotion in behalf of him debaucheth all the Senses to serve him and carrying disorder into the inmost recesses of the Soul undertakes to make the Understanding and the Will stoop to his lure S. Augustine acknowledged this misery and confesseth that though the body were sanctified by Baptism it had not lost its corruption that in the language of Scripture it lay heavie upon the soul disposing it to sin Nay the soul it self though it have a greater share in grace then the body is nevertheless engaged in self-self-love Though in Baptism it received remission of all sins yet its bad inclinations are not obliterated in a moment nor do the first-fruits of Grace produce Vertues if they be not husbanded with much care and diligence the New man must increase daily if he intend to ruine the Old and dismantle the body of Sin if he will establish the Spirit of Grace For 't is an errour saith that great Saint for a man to perswade himself that from the very moment that a Christian is baptized all the infirmities of the old man are quite washed away his renovation indeed begins by the remission of sins but it cannot arrive to perfection but as he goes on in vertue and tastes those spiritual delights which serve as nourishment to the new life They therefore are much deceived who anchor their hope upon their Character who think to be a Christian is title enough to Salvation and never considering that they have onely the seeds of Christianity labour not
did not the following surpass it For the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Faithful as he is the Love of the Father and of the Son But to understand this truth we must inform you that the Word being begotten of the Father by the Understanding is his onely Son and that the Holy Ghost being produced by the Will is his Love The Father and the Son reciprocally love one another by this mutual charity they finde their happiness in this common dilection and should they cease to love they would cease to be happie Having a minde to exalt us to their happiness they raise us also to their love and pouring forth charity into our souls they make us capable of loving them For God is so great that he can neither be known but by his own Light nor lov'd but by his own Love the Holy Spirit must enlighten our Souls warm our Wills and by the purity of his flames purge away the impurity of our affections he transforms us into himself to make us happie This holy Love is a particular effect of the Holy Spirit the beams that heat us are an emanation from that Divine fire that burns the Seraphims and the charity that raiseth us above the condition of men is a spark of that personal charity wherewith the Father and the Son love each other from all eternity But that we may not challenge the Holy Spirit as sparing of his favours he hath vouchsafed to be the accomplishment of the Church as he is the accomplishment and perfection of the Trinity For though there be no defects in God though this Sun is never clouded nor eclipsed this Supreme Truth labours under no shadows nor errours this excellent Beauty hath no spots nor blemishes and this amiable goodness be full of charms and graces yet may the Holy Ghost be called the Complement thereof The Father begins this adorable Circle which the Son continues and the Holy Spirit finisheth he it is that bounds the Divine emanations draws forth the fruitfulness of those that cause his production and if it be lawful to speak of an ineffable mystery and to subject to the laws of Time Eternity it self God is not compleated but by the production of the holy Spirit He is the rest of the Father and the Son his person is the perfection of the Trinity and this Divine mystery would want its full proportion did it not include the Holy Spirit with the two Persons from whence he proceeded The holy Scriptures to afford us some light of this verity attribute all the perfection of the works of God to the blessed Spirit They represent him to us moving upon the waters in the Creation of the world finishing by his Fecundity what the Father and the Son had produced by their Power They teach us that it was he that gave motion to the Heavens influences to the Stars heat to the Sun They inform us that 't was by his vertue that the earth became fruitful and that from his goodness she received that secret Fermentation that to this day renders her the Mother and the Nurse of all things living And the Gospel to give this Truth its full extent instructs us that 't is the holy Ghost who by his graces in the Church makes up what Jesus Christ hath begun in it by his travels He is his Vicar and Lieutenant he came down upon the earth after the other ascended up to heaven nor hath he any other designe in his descension then to compleat all the works of Jesus Christ The Apostles were yet but embryo's in Christianity when the Son of God left them three yeers of conversation was not able to perfect them the greatest part of the discourses of their Divine Master seemed to them nothing but Aenigma's his Maximes Paradoxes his Promises pleasing Illusions every thing was a mormo to these timorous spirits ths name of the Cross scandalized them and so many Miracles wrought in their presence were unable to calm their Fear or heighten their Courage To finish these demi-works the Holy Ghost came into the world he descended upon their heads in the shape of fiery tongues to make them eloquent and bold he inspired them with Charity to cure them of Fear made them Lovers thereby to make them Martyrs he cleared their Understanding warmed their Will that light and heat being blended together they might more easily overcome Philosophers and Tyrants Finally he set up a Throne in their hearts that speaking by their mouthes and acting by their hands he might render them accomplisht pieces to the service of their Master And indeed we must acknowledge the Apostles changed their condition after the descent of the Holy Ghost their Fear vanished as soon as they were confirmed by his Strength the Cross seem'd strew'd with Charms as soon as they were kindled with his Flames they found Sweetness even in Torments Glory in Affronts Venit Vicarius Redemptoris ut beneficia quae Salvator Dominus inchoavit Spiritus sancti virtute consammet quod ille redemit iste sanctificet quod ille acquisivit iste custodiat Aug. Serm. 1. Feria 32. Pentec and Riches in Poverty This made S. Augustine say that the Holy Spirit came to finish in Power what the Son of God had begun in Weakness to sanctifie what the other had redeemed and to preserve what Christ had purchased If you seek saith the same S. Augustine what was wanting to the Apostles and what might be added to their perfection by the coming down of the Holy Ghost I will tell you Before that happie moment they had Faith but they had neither Constancie nor Fidelity they were able to forsake their possessions to follow Jesus Christ but they would not lose their lives to glorifie him they were able indeed to preach the Gospel but knew not how to signe it with their blood nor seal it with their death they were vertuous as long as they conversed with the Son of God up on earth but they were not grown up to perfection till the Holy Ghost had communicated to them his graces and adding force to charity had made them the Foundations of the Church the Fathers of the Faithful the Terrour of Devils and the Astonishment of Tyrants Finally 't is the holy Spirit according to the saying of S. John Damascen that perfects the Christians because 't is he that Quickens them by Grace and Deifies them with Glory So that we are obliged to confess that he enters into alliance with them that he is the same to the Church that he is to the Trinity and that after he hath been our Bond our Gift and our Love upon Earth he will be our Accomplishment in Heaven The Fourth DISCOURSE That the Holy Ghost seems to be to Christians what he is to the Son of God IT is not without ground that the Christian is called the Image of Jesus Christ since he is his other Self the one possessing by Grace what the other doth by
to act when this ceaseth to operate For the right understanding of this Truth we must remember that though the Christian and the Man be one and the same person yet have they their oppositions and their differences Man believes himself perfect when he is free and reasonable these two faculties are his principal advantages and the vanity of Philosophy perswades him that as long as he acts according to Reason he cannot fail of attaining felicity To keep himself in this state he is careful that the Senses pervert not his Understanding that the Passions trouble not his Rest and an inordinate Love deprive him of his Liberty But this blinde Opiniator sees not that he carries his enemy in his own bosom that Concupiscence orders all the motions of his soul that Reason is but her slave and that he is never more wedded to himself then when he thinks to hang loose from all things else As the Christian is a new man he acts by other principles for he renounceth Reason to give himself over to Grace he quits the light of his Understanding to submit to the obscurity of Faith and his endeavour is to quench the flames of self-Self-love that he may burn onely with the fire of Charity He learns in the School of Christianity that Reason is a bad guide because she lets Concupiscence lead her he knows that the Understanding is prevented with a thousand errours and having lost the better part of his light he many times confounds Vertue with Vice He is not ignorant that the Will is the most depraved as it is the most guilty of all his faculties and being engaged in the love of the creatures finds nothing that charms the affection but what is corruptible and perishable Therefore is his greatest care to get assistance against these domestick enemies and wholly to surrender himself to grace that it may be to him for a guide and a defence Thus Faith becomes his Light Hope his Supporter Charity his Love and if we may speak so Grace is made his second Nature To the vain errours of Science he opposeth the solid lights of Faith to the false promises of the world the true promises of Jesus Christ to self-self-love divine love and to the corruption of Nature the purity of Grace Then is it that soaring above himself he learns by a happy experience that he was never more free then since he became a slave and that Grace is so far from robbing him of his liberty that it hath delivered him from a bondage as cruell as it was ignominious For as Saint Augustine saith Free-will finds its perfection in Charity he that was in darkness becomes enlightned from weakness he passeth to strength from disorder to good government and he that was sullied with the love of the creatures recovers his purity in the love of the Creator But nothing more obliges the Christian to renounce his reason that so he may become the subject of Grace then to know that his last end is supernaturall and that he cannot attain it by forces solely naturall For though man have some knowledge of God though he observe his perfections in the creatures though he judge of his greatness by the beauty of his works and recoiling into himself sees there some shadows of him whose image he is yet he knows very well that God is so great that he cannot be perceived but by his own light Indeed he must shed abroad some rays into our soul that the soul may have some glympse of him he must clarifie and strengthen her that she may look up unto him and mounting above her selfe may render her partaker of that light whereby he is made visible to the blessed in glory Thus though the will have some affection for the Supream Good though she cannot fixe upon any objects that have not some appearance of Goodness in them and that in the midst of her greatest disorders there still remains some inclination towards her Creator yet the Christian knows that God cannot be worthily embrac'd but by that love he works in us that charity must be poured into our hearts and that without the assistance of this Divine gift we can neither love him nor hate our selves as we should The inclination Nature stamped upon us in her purity was too weak to effect this and that which Nature hath left us since her corruption is too inordinate to lead us to it Thus Grace is necessary in both conditions and the actions that proceed not from this Principle are to be suspected because according to the Maximes of Saint Augustine those that flow not from Charity flow most commonly from Concupiscence These two Soveraigns possess the will successively as the first works nothing but good the second is only active in evil and to be disingaged from the tyranny of the one there is no other way but to submit to the lawful dominion of the other Thence it comes to pass that the same Doctor declaring his full judgement in that Epistle he writ to Vitalius informs us that Grace depends upon Gods pure Liberality that 't is due neither to Men nor Infants though it be necessary to all the actions of the former that God who is the Author of it respects neither their works nor their dispositions that men may know when he bestows it 't is an emanation of his mercy and when he denies it 't is an act of his justice He that shall well weigh the sense of these words as profound as the depths he treats of will not have much adoe to acknowledge the indigence of the creature the need he hath of Grace and the Liberty God reserves to himself of dispensing it to whom he will The Third DISCOURSE That the Grace of a Christian ought to be more powerfull then that of Adam IT is strange but withall very true that nothing so much hinders a man from valuing the remedies that cure him as the opinion he hath that he was not very sick This is it that to this day abuseth the greatest part of Christians and lessens the obligation they have to the Grace of Jesus Christ For they are perswaded that the fault of our first Father hath scarce made any devastations in our Nature that the greatest part of our evils spring not so much from our will as from our imagination and that there is little difference between the state of sin and the state of originall righteousness Pride insensibly confirms us in this belief we make our weakness pass for cowardise nor can we be brought to acknowledge that our passions are the punishment of our disobedience From this first Errour is derived a second more troublesome then the former For believing our disease light we think the remedy extream easie and judging Concupiscence not so strong we judge the Grace of Jesus Christ nothing so powerful Indeed those that imagine that mans liberty is yet vigorous enough to resist sin acknowledge only a sufficient grace adding little to that of
yet extinguished and the greatest Saints if they manage not their intentions well rob God of all the Love they indulge themselves Finally it is almost ever interessed Quicquid creatura sui amori concedit hoc amori Dei eripit Bern. we love not God so purely as not to seek our own pleasure with when his glory and we are more earnest with him for riches or honours then for graces we make it appear that Concupiscence bears a greater part in our prayers then Charity But the Blessed have not one of these imperfections in their Love It is not blind because they love him whom they see and the brightness of glory that enlightens them is a ray dispelling all darkness of their understanding It languisheth not as ours doth nor spends it self in its own longings because they possesse what they love and being intimately united to God are eternally inseparable from him It is not divided because self-self-love enters not into Heaven but is quenched by the flames of Charity or purified when the souls of the Blessed quit the Prison of their body Finally it is not interessed because the honour of God is the end of their desires and in felicity it self they seek not so much their own happiness as his glory From this Knowledge and this Love is derived the resemblance the Blessed have with God which is the accomplishment of their desires and the perfection of their Beatitude For though the Faithful be humble aspire not to the vain pomps of the world and being conscious of his misery knows very well that Nothingness is his Original and sin his work yet ceaseth he not to wish by the motions of Grace what he sometimes coveted by the impulses of pride He would have the same thing that Adam would like the Angel he pretends to be like God but he desires that with Justice which the two others did with Insolence The holy Scripture authoriseth his appetite and the promises of Jesus Christ make his hopes lawful He knows very well that the Happiness of a reasonable creature consists particularly in this point and that being the Image of God in Nature and in Grace he ought to resemble him in Glory The beloved disciple comforts us in the expectation of this happiness and speaks so confidently of it to all the Faithful that he seems rather to have received the Earnest then the Promise of his Master Scimus quoniam cùm apparuerit similes ei erimus Though this similitude constitute our principal happiness yet is it easier to hope for it then to describe it and being an expression of the felicity of God himself is as much unknown to us as his Nevertheless we may say it is an effusion of his Essence into the soul of the Blessed an emanation of his Divinity communicating all his perfections lifting them above themselves and transforming them into him without destroying them makes as many Gods as there are Saints in Glory The Fire which imprints all its qualities in the Iron it makes red-hot the Sun that communicates all his light to the Crystal he penetrates and the Persume which sheds its fragrant odour thorow all the rooms it embalms are but faint comparisons to express the intimate communication of the Divine Essence to the Blessed It is enough to believe in the simplicity of Faith that all our desires shall be fully compleated that our happiness shall surpass our hopes and raised to a higher condition then that the devil promised our father in Paradise we shall be Men and Gods both together Though we are not idle in so happie a condition S. Augustine teacheth us that the knowledge and love of God shall be our sole employment Tantum gandebunt Beati quantum amabunt tantum amabunt quantum cognoscent Deum Aug. lib. Medit. we shall finde all our contentment in this one exercise and as we shall possess All Goods in the Supreme Good so shall we taste all Felicity in this one diversion The good works we have been conversant in upon earth shall be banished from Glory and Mercy shall be useless in a state whither Misery cannot approach we shall have no need to visit the Sick where Immortality provides for the Health of the Blessed There will be no burying of the Dead in the land of the Living Hospitality will not be practised where there are no Pilgrims We shall not clothe the Naked because the light of Glory will be the garment of the Saints We shall not be troubled to reconcile Enemies because Peace shall raign there eternally We shall be no longer obliged to instruct the Simple because the Beatifical Vision will eliminate all Ignorance If the works of Mercy be useless all actions wherein Necessity engageth us will then be superfluous The miseries of life compel men to till the earth for their nourishment to build houses to defend them from the injury of the weather to make clothes to protect them from shame and cold But all these employments shall have an end in a Kingdom where he that governs is both the Nourishment the Cloathing and the Habitation of his Subjects His Goodness which penetrates them is their Aliment his Glory that invirons them is their Apparel and his Essence which includes them is their Lodging They need fear nothing in a condition where the possession of All Good necessarily produceth the exclusion of All Evil. We shall have no apprehension then saith S. Augustine that Hunger or Thirst shall persecute us because we shall lodge in the house of a Lord where there is plenty of all things where we may bathe our elves in the River of his Innocent Pleasures Nor Heat nor Cold shall once dare to annoy us because by a strange wonder the same Sun that shall shelter us with his shadow shall warm us with his heat Weariness shall not weaken us because God shall be our strength we shall not be forced to sleep because Labour shall never need repose nor shall the night ever draw a curtain over the day There shall be no Commerce because we shall possess All in God there shall be no Servitude because all the Subjects of this Kingdom shall be Soveraigns If you ask me saith S. Augustine what we shall do then in a place whence pain and travel are banished I will answer with the Prophet that the whole enployment of the Blessed is to think of God and to rejoyce in his glory Vacate videte quoniam ego sum Deus This meditation shall altogether take them up it shall produce all pleasures and constitute all their vertues Every Beatified person shall imitate Mary Magdalene and as with her they shall have but one Object they shall make use but of one Vertue Porro unum est necessarium The calamities of the Earth oblige us to employ successively all the Vertues sometimes we borrow aid from Prudence to dissipate the darkness wherewith we are blinded or to scatter the dangers that threaten us sometimes we call in
that fortifies our weakness when we are set upon that dissipates our darkness when we are blinded and sweetens our discontents when we are troubled Hee weeps with us without interessing his felicity he shares in our infirmities without prejudicing his Almightinesse he is sadded with our miseries without disquieting his own contentedness he puts sighs into our hearts words into our mouthes reasons into our understandings to expresse our wretchedness and to pacifie our Judge Postulat pro nobis gemitibus inenarrabilibus The union he contracts with us is so strict that the Scripture attributes to him what it would have us do and by a strange liberty makes him partakers of our miseries as we are made partakers of his happiness The last torment of man a sinner is the doubt he hath of his salvation Death is troublesom because the hour thereof is uncertain neither hath he that pronounc'd sentence upon us express'd the time of its execution All moments are to be suspected by us every day may be our last and the accidents that cause our dissolution are so involved in futurity that they daily seize us before we are provided for them Nescit homo utrum amore an odio dignus sit sed omnia in futuruÌ„ servantur incerta Eccl. 9. But our salvation is much more concealed then our death Predestination is much more secret and more important then the end of our life and the alarms so just an apprehension strikes us with are much more lawfull and amazing There is no man that hath read in the Book of the living nor that knows whether his name be written there the whole world trembles at the thought of that irrevocable judgment the Character of Baptism the vocation into the Church the power of working Miracles the love of Enemies the forgetting of Injuries and what-ever is most glorious and most difficult in Religion are no certain proofs of our predestination Fear is alwayes mix'd with hope in our souls the Grace that quickens us may forsake us the example of the Reprobate strikes us with astonishment and after the Treason and Despair of Judas there is no Saint but trembles This is the greatest pain that afflicts Christians Vae miseris nobis qui de electione nostra nullam adhuc Dei vocem cognovimus jam in otio torpemus vae etiam laudabili vitae hominum si remota pictate judicemur Greg. the cruellest punishment that exerciseth their patience the rudest torment that proves their charity Thus would it be an insupportable vexation did not the holy Spirit sweeten it by the inward testimony he witnesseth to our Conscience But he moreover gives us assurances of our salvation he makes us obscurely read over the Book of Life he takes us into that privie-Chamber where the definitive sentence of our Eternity is pronounc'd Ipse Spiritus testimonium reddit spiritui nostro quòd sumus filii Dei Rom. 8. he applyes to us the merits of Jesus Christ and interposes himself the caution of his promises he blots out those mortall discontents which labour to cast us into despair he heightens our hope by a prelibation of glory and handles us with so much tenderness that we have much adoe to beleeve that we can be miserable in the other world having been so happy in this The Tenth DISCOURSE Of the CHRISTIAN's Ingratitude towards the Holy SPIRIT IF that Philosopher had reason to say Nibil in rerum natura tam sacrum quod sacrilegum non inveniat Sen. There was nothing so sacred in Nature that meets not with some sacrilegious person to prophane it Divines may with greater justice affirm There is nothing so holy in Religion that wicked and ungodly men do not dishonour and by their malice desecrate its holyest mysteries The divine Mercy is the source of all Graces were not God mercifull we should be eternally miserable did not he remit the injuries done against him the first offence would cast us into despair and having once lost his grace we could expect nothing but punishments in the mean time his Mercy makes sinners presumptuous in their crimes that which should convert them hardens them and that which promiseth them impunity carryes them for the most part to impenitency The death of Jesus Christ is the last testimony of his love his wounds are so many bleeding mouthes breathing forth this Truth and when we begin to doubt of it we need but consider the streams of blood that issued from his veins In the mean time Positus est in ruinam in resurrectionem mulâ—orum Luc. 7. his death is often the occasion of our fall we perswade our selves that he that could finde in his heart to die for us is too much concern'd in our salvation to destroy us upon this vain hope we abandon our selves to all wickednesse and turn our Antidote into a poyson The holy Sacrament is the highest invention the charity of the Son of God could finde out none but an infinite Wisdome could designe it nor could any but an absolute uncontrolled Power put it in execution both of them are drained in this Mystery and when the Son of God is incarnated upon our Altars to enter into our hearts there is no other favour to be wished for upon earth Neverthelesse experience teacheth us that this Grace is not onely unprofitable Sumunt boni sumunt mali sorte tamen inaequali vitae vel interitus D. Thom. but pernicious to sinners that it conveighes death instead of life mixeth a sacriledge with a sacrifice and makes the devill enter into their soules by admitting Jesus Christ unworthily But not to stand upon the proofe of so known a Truth we need but represent the Grace of the Holy Spirit and the ingratitude of wicked men to be fully perswaded thereof He is the fruitfull source of all the blessings we receive from heaven he is the dispenser of all the merits of the Sonne of God nor can we expect any thing of the one but by the mediation of the other In the mean time we prophane his Graces cast off his Inspirations his goodnesse serves onely to set an edge upon our malice the more favourable he is to us the more rebellious are we against him and the more arts he useth to convert us the more barres do we oppose to resist him we may judge of this by the names he beares and by the attempts he makes to gaine us he gives testimony of his love and affection towards us The Holy Spirit is the Principle of our supernaturall life Spiritus Domini ferebatur super aquas ad Creationem pertinet nisi quis renatus fuerit ad regenâ—rationem Faith instructs us that 't is he that frees us from the state of sin to levell us a passage to Grace if we are the effects of his power in the world we are the works of his mercy in the Church so high a favour would challenge as high an acknowledgment so that
give a little light to this Speculation let us amplifie in this discourse what Saint Augustine hath wrapt up in this passage and unfolding all the evils derived from sinne discover the malignant influences of this Delinquent in chiefe upon his wretched members Ignorance seems to be one of the prime calamities of man 'T is born with him ever since he was born with sinne it sinks so deep into his soule that it cannot be expell'd thence but with labour and pain Children know neither their Creatour nor their Father they live some years in this sad condition we must expect till Nature ripen their senses and make them capable of the instructions of their Nurses or Masters that knowledge and truth may passe into their soules by the mediation of their eyes and eares Those that are born among infidels thinking to deliver themselves from ignorance are plung'd into falshood and fall into a mischiefe more grievous then that they labour to avoid when these two evils are associated together they heighten the bad inclinations of the Will of an offender they make an Opinator and adding obstinacy to malice throw him into a necessity of sinning If it have not this unhappy consequence in the faithfull who are instructed in the School of Truth it occasions another whose effects are no whit lesse tragicall For the Will feels a wretched impotency towards all those good things the combate of vices and the conquest of vertues makes him apprehend she complains that what ever is enjoyn'd is harsh and difficult what ever is forbidden easie and delightfull and having no strength to secure her selfe against griefe and pleasure Languorem istum culpa meruit natura non habuit quam sane culpam per lavacrum regenerationis Dei gratia fidelibus jam remisit sed sub ejusdem medici manibus adhuc natura cum suo languore confligit Aug. she loseth as many victories as she fights battles In the mean time all the children of Adam live in this misery what ever habituall goodnesse they acquire they never lose all that weaknesse they extracted from their Father assoon as Grace forsakes them they relapse into their former infirmity and being members of Adam they are always feeble and languishing But that which is most deplorable Concupiscence that so disables for good raiseth their appetite with so strong a propensity to evill that nothing seems difficult that appears under that notion The ambitious suffer with pleasure those great anxieties that accompany Glory this vain Idol makes them so couragious that they are true to it to the last gasp their constancy imitates that of Martyrs and they endure more hardships to conquer a Province then those generous Champions have to purchase Heaven The Covetous make our Penitentiaries blush their Interest costs them more then our Salvation Passion that swallows them up exerciseth so cruell a Tyranny over their wills that it obliges them to all the painfull severities the love of Jesus Christ disciplin'd the Anchorites to They fast to save charges they watch for lucre they leave their Countrey to traffique they venture their lives to assure their gains and lose their conscience to enrich their house Finally Haec cupiditas vana ac per hoc prava vincit in eis ac fraenat alias cupiditates Aug. Concupiscence works as many disorders in sinners as Charity does good in Martyrs it inspires them with vigour in tickling them with love it sheds a poison into their souls which blending weaknesse with strength makes them so unable for any good that the least difficulty that accompanies it astonisheth them and so valiant for evill that the greatest oppositions that attend it raise their courage to compasse it To all these mischiefs might be added the division of the soule and body the revolt of the passions against reason the treachery of the senses in respect of the understanding and all the distempers that arise from the unseasonablenesse of the weather or the strife of the Elements had I not largely describ'd them in discovering the miseries of man a Criminall But not to fall upon tedious repetitions 't is more usefull to consider the Head from whence we have derived our Benedictions and confront him against the other from whom we have received our Anathemaes Jesus Christ is that glorious CHIEF whom the Eternall Father is pleased to engraffe upon our Nature to deliver it from those miseries it grones under 't is from Him that all our advantages flow and as we are made guilty by descending from Adam we become innocent by being planted into JESUS CHRIST Our Redemption holds some proportion with our Fall the Mercy of God is regulated by his Justice and the Grace he bestowes upon us is a copy of our chastisement The first Man saith Saint Augustine received a Liberty void of all servitude God presented him with Fire and Water and gave him leave to chuse Man took Fire and rejected the Water God who is just let him grasp what he had chosen so that hee was therefore unhappy because he would be so See here an Expresse of the Justice of God Turn the Table and behold one of his Mercy For seeing that Man by the bad use of his Free-will had corrupted all Mankinde in his Person He came down from heaven not tarrying for his prayers and healed him by his Humility who had lost himself by his Pride he rectified the wanderers and put them into the right way hee call'd home the Banished and instated them in their Country that they might no longer glory in themselves but in that immaculate CHIEF from whom they derived their salvation This Verity is the Foundation of our Religion The beliefe of two Adams acquaints us with our Fall and with our Recovery Wee cannot know what we owe JESUS CHRIST unlesse we know what we lost in Adam nor can we ever worthily comprehend the obligations we have to our Redeemer unlesse we fully understand all the misfortunes accru'd to us by him that was our Parricide at the same instant that he was our Parent Therefore is it that the great Apostle never separates ADAM from JESUS CHRIST he always opposeth Grace against Sin be heightens the greatness of the Remedy by that of the Disease and that we may have a right estimate of the children of God he minds us that they were the children of wrath and vessels of dishonour Saint Augustine the faithfull Interpreter of Saint Paul admirably explains this Mystery in commenting upon the words of this Apostle As none saith he enters into the kingdom of Death that passeth not by Adam Siâ—â—t in regno Mortis nemo sine Adam ita in regno Vitaenomo sine Christo sicur per Adam omnes peccatores ita per Christum omnes justi homines sicut per Adam omnes mortales in poena facti sunt filii seculi ita per Christuâ— omnes immortales in gratia sunt filii Dei August ad Optat. so none enters into the
Adam depending upon our will as well as that did upon his They make us the masters of our salvation and not considering the terrible enemies we have to combate they think our weapons need be no better furnished then those of the first Man Therefore I cannot establish the necessity of efficacious Grace but I must describe the irregularity of our nature that the greatness of our disease may make us apprehend the excellency of the remedy And indeed 't is one of the chiefest reasons Saint Augustine made use of to make the Semi-Pelagians understand that the succours which were sufficient for man an Innocent could not be sufficient for man a Sinner He handles these two subjects without dividing them he opposeth Concupiscence to Charity and founds the strength of Grace upon the weakness of corrupted Nature Man in the state of Innocence was well with himself because he was so with God his flesh was obedient to his spirit because his spirit was obedient to him that created it Originall righteousness was a sacred chain which link'd the body to the soul and the soul to God so that having no domestick enemies he had but forainers to combate But when sin had despoiled him of grace he saw himself swallowed up by his own passions and justly condemned to suffer the eternall pain of his disobedience From that houre he began to be criminall and miserable the parts that compos'd him were divided and Original righteousness the bond of their amity having abandoned them their love was changed into hatred 'T was in this sad moment that Nature lost her primitive purity that she that was subject to Grace became captive to Concupiscence from which incestuous mixture those monsters received birth that bid us battle Man attempted divers means to recover the good he had lost Reason promised him the victory over his passions Data est Lex 〈◊〉 agrum de morbe convinceret qui sibi sanus videbatur ut peccata demonstrarētur non ut auferrentur Aug. in Psal 83. Liberty undertook the reconciliation of the soul and body and both of them assisted by a vain Philosophy put him in hopes of a happy tranquillity For awhile he suffered himself to be cousened with their promises and his vanity which could not be cured by his misery perswaded him that reason could supply the want of grace But the Law undeceived him which seems to have commanded the good and forbidden the evil for no other end but to make us sensible of our weakness and to oblige us to run to Grace 'T is true that as sin hath corrupted nature whereby shee is at a great distance from this acceptable condition wherein soul and body conspired together to make man happy The Grace of Jesus Christ must of necessity be far different from that of Adam it must have more light because it is to enlighten one blind more force because it is to cure one diseased In the state of Innocence it was subject to the will of man he made use of it according to his pleasure because having as yet no bad inclinations there was no inconvenience but his salvation might depend upon his liberty and he be in some sort the master of his happiness Heaven never refused him relief he found assistance in all his designs and being not yet criminal Grace was offered to him at every moment As it was always present with so was it always at his devotion he might accept or refuse it and in this happy condition he was so free that his salvation and his fall depended upon his will Weakness which is so naturall to the creature had nothing to doe to disquiet him because having no disorders in his soul nor in his body there were no intestine seditions that could surprise him But now that the disease is sunk down into the very Essence of his Beeing that all the faculties of his soul are disabled that the will seiz'd upon by concupiscence hath no inclination but towards evil and the understanding dazled with false lights or obscur'd by reall darkness can hardly discern truth from falshood Man hath need of some more vigorous active Grace then that of Innocence such as may render it self Mistress of his Liberty without forcing it apply his will to good without constraining it withdraw it from evil without offering it violence and being the principle of all his actions defend him from the subtle treachery of the senses the open revolt of the passions and the bold fury of concupiscence Though habituall grace that resides in the innermost recesses of the soul seems to have re-instated man in his first condition and that by vertue of Baptism or Repentance he is reconciled with God yet does he groan still under the tyranny of concupiscence This monster makes war upon him after his death Concupiscentia tanquam lex peccati cum parvulis nascitur in baptizatis à reatu solvitur ad agonem relinquitur Aug. employs the malice of his daughter to ruine him and endeavouring to re-enter upon a place where he holds so much intelligence admits of no truce nor minute of rest If among so many rebels that favour the party of sin Grace did still depend upon mans liberty I know not if he could make use of it with profit and whether self-self-love that lives still in his will would not endeavour to employ Grace it self to the advantage of this selfish passion For what can be hoped for from a creature that more follows the motions of concupiscence then the impulses of charity were there not some commanding Grace that became the Mistress of his heart and carrying him to good with as much force as sweetness gained him a sure victory over his enemies Therefore is it that the Great Saint Augustine to whom all the secrets of Grace were known represents it to us under the name of a Victorious Suavity which gently masters the will by its affectionate allurements leading her so securely amidst the throng of precipices that she runs less hazard in the world then our first Father did in Paradise For though he had nothing to fear but his weakness experience made him see 't was enough to destroy him and that 't was easie for him to tumble into a misfortune whence an Angel that was more vigorous knew not how to defend himself But though in the state of sin rebellion share the forces of man though Concupiscence divide his will he knows very well that when Grace clears up his understanding he cannot mistake and when it inanimates him he cannot be worsted We must not imagine for all this that Grace renders man impeccable nor that when it carries him out of himself he hath lost the power of resisting it he is too potent towards his loss he feels too often that the actual love that moves him Godward takes not away that unhappie inclination he hath to turn his back upon him he hears that cruel enemy in the deepest recesses of his soul
disposition it findes her For those that fully div'd into the meaning of S. Augustine have observed that the Grace of Jesus Christ though always effectual is not always victorious and though it never fail to produce some holy desires or good motions in the soul of a sinner yet it surmounts not always the illigitimate pleasure that holds her captive so that its manner of acting differs very much from Physicall predetermination which ever tames the will notwithstanding all the resistance she can make Finally this third opinion takes and leaves something of the second it takes that sweetness that charms the will of man and confesseth all the force of grace to consist in that suavity that accompanies it but it rejects that lazy compliance that subjects grace to liberty making man in some sort the master of his salvation it cannot allow that our consent should more depend upon our selves then upon grace and that acting in the state of sin as if we had acted in the state of innocence we should rather dispose of grace then grace of us To explain therefore the power of this Divine influence according to the most common opinion and most constant with S. Augustine it consists me thinks in a certain sweet elapse shedding it self into the will charming it so agreeably that 't is transported by it doing nothing but by the motion of this suavity which becomes infallibly victorious surmounting the delectation that captivated the will If it produce not always this last effect it fails not to produce some others For if it disingage not the sinners soul it breathes into him some desire of his liberty imprints some motions into him that make him sigh if it breaks not his chains it easeth the weight of them and enables him to form some good designs or conceive some good wishes But whatever man does 't is grace still that makes him doe it it is more the principle of his action then himself and seeing it produceth in him according to the language of the great Apostle both to will and to doe he is obliged to say with the same Apostle that he owes all that he is and all that he doth to Grace and that the glory he expects is rather the reward of grace then of his merits From all this Discourse 't is easie to judge that this last opinion comprehends the two other that it unites force with sweetness in grace that it may prevail upon man without wiolence It respects the Majesty of God because it gives him the absolute disposall of his creature it spares the liberty of man Certum est nos velle cum volumus sed ille facit ut velimus bonum certum est nos facere cum facimus sed ille facit ut faciamus praebendo vires efficacissimas voluntati Aug. because it subjects it only to pleasure which is never more welcome then when forc'd and gives it a share in the work of salvation because it confesseth with Saint Augustine that he acts with the grace that makes him act Ageris ut agas bene agis si à bono agaris There remains one difficulty which I am content to propound without resolving To wit whether Grace always mingle force with sweetnesse to convert a sinner or to guide a just person for it seems there are some souls that God deals roughly with which taste no inward sweetnesse at all and destitute of all delectation act only by the strength and faithfulness of their grace They are continually plunged in grief and sorrow they may bespeak God as Job did in the midst of his afflictions Mutatus es mihi in crudelem and they may boast with the Apostle that all their strength consists in their weakness Tunc potens sum cum infirmor I know very well that Saint Augustine never separates force from sweetness in grace and that where ever he describes it victorious he describes it agreeable But may we not say also that this great Doctor hath spoken of Grace as he had experience of it himself and being disingaged from sinfull pleasures by innocent ones believed all graces sweet and that the particular conduct God had observ'd towards his soul was his generall proceeding with all others In a word Mysticall Divines and Spirituall Guides seem to acknowledge ways wherein God separates light from force and force from sweetness though in both these he faile not to promote souls in piety But because Saint Augustine hath given no notice of them in his works let us hold our selves to his conceptions and say that if there are graces where light and force are more sensible then sweetnesse there are none where sweetness is not mixt with force and light and the sweetness so much more effectuall that being more intimate 't is lesse known to the understanding and more remote from sense The Sixt DISCOURSE That the names Saint Augustine gives Christian Grace bear witness 't is effectuall MAn is so free that he cannot endure any thing that checks his liberty he is more afraid of servitude then of death he had rather die a Free-man then live a Slave and if liberty were not to be found in Heaven I question whether he could find in his heart to be happy 'T is the love he hath to this advantage which serves him for excuse of his greatest crimes If he repine to live in a Monarchy 't is because he conceives the absolute power of Soveraigns inconsistent with the liberty of their subjects If hee cannot submit to Laws 't is because hee is perswaded they intrench upon his will and that they will fetter a creature over whom God will not reign by compulsion If finally Christians cannot suffer effectuall grace if the name be distastfull or suspected and if instead thereof they introduce sufficient grace 't is because they believe it reduceth man to a troublesome bondage excluding merit and prejudicing liberty But because there are unjust pannick fears and evils that more hurt the imagination then the body I design this Discourse to discover the unreasonableness of this apprehension and to let those that are in love with liberty see that 't is not incompatible with effectuall grace because this according to Saint Augustine is a victorious pleasure charming our soul a triumphant love predominant over our will and a powerfull perswasion captivating our understanding Forasmuch as God hath made man free never taking that from him which once he hath bestowed upon him he could not have employed a more gracious nor more effectuall way to gain him then pleasure All creatures are taken with it and the Poet had reason to say There is nothing that is not sweetly master'd by pleasure The Ambitious seek not so much the reputation in honours as the pleasure because they contemn them assoon as they cease to be agreeable The Covetous is not so much provoked with profit as pleasure in the desire of wealth because he spends many times prodigally to procure other things that
more delight him Nay the Lascivious wanton is not so much in love with beauty as with pleasure because he placeth his affection sometimes upon objects that have no appearance of beauty and many times forsakes a handsome woman to court a deformed one Thus pleasure is a powerfull charm that masters all hearts plunders liberties and makes slaves that never complain of their bondage because they are voluntary Lovers that seek the secret of purchasing affection study nothing but complacency being assured they shall produce love in that heart where they have begot pleasure Flatterers never insinuate into the minds of great men but by rendring themselves acceptable nor doe their false Commendations steal in at the ears but because pleasure takes up the place of truth The very Devils though our mortall enemies seduce us not but because they please us and had they not found out the art of mixing pleasure with sin all their temptations would be fruitless But the will of man though never so free hath such an inclination toward pleasure that did she never so strongly barracado her self she could not possibly resist it she holds out against truth because she is blind and sees not the beauties 't is adorned with she secures her self against violence because she is free and naturally opposeth whatever seems to incroach upon her liberty she does not acquiesce in reason because she is deaf nor hears any discourse but such as charms the understanding by convincing it But pleasure hath allurements which she can no wayes withstand she trembles when ever it sets upon her she is afraid to lose her liberty in his presence and knowing the power it hath over her inclinations she cals in sorrow to her succour to guard her against this pleasing enemy If it be true that pleasure reigns absolutely over the will we need not think it strange that grace which is nothing else but a victorious suavity hath such advantage over her for besides that this Heavenly influence surpasseth all the delights in the world that charm us having more allurements then glory and beauty that makes so many Lovers and Martyrs it insinuates much deeper into the will then whatever ravisheth us mortals Tunc enim bonum concupisci incipit cum dulcescere incipit ergo benedictio dulcedinis est gratia Dei qua fit in nobis ut nos delectet cupiamus hoc est amemus quod praecipit nobis Aug. Being in the hands of Jesus Christ whom nothing can resist it glides into the very Center of our heart making impressions there that are never more strong then when they are most agreeable thence it cashieres all pleasures that have unjustly usurpt upon us and knowing all the weaknesses of the place it sets upon we need not wonder if she make her self mistresse Other pleasures enter not into the will but at the gate of the senses they have lost half their strength before they can make their approach and her inclinations being unknown to them they many times cause aversion intending to procure love But grace wooes the heart without the mediation of the senses and more powerfull then pleasures that act not upon all the faculties of the soul carries light into the understanding faithfulnesse into the memory and pleasure into the will so that we need not wonder if the sinner suffer himself to be overcome by a Divine quality that sheds delight into all the powers and faculties of the soul That which Grace effects thus agreeably by pleasure it brings to pass more powerfully by Love For according to the judgement of S. Augustine Amor imperiü babet super omnes animae vires propter hoc quod ejus objectum est bonum Aristo Di. Tho. and when God means to convert a sinner his sole design is to make him his Lover Love is the Master of all hearts There is no impossibility this passion undertakes not Miracles are his sports and all the prodigies Antiquity hath teem'd with are nothing but the effects of this Soveraign Scripture is never more eloquent then when it intends to express the force thereof nothing satisfies it in this design all words seem too weak to express its conceptions and finding no comparisons that answer the dignity of the subject it descends to the Tombes where having considered the Trophies of death is forc'd to confess that his power equals not that of Love it passeth to the very Center of the Earth observes the unrelenting hardness of Hel and comparing the pains of the damned with the anxiety of lovers leaves us in doubt whether Hel or Love be more pitiless But not to aggravate his power by such strange comparisons let it suffice to judg of him by his effects Though he be the son of the Wil yet is he the Master he disposeth so absolutely of his Mother that she hath no motions but what her Son inspires her with she undertakes nothing but by his orders 't is the weight that sets her a going the Loadstone that attracts her the King that governs her and she so absolutely depends upon his power that nothing but another love can dis-engage her she is so fierce or so free that neither violence nor fear can tame her she laughs at tortures preserves her liberty in the midst of fetters and many times torments make her but more wilfull Only Love mollifies her hardness his charmes gain upon her what sorrow cannot and experience teacheth us there is no surer Command then that which is founded upon Love In the mean time Vanity which is almost the inseparable companion of Greatness perswades Kings that 't is a debasement to seek the love of their subjects and seduced by this false Maxime they endeavour to make themselves feared not being able to make themselves beloved But God who hath formed the heart of man and knows how they may be vanquished without being forc'd owes all his Conquests to his Love he never appears more absolute then when he tames a rebellious Will when of an Enemy he makes a Lover and changing his inclinations sweetly compels him to fall in love with him Forinsecus terret per Legem intrinsecus delectat per Amorem Aug. His Power sparkles in his Corrections he astonisheth sinners when he loosens the mountains from their foundations when he makes the earth shake under their feet the thunder rumble over their heads and threatens the world with an universal Deluge or a general Conflagration But all these menaces convert not the Guilty the fear that terrifies them reduceth them not to their duty their heart remains criminal when their mouthes and their hands be innocent and if God inspire not his love into them he punisheth indeed their offence but changeth not their Will This prodigious Metamorphosis is reserved for his love 't is his charity that must triumph over rebels nor is there any thing but his Grace that by its imperious sweetness can oblige a sinner to love him I am not
Answer he returns to these Philosophers 'T is a great argument of a firm Will not to be able to change and we are not to imagine that a man will not a thing when he wills it so strongly that 't is not in his power not to will it at all For who is so unadvised as to deny that the Wil is free when she is no longer in danger to quit her resolution to embrace a contrary nay who ought not rather to judge that she is never so free as when her resolution is so firm that it becomes eternal Indeed if we believe he wills a thing who may not will it Must we not believe that he wills it much more when he wills it so powerfully that he is past all danger of not willing it But he could not better resolve this Doubt then when opposing Constraint against Necessity he saith The later may be found with Liberty and if we have no obligation to a man that does us a courtesie because he was forced to it we have notwithstanding to him that does it because he cannot do otherwise and hath imposed this necessity upon himself with which he cannot possibly dispense This opinion hath its Reasons to back it and though it seem somewhat singular hath notwithstanding Philosophers for its Protectors whose judgement 't is that the Will is never more free then when 't is less indifferent For if Liberty say they be nothing but a fixation of the Will we must acknowledge that she is never more free then when by many indifferent acts she is so united to her object that she cannot possibly undo her self Otherwise perfect Love would deprive us of Liberty the use of that power would destroy it and it would follow that to have a long time acted freely we should cease to be free They confess that Indifferency which they look upon as a weakness of Liberty is lessened by the power of Love and the more strongly a man affects a thing the less indifferencie hath he to quit it But they believe you shall never perswade a Lover that the loss of his Indifferency is the loss of his Liberty that the more his Passion increaseth the more his worth diminisheth and for being more constant he is less acceptable to her he loveth There are some Divines of the opinion of these Philosophers who finding no Indifferency in Jesus Christ nor in the Blessed cannot imagine it inseparable from Liberty For Jesus Christ was free because he merited the reconciliation of men with his Father he was free because he satisfied for their sins and all the hope of their salvation is founded as well upon the Liberty as upon the Dignity of his actions Etiamsi esset liberuÌ„ arbitrium Christi determinatum ad unum numero sicut ad diligendum Deum quod non facere non potest tamen ex hoc non amittit libertatem aut rationem laudis sive meritiâ—nam respectu amoris est sempiterna libera electio D. Thom. In the mean time he had no Indifference in respect of Good and Evil the will of his Father determined his without constraining it he died necessarily and freely and seeing his sentence noted in the thought of his Father he submitted to it by an obedience which not being indifferent ceased not therefore to be perfectly free Finally they cannot be perswaded that the Saints have lost their Liberty in the enjoyment of Glory for having lost their Indifferency They cannot believe that the Blessed are slaves that their love is not free because necessary and that the firmness of their condition cancels the perfection of their Liberty They adde further that no man shall perswade them that Grace which is Glory begun deprives us of Liberty when it deprives us of Indifferency not that it reduceth us to the condition of Slaves because it brings us neer to that of the Blessed But as all agree not upon the same Principles Other Divines leaning upon Reason and Scripture will have Indifference inseparable from Liberty in this world that men may always will Good and Evil and that they are never so strongly determined to the one but they may quit it to embrace the other They judge that Grace does not so fix the Will upon Good that it takes away her Indifferency but that there remains some inclination or some capacity towards Evil so that even when she is determined by Grace she hath still in the centre of her Being a certain Indifferency making her capable to change her minde and to depart from the Supreme Good that possesseth her According to this Principle we must say that as Grace transporting us leaves us a power to resist so also determining us an Indifferency That as we may hold out so may we change if we will and consequently there is no moment wherein our Will is not always Indifferent By this 't is easie to judge that the Councel of Trent opposeth not this Opinion Siquis dixerit Liberum arbitrium à Deo motum non posse dissentire si velit seâ—velut inanime quoddam nihil omnino agere â—nathema sit Sess 6. Can. 4. when it pronounceth an Anathema against those that say that Free-will being moved by Grace cannot resist it when it will because whatever advantage we put upon Grace we acknowledge she never takes away the power of resisting of God confessing she leaves us Concupiscence which holds our Wil under her Tyranny For there are no Saints who at the very instant they yeeld obedience to Grace prove not internally a secret opposition to her motions who groan not to see themselves divided by self-self-love and who sigh not with Saint Paul in that they feel in the recesses of their soul an irregular inclination that combats that of Grace This domestick sedition makes them long for Glory which hath this advantage over Grace that destroying all the remainders of sin and confirming their will in Good it lifts them to a condition which suffers them no longer to contradict the pleasures of the Almighty But in expectation of this happie hour they confess with as much confusion of face as grief of heart that though they will not resist him that draws them they can nevertheless do it because Grace hath not so strongly rooted them in good but they may forsake it should the mercy of God give them over to their own infirmity 'T is then easie enough to comprehend that Grace though effectual takes not away from the greatest Saints the power to resist Jesus Christ But 't is very hard to conceive how their complaints are true and how they can with reason accuse themselves for having been unfaithful to him For the accusations of Saints ought to be sincere humility must not make them renounce Truth nor to avoid Pride engage in a Lye These are two extremes equally dangerous which all those that are led by the holy Spirit ought carefully to avoid In the mean time they accuse themselves daily before Men
and Angels that they resist Grace that they abuse his favours and frustrate his designes This sin is constantly the first Article of their Confession they look upon it as the source of all the rest and these great men that are better acquainted with the motions of Grace then the learnedst Divines never speak thereof without regret for having rejected them I profess this Objection seems one of the strongest can be formed against Effectual Grace because I have taken it for a proof of Grace Sufficient and withal it seems to clash against the Principles of S. Augustine for if Grace always produceth her effect how can we resist it if she make her self mistress of our Will how can she meet with rebellion there and if she manage that faculty with as much force as dexterity how can we oppose her designs or stop the conquests of her that S. Augustine so many times calls victorious I know some Doctors dispatch this difficulty by an Answer that admits of no Reply and say that when the Saints complain of their infidelity towards Grace their meaning is to speak of that which toucheth our Senses or enlightens our Understandings and being so well instructed in the School of S. Augustine they are not ignorant that the true Grace of Jesus Christ infallibly produceth its effect But this Answer never satisfied me and I must acknowledge the language of the Saints seems too strong to be expressed by so weak a grace They speak of their resistance with so much grief that we may judge by their complaints that 't is of the grace of Jesus Christ which they have abused that they intend to speak Some others believe 't is not an actual resistance that they accuse themselves of because that is incompatible with effectual grace but of an habitual resistance that combats the designe of Grace though it hinders not its effect These seem better grounded then the former because 't is true that the greatest Saint in the world hath always an opposition against Grace as long as there is one degree of self-self-love and is contrary to Jesus Christ as long as he is conformable in any thing to the first Adam The inordinate intentions which insensibly fasten him to the things of the world the revolt of the Passions that trouble the repose of his minde and Concupiscence that weakens Charity are so many enemies heaving at Grace and retarding the accomplishment of her designes But for all this we must confess that this Answer resolves not fully the whole difficulty of the Objection for besides that this resistance to speak properly is not a sin because 't is purely habitual nor renders the Saints more culpable then Concupiscence we know very well that it impedes not the effect of Grace and that when God intends to make himself master of the Will he can as well tame bad Habits as bad Inclinations Therefore have I thought it necessary to adde That there are secret oppositions against Grace that are unknown to us That the Will is not so fully possest by Charity but Concupiscence shares with her That there is no inconvenience that she should be inanimated at the same time with two contrary loves though one be victorious over the other seeing S. Augustine hath so often confessed that his heart being divided between two affections he willed at the same time two things utterly opposite Or we must say that Grace though efficacious in the beginning languisheth in the progress that when the motion that carried the Will grows weak Concupiscence awakes and attempts a victory when she findes least resistance Thus Grace is worsted in her retreat self-self-love takes courage when the love of God gives ground and this Grace that was victorious in the onset becomes as all things in the world faint and drooping towards the end If this Answer crosseth the principles of S. Augustine I disavow it and if it resolve not the difficulty propounded I intreat those that shall read this Work to consider that Grace is not less wondersul then Nature and if the vertue of the Loadstone hath left so many Philosophers at a loss we need not wonder if the power of Grace put the Divines in a confusion A Prosecution of the same DISCOURSE Wherein some other Objections against Effectual Grace are answered MAns Understanding since the Fall is of the same condition as the Earth This is fruitful onely in thorns and bears nothing but briars if it be not tilled by the labour of the husbandman and that is fertitle onely in errours and is delivered of nothing but doubts which rather fight against Truth then defend it His Ingeny serves him for no other end but to raise difficulties his light is always mixt with darkness and as if he were of the nature of Spiders that distil flowers into poison he changeth truth into errours and extracts nothing from the fairest Maximes of Religion but doubts and suspitions There is nothing more certain in Christianity then that Grace is the Principle of our Salvation that she supports our Will and gives that faculty strength to stand out against Concupiscence In the mean time this Truth is the mother of Errours our understanding hath drawn more darkness thence then light and the doctrine of Saint Augustine that hath ruined the Pelagians hath produced more scruples then resolutions amongst Divines We cannot speak of the dominion of Grace but we are troubled to secure the liberty of man We are well content God should be the Master because we dare not dispute his Soveraignty Non aliud intelligetis arbitrium laudabiliter liberum nisi quod fuerit Dei Gratia liheratum Aug. but we are loth man should be his slave as if we doubted of his Justice or questioned his Mercy whatever depends not upon our wil casts us into a sealousie if Grace be not in subjection to Free-will we cannot be quiet The example of Adam who was foil'd notwithstanding his Sufficient Grace cannot cure us of this apprehension and the violent desire we have to be absolute in all things makes us seek for our safety in our Independency The Objections that are made against the Doctrine of Saint Augustine are proofs of this passion and the number is so great that one Discourse being not large enough to resolve them we must employ this supplement to the same purpose One of the strongest and most remarkable is that Baptisme is a second Birth where the Christian being regenerated seems to have received a new Nature For in that happy moment wherein his sins are remitted he receives Habitual Grace which uniting him to Jesus Christ as to his Head sets him free from the slavery of Satan and entitles him to the felicity of Angels Forasmuch as this Grace is a second nature she hath her faculties whereby she works Faith is her Light Hope her Strength Charity her Love and these three vertues are supernatural habits that elevate her understanding and her will As God refuseth not his
the heat of self-self-love makes in our souls In which respect 't is certainly the truth of the Tree of Life and the accomplishment of that figure For though Innocent Man had other meats besides that and excepting the forbidden fruit all others that Paradise afforded were allowed him yet was he obliged to take of this from time to time as a medicine which the mercy of God had prepared for him to defend him against the Natural heat which insensibly wasted him Whence it is easie to infer that in the state of Innocence the body of man was composed of parts that could not agree That fire which makes man live devoured the radical moisture on which it feeds and though he daily took in nourishment which being much purer then ours might preserve life much longer yet had he need of an extraordinary diet which might repair the ruines the natural heat made in his body and Divines Providence which never abandons that sinner provided the Tree of Life for Innocent Man to defend him against the internal enemy who had insensibly brought him to death by means of old age and consumption Thus may we say that the body of the Son of God shields us against that forain heat Concupiscentia carnis in Baptismo dimittitur non ut non sit sed ut non obsit non imput tur Aug. lib. de Nup. Concup cap. 25. which setting upon the warmth of Charity threatens the Christian with death For though Concupiscence since Baptism be no longer sin and if sometimes they give it this name 't is because it is the principal effect yet is she not idle in our souls she makes strange progresses when her fury is not stopt she makes use of all occasions that are offered and holding under her command the passions and the senses she endeavours by their mediation to enslave the understanding and the will Though never so weak and langnishing in Christians she hath still vigour enough to engage them in sin if their reason assisted with grace continually oppose not her designs The little remainder there is makes them they cannot live secure and as long as they nourish the least degree of self-self-love there is no crime whereof they have not the seeds in them What the Son of God hath said of the grain of Mustard seed which is so small at first and so prodigious in the progress is not comparable to Concupiscence whose least sparks are able to kindle mighty conflagrations which only the Grace of Jesus Christ can extinguish Indeed his Body the noblest Organ of his Spirit moderates daily these heats in the Eucharist smothers the flames Concupiscence stirs up to consume us he gives beeing to that vertue that fight obscenity weakens that strange burning which glows against divine heat without which a Christian cannot live He produceth two contrary effects which manifests his power to be infinite For by kindling one fire he quencheth another and warming us with his own love happily delivers us from that of self 'T is a a wonderful Wine which contrary to the nature of ordinary wine bears Virgins and renders them pure thereby to render them pregnant in Vertues Finally 't is a Bread of Life that nourisheth soul and body carrying vigour into the one and light into the other to the end that preserving the whole man it may be his food in health and his remedy in sickness Having contrary to the Laws of Physick cured him contrary to the Laws of Nature it endeavours to make him young For Religion more powerful then the Fable hath found out a secret to renue the Christians youth in the Eucharist and to discover in Mysteries what it made us believe in Types and Figures Indeed all the Fathers are of opinion that the Tree of Life defended man from old age and preserved him from that languishing consumption which disposed him insensibly to his death if common fruits could preserve his life they were unable to maintain his vigour Though they had all the purity Innocent Nature could furnish her works with yet in repairing mans strength they had not restored that freshness which accompanies youth To secure himself from that mischief which had not respected his Innocence he was obliged to have recourse to the Tree of Life and from time to time to take an agreeable Physick which being no way distasteful restored him his primitive vigour and re-instated him in that flourishing age he was at first created in It is true that as Prudence was natural to him he never expected length of days to impair his beauty nor that old-age should print wrinkles upon his face he made such seasonable use of this remedy that the freshness of his complexion never faded The Roses and the Lilies were always mingled on his cheeks age and deformity never seized a body whose soul was exempt from sin and the fruit of the Tree of Life seconding his ordinary food maintained him in a vigorous constitution which was afraid neither of Sickness nor Weakness In this happie state Man had the advantages of the Aged and not their imperfections his Reason without the tedious trouble of Experience was furnished with all Lights requisite to conduct him he had no need to enfeeble his body to fortifie his minde but both the parts that composed him being equally innocent he had no occasion to wish that age might weaken the one to make it more obedient nor strengthen the other to render it more absolute Thus the fruit of the Tree of Life maintained Man in Youth and Innocence and these two inseparable qualities combating Old-age and Sin made him spend his life happily and holily Although Christians have not this advantage upon the earth and that their body being still the slave of Concupiscence cannot avoid the infirmities incident to old-age yet in their souls they fail not to enjoy the priviledges of Innocence they finde in the holy Sacrament what Adam found in the Tree of Life they receive a new vigour in the Eucharist their souls grow young as often as they approach to Jesus Christ when like Eagles they soar as high as this Sun lodg'd in a cloud they are astonished that in the infirmity of their flesh their spirit is renewed and that the outward man falling to decay by yeers and penance the inward man recruits by the heavenly meat he feeds upon This Miracle passeth sometimes from the soul to the body yet there have been some holy persons who taking no other sustenance but what is offered upon our Altars have lived many yeers Many times this Nutriment hath imprinted its qualities upon their bodies and darting forth certain rays of Grace upon their countenances communicated to them a part of that beauty which the blessed spirits shall possess Post primā caenam it a similes evascrunt Christodiscipuli ejus ut vix ab illo possent discerni Chrys S. John Chrysostome was of opinion that the Apostles participated of this priviledge in their
soever they turn their eyes they may without vanity utter these words Whatever we see is ours and though we leave the propriety to particular persons we cease not to enjoy the soveraignty with God But we need not wonder if these slaves are rich because they are free and that the same quality which instates them in plenty puts them into liberty Man is so free that he cannot be compell'd Sin that deprives him of Grace robs him not of his Liberty and into whatever condition he throws himself is still his own Master It is true that according to the language of Saint Paul he becomes the slave of sin and free from Grace when he becomes Guilty and on the contrary free from sin and the fervant of Grace when justified Although in these two states so opposite Liberty is always mixt with Servitude St Thomas and St Augustine Masters with whom we cannot easily mistake teach us That in the state of sin there is a reall Thraldome and a false Liberty because man departing from God wanders from his duty and subjecting himself to his passions is a slave in earnest and free only in appearance On the contrary there is a reall liberty in the state of Grace and an apparent servitude because Man does what he will in that he does what he ought that he is free because reasonable and master of himself because the slave of Jesus Christ This is it that the Word Incarnate had a minde to teach us with his own mouth when he said We should be free indeed if the Son made us free and this is it that Saint Augustine would have us understand by those excellent words We were the slaves of self-love and now that we are made free we may boast that we are the Slaves of Charity Neither is there any Divine that does not acknowledg that our will is never more free Omnia propter Electos then when she is most submitted to God and that true Liberty is the recompence of so happy a Bondage I may well give it this name because it produceth Glory and that all the slaves of the son of God are Soveraigns But that we may rightly conceive of the Greatnesse of this Priviledg we must remember that Servitude is the daughter of Sin that men were not slaves till they became Guilty and that Nature which laboured to equal their Conditions is not she that created this shamefull difference which distinguisheth them one from another They were all Kings before their Defection Innocence was the character of their Royalty and as long as they were the Images of God they were his Vicegerents in the world But sin that deprived them of Grace ravish'd from them their Liberty gave them as many Masters as they have bad inclinations and making this misfortune passe from their person into their estate many times imposed Tyrants over them under a colour of constituting lawfull Soveraigns We had for ever remained in this shamefull Bondage had not the son of God who draws our salvation out of our fall made us recover Liberty by Servitude For Grace bringing us in subjection unto his will hath put all Creatures under us his love subjecting our soul to his Empire hath made us the Masters of our Body this insolent slave is is become obedient and as it revolted not against the soul but because the soul was revolted against God it returned to its duty as soon as she betook her self to her respect and acknowledged his Soveraign as soon as she acknowledged her Creator Thus our Rule is founded upon our submission our Liberty established upon our vassalage and we command our Body because we obey our God Vis serviat animae tuae caro tua Deo serviat anima tua debes regi ut possis regerc Aug. This is it that Saint Augustine expresseth so handsomly When the soul is the servant of God she is the Mistresse of the flesh when Reason is subject to Grace she is the queen of Passions and reduceth these rebels to obedience so that the most assured means to re-enter upon our ancient Priviledges is to submit to God and to seek our greatnesse in our debasement The Son of God hath furnished us with a rare Example in his Life he ascended not to Glory but by the ladder of humility He was content to be his Fathers servant before he would be adored as his Son and in heaven it self where he raigns with him he still retains this humble deportment Saint Paul teacheth us that he wisheth not the accomplishment of his mysticall body but that he may be subject to his Father Cum autem subjecta fuerint illi omnia tunc ipse filius crit subjectus ei 1 Cor 15. having subjected all things to himself It seems he chose the Virgin for his mother because she was devoted to the service of the Altar and had protested that she would eternally remain the servant of the Lord He boasts of it by the mouth of a Prophet he will have all the world know that his service is founded upon his birth and that he is the slave of the eternall Father because the Son of his handmaid Ego servus tuus filius Ancillae tuae Humane Laws acknowledge three sorts of Slaves The First Servi sunt alii à Conventione alii à fortuna alii à natura Arist 2. Poli. those that sell themselves and to gain a small livelihood engage their Liberty and become Slaves to enrich their friends or children Others are those that Fortune throws into Fetters whom the loss of a Battel subjects to the mercy of the Conqueror and according to the Laws of War become the prisoners of their enemies The Last are those who are born of slavish parents and who seem to have less reason to complain because their servitude preceded their Birth and Nature conspired with Fortune to deprive them of their Liberty The Son of God was pleased to be of this number he desired his Thraldom might be natural Partus sequitur ventrem and that the same mother that made him a Man might make him his Fathers Servant and we cannot deny that he is liable to this condition because all Laws ordain that the Childe is of the same quality with the Mother It seems she had inspired him with this desire in giving him a being and that at the same time she conceived him she imprinted in his soul the minde of a Slave The Naturalists assure us that Mothers have so much power over the bodies of their children in the moment of conception Matres dum concipiunt foetibus desideriorū signa quaedam inurunt Plin. that they express upon them their Longings and Imaginations and those extraordinary marks they bring along with them into the world are certain proofs of so known a Truth But the Scripture acquaints us that the Virgin more happie and more powerful then other mothers hath made an impression upon the soul and body of her
or serve him he cannot refuse Heaven to those that die in love with him Thence it comes to pass that Christians who know that all their advantage consists in Charity make this vertue their principal employment they despise not others for they possess all in this one But being fully perswaded it must be their felicity in heaven they make it their business whilst they are upon the earth These Divine Lovers can do nothing but love they imitate the Seraphims whose Essence and Exercise is Love they burn with the same Fire that makes them live they swim in flames and as if they had forgotten all the vertues to learn one they spend their whole life in this amorous entertainment If they fear 't is to offend him whom their soul loveth if they hope 't is to possess him if they rejoyce 't is for being united to him if they are afflicted 't is for being separated from him When they have to do with their Neighbour 't is upon this wheel that they move they look onely upon God in his Creatures and upon Jesus Christ in his Members if they sometimes adhere unto them out of a natural inclination Divine Love furnisheth them with wings to soar above them and with strength to be disentangled from them Finally Love so well manageth the whole course of their life that leaving Respect to Domesticks Hope to Mercenaries Fear to Slaves Light to the Learned they reserve onely Charity for themselves and are of the humour of that faithful Lover who being confined to solitude had no other diversion but her Love In consideration whereof Dei unicum opus est se intueri se amare Plato I finde their condition very glorious because they treat with God as God doth with himself for his whole happiness consists in knowing and loving Himself and should he intermit this employment he would cease to be happie He sees the Creatures in seeing himself he loves Them in loving Himself and without going forth of his own Nature he findes his felicity in his Knowledge and in his Love The Christian by an admirable priviledge is advanced to this high degree of glory Solus est Amor ex omnibus animae motibus in quo poteâ— Creatura respondere Creatori de simili mutuam rependere viâ—eÌ„ Bernard he enters into society with God treats with him as with his Peer and it seems being no longer his Slave becomes his Equal in becoming his Friend Greatness is so opposite to Love that Kings are fain in a manner to depose themselves when they have a minde to love their Subjects That Majestie wherewith they are encircled is fitter to strike Fear and Consternation then Confidence If they descend not from their Throne lay not by their Crown and Scepter they can have no Friends because no Equals Therefore hath Aristotle observed that Subjects could not contract Alliance with their Soveraigns that the disparity of their Conditions permitted not those privacies which maintain Friendship among men and as long as Kings remain in their Grandeur Subjects must continue in their Respect In the mean time Charity findes out an Expedient to unite the Christian with God exalteth the One without debasing the Other equals in some sort their conditions and as it obliged God to make himself Man hath given Man a power to make himself God Nor must we think it strange that this Vertue is the original of our Happiness because it is the source of our Merit and nothing makes us more commendable then Love Though every thing have its estimate in the Church Order banisheth Confusion and in this vast Body every part hath its priviledge and employments nevertheless the whole perfection consists in Charity he that knows best how to love is most accomplisht and without respecting his actions or his sufferings we consider onely the measure of his Love The Son of God would not have our merit fastned to those conditions which depend not upon our selves nor that Greatness or Riches should difference his Subjects He would not place Perfection in Alms because the Rich onely can dispense them he would not tye it to Preaching because that Gift is reserved for his Ministers he would not limit it to Austerity because that requires a strong Constitution he would not fix it in Martyrdom because that depends upon Persecution with which the Church is not always afflicted But he hath established it in Charity where nothing is easier then this Vertue The Ignorant and the Learned are equally admitted to it Kings are not more capable of it then their Subjects and if Martyrs pretend some advantage above the rest of the Faithful they have a greater obligation to their Love then to their Torments The greatest Saint is not he that hath Suffered most or Done most but he that hath Loved most All his Merit consists in Charity if occasions be wanting he hath recourse to his desires and he may boast that being a Lover he is Liberal in Poverty Learned in Ignorance a Martyr in the Serenity of conversation Though all these advantages oblige us to Love that which God witnesseth to us is the greatest endearment of affection for there are conditions in his Indulgencies which cannot be found in our Expressions and his love is so powerful and so noble that 't is easie to judge it cannot proceed but from an abyss of Goodness It is Eternal and before all worlds God expects not till we subsist to shew his kindness towards us his love makes inquisition after us in the confused heap of Nothing as well as his power he cherisheth us in what he is pleased to put into us and separating us from all those Creatures which shall never see the light makes us the objects of his Liberality Our Crimes stop not the current of his Love he loves us in our Delinquency and that which ought to provoke his Justice to punish us provokes his Mercy to deliver us In Non-entity he loves Ignorant Creatures in Sin he loves ungrateful ones to the former he gives Being to the later he gives Grace and to both of them he makes it appear that his Love is Eternal and Fruitful Men Love nothing but what is lovely either really or in shew they discover in their friends those qualities they plant not there and whatever height of greatness fortune shall advance them to they can bestow upon them only riches or honour if their favorites have any blemish in soul or body they cannot mend it and unhappy in their affections they are constrained either to hate the man for his imperfection or to love the imperfection for the man But God whose love is equally powerful and pregnant makes that amiable which he pleaseth to set his love upon he himself forms his own object he puts that in his friends which he means to esteem and by a prodigy which surpasseth all wonder Meretricem invenit virginem fecit faedam amavit ne faeda remaneret Au. he
Christ we have Jesus Christ in us This vertue makes him present in our souls and the belief we conceive of him is his other self in our hearts Thus the Believer is happie because he possesseth the Son of God and is possessed by him as long as he preserves a vertue which so closely unites them together Hope which is bred with Faith increaseth this happiness and makes our condition more resemble that of the Blessed For that which seems most to separate them from us is that they enjoy that happiness we expect that they languish not as we do and that they have received seisen of the Supreme Good we still hope for They feel the truth of that speech the Scripture hath recorded for our consolation Intra in gaudium Domini tui Their Desires disturb them not and Fear which always accompanies Hope troubles not their content They are above all their wishes and being in full possession of the Supreme Good have neither Miseries to fear nor Blessings to desire It is true the Believers enjoy not all these priviledges neither does their condition suffer them to live without apprehensions and longings They work out their salvation with trembling Ille bene novit in miseriis exterioribus subsistere qui scit de spe interna semper gaudere Greg. Mora. and as they possess not all that they love they give themselves leave gently to consume away in the flames and desires of their Love But withal we must confess they have a part of this felicity for all Philosophers know that Hope is the flower of Pleasure that it gives a taste of the pleasure it promiseth that to stir up the appetite of our Soul it indulgeth a kinde of sense of the felicity prepared for us and that the strength she inspires us with proceeds from the sweetness she charms our expectation with I know prophane Authors affirm that the overtures of Hope are but pleasing Lyes Spes vigilantiū somnium Plut. that she engageth us in dangers with vain promises and finding us over-easie abuseth our credulity But the sounder sort of Philosophers acknowledge that Hopes animates us sowes pleasures amidst our pains nor ever carries men on to generous and difficult actions but in making them taste a part of the recompence she promiseth But admit this Passion had not all the power attributed to her we must by no means question it as belonging to that Hope which is grounded upon the words of God This confers things in promising them makes us feel the happiness we expect and as the Air and the Windes carry the Odours of Arabia into the neighbouring Provinces we may say that this vertue carries the felicity of the Beatified into the very heart of the Faithful Thence it comes to pass that Saint Paul many times in his Epistles mingles Joy with Hope as if he would teach us that we cannot hope but we must possess in part what we hope for Spe gaudentes and in another place Gloriamur in spe gloriae filiorum Dei Finally if it exclude not all Evils as Beatitude does at least it sweetens them and turns them into remedies S. Gregory goes further for he will have it happie because certain and wiping away the tears of Christians crowns them with a joy which comes neer that of the Angels Inasmuch as Charity is nobler then Hope she contributes more liberally to the Happiness of the Faithful For besides that it makes the holy Trinity present in their souls renders their Exile a Paradise she unites them to God and by a happy Metamorphosis findes out an expedient to transform them into him All the world knows that love is the tye of hearts and that his principal effect is to unite together all the Subjects that live under his Empire To accomplish this design he equals their conditions debaseth great persons and exalteth mean ones enricheth the poor and impoverisheth the rich sets slaves at liberty and makes Masters slaves But Charity effects all these things more happily then profane love she humbles the Almighty without interessing his Greatness obligeth him to comply with our weakness Quis me amavit non ad me pervenit quisquis me quaerit cum ipso sum ipse amor tibi praesentem me facit Aug. and reduceth him to a condition wherin he enters into commerce with us not dazling us with his light nor astonishing us with his Majesty He infuseth himself into our souls by grace is linkt to us by his love and in this union communicates to us all his Divine Qualities For he lifts us above our selves to transform us into him draws us out of our misery to make us capable of his happiness and takes from us our own affections to give us admittance into his inclinations when we are arrived to this height of perfection we behold all earthly things under our feet we breath nothing but Heaven we discourse onely of the subject of our love and we are so perfectly filled with him that we may say without offence our desires are alike our conditions equal and our interests common Though all Christians cannot pretend to this high degree of Happiness it seems yet that having the Grace of Jesus Christ they have one part of that felicity which the Saints possess by Charity For in the judgement of all Divines Grace is Glory begun Glory Grace consummated the former gives that a being here below which the second finisheth above and maugre all the miseries that afflict the children of Adam makes us finde Happiness in the midst of our sorrows 'T is perhaps upon this ground that Saint Paul calls Grace Eternal Life Gratia Dei vita aeterna and insinuates to all Christians that being Saints here below they are already Blessed Beatitudo in quodam illapsu Divinae Essen tiae intra animam consistit Henri à Gau. Indeed Essential Felicity consists in a certain emanation of Divinity into the substance of the soul when she as the iron by the fire is penetrated therewith she happily loseth her own qualities to assume those of God she is swallowed up in this Ocean of Glory and having no longer any thing of mortal nor humane is entirely Immutable and Divine What Glory operates in the Blessed Grace works proportionably in the Faithful she sheds abroad the Divine Essence in their souls communicates to them a new being and changing their nature and condition makes Gods of them which may die indeed because they may sin and being not inseparable from the Supream Good are not yet fully impeccable Nevertheless Divines confess that as Grace is a participation of the Divine Nature it communicates Immortality as well as Sanctity and the life it produceth in our souls carries along with it no principle of death The life of the body is not a true life because the same elements that preserve it destroy it and the corruption that accompanies it leads it insensibly to a dissolution But the life of Grace is exempt
what I intend to those that shall take so much pains as to peruse it I will lay down a plain and easie Scheme which shall present you with a short prospect of the whole Christian Man I begin the first Treatise with his Birth which as it is the fruitful source of all the Allyances he contracts with God I cannot speak of it soundly and to the purpose without discovering some of his Qualities and letting you see that assoon as he is regenerated he is the adopted child of the eternal Father because he is the Temple of the holy Ghost and the Brother of the Word Incarnate To this I add some other Priviledges concomitants of his Baptism all which declare the misery he hath avoided and the happiness he hath obtain'd From thence I passe to the second Treatise which represents the Spirit of the Christian and which comprehends all the obligations we have to follow his motions to act according to his orders and to obey his inspirations because none are truly the children of God but those that are quickned by his Spirit Quicunque enim Spiritu Dei aguntur ii sunt Filii Dei Rom. 8. And because the Christian is but a part of a mystical Body whereof there is a Head to guide it as wel as a Spirit to enliven it in the third Treatise I describe the neer relations and close connexions this glorious quality communicates to him with Iesus Christ the advantages he receives from thence and the just duties he is obliged to return to this adored Head The fourth Treatise discovers all the secrets of Grace which seem to be nothing else but a sacred chain uniting the Christian with the son of God and with the Holy Ghost and putting him at their disposal to be conducted safely in the way of Salvation The vertues that flow from Grace as streams do from their fountain are the subject of the fifth Treatise demonstrating a new Morality which the Philosophers were ignorant of and which severing man from himself fastens him happily to his Principle Forasmuch as he lives by Grace and vertues in the sixth Treatise I set before him a heavenly Nourishment that preserves his life and withall affords him some pledges of Immortality But because this food is also a Victime speaking of his Nourishment I speak of his Sacrifice and I lay down the just Reasons the Christian hath to offer up himself to God with Iesus Christ In the seventh Treatise I discourse of his glorious Qualities which I had not touched in the former wherein I make it appear that being the Image of the Son of God he is also a Priest and a Sacrifice a Souldier and a Conqueror a Slave and a Soveraign a Penitent and an Innocent Lastly to compleat the Christian who is but rudely drawn in Baptism who as long as he is upon earth is always imperfect I lead him to Glory where finding his Happiness in the knowledge and love of the supreme Good he is happily transformed into God There he patiently waits for the resurrection of his Body that the two parts whereof he is composed being reunited there may be nothing wanting to the perfection of his happiness and that both Soul and Body being freed from the bondage of sin he may reign for ever with the Angels in Heaven Thus you see in a few words the drift and scope of the whole Work where if I have repeated something that I formerly delivered in the Guilty Man it is because the Cure depends upon the Disease Subjects are illustrated by their contraries and it is impossible to conceive the Advantages of Grace without comprehending all the Miseries of Sin A TABLE OF THE TREATISES DISCOURSES The First TREATISE Of the Christian's Birth Disc 1. That the Christian hath a double Birth page 1 Disc 2. That Man must be renewed to make a Christian of him page 6 Disc 3. That the principal Mysteries of Iesus Christ are applyed to the Christian in his Birth page 10 Disc 4. That Grace is communicated to the Christian in his Birth as Sin is communicated to Man in his Generation page 15 Disc 5 Of the Resemblances that are found between the Generation of Iesus Christ and that of a Christian page 19 Disc 6 Of the Adoption of Christians and the advantage it hath above the Adoption of Men. page 24 Disc 7 Of the Allyances the Christian contracts in his Birth with the Divine Persons page 29 Disc 8 Of the Principal Effects Baptism produceth in the Christian page 34 Disc 9 Of the obligation of a Christian as the consequence of his Birth page 39 Disc 10 That the Regeneration of a Christian takes not from him all that he drew from his first Generation page 43 The Second TREATISE Of the Spirit of a Christian Disc 1. That every Body hath its Head and what that of the Church is 48 Disc 2 That the Holy Ghost is the Heart of the Church 53 Disc 3 That the Holy Ghost is in a sort the same to Christians that he is to the Father and to the Son in Eternity 57 Disc 4 That the Holy Ghost seems to be the same to Christians that he is to the Son of God 62 Disc 5 That the Presence of the Holy Ghost giveth life to the Christian and his Absence causeth Death 67 Disc 6 That the Holy Ghost teacheth Christians to pray 72 Disc 7 That the Holy Ghost remits the sins of the Christian 77 Disc 8 That the Christian in his infirmities is assisted by the strength of the Holy Ghost 83 Disc 9 That the Holy Ghost is the Christians Comforter 89 Disc 10 Of the Christians ingratitude toward the Holy Ghost 94 The third TREATISE Of the Christian 's Head Disc 1 That the Christian hath two Heads Adam and Iesus Christ 100 Disc 2 Of the Excellencies of the Christian's Head and the advantages they draw from thence 105 Disc 3 Of the strict Union of the Head with his Members and of that of Iesus Christ with Christians 110 Disc 4 That the Union of Christians with their Head is an Imitation of the Hypostatical Union 115 Disc 5 That Iesus Christ treateth his Mystical Body with as much charity as he doth his Natural Body 120 Disc 6 That the Church is the Spouse of Iesus Christ because she is the Body and of the community of their Marriage 125 Disc 7 That the Quality of the Members of Iesus Christ is more advantageous then that of the Bretbren of Iesus Christ 130 Disc 8 That Iesus Christ hath taken all his Infirmities from his Members and that his Members derive all their strength from him 134 Disc 9 Of the duties of Christians as Members towards Iesus Christ as their Head 139 Disc 10 That all things are common among Christians as between members of the same Body 144 The fourth TREATISE Of the Grace of a Christian Disc 1 That Predestination which is the source of Grace is a hidden Mystery 150 Disc 2 Of the
a very noble Allyance yet we may say it relates not to God in his Persons but in his Essence For all the perfections Man received in his Creation are but the droppings of the perfections of God His Power expresseth that of his Creator his Liberty is an emanation of that Being which is as free as it is necessary his Reason is a product of the first primitive Reason and all the other qualities that raise him above the rest of Creatures are rather images of the Unity of God then of the Plurality of his Persons Nay the very Angels which are of nobler extraction then Man seem not allyed to the divine Persons Every one of their * Cernere est in Seraphin quomodo amet qui unde amet non habet cernere est in Cherubin Deum scientiarum qui solam nesciat ignorantiam cernere est in Thronis judicantis aequitatem nec vacat sessio tranquillitatis insigne est Bern. lib. 5. de Consid cap. 4. Orders respect some one of the perfections of their Creator The Seraphims express his Love the Cherubins his Light the Thrones his Rest The Hierarchies lead us not to the Trinity or if they give us some umbrages thereof they deliver no exact knowledge We see nothing in these blessed Spirits that discovers to us the Generation of the Word or the Procession of the Holy Ghost and having well considered them there is nothing we admire in them but the Goodness or the Power the Greatness or the Majesty of him that created them All their Allyances as wel as those of Men are terminated in the divine Essence and pass not to the Trinity of the Persons They are rather Servants then Sons or if they are Sons their Adoption is not * Nusquam enim Angelos apprchendis sed semen Abrahae apprehendit Heb. 2. founded upon the Mystery of the Incarnation This glory was reserved for Christians who at the moment of their Nativity have the honour to be allyed to all the Persons of the Trinity The Son loves them as his Brethren the Father adopts them as his children and the Holy Ghost quickens them as his Temples therefore are they baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Their Birth consecrates them to this ineffable mystery and from the time they receive the Being of Grace they bear the Character of the Trinity The Son began this Allyance by the Mystery of the Incarnation he was made Man to make us his Members he hath united us in his Person by such a neer combination that his advantages become ours and our transgressions become his Every thing is common to us with him and giving his Person to our Nature there is no Greatness he hath not communicated to us our Grace is an effusion flowing from his our Birth is an image of his eternall Generation Gratia nihil est aliud quà m participatio divinae filiationis secundùm Divum Thomam and if we beleeve the Master of the School our Adoption is a copy of his divine filiation Finally to express so high a Verity in a more noble Elogie Every Christian seems to be a second Jesus Christ every beleever is a son of God and as they are happily blended with the Word Incarnate they may boast themselves as he is Men-Gods 'T is on this occasion Love makes his power appear that of many persons mutually affecting one another he makes but one that he makes greatness bow and sets humility on high that he transforms God into Man to transform Man into God and surmounting all obstacles that oppose this Union constitutes Jesus Christ the Head of Christians and Christians the Members of Jesus Christ Now 't is in Baptism that they obtain this honour for albeit the Son of God is united to our Nature in the Mystery of the Incarnation and that there this eternal affinity was contracted which death cannot dissolve we are not engraffed upon his Person but by Baptism till we are bathed in this Laver we have nothing but the miseries of Adam nor any part in the merits of Jesus Christ 'T is by the vertue of this †Nemo fit membrum Christi nisi aut Baptismate in Christo aut morte pro Christo Aug. lib. 1. de anima Sacrament that we enter into society with him 't is there that putting off the old man we put on the new and beginning to be united to the Son of God we participate of his divine qualities From this time the Christian is a new creature he receives the Spirit of Jesus Christ without changing his nature he changeth his condition though he hath yet but the seeds of glory he hath notwithstanding the rights of a Son and looks upon the Kingdom of heaven as his inheritance The grace of Jesus Christ blots out all his sins of a slave he becoms a child of an object of wrath he becoms an object of love and big with the merits of his Head he hopes one day to reign with him in glory By a necessary consequence he enters into an Allyance with the Father Everlasting not considering the meanness of his Extraction nor the misery of his Original he treats with God as with his own Father he makes use of those amorous terms the Church puts in his mouth and without losing the respect of a servant he enters into the liberty of a child Grace fastens so strict a union betwixt them that nothing but sin can divide them as it is an emanation of the divine Sonship it is not a bare Adoption and if it bear this name 't is because we have no other to expresse its excellence by But to comprehend rightly this Allyance is as true as that which flesh and blood entitles us to with our Fathers and Mothers if this be founded in Nature that is founded in Grace if this be sensible that is spiritual if this be close that is more intimate neither is the quality of children in Christians a meer denomination as 't is in those that humanely are adopted We are the images of our Father in the donation of Grace we participate of his nature and as it is true according to the saying of St Peter that by grace we are God's so is it certain that by the same grace we are the children of God All the trouble in this Alliance is that it depends upon our Liberty for its preservation we have the power to dissolve it there needs but one act of our will to break the Association and though the chains that entertain it are stronger and more precious then those of Diamond one mortall sin is able to dash them all in pieces there is nothing but Glory that unites us inseparably with God as long as we live upon the earth we are divided between hope and fear and if the greatness of Allyance makes us joyful it 's frailty causeth us to be apprehensive and fearful As long as it lasts it
the mutuall gift of Men to God and of God to Men. But that which surpasseth all belief He is so absolutely in our disposall that the faithfull communicate him to others The Priests are not onely the Ministers but the Principles thereof they produce him by their word as they do Jesus Christ neither are there any Sacraments in the Church which are not so many channels by which they powre forth the Holy Ghost into the souls of Christians Nay many times they that have him not themselves impart him to others being poor they make others rich and having not the grace they notwithstanding communicate the source for though they lose their sanctity they lose not their power and as it is founded in their Character which can never be obliterated they have alwayes the right to give the Holy Ghost and to remit sins But because I intend to make a particular Treatise of the Spirit of the Christian I shall reserve my larger Discourse of the Allyances we have with him for that place and conclude the present subject with those words of St Leo That the Beleever is obliged to acknowledge the advantages he hath received from Jesus Christ in his Birth by no means to degenerate from his Nobility and to think he ought no more absolutely to dispose of himself seeing he hath the honour to be the Son of the Eternall Father the Brother of Jesus Christ and the Temple of the Holy Ghost The Eighth DISCOURSE Of the principall Effects Baptism produceth in the CHRISTIAN FOrasmuch as Effects are the images of their Causes we never judge better of the power of these then by the greatness of those A great Effect leads alwayes on to a great Cause and this Maxime is as true in Grace as in Nature For if God sometime make use of a weak Instrument to produce a miracle Aliud est enim baptizare per ministerium aliud per potestatem Baptisma enim tale est qualis est ille in cujus potestate datur nō qualis est ille per cujus ministerium datur Aug. Tr. 5. in Joann he raiseth the puissance thereof and by himself supplyes what infirmity would sink under Thence it comes to pass that the Fathers of the Church attribute to Jesus Christ all the effects of Baptism teaching us that 't is neither the vertue of the Water nor the merit of the Minister though both are requisite that justifie the Christian God reserves to himself the glory to act in this Sacrament He it is that baptiseth by the hand of his servants and without having respect to their deserts worketh grace by a Divel as well as by an Angel Wherefore we need not wonder that so common an element produceth such rare effects seeing 't is in his hands who of nothing was able to create all things These effects are almost infinite their number aswell as their greatness astonish us and to observe them well we had need be illuminated by his light whose works they are Nolite contristare Spiritum sanctum in quo signati estis Ephes 4. The most part of Divines are of opinion that the impression of the character is the first effect for he that is baptised wears the Livery of his Soveraigne he is marked with his Seale and from the time of his Baptism there is formed in the essence of his soul a Character that neither Time nor Eternity can blot out He carries it with him to heaven for his glory into hell for his confusion and that which was a mark of his allyance with God becoms a mark of his rebellion against God Men make their slaves wear upon their garments visible Badges of their vassallage and there are some so cruel as to stigmatize their very faces The Divel who is Gods Ape engraves his Character upon the bodies of those miserable wretches that serve him and if we beleeve the report of the Magicians and the experience of the Judges that have examined them there are not any Witches who bear not the shamefull marks of their abominable servitude This proud Spirit imitates his Soveraign as far as his weaknesse will give him leave and he is ravished that the creature who hath given himself to him witnesseth his fidelity by an external and visible impresse since he cannot act in the souls of men he is content to act upon their bodies and he is satisfied when upon the works of the Creator may be seen some characters of his Tyranny But God who is absolute in his State acts upon the souls aswell as upon the bodies and at the same time that the Ministers sprinkle the water of Baptisme upon the body of the Neophytes he imprints an eternall character in their souls This first effect is followed with another to wit the Infusion of Grace for assoon as the words that consecrate us are pronounced the holy Spirit enters into our hearts and there produceth that divine quality which renders us the children of God We know not whether it be equall in all those that are baptised Some are of opinion that the disposition of those that are at age augments or diminisheth it and according as they have more or lesse actuall love they receive more or lesse habituall Grace Some others pass the same judgment upon Infants and are perswaded that the designe of God upon their souls makes the difference of their Graces and that those who are destin'd to the highest degrees of Glory receive also at their baptism a higher degree of Grace This question being not yet resolved every one may abound in his own sense though it seem that as every man equally sinned in Adam every Christian is equally regenerated in Jesus Christ But I conceive our Fall and our Restauration are two Abysses that cannot be sounded and that the example alledged for confirmation of the first is as much conceal'd as the Truth they would thence elicite and extract Therefore not confining our selves to any one of these opinions 't is better to confess our ignorance and acknowledge there are secrets in the order of Grace aswell as in that of Nature which the spirit of man can by no means discover The third Effect of Baptism is the restitution of the Innocence we lost in Paradise Every one explains it according to the conceit he hath of it and there are store of Divines who imagine that man by the vertue of Baptism re-enters into all the advantages of Adam that his will recovers its Perfect freedom his understanding its light and every faculty of the soul is re-established in its primitive vigour and activity But certainly experience gives this opinion sufficiently the lye seeing every day the faithful to their cost finde that their will is a slave to concupiscence and if the assistance of Jesus Christ give them not the mastery there is no temptation but would engage them in a sin Indeed though we should affirm that habitual grace restores us with advantage what-ever Adam despoyl'd us
Understanding Weakness into his Memory and Malice into his Will Under this conduct he confounds Errour with Truth Vice with Vertue and having no other end but himself he commits as many sins as he intends to perform good works Vain-glory is the Primum mobile that sets him a going he seeks for reputation in all his actions and when he assists his Country stands for the Laws and fights for Liberty he obeys a Tyrant which inspires him with wicked intentions even then when he seems to counsel him to the best and most upright undertakings Thus Man becomes Wretched when he ceaseth to be Faithful the loss of Grace causeth the enfeebling of his Liberty and the removal of the holy Spirit involves him in a death so much the more dangerous by how much it is less sensible and more concealed The Natural death makes a strange havock in the body of Man as soon as he seizeth upon the face he banisheth Beauty horrour and fear always attend him nor does he ever enter upon a body but 't is accompanied with stench and putrifaction These sad effects render him ghastly nor can the most confident behold him without some sense of terrour and affrightment But the spiritual death causeth indeed no amazement because it leaves no visible characters of its malignity The holy Spirit quits the sinner with small noise his departure which causeth so much misfortune makes no buzzle at all and when he withdraws his Grace from a soul she is no whit affected with it because the loss is insensible A Monarch thinks he is deprived of nothing because he still exerciseth absolute command over his subjects nor sees that he is a slave to as many masters as there are sins that reign in his soul A Philosopher never conceits himself less happie because he is not more ignorant the Light that remains in him suffers him not to see his Blindness and he imagines he is still vertuous because he still retains his knowledge An immodest woman is never troubled at the loss of Grace because it no ways impairs her good complexion she hath much ado to believe that sin hath polluted her Soul because it hath stampt no deformity upon her Face and beholding her self in her glass as handsome after her fault as before she cannot perswade her self that she is less amiable in Gods eyes because she is not in her own In the mean time the loss of Grace is the loss of Life the absence of the holy Spirit is the death of the Soul and from the very instant he deserts us all Vertues bid us farewel Whiles he keeps his residence in our hearts those glorious habits that render men vertuous accompany them and as the presence of the Sun produceth Lilies and Roses in our Gardens the presence of the holy Spirit produceth Hope and Charity in our Souls 'T is true this Spirit is so good that after he hath left us he still hovers about us if he dwell not in our hearts he forbears not to move and stir them and if he Quicken us no longer by his Grace he incites us by his Power But to understand this Truth which is one of the most important in Religion we must know there is this difference between the Soul and the Spirit That moves no more when once it ceaseth to inanimate Spiritus ubi vult spirat quod fatendum est aliter adjuvat nondum inhabitans aliter inhabitans nordum inhabitans adjuvat ut sint fideles inhabitans adjuvat jam fidebes Aug. Epist ad Sixt. it gives no Impulse when it gives no Life and there must be some supernatural power to re-unite it to the body which it hath once bidden adieu to But the holy Spirit which is a Form not depending upon the Matter free in his operations and like the winde blowes where it listeth is not subject to these laws he quits the sinner when his Crime obliges him to do it he abandons the Temple he consecrated with his presence and together with habitual grace he takes away all vertues that served him for ornament or for defence But his goodness reserves the means still to sollicite this unfaithful soul by holy motions to touch this rebel by his inspirations and by his allurements to court this adultress who hath falsified the faith she promised in the Sacrament of Baptism or that of Repentance he knocks at the door of his heart to get admittance he sheds light into his understanding to dispel the darknesse he carries pleasure into his will to gaine its content and without doing it any violence triumphs over his obstinacy when he constrains him to taste more sweetnesse in vertue then in vice The love men have to liberty makes them wish that these motions of the Spirit were continuall that at every moment he should offer grace to the sinner that he could use it at pleasure and that in the state of sin enjoying the priviledges of the state of innocene his salvation might depend absolutely upon his own will Those that make this objection know not in my opinion neither the greatnesse of our crime nor the power of the Holy Spirit God deales with the sinner much after another fashion then he does with the Innocent Natura hominis primitus inculpata sine ullo vitio creata est natura vero ista hominis qua unusquisque ex Adam nascitur jam medico indiget quia sana non est Aug. de natur grac. c. 3. 't is easier to preserve a just man then to convert a guilty one there needs much more endeavour to subdue a will rooted consummated in evil then to entertame one grounded established in good Innocent man had no bad inclinations Grace found no resistance in his person and his liberty being not captivated by concupiscence there was no need that the Holy Ghost should gaine mastery thereby to purchase his deliverance It was sufficient gently to excite a man who needed but a little support to walk to raise him by his Inspirations who was cumbred with no disorders and to dart a small beame of light into his eyes who needed indeed to be cleared not to be cured But sinfull man must be dealt with after another manner the motion of the Spirit must be more vigorous because he undertakes an enemy Grace must have more allurements because it meets with more impediments must raise it selfe above the will because the will stoopes beneath self-self-love and God must be the Authour of mans salvation because man was the Authour of his fall If the Holy Spirit did not act more vigorously then in the state of Innocence sinners would remaine obstinate in their obliquity if Grace were but a flash their will would never be changed and if this victorious sweetnesse did not imprint force with pleasure they would live and die in their sins But at last say they Grace ought to be as common as it is vigorous it must bee offered to us every moment Pro
Salute sua sunt securi de nostra solliciti Greg. Mag. The Church Triumphant is wholly taken up with Allelujahs being freed from miseries she makes no vows but for us and she hath no other businesse but eternally to blesse him that is the Fountain of her blessednesse But the Church Militant who lives in a strange Countrey who hath as many enemies as neighbours and who is well assured that the very name she bears obliges her to combate importunes Heaven by her prayers sends up sighs to her Well-beloved and cals upon him for help by the frequency of supplications If Prayer be thus necessary 't is yet more common for the Son of God tels us that blessings cost us onely the pains to ask for them Ask and ye shall receive Saint Paul will have us use this remedy in all our distresses offering up this sacrifice in all places Volo vos orare omni loco and Saint Augustine the faithfull Interpreter of this great Apostle assures us that to pray well there is nothing required but to desire well that our intercession continues as long as our desires doe and that in keeping silence we speak to God when we addresse our wishes to him but though this remedy be so necessary and so common yet is it neverthelesse of difficult performance and to know well how to use it the holy Spirit must instruct us The Scripture whose words are Oracles conferres this Elogie upon him particularly it teacheth us that he it is that animates our prayers by his calentures that inspires us with this confidence which gives us boldnesse to call God our Father which draws tears from our eyes sighs from our hearts and with groanes that cannot be expressed whereof he is the Authour blots out our sins and comforts our miseries In a word if we beleeve the great Apostle we know not the art to pray if we have not learnt it in the School of the holy Spirit the evils that oppresse us may indeed inspire us with eloquence but not indite our prayer and whatever need we feel if Grace prevent us not we cannot obtain a remedy self-Self-love so blindes us that if we be led by it we shall rather beg our ruine then our salvation Man is in so profound an ignorance that he knows not what is profitable or prejudiciall to him he many times conceives designes the accomplishments whereof are sad and dismall to him and Seneca had reason to say that God was incensed when he granted our requests If the ambitious give the reins to his passion that possesses him he will never aske any thing but honours and not consulting whether Glory stain his humility all his vows will have no other aim but the increase of his Fortune If the Covetous take councell of his Interest his prayers serve onely his covetousnesse even to the injuring of his Creatour whom he will never strive to gain but that he may be the Minister of his unjust desires If the Lascivious pursue the motion of wantonnesse that tyranniseth over him perhaps he will grow insolent enough to demand of God the glutting of his brutish passion so that according to the language of the Scripture his prayer will be turned into sin and the more Petitions he puts up the more offences will he commit If a man who breathes nothing but revenge implore the aid of Heaven in that wretched condition his inclination stronger then his reason will oblige him to interesse the Son of God in his injuries and out of an impudence worthy to be punished endeavour to engage him in his quarrell who died upon the Crosse for the salvation of his enemies Finally the prayer of every sinner will be a high sacriledge and he will draw down upon his head the thunder of heaven even then when he thinks to appease its anger But when the Christian suffers himselfe to be guided by the Spirit he intreats nothing of God but what is well-pleasing to him all his conceptions are not lesse beneficiall to himselfe then glorious for Jesus Christ and as the Principle that quickens him is Divine all the Prayers that flow thence are Divine and Heavenly too The glory of God is always dearer to him then his salvation he never separates the publick good from his own private interest he prays for his Family when he petitions for the State and knowing very well that he is a living member of the mysticall body of Jesus Christ he never makes any supplications that are prejudiciall to the Church The second Advantage we draw from the assistance of the holy Spirit in Prayer is that he makes known to us the secrets to come and carrying us beyond the present time markes out all those disasters the injustice of our desires threaten us with Our ignorance is one of the chiefest causes of our misfortunes if we could read in those eternall Annals where mens adventures are imprinted we should perceive that the greatest part of our desires are more disadvantageous to us then the imprecations of our enemies we are inquisitive after the causes of our disgrace in the night of futurity we hasten our ruine by our impatience and Heaven may easily plead excuse for our mischances since they are very often the effects of our own prayers God never takes greater vengeance on us then when he grants us what we so earnestly importune him for nor is he ever more opposite to our salvation then when he shews himself most favourable to our requests our Fathers and Mothers contribute to our damnation their wishes make us miserable and we need not wonder that calamities overwhelm us seeing we live amongst the Anathema's of our nearest relations The holy Spirit happily remedies this disorder for knowing the full extent of Eternity he sees all the events that are to happen in the sequell of succeeding generations so that he never inspires us with meditations that are not profitable to us he diverts us from those wishes which are prejudiciall to our salvation he will not suffer us to ask a Curse instead of a Blessing and when he breathes in our heart or speaks by our mouth our prayers always carry their reward with them the very deniall of them is usefull and when he forbears to grant what we besought him for 't is to exercise our patience and crown our humility If he have so much respect to our interest he hath no lesse to the Glory of Jesus Christ and he so well sorts his honour and our good together that whatsoever is helpfull to us is honourable to him The greatest part of sinners intreat of God those things that are opposite to his will or unworthy of his greatnesse For whether passion transport them or ignorance blind them they require honours of him that was born in a Stable and died upon a Crosse they expect pleasures from him who spent his whole life in sorrow and whom the Scriptures by way of Excellency style a Man of Griefes they hope for riches
respect towards him he puts on rather the deportment of a Lover then of a Soveraign he gains his will without forcing it and though he knows the secret whereby to be obeyed 't is always with so much sweetness that he that suffers himself to be overcome hath reason to believe he gets the Victory Therefore doth the Scripture never speak of this Change but as of a work common to God with Man And when Saint Augustine observes the differences between Conversion and Creation he bears witness to this truth in these words Qui creavit te sine te non salvabit te sine te But not to enter into Disputes more Curious then Profitable Si conversio peccatoris non est majoris potentiae quà m creatio universi saltem est majoris miscricordiae Aug. let us be content to conclude with the same Saint Augustine that if the Conversion of a sinner require not more Power it supposeth at least more Mercy then Creation because if in This God obligeth the Miserable in That he obligeth the Criminal shewing Favour to those that could expect nothing but severity of Punishments Therefore is it that the Conversion of a sinner belongs to the Holy Spirit and a work that bears the Character of Goodness must needs have no other Principle but he to whom this Divine Perfection is attributed in the Scripture 'T is true that after he hath shewed mercy to sinners he performs a piece of most exemplary Justice and animating them against themselves he obliges them to take revenge and punishment upon themselves For one of the most admirable effects of the Spirit of Love is to produce hatred in the spirit of Penitents Quia ergo non potest esse confessio punitio peccati in homine à seipso cum quisque sibi irascitur sibi displicet sine dono Spiritûs sancti non est Aug. in Psal 50. and to satisfie the Majestie of God by the excess of their Austerities towards themselves They look upon themselves as guilty of Treason against the Divine Majestie they stay not till his Justice punish them they prevent his Sentence by their own Resolutions and invent more tortures to wrack themselves then the Executioners have been witty in to torment Martyrs with This is that Divine Spirit which hath driven the Anchorites into the desarts made the Antonines go down into caves and holes of the earth made the Stilites fix upon the top of Pillars which found out sackcloth and discipline to make as many Wretches as he had made Penitents All the Austerity that is in Christianity takes its birth from the love he inspires into the Faithful Their Rigour is proportionable to their Charity the more the holy Spirit possesseth them the more are they set against Themselves and we may affirm with reason that as much as they grow in his Love so much do they grow in the Hatred of their Sin This is it perhaps that our Saviour would have us understand when he told us that the holy Spirit should judge the world and should oblige sinners to punish themselves for the offences they have committed He shall convince the world of sin of righteousness and of judgement We cannot understand this Truth if we conceive not that the Father hath judged all men in his Son and having charged him with their iniquities hath charged him also with the punishments due for them From this moment they have no engagements to sue out with the Father and the Father satisfied with the Passion of his Son protests that he hath signed over to him all the right of judging the world The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son The Son by vertue of this resignation shall judge all men at the end of the world and being become their Judg and their Partie will pronounce the definitive sentence of their Eternity In expectation of this day of Doom the holy Spirit judgeth men that are converted and mixing meekness with severity in these determinations he obliges them to undergo a scrutiny upon earth to be delivered from the torments of hell Nor are we to think it strange that he that is so gentle is withall so rigorous since the Poets have bestowed these two qualities upon Love For these pleasant Tel-tales have feigned that he was the severest of all the Gods that he bathed himself in tears lived upon blood and more cruel then Tyrants took pleasure in the torments of his subjects But Christian Religion that conceals Truth under the shadow of our Mysteries teacheth us that the love of God is severe that he exacts chastisements from those he inanimates that he engageth his Lovers in penance and more strong then death which parts soul and body he divides between the soul and the spirit and exerciseth a Tyranny over whole entire man True it is the torments he inflicts are always mix'd with pleasures he makes Roses grow among Thorns and amidst such a throng of Penitents that bid him battel there is not one complains of his sufferings 'T is enough that persecuting themselves Haec tristitia quae poenitcutiam ad salutem stabilem operatur laeta est ac spe profectus sui vegetata cunctam affabilitatis retinet suavitatem Cassian l. 9. c. 11. they are perswaded they satisfie him whom they have offended the same consideration that afflicts them comforts them and when they meditate that God that loves them is infinite they meet with no pain that is not short nor any torment that is not joyous They are better accompanied in the Desarts then the Monarchs in their Palaces their humiliations are more glorious then the Triumphs of Conquerors their poverty is more happy then abundance of riches and their ascetick life more full of charms then the pleasures of the world Though the holy Spirit be thus favourable to Penitents yet fails he not to be very severe against sinners if he pardon the offences committed against the Father and the Son he never pardons those that are committed against his own Person and the holy Scriptures teach us Blasphemia in Spiritum sanctum non remittetur in hoc seculo nec in futuro Mat. 12. that of all the sins in the world none are irremissible but those which do despite to the Holy Ghost This passage leaves all our Expositors at a losse every one forgeth new Principles to resolve the difficulties thereof and there are few but strive to invent something upon a subject so often handled and so little cleared Some divide sins into three Orders according to the perfections which are commonly applyed to the three Divine Persons The first comprehends sins of infirmity which seem to clash against the Person of the Father Peccata alia sunt infirmitatis quae Patri cujus est potentia adversantur alia ignorantiae quae Filio cujus est sapientia alia malitiae quae Spiritui sancto cujus est bonitas D. Thom. in Paulum to whom power
the Head of the Church not that he is not entire without this Body but he that is entire without us as Man and God was pleased to be entire with us as Head For how shall we be one Body with him if he were not one Christ with us and how shall he speak in our person if he give us not the liberty to speak in his Jesus Christ then and the Church make up but one Body and both of them together make that admirable Compound which by reason of the difference of its parts bears sometimes the name of Jesus Christ and sometimes the name of the Church This leads us to the second Resemblance between the Union of the Humanity with the Divinity and that of Jesus Christ with the Faithful For the former is so perfect that without offending the two Natures that subsist in the Word all that may be said of the one which is said of the other The Communication of Properties produceth that of Idiomes and without uttering blasphemies we attribute to Man all that may be attributed to God Thus without doing any violence to Truth we say that God is Man and that Man is God that Man commands over Death that God is subject to the dominion thereof that Man contains the whole world in his Innocency and that God is inclosed in the chaste womb of a Virgin that Man bears rule with his Father and that God obeys with his Mother All these manners of speech which else had been blasphemies are now great Verities and as if the Word had been willing to satisfie the unjust passion of Man that desired to be God he hath exalted him to his Greatness in uniting him to his Person and by priviledge hath conferred that upon him by Grace which by Nature he was no ways able to attain unto Such is the Union of Jesus Christ with his Church the communication of their Goods hath produced the communication of Dialects we speak of them so confusedly that there are no Elogies given to Jesus Christ which may not be given to his Spouse he loads himself with her sins and cloathes her with his merits he gives her part of his innocence and covers himself with her unrighteousness so that without prejudicing the Greatness of Jesus Christ and the Modesty of the Church we may say The Church is perfect in her Head and the Head imperfect in his Members the Church knows all things in her Head and Jesus Christ learns in his Members the Church is innocent in her Head and Jesus Christ guilty in his Members Thus is it that S. Augustine interprets the words of the Prophet Deus Deus meus ut quid me dereliquisti Quare hoc dicitur nifi quia nos ibi eramus nisi quia corpus Christi Ecclesia quomodo dicit delictorum meorum nisi quia pro delictis nostris ipse precatur delict a nostra sua fecit ut juftitiam nostram suam faceret Aug. in Psal 24. Expos 2. Longe à salute mea veâ—ba delictorum meorum and findes that this language that so happily expresseth the love of the Son of God does no way prejudice his innocence Indeed because he is the Head of the Church and this quality unites him with his Members it obliges him to speak of their sins as of his own to pay those debts for them he never contracted and in their name to satisfie the justice of his Father he had no ways offended How saith the same S. Augustine could Jesus Christ make this discourse without wounding his Innocence and Truth it self How could he attribute sins to himself that never committed any How can we believe him true when he made his confession upon the Cross were it not that we acknowledge he applied our offences to himself that he might communicate our righteousness to him and by the communication between the Head and the Members he is charged with our Crimes to enrich us with his Merits This will not seem strange to those that shall consider another parallel between the Marriage of the Humanity with the Divinity and that of Jesus Christ with the Church For though Joy and Sorrow be as incompatible as Sin and Innocence since according to the doctrine of S. Augustine man became not miserable till he became criminal we observe nevertheless both of them in the Person of the Son of God from the very moment of his Incarnation he joyned pain with pleasure during the course of his whole life he tasted the felicity of Angels and resented the miseries of men he is happie and afflicted and contrary to all the laws of Nature and Grace a glorious soul informs a passive body and that which beholds the Divine Essence Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem is obliged to make complaints and shed tears Therefore is it that I have always reverenced that Ancient who call'd Jesus Christ a Paradox because his composition startles Humane Reason associating in his Person Joy and Grief Innocence and Guilt in a word the Majestie of a God with the Weakness of a Man But inasmuch as this Mystery was unconceiveable because hid Jesus Christ was willing to manifest it by the union he contracted with the Church For there may be seen an Image or Representation of that which passed heretofore in the person of the Son of God pleasure may be observed with pain and by a strange wonder Jam in caelo est hic laborat quamdiu laborat Ecâ—lesia his Christus esuris hic sitit nudus est hespes est quicquid enim patitur corpus ejus se dixit paetâ— Aug. the condition of the Blessed twisted with that of the Miserable one and the same Jesus is still a Sufferer and still Glorious he reigns with his Father in heaven and suffers with his People upon earth he triumphs in the Angels and sighs in the Martyrs he is rich in Eternity and poor in Time he makes liberal largesses in his Glory and receives presents in his Poverty and he that possesseth all things in Himself hath need of all things in his Members Finally to conclude these Resemblances the Word uniting it self to the Humanity stoops to exalt it and enters into its Imperfections to give it admittance into his Power For though the Manhood remain in its natural condition yet was it adorned with so many Graces by this sacred Marriage that it became happily acceptable and found it self in a free necessity to love God without being able to offend him it appeared sanctified as soon as conceived glorious as soon as reasonable and by a priviledge which neither Men nor Angels shall ever enjoy it was no sooner drawn out of Nothing but was united to the Eternal Word These Miracles would remain without an Example did we not perceive some shadows thereof in the conjunction of Jesus Christ with the Church For in chusing her for his Spouse he hath endowed her with all the advantages so noble an Alliance could exact
Sinners All his Actions testifie that he considers his Church as his Spouse and the Faithfull as his Children because he was willing to enter into their humiliations and to exalt them to his Greatnesses For though the Church be not Iesus Christ nor Iesus Christ the Church yet their union is so strict that they are two in one flesh two in one voice two in one passion and two in one rest Indeed if we examine these words well we shall find that they contain the chiefest conditions of the marriage of Iesus Christ with his Church and that they clearly explaine the priviledges which the quality of being members of the Son of God bestows upon the Faithfull They are both in one flesh because the Church is born of Iesus Christ upon the Crosse and that the Sacraments which produce and preserve her issued from the wounds of her Beloved They are two in the same flesh because in the Eucharist he nourisheth her with his Body and Blood and in that mystery tries to transform her into himself as hee was transformed into her in the Incarnation when he was made Man to become her Beloved Wherefore Saint Augustine hath very well observed Ut noveritis quia unus dicitur Christus caput corpus suum ipse dicit cum de conjugio loqueretur sunt duo in carne una ergo jam non duo sed caro una sed forte hoc dicit de quocunque conjugio Auli Paulum Ego autem dico in Christo Ecclesia fit ergo ex duobus una quaedā persona ex capite corpore ex sponso sponsa Aug. in Psal 30. that the Church was all things to Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ was all things to his Church She is his Mother because she conceived him in the womb of the Virgin she is his Daughter because she was born of his death and proceeding from his wounds honours as her Father him whom she loves as her Bridegroom she is his Sister because she fulfils the will of the Father and obtains that quality by her obedience Thus Jesus Christ and his Church are truly allied by flesh and may upon a better title then other conjugall parties say in the difference of their conditions they are but one Body They have also but one voice because they always speak together the Church is the Organ of her Beloved and Iesus Christ is the interpreter of his Church He expressed himself by her mouth before he was born upon Earth he speaks yet by her now that he is ascended up into Heaven and as their interests are inseparable their prayers are common and their language is equally entertained by the Father Thence it comes to passe that Saint Augustine unfolding this profound mystery teacheth us that the Son of God carries himself diversly towards the Faithfull according to the different qualities that separate or unite him to them He intercedes for them as their Chief Priest whose principall Office is to offer up mens prayers and to draw down blessings from Heaven upon their heads He hears their supplications with his Father to whom he is equall in Majesty he is willingly overcome by the tears of the distressed and having prayed for them as their Priest he hears them as their God Finally he prays in them as their Head he delivers the Word in the name of his Body he defends the interests of his members he pleads his own cause in pleading theirs and asks a Grace for himself in begging mercy for them Thence it comes to passe that the Father giving way to the Prayers of his Son so easily lends an ear to the Petitions of the Church because hee ownes the voice of Jesus Christ in that of his Spouse and grants that to the merits of the one which he might justly refuse to the demerits of the other He might answer us as David sometimes did that widow that made so eloquent a speech to him in behalf of Absalom Is not the hand of Joab with thee in this Loquatur Christus in nobis ut quem gerimus iu pectore babeamus in cre Cypr. For when he understands the innocent voice of his Son mingled with ours and sees that we make use of the merits and arguments of Jesus Christ to perswade him he may say to every sinner Is not the hand of Christ with thee in this Or beholding the accomplishment of that Figurative History acted heretofore in the family of Isaac where the Cadet got the blessing of his father by a mysterious surprise he might say The hands are Esau's but the voice is Jacob's because 't is true that the voice of the Son of God covers many times our bad actions and his innocent mouth obtains Graces for us in stead of punishments our guilty hands would deservedly draw down upon us Oftentimes out of an excess of love he loads himself with our sins and forgetting his Greatness appears before his Father as a Delinquent he puts on the habit of a servant takes the place of rebels and making a change advantageous for them takes their Offences and puts upon them his Merits Thence it comes to past that on the Cross where he stands the Caution of Sinners he complains that his Father forsakes though he be inseparable from him and beholding himself as the Victim of Sin useth language unworthy of his Innocence but worthy of his Love Orator ergo in forma Det orat in forma servi ibi creator hic creatus creaturam mutandam non mutatus assumens secum nos faciens unum hominem caput corpus oramus ergo ad illum per illum in illo dicimus cum illo dicit nobiscum longe à salute mea verb a delictorum Aug. praef in Ps 85. and the condition he was in This is it that S. Augustine acquaints us with in that discourse that comprebends as many Mysteries as Words If we consider Jesus Christ as equal to his Father he hears our prayers with him if we consider him in the form of a servant as like to sinenrs he presents his prayers with them there he is the Creator here he is created but remaining unchangeable is united to his Creature to change him and makes himself one man with him whereof they are joyntly the Head and Body Thus sometimes we pray to him and sometimes also we pray in him and he prays with us he speaks by our mouth we by his and living in one and the same Body we many times use the same language 'T is in the view of this Mystery that S. Augustine hath discovered a Secret to explain all those passages that seem to concern the Innocence of Jesus Christ For as by consequence of the Marriage contracted with the Church he is included in her obligations he speaks many times in the person of the Church and that we mistake not we must have this alliance always before our eyes and not be astonished that the Son of God who
may any way annoy it yet from a higher principle 't is informed that its life depends upon the Head and that 't is oblig'd to expose its self in his defence Thence it comes to pass that the hands ward the blow which is aimd at the Head that they readily oppose themselves to the danger that threatens it and forgetting their proper interests sacrifice themselves for the preservation of this Chief Thence it is that soldiers jeopard their lives in the quarrel of their Soveraign slighting the hail of Musquets the brunt of Pikes and the Thunder of Canons to augment his Glory or widen his State They are never more valiant then when his Person is in danger the greatness of the hazard heightens their courage and opinion or nature perswades them that living more in him then in themselves their death is less considerable then his Many times it fals out that he for whom they sacrifice themselves is some old Dotard spent with labour and age and hath but a few moments to live In the mean time because they know he is the soul of the State and the Head of his subjects they are perswaded they preserve themselves in dying in his defence and imagine that as Fathers live again in their children the members receive a new beeing in their Head This Paradox finds belief amongst all complexions there is not the meanest soldier but ventures his life upon this Maxime and I rather conceive their courage quickned by this consideration then by the hope of profit and reputation because all men are neither ambitious nor covetous but all being members of the State are instructed by nature to die for the defence of their Head Forasmuch as Grace is much more powerfull then Nature Vivificati sunt Martyres ne amando vitam negarent vitaÌ„ negando vitam amitterent vitam ac fic qui pro vita veritatem deserere noluerunt moriendo pro veritate vixe unt Aug. Concil 20. in Psal 118. it hath so strongly imprinted this Maxime in the soul of the subjects of Jesus Christ that there are no torments can wear it our For the Grace that makes them Christians secretly disciplines them that they are parts of the Mysticall Body of the Son of God that their condition obliges them to expose themselves for his Glory that they ought to be his Victimes because they are his Members and that they are bound to imitate the Wisdome of the Serpent that hides his Head with his whole Body knowing very wel that 't is the Fountain of Life and provided he may secure that can receive no wound that 's mortall The Martyrs animated with this Faith defended Jesus Christ who lived in them they sufferd death saith Saint Augustine to secure themselves from death they parted with that life they had received from Adam to guard that they had received from the Son of God so that it happily fell out that those who would not relinquish Truth to save their lives recoverd that in Heaven which they lost upon Earth and liv'd above eternally being content for the profession of the Truth to die here below miserably They laughed at all the threats of Tyrants and whilst they were covered with obloquies loaded with irons and burnt with flames they drew strength from him for whose sake they suffered and lifting up their now-expiring voice said If God be for us who can be against us When they were told as Saint Augustine saith how all the world was banded against them they answerd couragiously why should we fear the world who die for the glory of hâ—m that made the world What hurt can this hatred doe us who are environed with the love of God And why should we trouble our selves if our enemies spoil us of our bodies seeing he that defends our souls will restore our bodies in glory where being united to our Head we shall triumph over griefs and executioners Though persecution doe not exercise the courage of the Martyrs and the peace the Church enjoys suffer not the Faithfull to expose their lives for the quarrel of Jesus Christ they cease not to be obliged to this duty in a thousand opportunities if occasion present not it self they must preserve a will to it if they cannot suffer death they must suffer shame and confusion for his glory and when the world shall overturn the maximes of the Gospel to set up the maximes of Libertinisme or Impiety then is it that Christians must call to mind that they are the Members of Jesus Christ that they must prefer his interests before their own honour and if they be so happy as to sacrifice their lives for the defence of their Head they must be so stout as to sacrifice their reputation who requires this duty of them as the surest testimony of their love The Tenth DISCOURSE That all is common among Christians as among Members of the same Body AS Mans Body is the perfectest Image of the Church the Members that compose it are also the liveliest representatives of Christians Both of them live in unity depend of the same Head and are inform'd with the same Spirit Both of them preserve their differences in their Unity and exhibit in their mutuall correspondence that agreeable variety that sets an estimate upon all the works of Nature Though these Mysticall and Naturall members conspire altogether for the publick good they cease not to have their different employments Each particular acts according to its capacity they never trespass one upon another and as there are none useless they have all their severall functions which they exercise without confusion and jealousie their faculties are answerable to their employments Nature gives every one what is necessary for them to act according to her orders and Grace never refuses the others what they stand in need of to operate according to its motions But the most wonderful resemblance I find between the members of these two Bodies is that their good and bad occurrences are common and that living in a perfect society no sad disaster happens to one but all the rest are affected with it One sole blow makes a thousand wounds at once and though there be but one part set upon all the rest testifie their compassion The foot seems to be in the body what the foundation is in the building 't is not the noblest part though one of the necessariest and it seems by the distance 't is aâ— from others it should have less communication with them In the mean time if it be prickt with a thorn the pain is dispersed through all the body Every member affords it some good office and the care they have to assist it testifieth what share they have in the misfortune The Tongue complains for it this faithfull Interpreter gives advice to all the rest to shew how much the evil concerns her she speaks of it as her own and to hear her talk one would think she had been hurt too The Eyes being more delicate and
Tongues 't is to make strangers understand them and to gather up the children of God that are dispersed thorow all the world But that which exceedeth all belief is that the particular graces that sanctifie mens souls are common among the Faithful For of these Theologie acknowledgeth two sorts one which are given us for the service of others and respect more the benefit of the Church then our own sanctification such are all those graces that are called Gratuities whose principal end is the glory of Jesus Christ and the conversion of Infidels such is the gift of Miracles which doth not so much profit him that hath received it as those who see the effects of it because we know very well that this priviledge though extraordinary and rare may consist with sin and if it be not accompanied with much humility is as dangerous as splendid The other sort of Graces are those that make us acceptable to God blot out our offences look more to our own salvation then that of our neighbour and being not so glittering as the other are incomparably more holy and useful Now though these last kinde of graces be our own yet also are they common in the Church and those that are united to us by charity may in some sort make use of them 'T is certainly upon this ground that the great Apostle calls this vertue the bond of perfection because it not onely associates all Christians but renders their graces common and enricheth every particular with the advantages of the whole fraternity Therefore was David bold to entitle himself to all the good works they did that kept the commandments of God Particeps ego sum omnium timentium te custodientium mandata tua For though he knew very well his condition would not suffer him to be always at the Altar that the cares that accompany Royalty agree not with the sweet retirements of solitude and the bloody exercises of war gave him not leave to attend the service of the Ark he hoped nevertheless that Charity which united him to the Faithful would make him partaker of their merits and being a Member of that mystical body he should enjoy their Graces that made it up with him Thus this great Prince ruling in his Palace or fighting in his Armies promised himself a share in the Sacrifices of the Priests in the Tears of the Widows in the Illuminations of the Prophets in the Crowns of the Martyrs and that Love supplying the defect of his condition enriched him with their vertues without impoverishing them This also was the counsel S. Augustine gave the Faithfull of his time for knowing that every Christian could not have all graces Noli dicere in animo tuo ego si Christianus essem utique ad Deum pertinerem possem facere quod alius facit talis enim est acsi diceret auris ego si ad corpus pertinereÌ„ possem videre lunaÌ„ soleÌ„ non habet illud tamen nec auris nec manus sed faciunt fingula quod possunt cum concordia serviunt sibi inviceÌ„ omnia membra Aug. Hom. 15. Ex. 50. that variety is one of the beauties of the Church and that diversity of conditions contributes no less to her profit then to her ornament perswaded them to have recourse to Charity and to employ the credit of this vertue to purchase all others without labour His words are too handsome to be omitted Envie not said he to the whole company of the Faithful the advantages your neighbour possesseth but holily rejoyce in them and ye shall enjoy them with him Say not in your heart Were I indeed a Christian and had I the honour to belong to Jesus Christ I could do that which others do and instead of being engaged in the bonds of Marriage I would live a holy Celibate For 't is just as if the ear should say I am not of the body because I cannot see the light of the Sun in the mean time the hand hath not that priviledge no more then the ear and yet they are parts of the body as well as the eyes because though every member cannot do that by it self which all the others do they cease not mutually to assist each other and to possess that in common which they call their own properly After their example be glad of that grace God hath conferred upon any of the Faithful and you may do that in him which you are not able to perform in your selves He keeps his Virginity love him and you are continent with him you have the gift of Patience by learning to suffer let him love you and your patience shall become his He can fast and your constitution will not give you leave love him and his fasting shall be yours If you ask me how this can be 't is because he lives in you and you in him and you are both members of the same body for though ye be different in condition and in person by charity ye are but one and the same thing The Abbot Guerric certainly grounded himself upon this Maxime when he said that all vertues were common among Believers that the treasure of the Church was open to all her children and that when our condition or our weakness did not permit us to practise one vertue we fail not to practise it in another Caeteras virtutes etsi omnes non habent â—iligant illum qui habet quod in se non inveniunt in illo habent quod in se non vident sicut Petrus in Joanne virginitatis habet meritum sic Joannes in Petro habet Martyris praemi m. Gueri in festo pu Thus saith this great man Saint Peter and Saint John lived in a community of goods one found that in the other which he could not finde in himself joyning their merits together they mutually enriched one another and as Saint Peter was a virgin in the person of Saint John that beloved disciple was a Martyr in the person of Saint Peter So that the unity of Members which they had in Jesus Christ bestowed upon them priviledges they had not in their own person and Charity that united these two Apostles in despite of their condition twisted the Crown of Martyrdom with that of Virginity Martyrdom cost Saint John onely a little love without enduring the pain he had the merit of patience he triumphed without fighting because he lived in him whom grace made victorious Virginity cost Saint Peter no more his love procured him purity he was a virgin because he loved a virgin-disciple and enjoying the goods of Saint John as his own he found the merit of continence in the engagements of Marriage Quod tuum est per laborem menm est per amorem Greg. Mag. To give this truth a fuller expression we must make use of the words of S. Gregory the Great and say that in the unity of the Church one Believer gains that by love that another does by
lest the fear of their Infirmity should lull them asleep in the lap of Idleness they are bound to joyn Action to their Prayers good Works to their Sighs remembring that Charity is active and that she never hath recourse to Desires and Wishings but when she is destitute of occasions to suffer or do for the glory of him whom she so passionately affects The Second DISCOURSE Of the Necessity of Grace in the state of Innocence and of Sin A Man must be an enemy to his Salvation that is an enemy to the Grace of Jesus Christ because in whatever state the creature is considered he hath need of some supernatural assistance to attain to glory His weakness is so great and his end so high that he can neither master the first nor compass the second if he be not assisted with an extraordinary succour Original righteousness that furnished him with so many advantages gave no dispensation from this necessity and though he had neither Passions to combat nor disorders to regulate Grace was still necessary for him to overcome Temptations and to persevere in Innocence Had Humane nature continued saith S. Augustine in that happie condition God at first created it in it had been unable to preserve it self had it not been upheld by the power of its Creator The state of Grace is more delicate then that of Nature and if all Philosophers confess that the Creatures have need of the support of the Almighty that they return not to their Nothing all Divines acknowledg they have need of his help lest they fall into Sin Weakness which is inseparable from the Creature puts him in this necessity and notwithstanding those many priviledges his production was honoured with he cannot want that succour which supports and fortifies him Adam remained but a small time in his original righteousness his first conflict was followed with his overthrow and we know not whether his Creation and his Fall happened not on the same day but this we know that his Fall had been speedier had not Grace seconded his Liberty and that he had wandered from his End assoon as ever he had known it had he not been supplied with supernatural Means to tend thereunto And me thinks we may apply the words of the Scripture in the state of Innocence as well as of Sin and say with that excellent Doctor of Grace Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. For as there is no Creature can begin any good without Grace neither is there any that can perfect that good beginning without it The Necessity of Grace is so great Non talis facta est Natura ut sine Divino adjutorio posset manere Aug. that 't is common to all sorts of conditions Angels can no more be without it then Men the nobleness of their Creation dispenseth not with them and if it be true that the dignity of their nature being higher then that of Men makes them more indigent of the assistance of God I conceive their elevation in Grace renders them more necessitous of its support The Greatness of the Creatures serves onely to abase them their excellence is a glorious servitude the more they have received from God the more do they depend upon him and the grace that would preserve an Angel would not be sufficient to preserve a Seraphim Thus the dignity of the Creature is as well a proof of the Necessity of Grace as his weakness and till he be admitted into Glory where he findes his confirmation in Good he stands in need of Grace to preserve those advantages he hath received from his Creator If Innocence could not free us from this happie Necessity we may say 't is increased upon us by sin and that to give us a release we have need of some more vigorous and active Grace For 't is not enough now that it shew us the Good and enable us to attain unto it but it must withal inspire us with a Will unto it it must lead us by the hand support our weakness order our doings correct our imperfections break our chains and master concupiscence that takes possession of our Will It must assault this Tyrant to set us at liberty that dealing skilfully with us and valiantly against it we may be delivered from servitude without any violence to our nature For Free-will is so weakned by sin that it cannot so much as will the Good if Grace cure it not it must change its inclinations to elevate its desires and imprint upon him the love of vertue hereby to abhor vice Indeed saith S. Augustine how should a man live justly if he be not justified how should he live holily if he be not sanctfied and how should he live truely if he be not quickned with Grace which is the true life of the soul The Cure of man and his Disease depend not equally upon his Will there needs nothing but a small excess to contract a Fever hot and cold are able to debois our constitution Fruits eaten unseasonably or excessively may cause a Flux nor is there any man so well but may be sick when he will But the Cure depends upon Physick we must recover that by the help of another which we have lost by our own fault and experience teacheth us that the end of evil is not in our power as its birth is We may reason thus concerning Man a Sinner because sickness is as well the Image as the Punishment of his crime he may sin when he will he hath liberty enough to become a delinquent there needs no temptation to make him swerve from his duty and he is dextrous enough by his sole power to render himself miserable But having lost Grace he cannot recover it by his own proper Will notwithstanding all the abilities still remain with him there will never be enough to raise him from his Fall nor can he be justified by any other then by him that is the fountain of all the Justice in the world The Law that was given to Instruct him is not sufficient to Cure him though it be one step to arrive to vertue and the knowledge of sin be necessary for the avoiding thereof nevertheless the Law without Grace cannot convert the sinner its light serves onely to dazzle him its defence onely to irritate his desires and when this feeble succour is not seconded by Grace it makes a man but more guilty 'T is Charity that inspires a love towards the Law that surmounts its difficulties changeth its pains into pleasures and of slaves making children renders that easie and agreeable that seemed burdensome and impossible But when by the mediation of Grace a man passeth from the Law to the Gospel he ought not to think this guide useless nor that he can without its aid preserve what without its light he could not attain Grace is not less necessary to finish then to begin and the new state whereto the Christian it raised depends so absolutely upon its influences that he ceaseth
that murmures even whilst Grace triumphs over his Liberty he hath a sense of Passions that divide his Will and hinder Charity from taking a full possession of that superiour faculty he is convinced even to his damage that as a Needle between two Loadstones though drawn away by the strongest turns notwithstanding towards the weakest so he though mastered by Grace ceaseth not to be tempted by Concupiscence and by woful experience learns that as soon as Charity suspends her vertue and moderates that sweet violence wherewith she so pleasingly ravisheth the heart he is presently trail'd on by the weight of self-self-love that bends him towards the Creatures I know there are a sort of new Divines that seem to place Concupiscence in man an Innocent not exempting him from that intestine war whereof the Saints complain who are perswaded that original righteousness did not accord the two parts that compose man and that their division contributing to his glory ought also to contribute to his merit But besides that I suspect this Opinion as maintained by the Pelagians Haec quae ab impudentibus impudenter laudata pudenda Concupiscentia nulla esset nisi homo ante peccasset Aug. and S. Augustine hath laid it on the ground as the foundation of their Heresie those that defend it are at least obliged to confess that if Concupiscence were in man in the state of Innocence it was not there with those disorders the Apostle of the Gentiles groaned under but that original sin giving it a new vigour there is requisite a new grace to contest against it Otherwise he had done very unmanly to complain of a revolt which was nothing but an effect of Nature and which he might easily suppress by his Will animated with as much Grace as Jesus Christ refuses not even to his enemies And the Church guided by the holy Spirit would do amiss to intreat so often for her childrens deliverance from an insurrection which cannot be bad if it were born with man in his Innocence If they answer She requests not that the Faithful be delivered from it because bad but because dangerous by the same reason they must desire that they had neither eyes nor hands because both these parts are of sad consequence to sinners If they say they pray not for the full ruine of it but for its diminution they must confess that if what they would pare away be hurtful it ought not to be in Adam nor could now be cured by his grace For as S. Augustine says excellently well the grace of Adam was the grace of a man sound and free and the grace of Jesus Christ of a man a captive and diseased this produceth two effects in his person it restores his health before it give him strength it breaks his fetters before it makes him walk and suppresseth his disorders before it makes him act This Truth will be better conceived if we compare the Liberty of Adam with the Servitude of Man a sinner that by the difference of these two states we may judge more easily of the difference of their graces Adam was as Free as Innocent nothing resisted his Will in his person and the Passions having not as yet shook off the yoke of Reason troubled not his Rest he acted with tranquillity of minde he found his pleasure in his duty nor was he sensible of any internal rebellion impeaching his liberty Thence it came to pass that his grace was subject to his Will that he used it according to his desires and his occasions either to obey his Soveraign to command his Subjects or to resist his Enemies But the sinner fallen from this glorious condition is the slave of him that hath conquered him he serves as many Masters as he hath Passions and he findes to his cost that to punish his disobedience all his subjects rebel against him The grace of Adam would be useless in this condition being not fully free he could not make use of it and being the slave of sin in whose possession he is he would employ it rather to his own ruine then to his salvation Grace must set him free before he can work must break his chains before he can fight and restore him his liberty before he can form one good designe This is it that S. Augustine teacheth us in that Chapter where making the Antithesis of Man a Sinner and Man an Innocent he saith This had a grace great indeed but much different from ours For he lived in the advantages he had received from his Creator and of his goodness held that happie condition that exempted him from all our evils But the Faithful to whom this grace appertains that delivers Captives languish in misfortunes that make them seek after Liberty Adam in the midst of the innocent delights he tasted had no need of the death of Jesus Christ but the Christians cannot be washed from their hereditary or acquired sins but by the blood of the Lamb slain for their salvation Adam stood not in need of that assistance his children require when experiencing the revolt of the Flesh against the Spirit they complain of the Law of Sin that opposeth the Law of God and by the mediation of Jesus Christ beg strength to combat and ability to overcome an enemy whose assaults Adam was never sensible of For he was not divided in Paradise but enjoying a profound peace he saw not his body warring against his soul nor one part of himself unjustly lifting up the heel against the other Proinde etsi non interim laetiore nunc verunratē potentiore gratia indigent isti Aug. Let us say then with that great Doctor that the grace of Adam was happier then ours and ours more powerful then his he might if he would have overcome amidst his delights and we triumph among our sorrows his grace gave him a Power to act ours a Will his was subject to his Will ours is her mistress and by a happie occasion we are the conquerors of Devils because the slaves of Jesus Christ It seems our Redeemer would be revenged of us in avenging us of our enemy that he disposed all things so that our victory should depend upon our overthrow and our liberty should be grounded upon our servitude because Grace tames our Will to make it victorious over sin and subjects her to it self to give her command over the Passions and in this humble submission procures us those advantages we never had possessed in the Empire of Innocence For whatever arts we use to exalt the happie condition of Adam we must confess his grace was weak because it could not maintain the freedom of his Will and leaving him to himself suffered his enemy to foil him But the grace of Jesus Christ makes us victorious in the midst of our infirmities assures our salvation among the many stormings of Temptations and seizing upon our heart makes us triumph over the world When I consider the deplorable condition of a sinner me thinks
enough above the rest of creatures and though it leave him his liberty considers not sufficiently the dignity of his extraction For it seems God deals with Men as with the Elements that he makes scarce any difference between Angels and Beasts and that this Soveraign governs so absolutely in his State that he much more regards his own glory then the welfare of his subjects He determines also free creatures as well as necessary if he oppresse not their liberty he takes no pains to gain it and more solicitous to make himselfe obeyed then loved he masters the will rather by force then sweetnesse The second passeth into another extream and seems to be so carefull of the salvation of man that it neglects the glory of God makes his grace a bondage opens heaven to all the world makes Mercy sparkle abroad to the detriment of Justice ascribes more to liberty then to grace renders man insolent since his Fall will have him as familiar with God since his rebellion as during his innocence Imagines that nature received no blemishes by sin and that the will under the thraldome of Concupiscence is as vigorous as under the Empire of Originall righteousnesse The third handles Grace a little more respectfully then the second 't is me thinks a bold opinion but not impudent it covers self-self-love under honourable pretences it bestowes that upon the Mercy of God that it takes from his Justice it intitles not liberty so absolutely to salvation but it preserves the rights of Grace which if it make not victorious it makes at least wel-disposed if it reign not over the will it does over the inclinations and if it offers a sufficient grace to all men it confesseth neverthelesse the effect is not produced but when it agrees with the constitution or humour of Man But after all this it seems to overturn the order of Predestination gives more to merits then to grace imposes Laws upon its Soveraign and obliges him when he means to save a sinner to consult rather their dispositions then his own will and pleasure Let us see what Saint Augustine hath most constantly believed concerning this Subject and lest we mistake our way take him for a guide that hath so generously defended its Cause against the Impiety of Hereticks The Fift DISCOURSE Wherein precisely consists the power of Effectuall Grace THere is no man but may observe that the Loadstone draws iron to it but there is no Philosopher can discover wherein this vertue consists We need but open our eyes to see how this stone which may be called one of the miracles of Nature lifts up the iron assoon as moved towards it that it gives a kind of feeling to this senslesse metal and in despite of its hardness softens it into a tendernesse of affection We behold with astonishment that it leaps from the Earth to follow that which draws it that it steals from it self to embrace it Quid ferri duritia pugnatius sed cedit patitur amores trahitur namque à magnete lapiâ—e domitrix illa rerum omnium materia ad inane nescio quid currit atque ut propius venit assistit teneturque complexu haeret Pli. lib. 36. cap. 16. and clings so strongly to it that violence must be used to part them But certainly 't is very difficult to comprehend what is that secret vertue that imprints this power in the Loadstone The whole Body of Philosophers have troubled themselves to no purpose to discover it whatever pains they have taken and whatever watchings they have spent in this study they have not to this day been able to find out the occult cause of so evident an effect they are ignorant whence this sympathy between the Loadstone and the Iron grows nor can they render a reason why this stone attracts this metal and not others they know not whether this attraction have more of sweetness or of force whether it draw the Iron by affecting it or by forcing it and whether it complies with its inclination or over-bears its weight and obstinacy What I have said of the Loadstone may as truly be verified of Grace Its power is so publick and its attempts so common that there is no body but knows and admires them It triumphs daily over the liberty of sinners lifts these wretches from the Earth enlightens the blind softens the obdurate converts the obstinate and subdues these rebels But though all the Faithful acknowledge a vertue whose effects they resent they know not precisely wherein it consists they are divided in their opinions and though they all take S. Augustine for their Master they express themselves in such different terms that though taught in the same School it seems they have not all learnt the same Lesson Inasmuch as this incomparable Doctor is pleased in all his Works to break forth in commendations of Grace consacring all his Labours to the glory of that which drew him out of his sin he sometimes admires its Force and seems to place all its vertue in its invincible puissance he will have it the mistress of hearts strongly over-ruling the Will of sinners and like a Soverain more respecting her own Majesty then the Inclination of her subjects Sometimes he changeth his language and meditating rather to preserve the Liberty of Man then the Power of Grace he seems to place its vertue in its compliance he represents it to us as a sweet perswasion flattering man to gain him setting upon him where he is weakest to overcome him studying his inclinations to make him in love entring into his meaning to accommodate it to that of its own and like Lovers who become complacent onely to become absolute stoops to the liberty of the sinner to triumph over it nor is his slave but to become his mistress Sometimes he walks between these two Extremes and joyning force with sweetness he speaks of Grace as of a victorious complacency he describes her as a Queen displaying her Beauty as well as her Power to keep her subjects in obedience and knowing that Nature hath given her as many Allurements as she hath done Forces unites both together to tame the rebels of her State She imitates the conduct of Providence whereof shee is an emanation and mingling Sweetness with Authority executes her designes leading men whither she pleaseth These three manners whereby S. Augustine expresseth himself in his Writings have produced three Opinions in the Church which acknowledge him for Master boasting to be of his minde and to stand to his Doctrine The first is that which is ascribed to S. Thomas which delivering it self in terms very significant but somewhat barbarous placeth the power of Grace in Predetermination Those that hold this Opinion will have God always preserve his Soveraignty when he deals with the Creature Voluntas Dei est prima summa omnium causa Aug. lib. 3. de Trin. applying him as he will and using rather compulsion then fair means discovers a desire
afraid to injure mans Liberty in using terms so significant because supposing Grace nothing but Love it can do no violence to the Will for of all the things in the world there is none freer then Love A man cannot complain that he is forced when nothing but charms of affection are employed to gain him and if there are some Lovers that have blamed the rigour of their mistresses there is none that have found fault with their love If it be an Evil 't is a voluntary one it hurts none but those that willingly embrace it and of so many punishments that torment us there is none more innocent because none more free Crowns may be snatched from Soveraigns Confidence may be taken from Philosophers Orators may be convinced any man may lose his life but whatever stratagems are made use of whatever violence men practise a Lover cannot be forced nor his love extorted from him Seeing then Grace is nothing but Charity and Charity nothing but a holy Love we must not apprehend violence nor imagine that the assaults of this divine quality can at all injure our Liberty because it does not disengage us from evil but by obliging us to love God If Grace cannot force our Will because it is a victorious love it ought less to constrain it because according to the language of S. Augustine 't is a pleasant perswasion For this great man considering that he was to deal with Free-will on one side and the Power of Grace on the other that he was to maintain the Empire of God and the Liberty of Man he hath always exprest himself so happily that he never prejudic'd either and as indeed Grace never forceth Man but perswades him it holds something of Eloquence or of Reason that triumphs over Liberty without compelling it Rhetorick is an Art that teacheth us to perswade Truth Orators are agreeable Soveraigns that bear rule over the mindes of their Auditors that calm their Passions change their Designes Quid enim inter Pisistratum Periclem interfuit nisi quod ille armatus hic sine armis tyrannidem gessâ—â— Cicer. and gently force their Wills Therefore was it unhandsomely done of that Ancient to compare Pericles with Pisistratus because this Tyrant domineered but over mens Bodies that Orator exercised a dominion over their Souls the one made use of Violence the other employed nothing but Sweetness the one procured the hatred of his Subjects the other the love of his Auditors For no man could complain of Pericles because he used nothing but Eloquence to perswade his Command was founded upon Reason his chief Force consisted in Truth he subjected no Understandings but by clearing them nor changed any mens Wills but in taking them by their interests or their inclinations In a word Eloquence may boast her self a Soveraign that reigns without arms subdues people by her word convinceth Philosophers by her reasons and subjects Monarchs by her power She protects the Innocent comforts the Distressed condemns or absolves the Guilty and as she animates the Advocates or the Judges produceth different miracles in their souls Whether she inchant the Ears by the harmonious cadencies of her Periods whether she excite love and hatred by her gestures her principal designe is to master the Liberty of Man She sets not upon the Understanding but to gain the Will she appears complacent that she may be perswasive nor doth she require the attention or her auditors but that she may get their consent 'T is true never any man complains of her violence because she is sweet and he that hath changed his minde at the hearing of an Orator never accused him of Tyranny 'T is certainly upon this ground that S. Augustine calls Grace a powerful perswasion because imitating Eloquence it clears our Spirits calms our Passions and gains our Consent It hath this advantage over Eloquence that it hath no need of our Ears to win our Hearts it transmits it self by it self into the inmost recesses of the soul findes out Reason in her Throne without employing the Senses carries Light into the Understanding and kindles Love in the Will Thus she perswades what she will to the obstinate subdues rebels without arms makes her Subjects will what she desires they should and when she displays all her forces she works the conversion of a sinner in a moment This certainly was the power Jesus Christ made use of when he laid Saint Paul flat at his feet when he converted that Persecutor into an Apostle changed his heart and his tongue and made him that breathed nothing but murder say Lord what wilt thou have me to do He lost not his Liberty for having lost his Fury he changed not his Nature for having changed his Judgement nor can we say that the perswasion that gained his consent was less free or more violent for being so sudden Grace knows how to be obeyed without making us slaves she can perswade without compelling and more powerful then Eloquence is able to make us love what we hated before That great Orator that guided the Romane Common-wealth with his Tongue and made his opinion so dexterously pass into the soul of his Auditors that gallant man I say hath wrought miracles by his Eloquence which we have much ado to allow the grace of Jesus Christ to effect He could boast that he altered the resolution of Caesar defending the cause of Ligarius that he shook the papers out of the hands and the hatred out of the heart of that Conquerour that he made him recal the sentence he had already pronounced in his soul that he overcame him by his Reasons that fubdued all by his Arms and trampled upon the pride of a Tyrant that had triumphed over the Liberty of Rome In the mean time we have much ado to believe that Grace can work miracles we weaken its Vertue to preserve our own Free-will we are not content that Jesus Christ should be as powerful as an Orator and when we hear of these victorious Graces and of these invincible perswasions we imagine as if there were a designe to oppress the publike Liberty Let us ascribe that to Grace which we grant to Eloquence let us confess that the Son of God knows how to imprint Truth in our spirit and Love in our heart to perswade us infallibly let us acknowledge that he is not to seek by what stratagems to gain our inclinations that his Grace more intimate then Concupiscence is able to become the mistress of our Wills and whatever command she exerciseth over us she never destroys our Liberty because she hath no other designe then to enfranchise it out of servitude The Seventh DISCOURSE That we may judge of the power of Grace over the Christian by that of Concupiscence over the Sinner FOrasmuch as the things of the world never appear with greater lustre then when they are set in opposition against their contraries I conceive in this Discourse I shall not do amiss to confront Concupiscence
temptation if it appear more agreeable then the Law of God Therefore when Jesus Christ undertakes our Conversion he infuses into our souls innocent pleasures which are more prevalent then those of sin he unmasks the beauties of vertue he charms us with her allurements and ravisheth our hearts by holy delights that make his Grace victorious Then is it that we resist the temptations of Satan that we contemn the revolts of the flesh and raised above our selves are amazed that such weak enemies have been able heretofore to worst us Then is it that the Martyrs runne to the Faggot that enchaunted with this pleasure that overcomes their spirit they triumph over Devils and Executioners trample upon flames and wilde Beasts and turn the cruelty of tyrants into wonder and admiration Must not the pleasure that charms them be exceeding powerfull when they tumble upon hot burning coals as upon a bed of roses When they swallow down melted lead as most delicious liquours Receive wounds a favours Prefer Prisons before Palaces Gibbets before Thrones and Crowns of Thorns before those of Diamonds Is not this that victorious pleasure that transports maids out of the dwellings of their parents burying them alive in cloysters and changing their inclinations obligeth them to quit gold and silk to put on hair and sackcloth Is it not this innocent pleasure that makes them neglect the advantages of their birth and perswading them that vertue is the beauty of the soul obliges them to despise the charming comeliness of the face Is it not finally this Grace as imperious as agreeable that animates the Religious against themselves that arms their hands to revenge the Son of God whom they have offended and making a just indignation the parent of a holy love obliges them to persecute themselves Let us conclude then from all this Discourse that Grace cannot force man because it is so sweet and that the most prevalent never destroys our liberty because its power consists in gentleness But withall let us confess that she is victorious in all her designs that she finds no resistance in the most obstinate sinners because she charms their wils by pleasures which seem the first fruits of those they shall reap in glory and which make the miserable taste one part of that felicity here the blessed feed upon in Heaven The Eighth DISCOURSE That Effectuall Grace destroyes not Sufficient Grace IF it be a truth that Nature hath some secrets that cannot be discovered that she conceals her vertue when she means to produce a wonder and steals out of the sight of her dearest lovers when she deals in mysteries we need not think it strange that God the Authour of Nature reveals not his designs to all the world and that there are some so profound that his most intimate friends are not acquainted with The Oeconomy of mans salvation is so involv'd that all those that goe about to explain it are in danger to mistake all foundations their reason relies upon in this matter are so infirm that having well discoursed they are obliged to confess their ignorance and adore the wisdome of God that hath reserved to himself the disposall of his creatures Neither indeed doe I pretend to examine his designs nor to penetrate his intentions but to search out the meaning of Saint Augustine and to see in this Discourse whether he believed the order established in the state of Innocence to be so ruined that there remained no footstep of it in the world and whether he judged Effectuall Grace so absolutely necessary that he held Grace sufficient merited by Jesus Christ to be altogether useless Though the sin of Adam hath corrupted the Nature of man though all men are born Delinquents their inclinations irregular and the faculties of their souls weakned yet must we confess with Saint Augustine that this disorder cannot deface the Characters God hath stampt upon his workmanship Reason serves for a Law to Insidels and teacheth them what the Law of Moses taught the Israelites all her lights are not put out and in the midst of that darkness wherein infidelity hath plunged her Nulla est anima quamvis perversa quae tamen ratiocinari potest in cujus conscientia non loquatur Deus quis enim legem naturalē scripsit in cordibus hominum nisi Deus Aug. she retains some knowledge of her Creator The passions that trouble her and the senses that seduce her cannot yet perswade her that the body ought to be her Soveraign neither is there any sinner so brutish but knows that of two parts that compose him the noblest ought to be the most absolute Notwithstanding all the injustice which swarms amongst men it cannot blot out of their souls this maxime that Nature hath engraven there What thou wouldst not have done to thy self doe not to another and had neither Law-givers nor Philosophers forbidden Murders Adulteries there was a Judge within them had made an Edict against both these iniquities So that we may say in their very infidelity they had the first Principles of Religion and Morality and if they discerned not in God the Trinity of Persons they knew at least the Unity of his Essence If all these advantages be the reliques of Original righteousness and the splinters of that great shipwrack where Nature was wholly lost in one man If the seeds of vertues be the steps of the innocence in men and if Conscience that punisheth Criminals be an expression of Divine Justice I am easily perswaded to believe that there remains some assistance for Infidels that sollicites them to the practice of vertue and gives them some thoughts of their salvation in the midst of Paganisme it self Qui est salvator omnium hominum maxime fideliū 1 Tim. 4. For if the Son of God died for all men and hath merited some favours for them which Nature since her prevarication could not hope for without him I doubt not but the Eternall Father inspires them with some good motions to satisfie the desires of his only Son and that those glorious actions they have performed and which according to the judgement of Saint Augustine deserve some commendations are the price of the bloud of that dying sacrifice If they have not faith they had perhaps some glimmerings which as the dawning had something of the brightness of the day something of the obscurity of the night if they wanted charity they have had some supernaturall love which was not strong enough to defend them from self-love and as fear though servile is the gift of God this love though interessed may be the effect of Grace They acted not always according to the motions of Concupiscence Their captiv'd will had some release according to the assistance they received from Heaven Their reason illuminated with a divine light and their will seconded with a supernaturall force resisted some sins and made them more innocent or lesse guilty then others Saint Augustine acknoweldgeth their actions profitable to the
Common-wealth that their vertue though imperfect carried lustre with it and though no way comparable to that of true believers had notwithstanding beauty enough to condemn one day bad Christians But admit the vertue of Infidels be false that hinders not but they may have some assistance from Heaven to discern good from evil and to take from them that excuse wherewith the pride of man shelters it self having sinned through ignorance This was the motive that induced God to give the Law to the Jews Nulli enim hominum ablatū est scire utiliter quaerere Non tibi deput atur a◠culpam quod invitus ignorat se◠quod negligis quaerere quod ignoras Aug. and 't is the same that prevailed with him to indulge the Heathen some light which in my opinion cannot render them more culpable if it did not withall render them more capable to shake hands with sin This is it perhaps that Saint Augustine means in the nineteenth Chapter of his third Book of Free-will where he grants that God hath deprived no body of the meanes to seek after truth and that the power of finding it is common to all men If their mind may be enlightned with some heavenly light their will may be touched with some regret for their offences they may have good thoughts and good motions which they reject their being in Infidelity puts them not yet in the state of Reprobation God makes some difference between these delinquents and the damned he deals not with them as with the devils and if it be true that he suspends the torments of these I can easily be perswaded that he withholds the sins of those and that they have graces that disengage their Will for some moments from the tyranny of Concupiscence They act not always under the conduct of this enemy and though they are his slaves yet they have a Soveraign who never losing his rights can defend them when he please S. Thomas the truest Interpreter and most knowing disciple of S. Augustine was of the same opinion neither intended to dissent from his Master He judged right with him that whatever is done among Infidels and among Christians by the instigation of Concupiscence is sin but he did not believe that Mercy had utterly forsaken the Heathen and that she imparts no Grace unto them which though leaving them in errour disengageth them many times from sin If there be supernatural assistances that prepare us for Faith and make us conceive some good thoughts before we be made Believers there may also be some which not drawing the Heathen out of their Infidelity may preserve them from the committing of some offences and make them perform some actions which relate to the Supreme Good imperfectly known and imperfectly loved When God heretofore converted the Heathen Concilium Tridentinum pronunciat Anathem a in eos qui dicunt opera omnia quae ante justificationem quacunque ratione facta sint vera esse peccata Sess 6. Can. 7. he gave them not the light of Faith all at once this vertue was ushered in by some good dispositions there were some moments wherein they were Infidels and sinned not wherein they acted by the conduct of Grace and not by that of Charity and when following the inspirations of heaven they were not actually in sin though habitually they still remained it There is some Grace that is not absolutely inconsistent with Infidelity because there is some love that is not altogether incompatible with sin and as every day sinners feel supernatural motions that lift them up towards God and oblige them to do good works we may say also that Infidels receive some extraordinary supply that rectifies their intentions Ex quo apparet habere quosdam in ipso ingenio divinumquoddā naturaliter munus intelligentiae quo moveantur ad fidem si congrua suis mentibus vel audiant verba vel figna conspiciant Aug. de bono Perse cap. 14. and makes them act for a supernatural and divine end And certainly they are not destitute of all Graces because S. Augugustine observes some in them which he acknowledgeth not in the Jews For explaining that famous and difficult passage where Jesus Christ assures us that those of Tyre and Sidon had certainly repented had they seen the miracles he did in Judea this great Doctor avows that the Tyrians were not so blinde nor so hardned as the Jews that they had one advantage which holding from Nature and Grace prepared them for Faith A naturally-divine gift of understanding whereby they are moved to Faith that they had believed the miracles of the Son of God had they had the honour to have seen them Quoniam credidissent si qualia viderunt isti signa vidissent and that this Grace had produced its effect had the circumstance whereon it depended intervened But though it gave them a power of being converted 't was as useless to them as Christs miracles were to the Jews because neither of them were of the number of the predestinated Sed nec illis profuit quod credere poterant quia praedestinati non erant The same Doctor is not far from this opinion when writing against Julian he saith to that Heretick that they were more equitable then he who ascribed the vertues of the Heathen to the assistance of heaven and not to their own Free-will and who granted them some grace in their Infidelity which they acknowledged after their conversion Perhaps the impulse of S. Dennis at the death of the Son of God was of this kinde That the Oracle he pronounced was inspired into him from heaven and that he felt the effects of the Cross before he knew the vertue thereof 'T is to no purpose to object that S. Augustine slights this opinion having judged it not so bad as that of the Pelagians and that he condemns it Sed absit ut sit in aliquo vera virtus nisi fuerit justus absit autem ut sit justus vere nisi vivat ex fide justus enim ex fide vivit when he protests that there is no solid vertue where there is not a lively Faith and true Justice For if we take those words in the strictest acception we must confess that sinners whose Faith is dead can do no good works and that all those that are not just can practise no vertue Sinners are as arrogant as Infidels they contemn the humility of the Son which they do not imitate they are the slaves of the devil whose motions they follow and that remainder of Faith that languisheth in their soul seems to serve onely to render them more culpable then the Heathen When therefore S. Augustine saith that the vertue of these is not true because not quickned by Faith he speaks certainly of a perfect vertue agreeable to God profitable to him that practifeth it and which may merit eternal life for him Now there is no man but sees that the vertue of Heathens and Sinners
hath not these conditions and though it proceed from a good Principle and respect a lawful End may yet be stiled deficient because according to the Maxime of Aristotle Bonum ex integra Causa malum ex quolibet defectu Aristo an action is bad when it labours under any defect After all this Argumentation I cannot but confess that the graces of Infidels are very rare and if they remain subject to their liberty they will not deliver them from their errours But they are more common among Christians and act more powerfully over their Wills because there they finde less resistance This Proposition is evident according to the principles of S. Augustine because in a thousand places of his Writings he will have Faith teach us to pray and that Supplication obtain that succour that is necessary for the subduing of Concupiscence I know very well that Prayer supposeth Grace that a man must be instructed in the School of the holy Ghost to speak to the Eternal Father but it seems this grace is offered to all the Faithful serving us for a defence in our infirmity and that as in all times our enemies may assault us we may in all times also defend our selves For if the Grace of Prayer were not easie and common it never had been ordained of God for the obtaining of all others and we should have some reason to complain of him that hath obliged us to have recourse to that Asylum if it were not more in out disposal then those things we intreat by means thereof This remedy is as common as it is easie 't is a favour which God refuseth not but to some notorious offenders a man must often have rejected it to be deprived of its assistance and it seems that the soul that is inanimated with habitual Grace hath some right and power to flee to Prayer when dejected with sorrow or assaulted by temptation The hardening of Sinners is another proof of the Truth I endeavour to promote For since according to the doctrine of S. Augustine this punishment is nothing else but the withdrawing of Grace Obdurat Deus non impertiendo gratiam quibus enim non impertitur nec digni sunt nec merentur Aug. we must needs confess that those who are not yet hardned have some grace gently bearing them on to piety which sollicites their consent and not using an absolute power as effectual Grace doth separates them withal from those God hath utterly given over and from those God conducts to heaven by more sure ways and more powerful motions Thence it comes to pass that S. Augustine preaching to his people and letting them see the great danger in despising those good inspirations that come from heaven said that sinners sometimes could not be converted though they had a will to it because they would not do it when they had the power Impius saith this great Doctor dum vult non potest quia dum potuit noluit I know some Divines take that wicked one for Adam who making no use of his grace whereby he had power to act lost it for himself and for all his posterity and say that 't is he S. Augustine speaks of in that passage But whoever shall take good notice of his intention will clearly perceive that he ascends not so high as Paradise that he complains not of the first man onely but of all his children who neglect the power they have to do good and justly are deprived of it for not having made use thereof Otherwise sinners would lay all their faults upon the person of Adam and esteeming themselves more unfortunate then sinful would blame S. Augustine for accusing them to have abused a power they never had But nothing better confirms sufficient grace then our refusing to obey it Experience teacheth us there are Divine sweetnesses which are not always victorious Grace triumphs not continually when it combats sin S. Augustine often found that his ill habits were more prevalent then the invitations of Grace and that his Will like a Needle between two Loadstones quitted the more feeble and innocent pleasure to close with the stronger and more criminal Had Grace been effectual she had not received this shameful repulse her first attempts had gained this sinner and S. Augustine after he had tasted the innocent delights of holy love would not have longed to drink of the muddy waters of Voluptuousness But were all their designes of Grace followed with their effects did this Conqueress of Hearts fight no battels that were not accompanied with victories the Saints whose confessions are as true as they are humble would never accuse themselves for resisting her motions and being untrue to her inspirations For they complain not onely of this habitual opposition which is never lost till they are received into glory and which still subsists in us even then when Grace hath gotten the mastery but they complain of an actual opposition which cannot agree with effectual Grace they acknowledge their resisting the holy Ghost that their soul possest with self-self-love disputes with the love of God and resenting their weakness conjure heaven to redouble its batteries and to make use of some more powerful grace to bring their rebellious Wills in subjection S. Augustine nor his Interpreters dissent from this opinion for they confess that there are ineffectual Graces which produce indeed some effect in the sinner but convert him not and cannot be rightly stiled victorious because they surmount not unlawful and criminal pleasure which corrupt the Will so that we may say This Grace hath not done all that it pretended to do since fighting against her enemy she was not able to overcome him For though it be usually answered that this Grace is effectual because it always produceth its effect and that it is felt by the sinner in whose soul she begets a pleasure that tickles him but is not fully prevalent because she cannot perfect his conversion nor disengage him from sin Me thinks a man may reply from the principles of S. Augustine that this Grace is not efficacious because not victorious that she rights and is beaten that she carries not the advantage thorowout which she pretended over her enemy and that we cannot imagine that having set upon him her designe was not to subdue him 'T is easie also to prove that this Grace is sufficient because it makes war upon sin endeavours his expulsion and would certainly be accounted rash or indiscreet had she undertaken a designe beyond her power Moreover every one knows that if the sinner had not fortified Concupiscence by his bad habits this Grace had been able to convert him and by its innocent pleasure outvie that criminal sensuality he findes in his iniquity because he hath a minde to take up his dwelling in it To all this I adde the testimony of S. Augustine which ought to be so much the less suspected because taken from two places where he seems more strongly to establish the
for all the world that according to the saying of our Saviour ill interpreted it may be carried by violence and without passing thorow the Church a man may scale heaven The desire of their Salvation is the source of these unjust desires They chuse not this side nor embrace this opinion but because they believe it favours their hopes Vanity is mixt with Interest being the children of Adam they imitate the pride of their Father they are guilty of his crime before they are aware nor do they consider that whilst they go about to subject Grace to their Liberty they follow his steps who had a minde to be god for no other end but that he might live an Independent in respect of his Soveraign But were they far enough from the vain oftentation of their first father they would certainly fall into his misfortune whilst they think to avoid it For all Theologie assures us that Men and Angels were lost because their Grace being subjected to their Liberty made them not constant in good they made ill use of their advantage because they were masters of it nor did they fall into sin but because their salvation was put into their own hands Their Fall teacheth us that we can have no weaker support then our selves that the Grace which relies onely upon our own Will is very frail and that sinners that ground their hope upon the certainty of their resolution are very blinde or very proud The Angels were much more illuminated then we their light was much purer then ours their strength was not mixt with weakness These pure spirits were not embodied in flesh and blood and Nature being happily united with Grace in their person banished all disorders that are in the creature by reason of sin In the mean time all these advantages hindered them not from falling the first temptation shook their Liberty because not submitted to Grace The beauty of Lucifer dazled them and struck them in love his promises made them forget those of God and the hope they fancied of raigning with that proud Angel made them side with him in his rebellion All these misfortunes have no other Cause but the weakness of Liberty and he that should ask these wretched spirits in the midst of their torments would receive no other answer but that their Grace was unprofitable because it depended upon their Will Neither are you to object that the faithful Angels were saved by the same succour the other neglected because all Divines are not agreed and 't is disputed in the Schools of the assistance they received to oppose the rebellion of Lucifer The greatest part of the Fathers were of opinion that the mystery of the Incarnation was revealed to them at that instant that they drew force from Jesus Christ that they fought under his banner that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and that they owe their triumphs to the Sacrifice of his death S. Augustine is of this belief and though according to his Principles Si utrique boni squaliter creati sunt istis mala voluntate cadentibus illi amplius adjuti ad eam beatitudinis plenitudinem unde se nunquā casuros certissimi fierent pervenerunt Aug. l. 12. de Civ Dei c. 9. it seems we must conclude that the good Angels were not recompensed but because their Will made good use of their Grace he unsays it in other places and confesseth ingenuously that they received new assistances and that they were victorious because they were better seconded then the others I know what may be said in answer to this passage but I finde it so clear and uttered in such strong expressions that those that explain it will pardon me if I remain in my opinion and if with S. Augustine I believe that the good Angels owe not their salvation to Grace Sufficient but to that Christian Grace the Word Incarnate merited for them by his travels Though Man was not advantaged equal to the Angels neither in Nature nor in Grace because they were Hierarchies and one was the rule of the other yet every one confesseth Mans Will was created right his Understanding cleared his Senses faithful and his Passions obedient He felt not those revolts which now trouble our rest the Flesh warred not against the Spirit and those two parts notwithstanding their difference were not as yet enemies original righteousness composed their quarrels and living in good intelligence under the dominion of this prerogative they conspired together mans felicity Sufficient Grace was always offered him whatever enterprise he took in hand this faithful companion never left him she came to his aid as often as he called upon her or rather preventing his desires and his necessities waited his orders and directions Nevertheless amidst all these priviledges miserable man lost himself the first temptation made him forget his duty though he knew that his Soul was taken out of Nothing and his body formed of the slime of the earth he suffered himself to be perswaded that in violating the Laws of God he could make himself immortal Whence think you proceeded this misfortune and what was the cause of so dismal a disgrace 'T was not the strength of the temptation for that was ridiculous and we cannot yet conceive how it could make any impression upon the minde of a Rational creature 'T was not Concupiscence for this infamous daughter was not born before her Father nor had Sin as yet given her a Being 'T was not the refusal of Grace for it was due to man in this state or at least was never denied him 'T was then his Liberty which was the cause of his misfortune his Will which without being forced by temptation corrupted by the Senses or sollicited by the Passions made no use of Grace and so fell headlong into sin If it be true that Free-will was so impotent in the state of Innocence What can we expect in the state of sin And if Sufficient Grace supported by original righteousness hindered not Man from falling What assistance can we promise our selves thence now that it is assaulted by Concupiscence Let us rest our Salvation upon a surer Foundation let us implore some more vigorous Grace let us give our Liberty leave to be over-born by its motions let us grow wise by our Fathers losses and not pitch our hope upon a succout which ruined him onely because he was subject to his Will Grace is changed with Nature as this is not in her primitive purity neither is the other in her primitive weakness JESUS CHRIST is come to be the Founder of a New Order in the world and because he findes men in infirmities which they had during the state of Innocence he furnisheth them with stronger Graces that the Remedie surpassing the Disease may afford them a perfect Cure When he had to do with Adam whose vigour was natural because his Forces were not yet divided he left his Salvation at his own disposal and giving him a Grace
is often a disguised misery and a reall torment Among so many adversities Heaven that watcheth over the welfare of Christians hath furnished them with Hope which never confounds those it assists for it awakens their courage with recompenses stirres them up by the examples of former Saints quickens them by the shortness of their life and making them balance what they suffer with what they expect gives them occasion to say with Saint Paul Non sunt condignae Passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam quae revelatur in nobis But inasmuch as Jesus Christ is the principal object of this Vertue hence ariseth the strongest comfort it can bestow upon us for representing us his Shame and his Glory his Death and his Resurrection it makes us patiently suffer the afflictions of this present life in consideration of the advantages of the future The Son of God saith Saint Augustine becomes the hope of the Faithful they behold in him labour and recompence labour in his Passion recompence in his Resurrection and in these two states rather different then contrary they behold two kinds of lives whereof the one being miserable and present must be indured with courage the other being happy and future must be expected with patience Jesus Christ hath manifested the former in his Crosse the second in his Glory to the end that having born the former in this world they may hope to possesse the second in the other world Though this Example be able to encourage the most fearful and comfort the most afflicted we must acknowledge neverthelesse that the assurance we have that God wil not forsake those that are his is a powerful Consolation which is indeed the reason Hope makes use of to encourage Christians nor was ever exprest more eloquently then in the words of the Psalmist who representing them the power of their Soveraign obligeth them to hope all things and fear nothing Ideo nihil dicit ut omnia dicat tu omnia credas Spera in Deo ipse faciet In a word it mentions all in naming nothing and giving no bounds to its promises suffers us to hope every thing from God it instructs us by silence leaves us to think what it expresseth not and lest some favours might be forgotten in the rehearfall chuseth rather to be altogether silent then to forget any If I may serve for his Interpreter me thinks his meaning is that from the Almighty power of God we may expect every thing That he will stop the Sun shake the Earth remove the Mountains from their stations open the abysses of the sea and do an hundred miracles for our sakes if we hope in his goodness or this Vertue will have us understand that God will heal us if we be sick that he will comfort us if we be afflicted enrich us if we be poor restore us to liberty if we be in prison and deliver us from the grave when we are dead Finally we may hope all that he can do our hope is as large as his power and without rashnesse we may expect as many favours as he can work miracles Seeing this Vertue is as lowly as generous it keeps us from complaining when successes answer not our desires and teacheth us that there are two wayes whereby God assists us when we are persecuted the One is glittering and full of pomp showrs astonishment into the soul of our Enemies tameth lions that would devour us quencheth flames that would burn us to ashes and disarms Executioners that are ready to sacrifice us The other is more reserv'd and less splendid for not delivering us from torments it gives us courage to bear them makes us victorious by enduring and working the miracle in our selves sweetens not the cup of our punishment but increaseth our constancy whereby we triumph over it The former of these wayes appeared in the three Children who were thrown into a fiery furnace by the command of a heathen Prince The fire spar'd their clothes respected their bodies and having consumed their chains that they might walk at liberty sought out their Executioners to execute vengeance upon them The second appeared in the person of the Maccabees who vanquish'd in suffering tired their Enemies and in an age that trembles at the frowns of a Master laughed at the fury of a Tyrant Might I pass my judgment upon these two Miracles I would prefer the later and had I liberty to chuse I would rather be in the condition of the Maccabees then in that of the companions of Daniel But leaving this Digression to pursue my Discourse Hope is not founded upon promises but upon assurances it hath earnests that dissipates all doubts and considering what hath passed easily beleeves what is yet to come For though God be the supreme Verity though his words be Oracles and reason it self perswades us that he promiseth nothing to his subjects he does not perform yet is he so good he gives them earnest of his promises and as if he were afraid to weary their hope in making them expect too much he sweetens their anxious pains by pledges of affection which make up a part of that summ he hath promised them he gives us favours whereby we are enabled to hope for what remains behinde the death he suffered for us is an assurance of that life he prepares for us neither can we doubt saith St Augustine that we shall not reign with him in heaven seeing he was willing to die for us upon the Crosse For what Goods may we not expect when his death is a pledge of his love and an assurance of the happinesse we look for Let us hope then for his Kingdom and when the greatnesse of his promises shall raise any doubts in our soul let us consider the greatness of our Surety and we shall securely wait the accomplishment of our desires Having considered the necessity of this Vertue 't is just that we consider its Nature and consulting the Divines and Fathers be acquainted with its Definition Philo the Jew calls it the Fore-runner of Joy a Harbingerpleasure preceding the Eternall one an antepast of Blessedness so that following the opinion of this Philosopher he that hopes may boast himself happy before-hand The Master of the Sentences comes neer this sense when defining this Vertue he calls it a certain assurance of a future Felicity the certitude that accompanies it sweetens the pain which the remoteness of the Good it waits for occasions and she thinks her self happy because the felicity she promiseth is certain St Augustine calls it by a more magnificent name and making it passe for a view of the supreme Good seems with Philo to confound it with Joy for he saith that Faith cures the eys of the soul and that Hope makes her see what she desires But because things never appear so clearly as when they are opposed with contraries I conceive I cannot better discover the nature of Christian Hope then by confronting it with that that
its violence finds nothing impossible Thence is it that the ambitious conceive so many designs that surpass humane power and hardning themselves against all difficulties had rather break then bow Thence comes it to passe that the covetous undergoe so many miseries to fill their coffers and are exposed to the fury of all the elements to comply with that passion that tyrannizeth over them These attempts are the images of those Charity effects which is yet more active then Concupiscence For as her hope is founded upon God and the greatness of her Conquests heightens her courage whereby she travels for Eternity she believes there is no pain she ought not to suffer nor difficulties she must not overcome Nothing seems hard when it may serve her turn and measuring her force by her affection imagines nothing ought to check her enterprises Nihil difficile videtur amanti amor enim nomeÌ„ difficultatis erubescit Bern. She chides her laziness when she deliberates she is afraid her weaknesse should be objected to her when she parlies for composition and she is so used to overcome that she looks upon difficulties not so much as a true excuse as a shamefull pretence Thus the Martyrs have traversed the flames to find Jesus Christ The Virgins have provoked wild Beasts that they might be the sooner with their Beloved The Anchorites have contested with grief that they might carry Heaven by violence Finally Charity is of the nature of fire she cannot lie still she sets upon her body when she finds no other enemy and that she may not be unprofitable seeks for occasions of suffering when she wants those of acting And this is the second resemblance between these two Loves For Concupiscence hath her Martyrs as well as Charity she suffers for what she loves and as doing and suffering are mutually in the world she gives proof of her courage in these two different conditions From the evils she undergoes she extracts vanity she makes them her happinesse when they are past and lest they should slip out of her memory she ruminates upon them in her solitudes and entertains her self with them in companies she hath some satisfaction in her Martyrdome when she thinks it will be an argument of her Constancy or of her Fidelity nor is she troubled to be made the prey of Flames or of Lions provided she may evidence her Courage and her Affection Charity thrives better in this design then Concupiscence she hath made many more Martyrs then vain-glory hath as she takes her birth from the Crosse so is she never more vigorous nor content then when she swims in her own bloud she is witty to invent occasions of suffering and becomes her own tormentor when she can meet with no other The absence of her Beloved is the greatest part of her punishment and conceiving that torments may shorten her banishment she is inquisitive after them as the remedies of her languishing Therefore doe these Divine Lovers suffer always upon Earth the peace of the Church frees not them from persecution and though the Princes that govern them are Christians they meet with Tyrants that persecute them Every failing is their torture every moment makes them languish and they die a thousand times in a day because they will not die at last Indeed their Love which is as witty as cruel learns them innocent murders they commit Parricides without a Crime they kill Adam in their person that Jesus Christ may live there they take vengeance of this Father that made them guilty and destroying whatever they received from him of every one of their inclinations they make a reasonable sacrifice But the Master-piece of Love is that it makes that present which we love and in despight of absence unites us with it Remoteness is certainly one of the greatest torments of Love he shuns it as his mortallest enemy and employs all his stratagems to be secured from it he hath recourse to Presents knowing very well that they are the remembrancers of the absent and that 't is very hard to forget a person to whom we are beholding he entertains himself by the commerce of Letters he writes to those he cannot speak to he beguiles his Passion with a picture and not being able to see his friend he is satisfied with beholding his portraicture But when all these inventions content not he reflects upon himself and making use of his thoughts and desires he goes upon the quest and retrives him whose absence caused his punishment For the Understanding is an imperious faculty which by a Natural Magick renders absent things present excelling the Imagery of Painters because her Idea's can speak and the same spirit that gives them life infuses motion into them and speech If Love be not satisfied with this invention he obligeth the Will to enquire out what she affecteth and to quit the body and the soul to be united to the object of her sorrow To obey her Soveraign she commands her desires to bestir themselves to prevent the diligence of the windes and passeth Sea and Land to seek the Subject of her vexation to the worlds end She pursues the Posts she hath dispatched imitates the agility of Angels and like those spirits finding themselves wherever they operate clings in spight of absence to what she loveth In these admirable courses she arrives at her journeys end without passing any middle distance she traverseth Kingdoms in a moment and disengaging her self from the body she informs findes her self miraculously in the subject she loves Concupiscence works the same Miracles every day she makes use of the Understanding and of the Will for her satisfaction she employs these two faculties to content her Passion and when the ears or the eyes can tell her no news of the remote objects that torment her she hath recourse to her thoughts and desire to bring them to her presence But we must confess that Charity acts this part much better for though that which she loves be in heaven she journeys thither without weariness she goes to seek him whom the Angels enjoy Iter tuum ad caelum voluntas tua gradus tui affecius tui ambulas affectibus non pedibus accedis ad Deum amando recedis negâ—igendo stans in terra in caelo es si diligas Deum Aug. and leaving the Sun and Stars belowe her is swallowed up in that Abyss of Glory whose elongation caused her torment For S. Augustine excellently informs me our Affections are our Wings and our Will is our Guide to conduct us to heaven You think perhaps you must build a tower to ascend thither that the Angels must be invited down to assist you or that the wings of a dove must be borrowed to convey you thither but your Love is your Pole-star by your Desires you scale those heavenly regions by your negligence you stand at distance from them and loving God upon the earth you may boast your selves already in heaven For it is not with the
Soul as with the Body this cannot move without changing of place but that needs onely change her affection and presently she ascends she is where she would be her love makes all her objects present and assoon as over she sixeth her affection upon any thing 't is no longer at a distance This is it which he delivers admirably in another passage We can never be better then when we are with him whom nothing can equal in goodness we go thither not walking but loving and he is so much the neerer and at hand by how much our Love is more pure and vigorous Then letting us see the advantage Charity hath above Concupiscence he brings in God speaking these words which evidence an Oracle I command you to love me and I assure you that in doing so you shall enjoy me Sinners possess not all that they love there are covetous worldlings that sigh for gold and yet are poor Ambitious persons that are passionate for glory and yet are infamous but every one that loves me findes me I am with him that seeks for me his love makes me present in his soul assoon as he longs for me I am in his embraces and I leave off to be absent assoon as he begins to be in love with me Though there is not any lover that hath spoken more nobly of this residence of God in our souls by Charity then S. Augustine the Fathers his followers have used the same language and once instructed in the School of Divine Love have acknowledged that 't was impossible to love God and not to possess him Qui mente integra Deum desiderat profecto jam habet quem amat neque enim quisquam posset Deum diligere si hunc quem diligit non haberet Greg. mag in Moral See what S. Gregory saith in his Morals which differs little from what S. Augustine hath delivered in his Confessions The Believer that seeks after God without dividing his affections possesseth him already whom his soul loveth For he could never be amorous for him were he not filled with his love and inanimated with his presence S. Bernard who serves for an Interpreter to the Spouse in the Canticles and expresseth her minde with as much innocent nakedness as winning sweetness brings her in holding the same discourse She comforts her self in the absence of her Beloved by the belief she hath that she bears him in her heart and that she is the living throne of him who never forsakes her but to exercise her patience Let us conclude this Discourse with the highest operation of Love and say that this last effect is to transform Lovers into the things that they love and to stamp them with their qualities This property is so natural to Love that it remains with it even when it exerciseth its power over inanimate things If the Elements jar if they trouble the peace of the Universe by their contestations if these four bodies that compose all others seem to engage whole Nature in their quarrels 't is Love that obligeth them to the combat and when Fire and Water dispute in the bosome of the clouds or in the bowels of the earth they have no other designe but to transform each other Love hath a greater share in their difference then Ambition neither do they strive so much to destroy one another as to be united that they may be but one and the same thing Concupiscence succeeds wonderfully in this enterprise she imprints in men all the qualities of those objects she obligeth them to be in love with and by a strange Metamorphosis deprives them of their proper inclinations to indue them with strange external ones They become abominable as the things that they doat upon they change their Nature in changing their Love and we see by experience that Lascivious persons become effeminate as the women they caress that the Ambitious assume the vanity of that glory they court and the Covetous become as sensless as the metal they adore Similes eis fiant qui saciuns ea omnes qui confidunt in eis Psal 115. Therefore David justly wished that Idolators following the laws of Love might become like their Idols and might lose speech and motion for their love towards dumb and sensless gods that the Israelites might more easily defeat them in the combat But inasmuch as Concupiscence plays the deceiver she makes good but half her promises to her servants For she transforms them onely to their loss she changeth them meerly to make them miserable and of all the qualities the things they love are indued with she communicates none to them for the most part but bad ones The Lustful who contract the lightness of women gain not their beauty The Covetous who grow stupid as their metal extract not its value and the Ambitious who vapour like the glory they feed upon become not always Soveraigns But Charity which is more sincere and more powerful then Concupiscence happily transforms Christians into what they love she imprints upon them the qualities of heaven and makes them heavenly upon earth by different degrees it exalts them as high as Divinity it self she gives them what the devil promised their first father she changeth them into Gods by a holy Metamorphosis and makes them innocently obtain what Pride made them heretofore insolently covet For Mans most ancient passion is to be like God this was his crime and his desire in Paradise 't was upon this consideration that he listned to the devil and under this hope he violated the command of God His Pride was punished with an ignominious brand and he that pretended to an equality with his Soveraign saw himself reduced to the condition of his meanest Subjects This correction made him not forget his desire he preserved his arrogance in the midst of his misery and being but the relique of innocent man he could not forbear to wish to be a God Piety hath taught him an honest means to content his ambition Grace takes pains to assimilate him according to his desire the Vertues are so many draughts compleating this Image but Charity their Queen gives it perfection She it is that satisfies his longings and raising him above himself happily transforms him into God This is the end of all the designes of this august Vertue the Master-piece of her power the triumph of her glory and when she hath brought Man to this height of felicity she is content because he is happie Let us not advance so important a Vertue without caution let us make it appear that he who was so well acquainted with the nature of Love was not ignorant of his effects Let us make use of the words of S. Augustine Men saith he take their name from what they love they owe their condition to their affection as wives take the quality of their husbands and Lovers those of their Mistresses so in loving the earth they become earthly in loving heaven they become heavenly and carrying their
affection higher in loving God they become Divine But there needs no other proof of this verity but the Mystery of the Incarnation where Love triumphing over God himself made him assume the form of a Man invested him with our nature and our miseries loaded him with our sins and obliged him to appear before his Father as a Penitent or rather as an Anathema This prodigious change makes us look for another For God was not made Man but that Men might be made Gods he was humbled that they might be exalted he took their nature that he might bestow his upon them nor did he suffer his love to render him like Man but to perswade them that the same love may liken them to God The Seventh DISCOURSE Of the Prudence Justice Fortitude and Temperance of a Christian THough sin hath committed so many outrages against Nature divided her Forces obscured her Lights and weakned her Liberty yet hath he not been able to destroy the workmanship of God There remains to man since his Fall some strength to combat his enemies some light to discover errours and some liberty to defend him against evil After his Transgression his misery opened his eyes when seeking out remedies for his disease he made himself a Morality which taught him vertues to rectifie those disorders his disobedience had occasioned in his person Some call them the Reliques of Innocence Virtus ars est nou natura Senec. but without any reason Because the Vertues that accompanied that happle condition having no enemies were not obliged to stand upon their guard Others call them the Succours of sinful Man and that very justly Because they help him in his necessities and comfort him in his misfortunes They believe that Adam receiving them from God after his repentance for his fault taught them his children and left them these arms to combat their Passions But inasmuch as they went not to him who had bestowed them upon their father and had reserved himself the power of dispensing them to their children there remained nothing but the appearance and the name Concupiscence took the place of Charity and animating her false Vertues made them true Sins This made S. Augustine so often profess that the Prudence of the Heathen is blind and interessed that their Fortitude is upheld meerely by Vanity that their Temperance overcomes one passion with another and that their Justice being arrogant seeks only fair pretences to authorise its usurpations So that these Vertues have not recovered their Primitive purity but by the grace of Christianity They owe all their worth to Charity they are acceptable to God because they proceed from Jesus Christ nor can they hope for an eternal recompence but because they have a Supernatural and Divine Principle Therefore the same Doctor mingles Charity always in the definition of these Vertues Definitio brevis est vera virtutis ardor amoris propter quod dicit sponsa ordinate in me charitatē Aug. lib. 15. de Civ cap. 12. Prudentia est in eligendis Temperantia in utendis Fortitudo in tolerandis Justitia in distribuendis Aug. and makes them passe for so many severall motions or functions of Love In this conceit he cals Prudence an illuminated Love Justice a regulated Love Fortitude a couragious Love and Temperance a faithful Love But because this definition seems to limit these Vertues and many think they are not so much the Impulses as the Ministers of Love Let us say that Prudence is a Practicall Science teaching the soul what it ought to doe inspiring her with a love of good things and a detestation of bad and carrying light into the understanding teacheth it to discern what is profitable from what is hurtful Fortitude is a couragious Vertue making us suffer with an evennesse of mind affronts and griefs 'T is a victorious habit that triumphs in suffering and owes the best part of her advantages to the bitternesse of the afflictions that persecute her 'T is a stability of spirit against all the miseries of the world a resolution to fight and overcome all the labours that accompany life 'T is a Vertue whose generous humour makes us desire great things contemn low things and endure hard things or it is a Vertue that raiseth the soul above Fear apprehending nothing but dishonour and which instructs us to carry our selves equally in favours and in disgraces If we will shut her up within the bounds of Christianity we may say it is a Vertue inform'd with Grace preparing us to undergo all things rather then fail of our duty Temperance is a just dominion of reason over the passions but especially over those that flatter us by the pleasure they promise and employ voluptuousnesse to seduce us 'T is a Vertue that teacheth us to wish nothing that may cause shame in us or regret not to doe any thing that exceeds the bounds of reason to suffer nothing that may diminish her authority and foment the rebellion of her lawful subjects Or to use Saint Augustines expressions 't is an affection that subdueth the Concupiscible appetite and gives it not leave to hunt after those pleasures which are accompanied with shame or followed wich repentance Justice is a Vertue that prefers the publick interests before private and many times punisheth a Delinquent with more severity then his fault requires to stop the course of evil and to astonish other offenders According to the opinion of Saint Ambrose it is a Vertue which hath more respect to the service of others then of it self and considers more the advantages of her neighbour then her own According to Aristotle it renders every one their due punisheth Vice rewards Vertue maintains the peace of the State by the severity of punishments and the liberality of recompences Let us adde with Seneca though very blind in the knowledge of Christian Vertues that Justice is a secret Convention Nature hath contracted with men for the succour of the innocent or distressed that it is a Divine Law that entertains humane society preserves every man his right and not respecting the quality of the persons considers only their merits Finally 't is a Christian Vertue which enlightned by Faith animated with Charity obligeth man to satisfie at once God himself and his neighbour Having examined the nature of these Vertues it remains that we take notice of their use and the profit that ariseth from them S. Augustine whom in Morality I look upon as my Guide and in Divinity my Master saith that these Vertues are given to the soul to imbellish her and to arm her against Vices Prudence teacheth her what she is to doe is in stead of a Torch to light her in the darknesse of the world Temperance learns her not to bee charmed with pleasure Fortitude not to be vanquished with griefs and Justice not to be transported with her own interests or to expresse another way no lesse solidly and more pleasingly the obligations of these Vertues it concerns Prudence
his Obedience or his Rebellion and thus it is always true that Repentance is a favour reserved for man and if it leane not upon the unconstancy of his mind it is founded at least upon the length of his life which seems therefore prolonged that he may have time to repent But if Repentance be not natural to man 't is at least necessary for a sinner if it be not his difference 't is his remedy if it be not his propriety 't is his only refuge and as Tertullian saith 't is the Table after the Shipwrack Man in Paradise might save himself by his Innocence this acceptable convoy had brought him through a Garden of Roses he had found pleasure with vertue he had conquered without fighting and though he had had no enemies he had not failed to triumph But now there remains only Repentance which swims in bloud or in tears which is covered with earth or with ashes which blots out no transgressions but by lamentations satisfies not the Justice of God but by preventing his arrests nor gaines any battles but those that cost him fighs or wounds The sinner following the Counsels of this austere Vertue is always animated against himself his whole life is spent in sorrow and since he lost Grace he is obliged to bid adiew to all pleasure his very reconciliation with God dispenseth not with him from this severity To be a Christian Nullus hominiū transit ad Christum ut incipiat esse quod non erat nisi eū poeniteat fuisse quod erat Aug. intitles him to be a Penitent 't is enough that he hath sinned in Adam to live in sadness and being a member of Jesus Christ he is bound over to penance For though the union he contracts with this adorable Head in Baptism happily deliver him from all his sins that he recovers Innocence with Grace and be freed from all those pains which are prepared for offenders in Hel he becomes Penitent in becoming Innocent and the same Sacrament that ties him to Jesus Christ engageth him in griefs and sufferings The Son of God uniting the Divinity with the Humanity in his Person is pleased also to unite all things that seemed incompatible Having surpassed the difficulties that withstood the accomplishment of this mystery having accorded power with weakness Non-Entity with Beeing Life with Death he would make Innocence friends with Repentance and charge himself with the pains our sins deserved without interessing the holiness that made him impeccable he was the most just and most afflicted of all men he was equally divided between the blessed and the penitent his soul resented grief with joy and at the same time that he reigned with the Angels he suffered with Mortals According to his example the greatest Saints have laboured to joyne Repentance with Innocence His Mother the purest of Virgins the Holiest of Women bare the infirmities of our nature without contracting the obligations and to imitate her Son was content to be miserable though she were not criminal Saint John Baptist who was a sinner but for some months who received Grace in his mothers belly who after the Virgin was the first object of the miracles of Jesus who was born without sin nor brought into the world with him the ignominious quality of a sinner This great Saint I say was the example of Penitents he spent his whole life in the Desarts he had no other covering then that of Trees or Rocks Earth served him for a Bed Sackcloth for a Garment Water for Drink and Locusts for Food He added the labours of preaching to the austerity of penance he reproved sin with boldness his generous freedome procured him the hatred of the great ones and for a recompence of so many vertues he lost his head at the intreaty of an incestuous woman Thence it comes to pass that the Christian having the honour to be a member of Jesus Christ is obliged to Repentance the favour he hath received in the Church gives him no dispensation from this duty and if he have the use of Reason when admitted to Baptism his Contrition must precede that Sacrament and recover his lost Innocence by the assistance of this vertue His obligation continues with his life For as the Grace of Christianity does not enfranchise him fully from Concupiscence but he groans still under the weight of his irons sees his heart divided between self-Self-love and Charity that both these principles make him act successively and having obeyed Grace obeys Sin again he is bound to run to sorrow to deface his light offences with Tears and to spend his whole life in Repentance It is the opinion of S. Augustine who carries this truth on farther and imposeth a more severe law upon Christians for be will not have Innocence it self to exempt them from Grief he will have them sigh not because of their sin but because of their banishment he will have them bewail their exile as long as long as it lasts and condemning their coldness that can finde any pleasure in this sad abode saith that the Believer who hath not an aversion for this mortal and perishable life can have no love for the Eternal and Beatifical his regret ought to be an argument of his love and that it becomes him to bemoan his abode upon earth if he have a real desire of being speedily translated to heaven This great Master of Grace seeks no other motives of Repentance then the miseries of life he thinks it sufficient to sad our hearts that we live under the tyranny of sin that we feel the rebellions of the flesh and suffer the persecution of the Elements the justice of these continued pains teacheth us that we are guilty the Prayer that Christ taught us confirms us in this belief and seeing we cannot be his disciples except we daily say Dimitte nobis debita nostra we must confess we are not free from sin otherwise the Church would abuse the Faithful the Son of God himself had involved us in an errour and as S. Augustine saith asking pardon for a sin we never committed we should utter a blasphemy because we should lye in the midst of our most august mysteries We cannot doubt then that Repentance is necessary for a Christian nor can we deny that to the end it may be profitable it must be severe especially if the precedent sins have been notorious For as Repentance is a kinde of Justice it proportions the Punishment to the Offence it respects the quality of the delinquents considers the Majestie offended and casting its eyes upon the torments of the damned strives to make some resemblance of them in the revenge it takes upon Criminals Let us carefully examine all these Reasons see the just motives we have to punish our selves and not to slatter our lazie negligence in so important a concernment let us consider the qualities of this Vertue Repentance is a Judgement where contrary to the ordinary Laws the same Delinquent is Witness
Judge and Executioner In the quality of a Witness he is bound to examine his Conscience to Wrack his Memory to search the inmost thoughts of his Minde the secretest intentions of his Will and to convent himself before himself without Excuse or Flattery As a Judge he ought to consider the Number and the Quality of the crimes dextrously to examine the prisoner carefully to observe the cause of the fault and with Justice to pronounce sentence whereby the Criminal may suffer according to his desert and the party offended receive fatisfaction to his dignity And because soul and body are both concerned in the sin they must be joyntly condemned but the soul being the author of the iniquity and the body but the minister or complice he must begin the correction by an inward sadness mixed with Fear and Love and finish it by an external pain attended with Shame and Sorrow For there would be a kinde of Injustice to separate those in the Punishment that were Partners in the Fault and the Repentance would be imperfect did it not reach the body as well as the soul Having pronounced righteous judgement the Judge must take upon him the quality of the Executioner and execute what himself hath ordained being zealous for the Justice of God betraying Self-love so that he abandon it to Charity and full of anger and indignation revenge Jesus Christ upon his enemy All true Penitents have done thus the Contrition of their spirit hath produced the Maceration of their body and having conceived a mortal displeasure at their offences they have obliged their eyes to bewail them their hands to punish them and their mouthes to confess them They joyned Fastings to Prayer Watchings to Reading Discipline to Obedience that mortifying both soul and body they might obtain pardon for both these offenders Nothing can yeeld such assistance to so good a designe as the consideration of a second quality of Repentance For it takes the name from Pain 't is a Punishment as well as a Judgement 't is mingled with Grace and Rigour In peccatorem poenitentia pronuntians pro Dei indignatione fungitur temporali afflictatione aeterna supplicia non dicam frustratur sed expungit Tertul. and according to the conceit of Tertullian 't is an abridgement of eternal pains The sinner if a believer is not ignorant that his crimes which inflict death upon his soul merit hell he knows very well the decree is gone out the truth whereof he cannot question and that every transgressor that loseth Grace is worthy of the Torments the devil and his angels suffer When he is converted therefore and by the favour of Repentance hath his sins remitted he is obliged in spirit to descend into the centre of the earth to consider the pains the damned endure and then to equalize his sorrow he ought to imitate what he hath seen and to deal so severely with himself that he may satisfie that Justice which inflicts eternal punishments upon his enemies But nothing ought so much to animate him against himself as the consideration of his offence which being in its own nature infinite merits eternal punishments For though the sin be committed in a moment Momentaneum est quod delectat aeternum est quod cruciat Greg. Mag. and the pleasure that accompanies it be but an illusion yet doth it put the sinner in a condition out of which he cannot arise but by Grace which is not at his disposal He falls into this abyss by his own proper motion but he cannot get out of it by his own strength He may defend himself when he is tempted but being overcome he cannot rid himself of his enemy He enters into a slavery that insensibly engageth him into a necessity If Grace which he cannot challenge as his due prevent him not he lives and dies in a very deplorable condition and carries the same minde into hell which he cherished upon the earth Therefore doth the Divine Justice that reads mens hearts and looks rather upon the dispositions then actions of offenders inflict an eternal punishment upon a sin not fully finished and condemns a transgressor to endless torments who had always offended had he always lived But though he should not retain this unhappie disposition till his death 't is enough to merit an everlasting punishment that he hath committed a sin whose malice hath no bounds For Reason tells us there is no proportion between the Creature and the Creator the distance that separates them is infinite and therefore the sinner that forsakes the Creator to adhere is infinite Qui peccat mortaliter vult Deum esse impotentem aut injustum aut insipientem quia vellet Deum aut sua peccata nescire aut vindicare non posse aut vindicare nolle Bern. offers him an infinite injury which cannot justly be punished but by an eternaltorment Indeed he endeavours to destroy God by his offence he would rob him of his perfections and in the minde he is in to content himself he would have God void of light to see him without goodness to hate him without power to correct him Therefore is the Penitent at the sight of so many disorders and injustices obliged to make war upon himself to take Gods part against himself to punish a delinquent severely whose due it is to burn eternally and to continue a torment during his life which ought to continue for all generations The Tenth DISCOURSE Of the Renunciation and Self-denial of a Christian POlicie and Religion in the difference of their designes exact the same dispositions in their subjects Policie will have men prefer Publike interests before Private and to sacrifice their Fortune for the preservation of the State Religion also will have men consider nothing but the glory of Jesus Christ being always ready to immolate themselves in his quarrel Policie will not have men wedded to their goods lest Avarice should make them cowards Religion going a step further obligeth them to a voluntary poverty and will have them really or in affection divorced from their riches Finally Policie will have Subjects renounce their Will that they be more the States then their own Families and depend more upon their Soveraign then on Themselves Religion requires the same duty from her disciples Qui vult venire post me abneget semetipsum tollat crucem suam sequatur me Luc. 9. and will ahve them renounce their inclinations when they are admitted into the Church and Jesus Christ to be the Master of their actions and of their persons All the Maximes she gives us tend to this end all her counsels inspire us with this disposition and it seems the whole Gospel hath no other intention then to make us die to our selves that we may be guided by Jesus Christ And certainly we must confess If there be Rigour in the designe there is much Justice in it For besides that the Church no more then the State can subsist without submission and
his bounty ought to live for his service Thence he concludes that we offer our members as oblations and employ all that we are for the glory of our Redeemer Slaves in the negotiations of the world could not dispose of their actions they acted by order of their Master they took pains for his Interest they got wealth for his profit and as if nature had lost her right in their persons they got children to increase his family Philosophers acknowledge that servitude fals only upon the body that it fetters only the feet and the hands leaving the slaves more free many times in their irons then the Soveraigns upon their Throne Bondage hath no dominion over their wil and with all her rigours cannot extort the least baseness from them if they be generous they dispute their liberty with fortune they preserve in deed what they have lost in appearance they many times command their oppressour and bearing the hearts of Kings in the bodies of slaves are more free and more happy then their Master But the Christian enters by Redemption into a Thraldome which passeth from his body into his soul fetters his heart with his hands triumphs over his liberty without constraining it confiscates all his goods to his Soveraign and despoiling him of all but Nothingness and Sin obligeth him to confess that he owes all the rest to the Liberaility of his Redeemer For the understanding of this Verity which makes one of the foundations of Christianity we must know that though God be the Soveraign of all men he treats not the innocent and the guilty alike He seems to respect the former to refuse them nothing that they desire preventing their wishes and in that happy state wherein Concupiscence had not disordered them he subjected their salvation to their liberty and made them in some sort the disposers or masters of their good fortune Grace is always at the door of their heart this Divine assistance never fails them and God would think he violated the Laws of his Justice had he not given these Innocents all that is necessary for their salvation But he deals far otherwise with Guilty men It seems Sin gives him more right over these wretches then Nothing does and being fallen from their priviledges by their own fault he owes them nothing but punishments He abandons them to their own conduct leaves them in blindness and weakness and as if they were meerly the objects of his anger he sometimes withdraws from them the assistance of his Grace Thus did the Eternal Father deal with men before the mystery of the Incarnation his Son found them in this deplorable condition when he undertook their deliverance they had no right neither to Grace nor Glory and sin that had deprived them of their innocence had confiscated all their apennages Thus we owe our Salvation to our Redemption we hold that of Mercy which heretofore we held of Justice we are saved rather as men enfranchised then free and acknowledging our salvation an effect rather of Grace then our own freedome we ought to renounce the one to give our selves over to the other This conceit carries me insensibly to another which seems only a consequent of this and the coherence they have will not give me leave to divide them Man in the state of Innocence was the master of his actions the uprightness wherein he was created was the cause that God left him to his liberty having no inordinate motions to regulate no wild passions to subdue no unfaithful senses to correct he had need only of a succour to sustain him His will was the principle of his merit and the good works he did proceeded rather from himself then from God Thus his good fortune was in a manner in his own hands he depended more upon Liberty then upon Grace and being the Director of this he might say without vanity that he was the principal Authour of his own salvation Divine Providence obliged him to take the guidance of himself to determine his own actions that he was the master of his fortune and making use of the advantages she had given him the acknowledgement of the victory was due only to his own courage and dexterity But now that he is faln from his Innocence hath lost half his Light and Liberty carries a Tyrant in his very Essentials which subjects him to his Laws he stands in need of a Grace that may deliver him and exercising a dominion over his will may save him by a more humble but surer way then that of Adam He is no longer the Master of his actions nor the Authour of his salvation he must take direction from Jesus Christ learn to deny himself distrust his own abilities and place his hope in that victorious Grace which subjects whose man captivating his understanding by Faith and his will by Love This Oeconomy of God towards the Christian is mixed with Justice and Mercy 't is Justice to take from him the disposall of his person because he used it so ill in the state of Innocence 'T is Justice to submit his Liberty to Grace because when he was the master thereof he neglected to make use of it 'T is Justice to treat him as a Pupil or a Slave not to trust him any more with the government of himself and to employ for his cure a remedy which reproacheth him with his blindness and infirmity 'T is Mercy also to knock off the fetters of a slave to indulge him the true liberty his sin had deprived him of to unite him to God from whom he was estranged to assure his salvation by a Grace which infallibly produceth its effect to sanctifie him in Jesus Christ whereof he is a Member and to give him an occasion to offer himself an Holocaust to God For it is true that self-denial is a parting with all things a sacrifice wherein man immolates his will by obedience a combat wherein he triumphs over himself where he is the vanquisher and the vanquished where he subdues his passions by reason and subjects his reason to grace After this advantage there is none but he may with Justice hope for because he that hath conquered himself may easily conquer all others 'T is a punishment which in hardship and durance disputes with that of Martyrs It is long because it lasts as long as life may take up the best part of an age nor spares the strength of the penitent but to make him suffer more It is rigorous because there is no cruelties a man given over to grace does not exercise upon his person and being witty to invent torments converts all things into corrections For as Saint Gregory the Great saith he suppresseth vanity by the sword of the Word of God he cuts off his head to ingraffe Jesus Christ upon his body he makes all die that he received from the old Adam to make all live that he hath drawn from the new and if he cut not off his arms and his legs he pares
away his desires and his hopes to give Jesus Christ some testimonies of his love Therefore doth the Scripture inform us that there is no Vertue receives a greater recompence then Self-denial The Man that is knockt off from himself is united to the Son of God the creatures respect him the Sun obeys his word and 't is in this sense that the Scripture to make his Panegyrick is not content to say that he pronounceth Oracles but addes that he gains Battles and bears away victories by speaking All things stoop to his commands and more glorious then the first man who could not use the creatures but according to their inclinations he disorders them to make himself feared and testifies the power he hath in the state of his Master by the command he exerciseth over all the parts of the Universe Thus Self-denial which seems to abase men raiseth them up the Vertue that entertains them in the distrust of their weakness gives them admittance into the power of God and that which obligeth them to renounce their own will makes them find the accomplishment of all their desires The Sixth TREATISE Of the Nourishment and Sacrifice of the Christian The first DISCOURSE Of Three Nourishments answering the Three Lives of a Christian. SOme will wonder perhaps that in the same Treatise I joyn two such different things together and that speaking of Nourishment which preserves the life of a Christian I treat of a Sacrifice that engageth him in Death But the wonder will cease if we consider that these two things are united together in Religion and that the same Sacrament that feeds us obligeth us also to die For the Son of God upon our Altars is as well our Nourishment as our Victim inviting us to a Feast he bids us to a Sacrifice and his Love associating two Subjects which have so small a relation he makes use of one and the same body to destroy our sins and to preserve our souls He offers himself up to his Father as an innocent Sacrifice and gives himself to the Faithful as a delicious Viand His Power which equals his Love takes from this Sacrifice whatever might render it horrid and removes from this Banquet whatever might make it sensual In both of them he satisfies his Father and his Children and exalting us in the light of Faith makes us believe what we cannot conceive Following therefore his intentions I have joyned in the same Treatise what he hath joyned in the same Mystery and resolve to manifest the wonders of this Food and the Prodigies of this Sacrifice Reason that teacheth us that Nourishment is the staff of Life teacheth us also that every living thing hath need of Nourishment and that the Divine Providence whose care is extended over all the Creatures hath left none without aliment This feedeth the Fowls of the air and the Psalmist confesseth it provided for the necessities of their young when forsaken by the dams It maketh Grass to grow in the desarts for the Cattel and Rain which seems unprofitably to fall into the Sea serves for refreshing and meat for the Fishes Inasmuch as Men are Gods master-pieces he takes a particular care to nourish them whole Nature labours to furnish their Table her fruitfulness is onely to satisfie their hunger or content their appetite and every Creature she teems with seems a Victim to be immolated to preserve their life But as they have Three Lives that answer to the Three Orders of Nature of Grace and of Glory God hath given them Three sorts of Food which in the difference of their qualities cease not to have wonderful Correspondencies The Earth is the Nurse that furnisheth us our chiefest nourishment that Divine word Crescite multiplicamini which enricht her with fruitfulness in the very birth hath preserved this prolifical vertue in the succession of so many yeers and if the Justice of God make her not barren for our punishment she returns with usury the laborious pains of the Husbandman Corn which is our principal support is multiplied by its corruption 't is born by death and making us see an image of the Resurrection perswades us our bodies may rise out of the Grave after they have been resolved to dust because the Grain springs not up till it be putrified in the earth This production would pass for a Miracle were it not so common and to observe the wonders thereof would be sufficient to oblige all men to reverence the power and wisdom of the Creator For when the Corn is corrupted it puts forth a bud which cleaves the earth and covers it with a tuft of Grass which preserves its verdure in the midst of the sharpest Winters At the Spring it thrusts forth a stalk which riseth insensibly and from time to time is strengthned with joynts to resist the violence of the windes Upon the top is formed an Ear wherein Nature seems to employ all her industry Seritur solummodo granum sine folliculi teste sine fundamento spicae fine munimento aristae fine superbia culmi Exurgit autem copia faenâ—ratum compagine aedisicatam ordine structum cultu munitum usquequaque vestituÌ„ Tertul. every grain is inclosed in a husk that if one be corrupted the rest may not be infected and the evil prove not a contagion each husk is fenced with a prizly sharp to guard the inclosed fruit from the injury of the air and the rapine of birds The heat of the Summer compleats the whole work gives it Colour in giving it Maturity and gently opening the several cells which lock up the treasure of the Husbandman admonisheth him to prepare for the Harvest If this Wonder ravish us and if we are bound to reverence the Divine Providence which makes the earth fruitful to nourish us we are not less concerned to admire the prodigious alterations it causeth in Nature to increase provision For it makes use onely of Rain to enrich us and from this inexhausted source draws so many different Fruits that if their number please us their qualities astonish us Rain is nothing but a Vapour in the conception the Sun sports with it in the air thickens it into a cloud to take it out of our sight then destroying his own work dissolves it into showers to water the thirsty earth In the mean time this Rain is turned into all things it toucheth takes the nature and quality of those things it bathes and by a miraculous Metamorphosis is changed into Wine falling upon grapes into Oil upon olives It contracts the taste of all Fruits and the colour of all Flowers It grows yellow upon the Marigolds red upon Pinks white upon Lilies and though when it falls it have neither taste nor colour yet may it boast it gives both to all Fruits and all Flowers This prodigious change which is daily wrought upon the earth is but an overture of that which is made upon the Body of Man to maintain it For all the Nourishment he
receives is digested by the Stomack and is turned to Blood in the Liver thence it is conveyed by the Veins into all the parts of the body which assimilating it into their substance gives it as many forms as they themselves have There by a strange prodigie the same aliment is softned into Flesh hardned into Bones stiffned into Sinews extended into Cartilages its superfluities are not useless and if we be-believe Physitians they serve to nourish our Hair and our Nails whereof the first is the ornament of the Head the second the defence of the Hand Who will not acknowledge that Man is very dear to God since he works so many Miracles to feed him and produceth so many several Meats to entertain a life common to him with beasts But inasmuch as that of the Soul is much more noble the nourishment whereby it is preserved is exceedingly more excellent and if in the order of Nature God hath made so many prodigies to nourish Man he works many more in the order of Grace to entertain the Christian For the body of his oncly Son is the food of the Faithful they live upon that Blood which begat them on the Cross that the same Principle which gave them their life may preserve it This Body is formed upon our Altars by the Word of Jesus Christ himself the Priests are onely the Ministers or Interpreters they repeat what he delivered in the Supper they do that in the Church that he did at Jerusalem and offering up this Sacrifice to the Eternal Father make provision to nourish the Faithful Thus in Nature and in Grace 't is the Word of God that makes us live and we may truely say Non in solo pane vivit homo sed in omni verbo quod procedit ex ore Dei But this Bread that nourisheth our souls is not of the same quality with that that nourisheth our Bodies For the Corn whereof this is made owes its Life to its Death nor can increase till it be corrupted but that which is exhibited to us upon our Altars felt corruption onely on the Cross where dying to procure us life he himself boasted that he was the Grain of Corn whose fruitfulness proceeds from its corruption Si mortuum fuerit multum fructum affert But now it is incorruptible in our Tabernacles death can no more injure it the Glory that invests it secures it from our fury as well as our wrongs We must acknowledge nevertheless that its presence depends upon the species that cover it it ceaseth to be with us when the heat hath digested them or time consumed them and though he remain by his Grace his body is absent which is tied to accidents as to chains his love hath forged for it He never dispenseth with this bondage the treachery of Judas could not make him violate the laws he had prescribed the blinde fury of Hereticks cannot compel him out of this prison and the impiety of Sinners hath not been able to force him to quit their hearts till the species that preserved him there be consumed by the natural heat He is as faithful to observe his promises as to obey the will of his Father and as the blasphemies of the Jews could not make him descend from the Cross to give them proofs of his Innocence and of his Divinity the sacriledges of prophane Christians cannot make him desert the Hoast where his love and fidelity hold him prisoner Though he be subject to all these humiliations to become our nourishment he is not liable for all that to all the conditions of Nutriment For he passeth not into our substance he is not changed into those that receive him and in his debasement he reserves himself the power to convert them into him His being our Food hinders him not from being our God he acts upon those that feed upon him he makes an impression of his Divine qualities in their souls and if he changeth not their Nature at least he makes them change their Condition and their Life Neither ought this to seem strange to those that consider that Natural meats communicate their qualities to us and by a mutual Metamorphosis we are changed into them when they are assimilated into us 'T is believed that Nero was therefore cruel because he suckt the milk of a cruel Nurse and that Achilles was therefore valiant because his Master nourished him with the marrow of Lions Experience it self teacheth us that people draw their humours from the earth that bears them and the heaven that covers them Those that are bred among Rocks are savage those that live in the fertile Plains are more tractable Therefore we need not wonder if the Christians feeding upon a Divine meat do so easily change their inclinations Auâ—ite officaciam communionem corporis sanguinu Domini nos Jesu Christo Jesus Christus nobis in unitate foederatur inenarrabili sicut ipse dicit Qui manducat carnem meum in me manet ego in eo Bern. because more powerful and successful then ordinary food it hath the vertue of conveying its own qualities and of changing the guests into it self And from this Principle do the Fathers draw the obligation the Christians have to be gods upon earth because they receive a God in the Eucharist who acting according to the extent of his power would transform them into himself were not his Divine operations hindered by the weakness or malice of the recipient But that which is begun upon Earth is happily perfected in Heaven where Divinity being the food of the Blessed raiseth them to a condition where leaving off to be Mortals they commence Gods Indeed the holy Scripture teacheth us that the Beatifical state is a Feast where God communicating his Essence to Angels and Men makes them in one dish taste all imaginable delights For though there be diversity of conditions among the Blessed though the degrees of Glory answer the degrees of Love and those who have been most affectionate are those that God most honours yet all Theology confesseth that the Divine Essence is the only object of their felicity that every one enjoys all without division that though common to all 't is notwithstanding proper to each particular that being wholly communicated to one it takes nothing from the rest and more excellent then the light which enlightens one man as perfectly as the whole world it is as fully communicated to the lowest Angel as to the highest Seraphim God is divided upon the Earth without interessing his simplicity he communicates himself to the faithful but in part and handling every one according to their Merit and his Grate is not always the same to one that he is to another He hath manifested his Wisdome in Solomon his Clemency in David his Patience in Job his Love in Saint Peter his Zeal in Saint Paul his Purity in Saint John and his other perfections in the rest of the Faithful But at the end of the world God
contrary to all the laws of Nature that the Accidents subsist without their Subject and that the Substance of the Bread and Wine being turned into that of his Body and Blood keep notwithstanding its Colour Taste and Form He is multiplied without being divided to satisfie the love of his Spouse and admitting his Humanity into the priviledges of the Divinity filleth his State with his presence We are in a doubt whether he does not work a Miracle for the Faithful which is not indulged the Blessed and we are yet ignorant whether this divine multiplication be an effect of his glory or of his power For though there are some Divines who believe that glorified bodies may be in divers places without a miracle and that the part they have in the Immensity of God multiplies their bodies without dividing them the Schools have always lookt upon this effect as a prodigie and have taught us that the order of Glory had its Miracles as well as that of Nature and Grace Finally it seems that the Son of God to make his power and his love admired Dicitur virgini supervenient in te Spiritus sanctus dicâ—tur etiem Sacerdoti superveniet in te Spiritus sarctus efficiet quod intelligentiam tuam excedet Joan. Damasc had a minde in this Mystery to repeat all the Miracles he had wrought during the course of his life For if he were born of Mary without interessing her Virginity if making her a Mother he left her a Virgin if the Fruit she bare deflowred not her Purity he is produced in our Sacrifices without violating their Accidents and changing their substance into his alters not the Species that cover them If he turn water into wine at a Marriage in Cana and manifest himself the Master of the Elements in changing their qualies he appears no less absolute in a Sacrament where he turns the Bread into his Body the Wine into his Blood and the Creature into his Creator If he multiply the loaves in the wilderness and operate this prodigie by the hands of his Apostles they being ignorant of the manner he daily multiplies his Body by the hands of the Priests who cannot comprehend a miracle whereof they are the witnesses and the Ministers If heretofore he cured the sick that came unto him here he cures the diseased that receive him and if he raised the dead by his touch or by his Word here he promiseth life to all those that feed upon him and engageth himself by a promise as sure as an Oracle that he will draw all those out of the grave that have served him here for a Temple Thus this adorable Sacrament deserves the name of Manna better then Manna it self and ought no less to fill our hearts with astonishment then with love But to continue our resemblances and to manifest the truth in the figure The Psalmist hath observed that Manna was not a bare Nutriment but a preservative and a remedy For while the Israelites made use of it in the Desarts they were never molested with any infirmities Though they so often changed their Quarters marched through a Wilderness where the want of water and the multitude of serpents might make them fear an infection nevertheless this food which participated of the Tree of Life and made them taste in the Desarts the delights of Paradise so well suited with their temper that though they daily beheld rebels in their Camp they never saw any sick In Tribubus eorum non erat infirmus There by a strange prodigy diseases were not the harbingers of death they gave up the ghost without any pangs some small weakness gave them notice of the houre of their departure the soul fairly took leave of the body and the Feaver which seems the forrager of death durst not set upon men whom Manna served for nourishment The Eucharist works the same miracle in our souls that this Heavenly food did in their bodies It is at the same time diet and an Antidote it gives life and preserves it it delivers us from evil and then protects us against it it maintains the constitution of the soul in a regulated evenness of temper and much happier then physick which cannot tame the disease without weakning nature it deals so critically with the sins that it never prejudiceth the sinner Many times when Faith seconds Piety this Celestial viand extends its effects as far as the body it maintains health as well as salvation and cures the diseased as well as the wicked In the Primitive Church it wrought wonderful cures and the great Saint Cyprian tels us that Physitians were useless in those days because Christians found their cure in the Eucharist and proved there was the same Jesus present whose Word was heretofore so fatal to infirmities and so favourable to the infirm If in this particular it supass Manna in another it equals it Manna non solum sanitatem sed animum Judais conserebat Josâ—ph because in restoring health it infused strength and inspired courage For there are some Writers that are of opinion that the valour of the Israelites was an effect of Manna that they owed those formidable victories they gained from their enemies to this meat that came down from Heaven Neither ought this to seem strange to the incredulous since experience teacheth us that wine which is the pure work of Nature produceth daily the same effects drowns fear in its vapours inspires men with the contempt of dangers gives a new vigour to soldiers and constitutes the best part of their courage Therefore I am easily perswaded to believe that Manna wrought the same wonder in the Israelites whilest nourishing their body it maintained their valour and making them sound and lusty made them withall magnanimous and valiant Indeed inasmuch as this food was more miraculous then natural and acted rather by the directions of Heaven then the properties of its own nature it lost this faculty assoon as the Israelites lost grace and as if it had changed quality when they changed disposition it produced fear in the same hearts where it had formerly produced courage and assurance All these wonders were but the shadows of what we adore in the Eucharist which is not only the food but the force of the Christian we come from the Altar as Lions terrifying the Infernal Spirits they cannot endure our sight the presence of Jesus Christ wherewith we are surrounded startles them into a disorder and remembring that we bear about us the same slesh and bloud which triumphed over them upon Mount Calvary they dare not set upon us They flie such men who lodge a god in their souls and beholding their Judge seated in our hearts as upon his Throne they are afraid lest he pronounce sentence against them re-doubling their pains and aggravating their torments It was this Heavenly Bread that animated the Martyrs to the combat this adorable Bread that gave them courage to daunt their executioners and the sword of
that his Body is the Holocaust of his Love our Understanding must be the Victim of our Faith 'T is in this occasion that we ought to relie upon the Power and Truth of him that worketh this Miracle and examining the difficulties that combat our Faith we are onely to consider that he that hath drawn All things out of Nothing is still able to extract his Body out of the substance of the Bread Haec Sacramenta necessario fidem exigunt rationem non admittunt Bern. and change one thing into another since he was able to produce what was not This is the Mystery must be approached unto in the simplicity of Faith where we must believe Jesus Christ whom we do not see that Darkness being the midwife of Light we may behold him in heaven whom we have believed upon earth The second disposition of the Christian is derived from the second quality of this heavenly meat All Religion informs us that Heaven bestows this Nutriment upon us by the mighty power of its Love every effect we observe therein is a Miracle never will the Prodigies of Manna equal those of the Eucharist Tota ratio facti potentia facientis Aug. nothing is done here according to the laws of Nature God dispenseth with all those rules in other occurrences he obligeth himself unto and we may say that in this adorable Mystery he consults onely his Power and his Goodness He changeth the Elements without altering their qualities he sustains Accidents without their Substances he multiplies his Body without dividing it he nourisheth the Faithful with his Flesh without wasting it he is present in a thousand places at the same instant Whilst Men possess him the Angels do not lose him he is wholly in heaven and wholly upon the earth and as if the Incarnation were but an Essay of the Eucharist this gives all the world the same Body the other indulged onely to Judea Such a cloud of Miracles exact our silence and astonishment we must admire what we cannot comprehend and making Ignorance serviceable to Piety say with the Prophet Mirabilis Deus in sanctis suis magnus in operibus suis Indeed if we admire the wonders of Nature if that which surpasseth our apprehension ravish our understanding if the disorder of the Elements or the irregularity of the Seasons strike a kinde of awe into us Ought we not greatly to respect a Mystery whose every circumstance is a Miracle and every effect a Prodigie But inasmuch as this Food is an Earnest of Glory and this Feast whereto the Faithful are invited is a figure of that Eternal Banquet which the Blessed sit down at we must bring along with us Desire and Hope God gives us nothing upon the earth which he doth promise us aforehand to occasion our desires But because Promises are not bare words Judaei quippe habebant quandam umbram nos veritatem Judaei fuerunt servi nos filii Judaei per mare transierunt ad Eremum nos per Baptismum intravimus in Regnum Judaei Manna manducaverunt nos Christum Judaei pruinam nos Deum caeli Salvia he many times gives us a part of what he hath promised Though the Law were but a shadow of Truth the Sacraments thereof but vain and empty Figures yet did they contain something that the Israelites were to hope for by them Manna had qualities expressing those of the Body of Jesus Christ The Law though obscure was an exposition of the Gospel and rightly understood obliged us to love God above all things and our Neighbour as our selves The Sea which favoured their retreat in parting asunder and coming together again swallowed up the Egyptians darted forth some glimmerings of light amidst these shades of darkness and by sensible effects exhibited what was to be acted upon our souls in the Sacrament of Baptism The Land of Promise had some resemblance with that of the Living its plenty was an image of the felicity of heaven where nothing is wanting to the blessed inhabitants Nevertheless we must acknowledge that the pledges we receive in the New Testament are far more certain and substantial They exhibit the best part of what they promise they do what they make shew of and joyning the Figure with the Substance we may say that without depriving us of the quality of the Faithful they procure us that of the Blessed Baptism which raiseth us to the dignity of the Sons of God gives us admittance into his Inheritance we are already new creatures and though not yet perfected by Glory are notwithstanding begun to be wrought upon by Grace We are the members of Jesus Christ though we remain the members of Adam if the Charity the holy Ghost hath shed abroad in our hearts quench not Concupiscence at least it abolisheth the sin and though our righteousness be imperfect it fails not to be true The Incarnation raiseth our hopes and having seen a God made Man in being born of a Virgin we have not much ado to believe that Men may become Gods in being born of the Church But not to enter upon a deduction which would lead too far from the Subject of my discourse we need onely consider the Eucharist to be perswaded of this Verity It is a pledge wherein God performs what he promiseth 'T is part of that sum he bids us hope for Sacramenta prima erant praenvnitiativa Christi ideo ablata quia completa alia sunt instituta virtute majora utilitate meliora actu feliciora numero pauciora Aug. an Antepast of the felicity we expect neither is there any Christian who is not fully assured to possess Jesus Christ in heaven because he so entirely enjoys him on earth He waits with patience for the effect of so many gracious promises whereof he hath received such certain earnest he comforts himself in his discontents from the consideration of his advantages neither can he doubt that he that is so often sacrificed for his salvation will not wholly communicate himself for his happiness This infallible Gage exacts from us as much Desire as Confidence It is not enough to be assured of the promise of God we must long to have it effected our enjoyment ought to produce our yearning after it All Christians must be like Daniel men of desires and renouncing the things of the world fix all their pretensions towards heaven This Mystery that unites them to Jesus Christ must raise them as high as God and when his presence is vanished with the species the desires that Grace inspires them with must give them another rellish of what the natural heat hath made them lose by digestion This disposition prepares us for another more noble and more holy For if we are to express our longings because the Body of the Son of God is a pledge of his Promises we ought to be indued with Love and Fidelity because this Sacrament is a Marriage of his soul with ours Baptism is the Beginning and
the Eucharist the Consummation hereof we have engaged our word when we were admitted into the Church and receiving the character of our servitude we have given bond for our Faithfulness But in the Mystery of the Eucharist he deals with our souls as with his Spouse we become flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone he enters into our bosome and we into his his body and ours are animated with the same Spirit and partaking in all the qualities of our Beloved we have right to his most glorious priviledges But so noble an Alliance requires a great affection and much fidelity This Lover is jealous he will raign alone in the hearts that he possesseth as he cannot endure a Competitor in his State so neither can he a Rival in his Love he will have nothing loved but for his sake and because our adhesion to the Creature is not without imperfections he never beholds it without grief nor leaves it without punishment Whatever is prejudicial to Fidelity displeaseth he never breaks his word and therefore cannot endure we should fail of our duty He will keep what he hath once gotten and seeing his Power is equal to his Love he is as severe in his Revenge as he is liberal in his Favours When I consider the obligations we have to his Goodness I never wonder that his Justice corrects us but I am ashamed there should be any souls so negligently careless as to provoke him and that after so many favours any should be so wretched as to betray their duty and abandon Jesus Christ Nevertheless this crime is so common among Christians that those who will not break their word with an Enemy take no care to be true to the Son of God basely desert his party lodge the devil in the same Throne where they had seated their Soveraign and take an Adulterer into the bed from whence they have driven their lawful Husband If the remembrance of his favours cannot produce love in our souls the terrour of punishments must beget Fear For if he be our Beloved in the Eucharist he is also our Judge and having fruitlesly exhibited testimonies of his Goodness Qui enim manducat bibit indigne judicium fibi manducat hibit non dijudicans corpus Domini 1 Cor. 11. will sensibly inflict marks of his indignation The great Apostle of the Gentiles tells us that he that receiveth unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself that the Devil being the Minister of the Divine Justice takes visible possession of the soul of that Delinquent that he erects an Altar in his heart and of his slave making his victime engageth him in despair having engaged him in Sacriledge Et post buccellū introivit in cum Satanas Joan. 13. Thus dealt he with Judas when he had communicated unworthily The Evangelist observes that he entred into his soul urged him to execute his abominable design for a light interest obliterated out of his mind the remembrance of all the favours he had received from his Master and tumbling him from one precipice to another from Covetousnesse tempted him to Treachery from Treason to Sacriledge Diabolus intravit in cor ut traderet eum Judas quomodo intravit in cor nisi immittendo iniquas persuasiones cogitatienibus iniquorum Aug. de Consen Evang from Sacriledge to Parricide and from Parricide to Desperation For when the wicked spirit that possessed him had counselled him to betray the Son of God he counselled him to hang himself and setting him against himself made him make use of his own hands to inflict a just and cruel death upon himself Finally there is no mystery wherein the Son of God manifests more love or more severity where he obligeth more dearly or punisheth more strictly or pardons more rarely and because the crimes committed here are the greatest it seems the vengeance inflicted upon them is most memorable The first of all sinners is a great Saint in Heaven The man that was our Father and our Parricide both together De illo quidem primo homine patre generis humani quod eum in inferno solverit Christus Ecclesia fere tot a consentit quod eam non inaniter credidisse credendum est Aug. Epist 99. ad Enod The Criminal who is accessory to all the transgressions of the world The Father that engageth all his posterity in his offences and his punishment The Rebel who makes an Insurrection of all his Descendants against their lawful Soveraign That unfortunate Chief who lives yet after his death sins still in his members and by a dreadful prodigy being happy in his person is miserable and guilty in his posterity That old man who is new born in every sinner and in one word That Adam who committed a fault whole nature bewails to this day found his pard on in his repentance and whiles he sees Hel pepled with his off-spring enjoys glory with the Angels in Heaven That great King whom God raised to the Throne against all humane probability That Stripling who without arms gave a Gyant battle That Shepheard whose Crook was turned into a Scepter who reckoned his victories by his combats and boasted that the Lord of Hosts had trained him up in the Discipline of War This Prince who forgetting all these favours joyned Murder to Adultery and made an Innocent dye to cloak the dishonour of a debauched woman This glorious Criminal who saw all the Vials of Heaven poured down upon his Head his Kingdome divided his subjects revolted and his own children in the head of an Army against him This famous Delinquent reigns in glory with the Son of God his tears have washed away his iniquities and his grief more powerful then his offence opened him the gate of Heaven That Apostle who having received so many testimonies of affection from his Master forsook him so shamefully in the Garden of Gethsemane denyed him so openly in the house of Caiaphas is as great in Heaven as he was upon Earth The Church to this day reverenceth his Injunctions the Popes boast themselves his Successours and all the faithful glory in being his children That young man full of zeal and and fury who intended to strangle Christianity in the very Cradle who was the boutefew of the first persecution against the Disciples of Jesus who stoned Saint Stephen by their hands whose cloaths he kept De caelo vocavi una voce percussi alia erexi elegi tertia implevi misi quarta liberavi coronavi Aug. hath found his salvation in his sin He was converted when he went about to plunge himself in the bloud of the first believers he received Grace when he was upon the very point of encreasing the number of Parricides in one moment he became a Preacher of the Gospel an Apostle of the Son of God and the Master of the Gentiles But the first that ever profaned the Body of Jesus Christ and committed a Sacriledge in approaching the Altar
in that of Isaac it was obliged to separate the Priest from the Victime and to arm the hands of the Father to immolate his only Son In the mean time Jesus Christ unites them in his person and in this adorable Sacrifice which he offers to his Father whether on the Cross or on the Altar he is both the Priest that consecrateth and the Victime that is immolated Inasmuch as Jesus Christ saith Saint Augustine is our God and our Temple he is also our Sacrifice and our Priest He is the Priest that reconciles us he is the Sacrifice whereby we are reconciled and the same Doctor admiring the novelties of the sacrifice of the Cross expresseth his wonder by these words The Altar of the Sacrifice is new because the Immolation is new and admirable For he that is the Sacrifice is the Priest the Sacrifice according to the Flesh the Priest according to the Spirit and both according to his Humanity He that offereth and he that is offered is one and the same person and these qualities which have so little analogy are found united in the sacrifice of the Cross Inasmuch as the Christian is the Image of Jesus Christ and this glorious title obligeth him to transcribe his original he ought to sacrifice himself as he did and to be both the Priest and the Oblation together Indeed if we descend into the Mysteries of our Religion and consider with the eye of Faith what we are not able to discover with the light of reason we shall find that we are immolated upon the Altar with the Son of God and that after his example we are both the sacrificers and the sacrifice For Jesus Christ is not offered all alone in our Temples he is immolated by the hands of the Priests and at the same time that he offers his natural body to his Father he offers also his mystical body so that offering himself to his Father by his Church and offering his Church together with himself he teacheth all the Faithful to joyn the quality of Priests with that of Victimes This is it that Saint Augustine informs us of in his Book De Civitate Dei Per hoc sacerdos est ipse offerens ipse oblatio cujus rei Sacramentum quotidianū esse voluit Ecclesiae sacrificiū quae cum ipsius capitis corpus sit seipsam per ipsū discit offerre Aug. lib. 10. de Civit. ca. 6. where searching into our mysteries he finds that the Church offers her self with her Beloved upon our Altars and that in the same sacrifice she is both Priestess and Oblation His words are too elegant to be omitted neither must it be a less Doctor then he that must appear that Protector of so important a Verity 'T is particularly saith he in unity that the sacrifice of Christians consists where being many in number we make up but one body with Jesus Christ this is it that the Church daily does in this Sacrament which is so well known to the Faithfull wherein is demonstrated that in the Oblation she offers she her self is offered that after the example of her Beloved she may be in the same sacrifice Priestess and Victime From this passage may easily be inferred that the Faithful are offered with Christ upon the Altar that the Host that contains him is large enough to contain all his members and that his mysticall body being immolated with his natural body he obligeth all Christians to associate as he doth the quality of Victime with that of a Priest But if leaving the Altar we consider the Faithful in the course of their life we shall see there is none but ought to sacrifice himself and who either in his body or in his soul may not find Victimes to offer to God There is no more need of providing Buls or Goats with the Jews to lay upon our Altars The time of the Mosaical Law is past truths have succeeded figures and if we rightly understand the secret of our mysteries Noli extrinsecus thura comparare sed dic In me sunt Deus vota tua noli extrinsecus pecus quod mactes inquirere habes in te quod occidas Aug. in Psal 51. it becomes us to offer those things these Animals represent We have whereof to sacrifice within our selves there is not any passion in our soul nor part in our body whereof we may not make an innocent Victime Indeed Christian Religion converting the sinner into a sacrifice obligeth him to immolate to God all that he is He is deficient in the lawfullest of his duties if his whole life be not a sacrifice and being compounded of soul and body he ought to sacrifice both that he may have the honour to be a perfect Holocaust The vertues are auxiliaries which facilitate these means and it seems these glorious habits are given us for no other end then to teach us to sacrifice to God all the faculties of our soul Inasmuch as the will is the noblest and this Soveraign being once perfectly gained over to God gives him an absolute dominion over all the rest there are some vertues which have no other employment but to be made victimes Sorrow which discovers to man the excess of his crime labours to convert him it bruiseth his heart by the violence of a holy contrition and if it cannot draw bloud from this sacrifice it draws tears which are more acceptable to God then the bloud of beasts This made David say that the spirit broken and afflicted was a true sacrifice and that he who sometimes refuseth Goats and Lambs never despiseth a heart that Repentance and Humility offers up unto him Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus Obedience comes in to the succour of grief this beats down the pride of the will masters that imperious faculty and changing her triumph into a sacrifice obligeth her to die to her own inclinations that she may live to those of the Grace of Jesus Christ But love happily finisheth this design he burns the victime with his flames to render it an Holocaust and finding the means to put to death an immortall power teacheth us that a pure spirit may offer sacrifices to God For there is no lover but knows that love imitates death that he commits innocent murders and by stratagems which himself is only privy to makes sin die in us that Grace may live If the will become a Victim by means of Charity the understanding is offered up to God by the intervening of faith This vertue subjects it to her Empire perswades truths she explicates not she obligeth a man to suspend his judgement to renounce his reason and to give his senses the lye she engageth him to offer as many sacrifices as she propounds mysteries and by a power which would seem tyrannical were it not legitimate forbids him the use of reasoning in matters of religion The memory after the example of the understanding is immolated to God by remembrance and forgetfulness These two
different ways make two contrary sacrifices This faculty calls to mind the benefits received from its Creator and forgets the injuries received from Enemies Between these two exercises it is equally divided and whatever outrage sin hath committed in our soul she finds that the art of oblivion is harder then that of retaining or learning 'T is upon the first that the love of enemies is founded which seems the most troublesome sacrifice of Ghristian Religion and upon the other acknowledgment or the action of thankfulness which is the justest duty of the creature towards his Creator Though the body be the least moity of man yet is it not destitute of Victims which it furnisheth him with to appease God and according to the different vertues that inform it offers sacrifices which are little inferiour to those of the minde Repentance afflicts it a hundred severall ways and this vertue no less austere then witty invents every day new means to tame its rebellion and of a disobedient slave to make a voluntary sacrifice Sometimes she punishes his boldness by fasting sometimes abates his strength by watchings sometimes lets him bloud by disciplines sometimes tames his pride with ashes Finally by these divers artifices she lets us see that a penitent is nothing but a man armed against himself who offers a sacrifice of Justice when he is more offended at his own sins then those of his neighbour Repentance cals in Continence many times to her aid for when this rebel resists grief she forbids him the use of the most lawful pleasures and depriving him of whatever he loves makes a victim of him which suffers the more the slower his sorrow is and his sacrifice more sharp and irksome But because the eye and the mouth are the most guilty parts of man repentance obligeth the first to bewail his sins changeth his fountain of flames into flouds of tears compels this complice of impurity to become the Minister of sorrow forceth this faithful Interpreter of the heart to betray it no more with his glances and to be closed to all objects which might trouble his rest or pervert his good designs she deals more imperiously with the mouth for seeing this is guilty of two contrary evils and his silence is sometimes as criminal as his words this part is condemned to two different punishments sometimes being obliged to keep silence sometims to speak of his silence and of his discourse is composed one and the same sacrifice The mouth is obliged to open in chanting forth the praises of its Creator and having discharged this part of duty when the words are no longer answerable to the greatness of the subject it hath recourse to silence and by wonder and astonishment makes amends for those faults committed by too much liberty This double sacrifice hath its value and its price and the Scripture which tels us that God is pleased with praises acquaints us also that silence when arising from a great respect is not unacceptable to him By the first we profess that he is the Authour of all perfections that ours are derived from him and because speech is an advantage we hold from his goodness it ought to be consecrated to his honour By the second we tacitly confess that as his Divine Essence cannot be known neither can it be expressed and that of all the ways we have to magnifie him by silence is most agreeable to his greatness and our humility After that man hath immolated his body and his soul he is obliged to tender his goods and to offer him a sacrifice of all that he possesseth Alms and Poverty are his assistants in so pious a design and these two vertues by different mediums arrive at the same end for Alms parts goods with God and looking upon Jesus Christ in the person of the poor restores that to his indigence which he received of his bounty 'T is true in this point his meaning is much different from those that address themselves by way of sacrifice for they when they offer a victim slay him at the Altar to testifie that their presents are useless to God because being the source of all good nothing can be given him which he possesseth not in himself But he that doth Alms hath this satisfaction Noli contemnere Christum in coelo sedentem in terra egentē veniet cum retributione vita aeterna igne aeterno Aug. that his sacrifice is not unprofitable to Jesus Christ because though he be happy in his person he is indigent in his members Poverty out-bids Alms despoils a man of all is of the nature of the Holocaust where he that sacrificeth reserving nothing to himself gives all wholly to God This forsakes not goods only but the very desires also renounceth all pretensions to the Earth and not content to offer God what is in possession bestows upon him whatever may be hoped for so that this sacrifice being as large as Hope we may say it comprehends all that this passion which is boundless promiseth the Ambitious or the Covetous Thus the Christian acquits himself of the promise he made in Baptism and consecrating his soul by Charity his body by Repentance and his Riches by Alms or Poverty satisfies both his obligations and his promises Ipse homo Dei nomini consecratus Deo devotus in quantum mundo moritur ut Deo vivat sacrificiū est Aug. For Saint Augustine teacheth me that he that dies to the world to live to Jesus Christ is a true sacrifice when following the motions of Grace he useth his body to the Glory of his Creator striving to quench the fire of self-self-love by that of Charity making his members servants to justice in being serviceable to repentance he becomes a sacrifice wel-pleasing to God and may boast that in satisfying the duties of Christianity he acquits himself of the obligation of the sacrifice with which Christians can no way dispense The Seventh TREATISE Of the Qualities of the Christian The first DISCOURSE That the Christian is the Image of Jesus Christ ALthough men are dignified by Qualities being the marks either of their Birth or Desert yet must we confess that they adde nothing to their Persons nor imprint any Character upon their Soul or Body They are fair illusions which pleasingly deceive us Dreams that amuse men awake Charms that inchant those that are in love with them They owe their Lustre to our Blindness their Grandeur to our Ignorance For the highest dignities which so much disquiet the Ambitious are but the Errours of their Understanding and the Idols of their Imagination should we pare away from Great Personages the attendance of their followers the pomp of their habits and the magnificence of their houses Magna Fortuna magna Servitus Senec. we should finde their Charges meer Chimera's and that which we call Fortune nothing but a False Greatness or a Real Slavery But inasmuch as the Qualities of a Christian are not the works of
it which is displeasing to God But in expectation of this happy houre they must begin their sacrifice here and by little and little destroying what is contrary to Grace make Holocausts of all their inordinate inclinations For we learn from Origen that though we are no longer under the Law of Moses we are not dispensed with for sacrificing but as the Law of Grace is the accomplishment of the other we ought to immolate all those passions that were represented to us by the Beasts they slaughtered at the foot of the Altar We satisfie this duty when we set upon our criminal affections and full of zeal and courage we endeavour to stifle them We immolate a Bull when we tame our pride and labour to kill this sin that gives life to all others we sacrifice a Goat when we quench the lustful flames of impurity and by a divine fire mortifie this infernal one which devours all vertues we slay a Ram when we subdue our anger disarm this seditious passion calm this raging sea and manacle this fury which troubles the tranquillity of our mind we offer Pigeons and Turtles when we banish those volatile inordinations which divert us from piety and engage our minds in the affairs of the world But if we have subjected our passions to the dominion of reason and by a happy barrenness the Earth of our Intellectual part breeds no monsters which we may offer up to God we must seek into our body and of our members make innocent sacrifices For the great Apostle of the Gentiles teacheth us that we are obliged to offer our bodies a lively sacrifice and to pacifie the anger of Heaven by a holy oblation acceptable to him Vt exhibeatis corpora vestra hostiam viventem as if he would say that we ought to die to sin that we may live to Grace and the members which have served heretofore to the tyranny of Concupiscence may now become serviceable to the lawful power of Charity or he would advertise us that if in the Old Testament only dead Victims were offered up to God in the New we must offer up living ones and that mortification working in the Christian what death did in the Beasts we must joyn the two sacrifices together and accord death with life to satisfie the Divine Justice Thus the whole exercise of a Christian is to make war upon their bodies and to gain victories over themselves they vanquish their enemies in facrificing their members and they may boast that in offering sacrifices to God they erect trophies to themselves In consideration of these Truths me thinks we may say with Origen that all the faithfull are Victims and that in the difference of their conditions they agree in this common quality If any thing distinguish them 't is the degree of their love and the perfection of their Sacrifice The Apostles saith He were the first Victims because they forsook all to follow their Master and having given him their heart by Charity their spirit by Faith their goods by Poverty they moreover consecrated their bodies by the Repentance of their life and by the cruelty of their death The Martyrs immediately succeed them because having a long time laboured by Grief at last they have perfected their sacrifice by Martyrdom The Virgins hold the Third place because they triumph over their bodies tame a hundred severall ways this domestick Enemy and not content to consecrate him by purity borrow the assistance of pennance to mortifie him by contrition The Continent and the Married follow these close and if in their sacrifice they destroy not the Victim they put it at least in a condition that it no more rebels against the Sacrificers and where it expects with patience for death Castitas viduitas de bonis carnis Deo adolentur Tertul. to finish that which Continence hath begun Tertullian was much of this opinion when he said That our bodies furnished us with Victims as well as vertues and that Fasting Silence and Chastity were fruits of this Tree which might be gathered to make an offering for Jesus Christ For though the Body be the least part of man 't is not the most unprofitable its imperfections are advantageous to us its rebellions serve us for Tryals and Grace which is ingenious turns the most part of its miseries into remedies The infirmities which trouble its health help our Sacrifice and the diseased person that suffers his afflictions patiently is a victim who though not innocent is notwithstanding well-pleasing to Jesus Christ Poverty which strips us of superfluities or of necessaries which reduceth us to the condition our Birth found us in and whither Death will bring us is a sacrifice which gains us as much merit as it procures us inconvenience Nay Death it self which seems the eldest daughter of sin who shews all the horrours of her father upon her countenance is not so much the destruction as the sacrifice of our Body she imitates the severity of fire and sword she she alone does what the knife and the pile of wood somtimes did and reduceth the victim to ashes having deprived it of life she serves for the Divine Justice and Mercy together Deficit homo ad Gloriam moritur a◠vitam perit ad salutē mors per Christum commendatio facta est Charitatis Chrysost she prepares the body for Immortality nor despoils it of corruption but to apparell it with Glory This is it that imprints so violent a desire of Death in the hearts of the faithful which makes them in the midst of their prosperity call her in to their assistance and wish that comming to end their life she may come to perfect their sacrifice For it seems she hath changed Nature since Jesus Christ consecrated her in his person she is like those waters that take the taste and colour of those Minerals through which they pass she hath lost all her gastliness and hath some secret beauties which beget love in the soul of all Saints She that led us to the gates of hell lifts us up to heaven she that was the mother of shame and sadness is now the mother of joy and glory she that filled us with despair buoys us up with hope she that established the Empire of sin destroys it in a word she that was the Chastisement of our Crime is now the Sacrifice of our Love For this end have all the greatest Saints made the Panegyrick of death they have rendered thanks to the Divine Justice that inflicts a punishment upon us which shortens our misery and advanceth our happiness which separates us from the world and unites us to Jesus Christ and under a false appearance of rigour delivers us from the dangers that threaten us the griefs that torment us and the sins that tyrannize over us This made that famous Penitent say He was just that expected death but he was holy that desired it Finally this drew that Elogie out of the mouth of S. Paul
onely Son and having conceived him in the humble apprehensions of a handmaid as her last words to the Angel sufficiently testifie Ecce Ancilla Domini she infused her holy dispositions into the heart of Jesus Christ who as a faithful Eccho repeating the words of his mother protested he would be his Fathers Servant Therefore there is no Christian who ought not to esteem a Quality common to him with the Son of God which though it were not so honourable in yeelding complacency would appear sufficiently agreeable Servitude hath always this misfortune that it makes us regret the loss of Liberty whatever charms it useth to sweeten our discontents 't is always troublesome when forced A Chain though of Diamonds is a punishment and no ornament if it load us the stateliest Palace loseth its pleasantness when it becomes our prison and wherever there is compulsion we finde pain and sorrow Aliquando revera inventum est quando aurum non ametur Tert. There is nothing more acceptable then Gold 't is the richest and the fairest of Metals 't is the noblest production of the Sun and this Star which gives a being to so many Flowers in the Spring spends whole Ages to contribute the last perfection to this Master-piece of his light and heat In the mean time the love of Liberty hath made some Slaves utterly abominate it and in those Countries where it is so common where they make it the manacles of offenders 't is insupportable to the wretched inhabitants They complain when they are adorned with it that which is the pompous dress of our Kings is their torment because this Metal engageth them to Bondage it is the object of their hate and Nature hath found out an innocent artifice to render it odious to these Captives But though Servitude be so grievous it loseth its bitterness when voluntary Love without breaking their Chains sweetens them and mixing his Charms with their Weight makes them so welcome that there is not one Slave would recover his Liberty Ask all sinners who live in slavery you shall not finde one that complains of his Irons every one seeks to adde to their weight or to tye them faster and as if their Passion had changed their Nature they hug their Bondage and are afraid of their deliverance Who doubts but that a Wanton is captivated with the beauty he idolizeth Who knows not by his complaints that he hath lost his Liberty that he wears the Colours of his Mistress as a Slave those of his Master and that all the actions he does are so many proofs of his Slavery In the mean time he loves his Prison boasts of his Captivity and is proud of his Misery he would not change condition with a Monarch Inasmuch as the Grace of the Son of God is nothing but Love it knows the way of mixing Sweetness with Servitude it makes us slaves in subjecting us to his will it triumphs over our Liberty because it is victorious it imprisons us because we are made its Captives by being delivered from the Tyranny of sin Captivam duxit Captivitatem But it is agreeable because amorous amorous because voluntary and charms our discontents because it sweetly inchants our Wills It hath no Slaves that complain of their Bondage or regret their Liberty if they express any sorrow 't is because they are not yet fully under the dominion of Jesus Christ if they are big with any desires 't is that they may see themselves in a happie impotency to break their chains and to be so strongly fastned to their Master that as S. Paul they may bid defiance to all Creatures and say with that great Apostle that they cannot separate them from their divine Redeemer Therefore did S. Augustine heretofore admonish his Auditors Nolite timere Domini servitutem non erit ibi gemitus non murmur non indignatio sed libera servitus est apud Deum ubi non necessitas sed charitas servit August that the name of Servitude ought not to astonish them for Charity had dulcorated all the bitterness thereof in that Family no Slaves complained of the severity of their Master nor of the misery of their condition because the service is always free and pleasing seeing 't is not Necessity but Charity that makes us embrace it Thus may we with reason glory that we are Slaves and Soveraigns that the same power that united the Word with Flesh in Jesus Christ Virginity with Pregnancie in Mary hath been pleased in Christians to associate Servitude with Liberty Plenty with Want Glory with Humility since by a strange wonder there is not any Believer that owes not his Greatness his Pleasure his Empire to the humble condition of a Slave which he received in his Baptism The fifth DISCOURSE That the Christian is a Saint THough there be nothing in God which is not God himself and his Unity which forbids us to divide him suffers us not to know him Nevertheless the Scripture teacheth us to distinguish his perfections to compare one with another and to give them the advantage which seems most conducing to his glory or to our profit There is none but sees that our interests oblige us to prefer Mercy before Justice that being laden with miseries and crimes we love the one because it assists the distressed and fear the other because it punisheth offendors Following this principle I conceive I may give Holiness the preheminence over all the perfections of God because uniting our interests with his it contributes most to his Glory and our salvation 'T is this to speak truly that separates God from his works which preserves his respect in preserving his Majesty and which putting him at a distance from us confines him within himself Therefore may we say it repairs the wrong his immensity seems to do to him For though this noble perfection scatters him over all the corners of his state raiseth him into Heaven and leads him into Hell neverthelesse it engageth him in creatures which are unworthy to possesse him and though this effusion of himself be as well a mark of his Greatnesse as of his Goodness the understanding of man can hardly comprehend that the Divine Majesty is not interessed when it is in the Intellect of a Devil or in the heart of a sinner we have much adoe to suffer his Omnipotence to inanimate an impious person to move the tongue of a blasphemer to guide the hand of a parrcide and not to be wanting to the Laws he hath been pleased to prescribe himself to assist the guilty when they offend But his Holiness secures him from these outrages removes sinners farre from him Peccator longe abest ab illo qui ubique est Aug. in Psal scatters those wretches from him that fills all places preserves his purity in the midst of their crimes and manageth his honour so dextrously that he is as glorious in Hel as in the highest Heaven and as pure in the heart of a Reprobate
gives purity to the Immodest and innocence to the Criminals This Love hath no bounds neither in relation to its extent nor excess 't is immense and infinite both together and when God loves us he loves us in all places and in all his perfections men are so miserable that they change manners when they change Countries and Climats the Elements make some impression upon their wills and being no longer what they were they cease to love what they doated on before should they be more constant they would be alwayes lyable to this misfortune that being unable to be but in one place they could not stretch their love every where they borrow tongues to express their passion Like earthly Kings who being not in a capacity to fill their whole State are obliged to have Leiutenants which represent them these also are forc'd to seeke out interpreters to declare their love and supply their impotency But Gods Love is immense place confines it not he loves whereever he is his charity is as extensive as his essence in Heaven he cherisheth the blessed and preserving his love in all the corners of his State is affectionate to Christians in the very heart of their enemies If it be immense 't is Infinite and when God loves a person 't is with the full extent of his perfections As men are made up of soul and body the faculties of that and the members of this have their several uses and employments The Understanding conceives thoughts the Memory preserves the species and onely the will formes acts of Love The holiest Lover hath this dissatisfaction that he knows he loves God but with one faculty of the soul he is afflicted and not without reason that self-love shares with charity and notwithstanding all his endeavour he never loves God as much as he can or ought to love him He is not more happy in his body then in his minde for every member hath its different functions his hands act according as there is occasion his eyes discern colours his ears judge of sounds his tongue formes words and his heart onely is capable of affection he reproacheth Nature and complaines that this Step dame having given to him two hands to act two eyes to see two ears to hear she hath given him but one heart to love in the extasies of his soul he wisheth with David that his whole body were heart and tongue to love and magnifie him with all his power who is so infinitely lovely Nevertheless after all his vain desires he is obliged to confess that there is nothing but the will in the soul and the heart in his body which is sensible of the endeerments of affection But inasmuch as God is a simple being suffering neither composition nor division he loves men where ever he is he hath not any perfection but contributes to the love he bears them His Justice which takes vengeance of his enemies his Majesty which makes him respected of his subjects his holiness which separates him from his works are happily confounded with charity and as he acts with all his power when he produceth some effects he loves with his whole being when he expresseth his affection to his friends Therefore the Christians who know very well that love is paid onely with love never limit this passion they endeavour to love God with all their power nor do they wish for death but because they are of opinion that delivering them from self-love they shall be perfect lovers in glory The Eight DISCOURSE That the Christian is an Exile and a Pilgrim THe advantages we have received from Jesus Christ deliver us not from the misfortunes we drew from Adam our being the children of God frees us not from being his slaves though associated to his Empire we are still obnoxious to the persecution of the creature and though the objects of his love feel notwithstanding the severity of his Justice Thence it comes to pass that being Pilgrims we are Exiles and these two qualities which clash in other men agree exceeding well in Christians For Pilgrims are honorable Piety invites them out of their Country they seek Heaven in the Temple they visit and honouring the relicks of Saints oblige the Angels to assist them in their journeys Peregrinum facit Pietas Exulem paena peregrini sumus qui cives peccatorum Exulcs vero quia peceatores Chryso But the banished are criminals Justice drives them from their home she it is that cuts them off from the body of the State like corrupt members least they should infect the the rest In the mean time Christians are Pilgrims and Exiles if they draw the former qualities from Grace they derive the latter fom sin To clear this conceit we must remember that of all the punishments in the world banishment is the most shameful and most cruell It hath served as a punishment for the greatest crimes and the most notorious offendors have groand under this pressure Our first father was driven out of Paradise after he was condemned to death That Parricide who steep'd his hands in his Brothers blood heard this sentence pronounced against him by the mouth of the Living God Eris vagus et profugus super terram he desired that his punishment might be commuted and judging death more gentle them banishment he begged for an end of his life that he might finde a period of his torment Therefore is it that Philo approving the opinion of Cain said that death was the end of our evils banishment the beginning and that if a man going out of the world were worthy of envy he that departed out of his Country deserv'd pitty Thence certainly it comes to pass that Christians are dealt with as exiles that the severity of their chastisement may make them accknowledge the hainousness of their sin Indeed those wretches are civilly dead they have no more commerce with the world the use of the Elements is interdicted them and if the judges give them leave to live 't is to make them die more cruelly Thus it is with man since his transgression he hath no more intercourse with the Angels he was driven out from Paradise and the Earth being cursed he must water it either with his sweat or with his tears if he intend to have it fruitful Banished persons possess nothing they lose their substance in losing their Country they can neither make will nor inherite and they learn to their cost that want is the inseparable companion of banishment there must be some edict of the Prince to mitigate the rigour of the sentence and without his express permission their very kindred dare not relive them in their misery If Christians be not so cruelly dealt with 't is from their obligation to the merits of of Jesus Christ For being banished they are fallen from all their rights losing the supreme good they have forfeited all together with him and what they possess'd heretofore escheating to their soveraign by their felony they can dispose
in love with his Countrey that doats upon his Banishment or should have any passion for Heaven when he is strongly wedded to the Earth If he be stricken with Divine Love he spends his whole life in sighs he never beholds the stars but he sheds tears and though there be nothing below that afflicts him 't is enough that he is in a strange Land to account himself miserable His Banishment is his Torment and without inventing other racks to exercise his patience 't is enough to make him complain that he is condemned to travel David enjoyed a profound tranquillity when he sent up his sighs towards Heaven Heu mihi quia incolat us meus prolongatus est His state was not divided by a Civil War the Grandees had not conspired against his person his children had not as yet driven him from his Palace and the people at his detion were not cheated with the false promises of an unlawful Soveraign In the mean time he forbore not to lament and the remoteness from his Countrey was the sole cause of his tears Si amatur patria magna poenae illium si autem non amatur patria pejor est cordis poena Aug. Therefore had S. Augustine reason to utter these gallant words that to a man that loves his Countrey Banishment is an insupportable pain but yet he is more wretched who cherishing his Banishment contemns or forgets his Countrey Finally Pilgrims see nothing during their journey more agreeable then their Countrey the affection they bear the place of their Nativity ever defends its cause in heir heart Though it be but a rock environed with precipices they have some secret charms which makes them wish well to it and in the midst of fertile fields they have a longing for the air they first drew their breath in Christians are in this particular better grounded then Pilgrims For they see nothing here below that can equall the beauty of their Countrey whatever is presented to their eyes is but the shadow of that happiness they wait for there Earth is therefore fruitful because it receives the influences of Heaven and all that ravisheth here below owes its worth to the heat and light of the Sun Nothing can damage their Countrey but its greatness their understanding is too weak to conceive its Excellency and if it be not sufficiently esteem'd 't is because it is not sufficiently known Nevertheless 't is enough to love it to be acquainted as Saint Augustine saith that it is a blessed City whereof the Angels are the Citizens the Eternal Father the Temple the Son the Brightness the Holy Ghost the Love that 't is a City where men are never born nor ever die where perfect Health banisheth all Sickness where satiety expels hunger and thirst where rest admits of no labour and where we have nothing else to doe but to live reign and rejoyce eternally with God The Hope of this Happiness sweetens our present discontents and there is not any Pilgrim or Exile upon Earth who takes not courage when he thinks that after his tedious wanderings he shall enjoy a felicity that nothing can interrupt nor ever shall have an end The Ninth DISCOURSE That the Christian is a Penitent IF Baptism did wash away self-love together with sin and the Grace we receive in this Sacrament cleared us of ignorance and weakness as well as of malice we might boast that being innocent Repentance were useless But seeing there is no Christian who after his Baptism feels not bad inclinations which carry him to sin there is none but have need of this vertue and who after the imitation of the greatest Saints ought not to joyn the Quality of a Penitent to that of a Sinner For though light offences rob him not of Grace he is obliged to be troubled at them because they are displeasing to God and as long as he feels rebellions in his soul or in his body he must have recourse to austerity to stifle them But if sin make him lose the life he received in Baptism Repentance must give him a Resurrection and coming to the relief of this first Sacrament recover Grace by Sorrow and Contrition Thence it comes to pass that the Fathers have called Repentance a laborious Baptism because the sinner is washed thereby in his tears and obtains that with much difficulty which was easily gain'd in Baptism He is obliged to mingle his bloud with that of Jesus Christ and to apply the merits thereof by painfull and dolorous works of satisfaction His whole life ought to be spent in lamentation Poenitentia est Gratia vel virtus qua commissa mala plangimus semper odimus iterū plangenda committere nolumus for assoon as he ceaseth to be a Penitent he becomes a Sinner For Repentance according to the opinion of Divines is a Grace or a Vertue whereby often bewailing our sins we always hate them and constantly resolve never to commit them again This definition contains four things which happily express the nature of Repentance and remarking what it hath common with other vertues discovers also what it hath proper and peculiar to it self It is called Grace because it is the gift of God and finding us in a crime cannot be an effect of our merits For in that wretched condition we are rather objects of Gods Hatred then of his Love and when he delivers 't is of his Mercy and not of his Justice It is also called a Vertue because it fals under the Law combats sin and obtains our pardon It seems to belong to Vindicative Justice because like it it pronounceth sentences and invents punishments to torture offendors In a word it hath no other employment but to prevent the indignation of Heaven and to oblige it to clemency by its own severity It enters into the interests of God chastiseth that in time which he would chastise for Eternity and endeavours to proportion the correction to the offence of the transgressor But though in some things it agree with Vindicative Justice in others it is far different For Justice is in the Judge it pronounceth sentence from his mouth Non impunitum erit peccatum meum sed ideo nolo ut tu me punius quia ego peccatum meum punias Aug. in Psal 50. and borrows the hand of the Officer to put it in execution Repentance on the contrary is in the offendor resides in his soul expresseth it self by his mouth acts by his hands and contrary to all Natural and Civil Laws obligeth the Criminal to condemn and punish himself Justice cannot make sufferings welcome to those that undergo them though just yet are they compulsive and did not the Judges use force in their administration all crimes would pass unpunished But Repentance by a wonderful dexterity makes afflictions agreeable mixeth some sweetness with their severity and causing the guilty person voluntarily to embrace such penalties finds an expedient to make them suffer without murmuring Finally Justice
the parts of his body He imitates those that are transported with anger and as they find no vengeance that can satisfie them nor any punishments that equal their injuries no more can he any sufferings that content him nor any chastisements that equall his offences From anger he passeth to hatred and fully to satisfie the Justice of God handles himself as a Criminal or as an Enemy he exerciseth acts of Hostility against his body and finding nothing more ignominious nor more cruell then the Cross condemns himself unto it and willingly embraceth it For Saint Augustin teacheth us that the true Penitent ought to be crucified while he lives that the Counsels and Precepts of Christ are the nails that must pierce his heart that every inclination is a foot or a hand that he is bound to fasten to the Cross of Jesus Christ and that it is a crime to take out the nails as long as we live upon the Earth The Great Saint Leo is of this mind and though he were of so mild a spirit he is so severe in this point that he cannot judge us worthy to be the Members of the Son of God if our flesh be not crucified with his He will not have us the same after Repentance that we were before but out of a severity which he believes founded upon the Sacrament of our Reconciliation he will have us put off the old man and put on the new and renouncing all pleasure make our body become the Image of Christ crucified When he is arrived to this degree of severity he hath no more to do but persevere that he may become worthy of the glorious name of Penitent For the sorrow is not true unless it be constant the Repentance is not sincere unless it be faithful and he is rather a Deceiver then a Penitent who having testified some desire of amendment of life commits with pleasure the offence he had bewailed with grief Many saith Saint Augustin protest that they are sinners and continue still to sin This acknowledgment is indeed a Consession but no Correction Irrisor est non Poenitens qut aduc agit quod poeniteat non minuit peccata sua sed multiplicat Aug. Ser. 1. de Poen they accuse themselves but they labour not after a cure and as another Father of the Church adds they appease not the Divine Justice by their prayers but provoke him by their insolence For a man therefore to be truly Penitent he must lament his sin in lamenting it he must punish it in punishing it he must hate it and that this severity may not be reproached as counterfeit it must last as long as our life and our forsaking sin with a perseverance in good must be the certain proof of the Truth of our Repentance The Tenth DISCOURSE That the most glorious Quality of a Christian is that of a Christian IT is hard to determine Non minus se debere Aristoteli quam Philippo dicebat Alexander Plut. Whether we have more obligations to our Tutors or to our Fathers for if the one fashions our Body the other fashions our Minde if the one give us Life the other gives us Reason and if we receive from the one our Riches from the other we receive our Vertues Therefore in all Antiquity Disciples bore the name of their Masters as well as of their Fathers nor were they less jealous of the Learning of those that had instructed them then of the glory of these that had begotten them This difference hath no place among Christians Because he that gives them Life gives them Grace and the same Jesus Christ that hath conceived them in his Wounds hath taught them in his School He is the Father and the Master of the Faithful and as these two Qualities oblige us to bear his Name they oblige us also to relinquish our own He is jealous of this honour and whatever part his Ministers take in his advantages he hath never been willing to let them share in this The Apostles never transferred their name to their disciples these faithful servants wrought all their gain for their Master knowing very well that all their power was derived from him they laboured onely for his glory and when they had brought forth children they named them by the name of Jesus Christ and not their own They imitated saith S. Augustine the Israelites who marrying the widow of their brother made their children bear the name of the dead Jesus Christ died upon the Cross his Ministers are his Brethren and to accomplish his designe they beget children for him by preaching but they owe him so much respect that they baptize them in his Name and call them Christians Inasmuch as this advantage is great it carries great obligations along with it and all the Faithful are bound to imitate the Son of God This honourable Title exacts this duty from them 'T is in vain saith S. Augustine Ex Sacramento Christi descendit hoc nomen quod ille frustra sortitur qui Christum minime imitatur Aug. to denominate themselves from Jesus Christ if they strive not to conform their life to his It is lawful for Infidels that know not the true God to seek for Patterns among men because they can finde none among the gods and they may regulate their actions according to the example of the Socrates's or Cato's But 't is a crime for a Christian to transcribe any other copie then that of Jesus Christ He that hath formed them ought to guide them and as his Death is their Glory his Life must be their Morality I can not endure that the greatest part of Believers should seek for vertue among Heathens and dazled with a false sparkling that decejves them quit the Humanity of the Son of God to imitate the Vanity of Pagans For besides that their vertue hath its imperfections that self-Self-love is the Principle Pride the Soul and Glory the End thereof she is accompanied with so many Vices that labouring to render them Vertuous she makes them Criminals Alexander was valiant but his Anger made him dye his hands in the blood of his Favourites Pompey was wise but ambitious Caesar was merciful but lascivious Cato was generous but he drank many times somewhat too liberally and not being able to finde consolation in Philosophy sought it in good company But neither are the Saints themselves to be our Models any further then they are conformable to Jesus Christ When S. Paul invites us to follow him 't is after he hath assured us that he imitated our Exemplar and endeavoured to exhibite himself a Copie of that divine Original Imitatores mei estote sicut ego Christi So that it is the Son of God always whom we look upon they are his actions that regulate ours and his Person that serves us for a Pattern For this reason he chose a life which may minister instruction to all men and carried himself so that Rich and Poor Learned and
that devours it the natural heat that inanimates it consumes it This wretched mother brings forth two Maladies which though natural are notwithstanding mortal if there be not some speedy remedies applied For Hunger and Thirst are punishments that cannot be avoided these two executioners harrase all the children of Adam and when the Son of God was incarnate he suffered their assaults he was hungry in the desarts thirsty in Samaria and the blood which the stripes and nails drew from his veins made him utter that word upon the Cross which exprest his Thirst as well as his Love Sitio The evils which arise from our Constitution are accompanied with others that arise from the confusion of the Universe Heat and Cold persecute us Summer and Winter bid us battel the Seasons grow irregular to make us suffer and the Elements jar to destroy us Our State is nothing now but a Country of enemies or strangers our Subjects either know us not or contemn us and this place which was heretofore the Threatre of our Glory is now the Scaffold of our Punishment Inasmuch as the Soul is more culpable then the Body she is also more miserable Corpus hoc animae pondus est poena premente illa urgetur in vinculis est Sen. ep 65. she suffers her own evils and those of the body too she resents her own pains and those of her slave her Temple is changed into a Prison her Host is become her Enemy nor is she less busied to subdue her Senses and her Members then to guide her Passions and her Faculties whatever attempt she make to procure peace in her State there are four miseries which she can never provide against The First is the revolt of the Passions which always disturb her rest Love and Hatred appear without her leave the first gets up by desires and hopes to be joyned to the object that gives it birth If he meet with any opposition to his designes he makes use of Anger and Boldness to master it if he be victorious he triumphs with Joy if defeated he falls into despair and is wholly given over to grief Hatred imitates Love she calls in the Passions to her aid that hold of her Empire and having discovered her enemy removes for fear if too weak or sets upon him with anger if she conceive her self strong enough When her enterprise succeeds well she triumphs as well as Love and when her endeavours are frustrated she also sinks into despair and sadness But that which is most troublesom in all these disorders is that they rebel in spite of Reason and the soul is forced to suffer these insurrections which she cannot help The Second misery she is sensible of is the irregularity of her actions though she consult with Prudence and Justice though she keep a mediocrity which constitutes Vertue she steps aside many times from her duty and under specious pretences falls into vitious extremes Sometimes she is too indulgent or too severe in punishing sometimes she is too reserved or too lavish in her presents sometimes she is too cowardly or too hardy in her combats Non est expectanda sinceritas veritatis à sensibus corporis nihil est enim sensibile quod non habeat fimile falso Aug. so that many times it falls out she commits a Crime when she thinks to practise a Vertue The Third misery which she can hardly avoid is Errour and Illusion For being a prisoner in the Body seeing nothing but through the Senses and so compelled to make use of these unfaithful messengers she is oftner engaged in a lye then in truth and is so badly informed of what she ought to love or hate that for the most part she confounds Good with Evil Vice with Vertue But the Fourth misery inseparable from her condition and contrary to her felicity is the weakness she resents in all her enterprises if she think to conquer Temptations she sinks under them if she thinks to mount up to heaven by holy contemplations her body like a clog weighs her down to the earth if she strive to combat her Inclinations she findes her Senses favouring their party and that she hath as many Enemies as she believes her self to have Subjects In the midst of so many miseries she hath onely one consolation that Grace is sufficient to make her victorious Sufficit tibi gratia mea But these words that comfort her teach her that the earth is not the mansion of Happiness because it is the Pitched Field where we must win the Victory to deserve the Triumph The Third DISCOURSE That the Christian tastes some Happiness here belowe THough the earth be not the habitation of rest and all the children of Adam are condemned to labour since the sin of their father yet fail they not to taste some Pleasure among their Sorrows The Divine Justice tempers its Chastisements with some Graces Mercy steps to the relief of these wretches and the merits of Jesus Christ obtain favours for them which are not onely the Pledges but the Antepasts of Felicity Enjoyment is mixt with Hope in our souls the same advantages that make us hope for Glory give us a title to possess it and the Vertues which make us Saints render us in some sort Blessed Faith is the first vertue that unites us to Jesus Christ she that initiates us into his Mysteries that enrols us of his Family makes us the Subjects of his State and the Members of his Mystical Body It clarifies our Understanding in subjecting it imparts some Flames together with its Lights that warm our Will and gain our consent to the belief of those Verities that surpass our apprehension But it s principal and most wonderful effect is to make Jesus Christ present in our souls and to give us a taste here belowe of the felicity of Angels for these Spirits are therefore happie because they are the Thrones of God lodging their Soveraign in the innermost recesses of their Essence Ambula per fidem ut pervenias ad patriam species non laetisicat in Patria quem fides non consolatur in via Aug. and are most intimately possest by him who is infinitely distant from the Wicked Now the Faithful partake of this happiness with them Jesus Christ dwells in their hearts by Faith and S. Paul tells us that those that believe in him possess him Christum habitare per fidem in cordibus vestris S. Augustine who so happily expresseth the words of this great Apostle assures us that this vertue hath the power to fill us with Jesus Christ that it makes Heaven stoop and Earth ascend and uniting the Faithful with the Beatified in some sort equals their different conditions It is a kinde of Miracle that Faith which believes onely things distant and obscure should make us see and possess them enlightning us by their darkness and giving us an approach to them by their remoteness For as S. Augustine saith when we believe in Jesus
from this misfortune it carries Eternity along with it and were it not engaged in a subject changeable and obnoxious to mutability it would be as Immortal as it is Holy Let us adde to this advantage that Grace cannot be taken from us against our will 't is a treasure we never lose but by our own default Perishable goods cannot be preserved with all our care cunning or violence may rob us of them and whatever prudence we use to keep them we are many times constrain'd to fear or feel the loss of them Calumny takes away our good name Injustice or misfortune spoils us of our riches a disease deprives us of health and death of life All these goods though precious cannot avoid the disasters that threaten them The Innocent lose their honour as well as the Guilty The rich are as much afraid of sickness as the poor nor are Kings more secure from death then their Subjects But Grace is a good which cannot be taken from us without our consent Potes aurum perdere nolens potes domum bonū autem quo bonus es nec invitus accipis nec invitus amittis Au. There is no violence can plunder us of it and men though in league with the Devils cannot make us lose it if we favour not their design by our weakness This is the difference Saint Augustine hath put between earthly goods and heavenly Those are many times lost in spite of the owners these are never lost but by the fault of those that neglect them so that the condition of the Faithful is very little inferiour to that of the Blessed because that if the one be certain their glory shal never have an end the others are sure their Grace shal never be lost unless they wil not preserve it out of malice or not consent to secure it out of cowardise Indeed inasmuch as they know that their wils are impotent and their inclinations bad they place all their confidence in the mercy of God they hope that he that converted them will make them persevere and having assisted them in the combate will crown them in the trumph The Fourth DISCOURSE That Happinesse consists not in Pleasure but in Grief OF all the Sects which have opposed Truth the most dangerous is that of the Epicures For though base and unjust in that it gave the Body preheminence over the Minde and Pleasure the right hand of Vertue Nevertheless it surprised men at first sight and seduced them by a name which bears some analogy with that of felicity For whatever Idea men fashion of this it is impossible to separate it from Pleasure and very casie to confound them together We cannot imagine such a thing as the supream Good but we must conceive it agreeable nor can we perswade our selves that there is felicity where there is not content This hath procured more Disciples to this shameful Sect then to all the rest and made it triumph over the reason of the Academicks and the supercilious vanity of the Stoicks Allsinners took part with this Philosophy Christian Religion which destroyed Idolatry hath not been able to ruine this and the Church bears those in her bosome who boast themselves Christians but are indeed Epicures The whole world courts pleasure by different addresses 'T is the Idol that hath most Altars and receives most Sacrifices The Ambitious are her slaves they adore Voluptuousness under the name of Glory and suffer themselves to be charm'd by the allurements that attend a great reputation The Covetous are her Votaries they offer Incense to this false Deity they seek for pleasure in the arms of profit nor do they so much doat upon riches because profitable as because agreeable Indeed the Supream Good is inseparable from pleasure and as you cannot see the Sun but must be enlightned no more can men behold the Supream Good without being charm'd Delectatio ex fruitione summi boni necessario sequitur Aug. If delectation be but a consequence of Happiness as some Philosophers affirm it is at least necessary and I account it no more impossible to see God and not love him then to love and see him without receiving contentment in him Therefore the errour of the Epicures consists not in placing Beatitude in Pleasure but in placing pleasure in the body because man being compounded of a body and a minde ought to be happy in both these parts Let us combate this Monster which against nature destroys not men but because he flatters them nor is dangerous but because he is over complacent There is no body but confesseth that Beatitude consists in a union with God by means of the understanding and the will we must renounce reason to oppose this truth and cease to be men to doubt of a Maxim authorised by all profane Philosophy God is the Ultimate End of his creatures and consequently their perfect Happiness The Understanding and the Will are the two noblest faculties of the soul the wings that make her soar aloft and the chains that fasten her to the object she loves so that she is never more happy then when united to the Supream Good by Knowledge and Love whatever hinders this union is contrary to it and whatever separates or removes her from God is the enemy of her felicity It is easie thence to infer that sensual pleasures cannot cause our felicity because they suffer not our souls to be united to God and imbark her so strongly in the flesh that she seems to have lost all the qualities of a spirit Impurity produceth store of miseries in the world nor can we invent too many invectives against a sin that defiles a man and of an Angel makes a Beast But the greatest of its enormities is that it inebriates our soul with its poison and makes us lose the remembrance of all Divine things Nothing pleaseth the slaves it tyrannizeth over but sensuality whatever affects not the senses seems not true they take the pleasures of the minde for meer illusions and as if the glory of Heaven were but a fable or an imposture they are less affected with the consideration of them then reasonable men with the reading of Romance This misfortune produceth another For as pleasure separates men from God it fastens them to the creatures their inferiours and debasing them below themselves Quisquis quod seitso est deterius sequitur fit ipse de erior Aug. communicates the bad qualities of the things they doat upon Love is a kind of medley it confounds those subjects it unites and by a wonderful Chymistry makes them pass one into another Thence it comes to pass that Kings become Slaves when they love their Subjects and renounce their power when abandon'd to dalliance They fall from their Greatness when they engage in an affection and as the noblest metals lose their purity when mixt with those of a baser allay Soveraigns quit their Majesty when allied with their Subjects Thus the man who gluts
so excellent that we cannot so much as form an Idea of it we want words wherewith to expresse its excellencies and the Scripture tels us That eye hath not seen Eare hath not heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive the happiness God hath laid up for them that love him This last condition would impose silence upon us if the liberty we take to speak of God though incomprehensible did not permit me to write of Blessedness though unconceivable But as we cannot fail when treating of the perfections of God we follow the light of Faith I believe neither shall I wander in this vast Ocean of Glory Qui ducem sequitur fidem à veritate nunquam potest aberrare Aug. if I sayl by that Star and however shipwrack is not to be feared upon a sea where all those that are Drowned may boast themselves Happy Scripture which is our guide in the mysteries of Religion teacheth us that Beatitude consists in the love and knowledg of God For that which hath deliver'd these words Haec est vita aeterna ut cognascant te solū verum Deum hath told us also Qui manet in Charitate in Deo manet Deus in eo Knowledg would cool without Love and Love would be blinde without Knowledg All the faculties of our soul must finde their satisfaction in felicity The Understanding must see the Truth it believes the Will possesse the good it loves the Memory be filled with these two Things it hath so carefully recorded Ita sunt potentiae in essentia anima inter se conjunctae ut quicquid unam laedit alias laedat necesse est Mars Fisc If these Three Faculties be not content something will be wanting to the Christians felicity and as they are united in one and the same soul the pain of the one would be the Torment of the other When the Scripture seems sometimes to give the advantage to Knowledg over Love or to Love over Knowledg it is only more strongly to express the excellency of both and to make us comprehend that as he that clearly sees God is happy he that perfectly loves him cannot be miserable Thence it comes to pass that the Fathers of the Church are divided upon this subject whereof some have taken the part of Knowledg others that of Love Del visio sumnum bonum Aug. S. Augustin though the Panegyrist of Love hath notwithstanding so fully expressed himself in many passages of his Writings in behalf of Knowledg that he seems to have forgotten what he delivered elswhere concerning Love For he will have the End of all our Actions and the repose of all our Desires to be found in beholding the supreme Good That as he is miserable who knowing all things knows not the Creator that made them he likewise is happy that knows the Creator nor is there any addition to his happiness in that he knows the creatures together with him Finally he saith in another place that the clear vision of God is the whole recompence of a Christian and that nothing can be wanting to his happiness when he fully contemplates the Divine Essence But there are a thousand places beside where this Great Doctor placeth Felicity in Love and represents the Blessed to us as so many Lovers who finde their contentment in the possession of the Supream Good Thus saith he true Happiness consists in that joy which ariseth from Truth known and Goodness beloved Beata quippe vita est gaudium de veritate hoc enim est gaudium de te qui veritas es Aug. He assures us that the Blessed have no other employment then to love God and that all the vertues are useless in Heaven except Charity He teacheth us that enjoyment which is the Rest of Love is also its Recompence that as desires disquiet Lovers when they possess not what they long for the Divine Essence would be a torment to the Blessed if from their understanding it past not to their will and if having illuminated them with its light it warmed them nor with its flames Knowledge then and Love make up the felicity of the Saints in glory but both of them are very different from that which is found among the Faithful Our knowledge is always mixt with darkness faith though certain is notwithstanding obscure and though an effusion of the light of glory hath not its extent nor evidence We see God but in Enigma's upon Earth the species that discover him conceal him These glasses are too narrow to give us a full representation of his Greatness and our spirits are too weak to bear the lustre of his Majesty But in Heaven he fortifies the Blessed by the Light of Glory gives them a capacity to look upon him and piercing their understanding is himself both the species and the image There are three things in the world which oppose our Happiness and suffer us not to know God perfectly The first is his Greatness which dazies or astonisheth us whence it comes to pass that the Scriptures assign him for his abode either light that hides him from us or darkness that robs us of him The second is his absence for though he be every where yet is he at a distance when he will and as his presence is not fixed to the Earth which he fils so is it true to affirm of him that he is no where as to say he is in all places Nullibi est qui ubique est The third is the weakness of mans soul which cannot suffer the presence of his God finds the condign punishment of his pride where he sought for the satisfaction of his curiosity But all these impediments are taken away from the Blessed The Majesty of God is no longer formidable his Greatness which occasions our astonishment gives being to their felicity and love having banished from their hearts all fear they treat with their Soveraign as with their Beloved The absence of the Supream Good causeth not their doleance They are possessed by him whom they possess his Divine Essence penetrates their very souls and they are so full of him that those who see them are obliged to reverence them as Gods Finally the weakness of their faculties hinders not their contentment the same fire that burns them inanimates them the same light that clarifies strengthens them and the same God that searcheth all their inward parts preserves them If their Knowledge have this advantage their Love hath yet more and their Charity is much perfecter then ours Whatever pains we take to love God upon Earth our Love is never without some notable defects which enfeeble it It is blind because Faith that enlightens it is a candle whose lamp is always surrounded with a cloud or smoak It is faint and drooping because we possess not the Supream Good which we passionately affect and being separated from him we are as well his Martyrs as his Lovers It is divided because self-love is not
Continence to our relief to defend us from pleasures that tickle us sometimes we demand help of Fortitude to combat griefs that assault us sometimes we throw our selves into the arms of Justice to deliver us from enemies that oppress us But in Heaven all these Vertues are idle onely Charity is active and yet rests in acting her action is to love what she sees her rest to possess what she loves and her felicity to know that she shall never lose what she enjoys If you cannot suffer saith S. Augustine that the Vertues to which we owe Heaven be banished thence imagine them there more for your ornament then defence never conceive that they fight but perswade your selves that they triumph and having vanquished all their enemies enjoy a Peace which shall endure for all Eternity The Ninth DISCOURSE That the Christians Soul and Body shall finde their Perfection in Beatitude MAn is such a hidden Creature that he cannot well be known without Faith He is mistaken as often as he intends to pass judgement upon himself and the errours that have appeared in his own definition have given us occasion to conclude that he was ignorant of his own essence when he consulted his Sense he believed he was nothing but a Body and if there were a spirit that informed him it was perishable and mortal when he consulted his Pride he conceited himself a pure Spirit which either for his penalty or for his trial was included in a Body as in a prison from which he should be delivered by death These two errours produced two grand disorders in the world The first engaged Man in the love of his Body and the oblivion of his Soul he made no account but of sensual Pleasures and knowing no life but the present never troubled himself about the future He was of opinion that Death was the end of his Being and that nothing remaining of him after his dissolution he need fear neither any Punishment nor expect any Recompence The second errour made him so mightily undervalue his Body that he repined at it as a Slave and handled it as a Rebel he had recourse many times to Death that being delivered from this enemy he might mix with pure Intelligences and raign with Gods or Devils Faith which corrects our errours obligeth us to believe that Man is neither an Angel nor a Beast that he is compounded of a Body and a Soul and if he have the First common with Beasts he hath the Second common with Angels The same Faith perswades him that Death deprives him of his body but for a time onely that at the General Resurrection it shall be re-united to the soul to partake of its good or bad fortune Therefore treating here of the felicity of Christians I am necessarily to speak of the two parts that compose them and of the different happiness the Divine Justice prepares for them respectively Inasmuch as the soul is the noblest she is also most happily provided for and her Beatitude infinitely surpasseth that of the body Tunc nec falli nec peccare homines possunt veritate illuminati in bono confirmati Aug. When she quits her prison and is purified of all her imperfections by the grace of Jesus Christ she enters into Glory and receives all the advantages which are due to her dignity and condition Ignorance which is a brand of sin is quite defaced by the brightness that enlightens her her weakness is fortified by a supply which being much more powerful then that of Grace raiseth her to a condition wherein she cannot desert the good nor embrace the evil and where as Saint Augustine saith she is in a happy impotency to wander from her duty and estrange her self from the Supream good Assurance succeeds in the place of fear rest in stead of conflicts triumphs after victories she is no longer constrained to resist the motions of the flesh because this rebell is become obedient and losing in the Resurrection whatever he drew from Adam at his Birth hath now none but just and holy inclinations The Spirit is no longer busied to maintain a war against sin because this Monster cannot enter Heaven he groans not now under the revolt of the passions and as all the vertues are peaceable they finde neither enemies to subdue nor rebels to tame Her knowledge is no longer accompanied with doubts and darkness she learnes without labour is not afraid to forget and drawing light and wisdom from the very Fountain knows all things in their Principles In this happy condition there remains nothing for the Christian to wish for his soul is penetrated by the Divine Essence his understanding clarified with the light of glory his will inflamed with the love of God and all his powers and faculties finding their particular perfection in one object he confesseth that the promises of God exceed his hopes Though his body have been polluted by his birth and corrupted by death it findes life in the Resurrection and Purity in Glory For assoon as the Trumpet of the Angel shall have declared the will of God every soul shal reassume her own body reuniting her self with it shall give it a part in her happiness The greatness of this wonder hath found no belief in the mindes of Philosophers though they were perswaded of the Immortality of the soul they would not consent to the Resurrection of the body and having seen it made a prey to wilde Beasts or fuel for the flames they judged there was no power in the world could restore it again The spirit of man hath favoured this errour and believing his eyes rather then his light could not finde in his heart to place that part of man in heaven which he saw committed to the grave he was afraid to weary the power of the Almighty if he should oblige him to so many miracles and not comprehending how a body reduc'd to powder or smoak could take its primitive form chose rather to leave it in the Earth then draw it thence with so much violence But had he thought of the Creation he had never doubted of the Resurrection and Reason her self had perswaded him that seeing God was able to finde the body in Non-Entity where it was not he might very well finde it in the waters or in the slames where there was yet some remainder thereof If Nothing were not rebellious to him Nature cerrainly will not be disobedient and if he could make that which was not he may as easily repair what now is not Nothing perisheth in respect of the Creator the dead are not less his subjects then those that never were born and if he could make Non-Entity hear him he may well make death obey him The miracle of Resurrection is perhaps attended with more pomp then that of the Creation but there is less difficulty in it and he that could vanquish the distance between Entity and Non-Entity will have no great matter to do to master the opposition
produce him Therefore hath he received a name that perfectly expresseth his ineffable procession Charitas quae pater diligit filium filius patrē quae est Spiritus Sanctus ineffabilem communionem demonstrat Aug. de Trini for being the production of the Father and the Son he bears a name common to both and he is cal'd the Spirit because the Father and the Sonne call him so in Scripture Now this Spirit is the sacred Bond which conjoyns all Christians together he is not onely the soul but the unity and he it is who by admirable and secret Tyes entertaines a faire correspondence between all the parts of this great body The diffence of their conditions the contrariety of their humours the diversity of their designs hinders not the Holy Spirit from uniting them together nor that he that is the agreement of the Father and the Son be also the peace and agreement of the faithfull He it is that decided the differences between the Jewes and the Gentiles he it is who breaking down the partition Wall hath made of them one building he it is who perfecting the design of Jesus Christ hath happily taken out of the way all obstacles that impeded the unity of the Church and he it is who equalling the poor with the rich the freeman with the slave the learned with the ignorant hath framed that wonderfull body the most perfect Image of the Trinity Therefore must we acknowledge that all those figures that represent to us the person of the holy Ghost abundantly bear witnesse that his principall work is unity For sometimes he is called Fire because that element combines metalls in melting them and of two different substances makes a third which is neither one nor the other but rather both Sometimes he is called Water because he gives consistency to the earth watering it by secret veins and of a fluid sand makes a solid heap which serves for the foundation and centre of the whole Universe Therefore is it that the great Apostle of the Gentiles never speaks of unity Solliciti servare unitatem spiritus in vinculo pacis Epist but he mentions the holy Ghost as the source and fountain of it As often as he recommends peace to the faithfull he wisheth them him that reconciles men unto God by the remission of sin that separates them asunder Neither hath charity which is the principall effect of this ever to be adored Spirit any more worthy employment then to unite Christians together after he hath united them with the Trinity The second Alliance that he contracts with us is that he becomes the gift of God to men as he is the gift of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father back again If we beleeve prophane Philosophy Love is not onely the first production but the first profusion of the will This faculty is liberall assoon as it is amorous and parting with its love it makes a donation of whatever holds of its Empire Thence it comes to passe that all Lovers are prodigall that they engage their liberty stripping themselves of their goods and renouncing their own inclinations assoon as ever they begin to be affectionate Now as the holy Spirit is the Love of the Father and the Son so is He their mutuall gift they give themselves whatever they are in producing him and it seems the Son renders to his Father by the production of the Spirit all that he received by his birth Though we want termes to expresse the greatnesse of these mysteries Faith which supplies our impotency steps in to perswade us that the holy Spirit is the uncreated Liberality of the Father and of the Son from all eternity and t is the same faith that teacheth us that the holy Ghost is also the gift of God to the Christians and that at the same time he entered into alliance with them he bestowed his love upon them as a mark of his largesse wherein I observe two or three things worthy of admiration The first is that God makes us a Present equall to himself Dedit dona hominibus quale donum Spiritum sanctum magna est autem Dei misericordia donum dat aequale sibi quia donum ejus Spiritus sanctus est Aug. ser 44. de verb. Dom. which the truest and most affectionate Lovers never do for though gifts are the effects of love they never equall it and if the Lover makes not himself a slave to the person he loveth he can offer no Present equivalent to his affection Pearls and Diamonds are but weak expressions of his good will whatever contents others are but incentives to his desires he would be a Monarch that he might bestow a kingdom and in that height of fortune he would professe no prodigality can satisfie a Lover But God to whom nothing is impossible hath in presenting his love presented a gift commensurate to the greatnesse of that best love he would expresse that which he bestows equalls himself his Present is infinite and when he tenders us the holy Ghost he makes offer of a divine Person The second excellency of this Present is that it prevents our merit because it findes us in the state of sin and did God consult his justice as much as his mercy we should appear the objects of his wrath rather then of his love For he bestows his Spirit upon his enemies he sheds his love abroad in the hearts of beleevers and we receive this favour from him when we deserve nothing but chastisements The third excellency of this gift is that it is the source of all others for being the prime radicall donation 't is that from whence all the bounteous liberality of God issues and proceeds who confers no benefit upon us which bears not the image and superscription of this first and prime gratuity Whatever comes from heaven is a copy of the holy Spirit riches are the expresses of his bounty advantageous parts of soul or body are the marks of his goodnesse Graces and vertues are his immediate impressions and in a few words to comprehend the priviledges of this Divine Offertory we must say with S. Augustine 't is the Pandora thorow which all other gifts are bestowed upon us If the Angels descend from heaven to protect us if the Sun enlightens us if the Stars favour us if the Earth nourish us if the Trees shade us if the Eternal Word leave the bosome of his Father to take upon him our miseries 't is by the counsel and mediation of the holy Spirit and this gift that ravished the Apostle who tells us of it was nothing but an effect and consequence of that primitive largess which is the cause of all others Thence I infer that when we receive any grace we ought to look upward to the Holy Spirit and acknowledging him the fountain of all blessings profess our selves bound to render him the eternal calves of our lips This favour would take away all hope of gratitude
you goes on Saint Augustine seeing the same thing happens to us every day and an ordinary and familiar example evidenceth the same truth For when ye are in the throng of an Assembly and some body treads upon your foot your tongue presently complains and though no body toucht it cries out you have hurt me what means it by that expression Might it not be replyed you are in safety the place you have in the body secures you from danger and if any part be offended 't is the foot not you In the mean time Truth and Charity require this language for being in the same body with the foot their good and bad are common he that hurts one hurts the other the society that unites them and the compassion that grows from their society constraines it to utter theâ—e complaints as just as they are true Let us apply this comparison and say though Iesus Christ suffer not in his Person he suffers in that of the Faithfull that making up one body with them he is sensible of their pains and taking part in their wrongs is offended when any one offends them By the same consequence a Christian can doe no good to other Christians but the Son or God is beholding to him for it For the Felicity he enjoyeth exempts him from all want nothing can be added to his riches by desires and he is so great and so happy that there is nothing he can either hope or fear yet is he indigent in the faithfull and he may be assisted in the person of the miserable he protests that in that terrible day when he will examine the good and bad works of his Subjects he will recompence the good offices done to the poor as done to himself nor will make any difference between the good usage he received in his naturall body and that he shall have received in his mysticall body he will equally pronounce sentence upon these different actions and every where confounding the Head with the Members will punish with as much severity those that have persecuted him in the poor as those that nailed him to the Crosse That which yee did to one of the least of mine yee did unto me This truth ought to comfort the good and strike terrour into the wicked For if Iesus Christ live still in the distressed if the condition of a Head which he preserves in Glory make him languish in the poor we must needs conclude that those that oppresse them are as guilty as the Pharisees that oppressed Jesus Christ Though his Innocence was clouded under the likenesse of sinfull flesh and the lustre of his Majesty obscured by the humility of his person his enemies did despite to a God when they thought only to injure a Man they committed a Parricide when they imagined they acted only a murder and the Father punisheth them as guilty of Treason against the Divine Majesty because the miracles of his Sonne took away all pretence from their zeal and all excuse from their offence The same judgement threatens those that persecute the poor For though nothing of worth shine forth in them that can render them considerable though Iesus be hid under the misery of their condition and reason cannot discover a happy man under an unfortunate one nor a Son of God under a child of Adam he will not fail to punish them as severely as those that knew him not in Judea because his words which are to be respected as Oracles suffer us not to doubt of this verity which makes up one of the chiefest Articles of our Faith But if it be an argument of terrour to the wicked 't is a ground of comfort and consolation to the godly For they may still succour the Son of God in wretched and distressed people they may imitate the piety of Martha and Mary Magdalen they may enjoy the priviledges which make up the glory of those blessed women they may still be the entertainers of Iesus Christ and receiving him in the person of the poor and strangers Ne quis vestrum dicat 〈◊〉 beati qui Christum suscipere in propriam domii meruerunt noli dolere noli murmurare quia temporibus natus es quando jam dominum non vides in carne non tibi abstulit istam dignationem cum uni inquit ex minimis meis fecistis mibi fecistis Aug. Serm. 27. de Verb. Dom. participate in their merits who received him himself into their houses The Son of God will not have us make any difference between his naturall and his mysticall body his hands and his feet are not dearer to him then the poor and all that is done to these may expect the same reward as that which was done to them If we beleeve S. Chrysostome there is more advantage by serving Christ in his afflicted members then there was to wait upon him in his own Person because there is more trouble in it and as our senses meet with nothing that can flatter them in that exercise our love is more pure and more disinteressed There was as much pleasure as honour to perform acts of service to the Son of God whilest he lived upon earth the Majesty of his Countenance the graciousnesse of his Aspect the Charms of his Conversation the Power of his Words were recompence enough to them that received him into their houses they had a certain adhaesion to his person from whence they were to be separated by death That visible presence which charmed their eyes diminished their merit and the love they bare to that body that was the workmanship of the Holy Ghost had imperfections which were to be purified by elongation But the Faithfull who serve the Son of God in the poor are free from this danger they behold nothing in these sad objects that can please their sense they must consult their faith to find Iesus Christ there they must doe violence to themselves to pay their homage at those shrines and that Image having no allurements all their devotion betakes it self purely to seek after Iesus Christ in Heaven But not to determine this difference 't is sufficient to know for our comfort that Iesus Christ is in the Christians that the glories of the one and the miseries of the other separate them not that he suffers in us without any abatement of his Felicity that we reigne in him without any prejudice to our merit that he is upon the Earth though cloathed with the Glories of Immortality that we are in Heaven though shrowded in the rags of misery that in the difference of our conditions Quoties ergo videmus aliquem indigentem agnoscamus ChristuÌ„ in illo quia ipse indigens membrum Christi est Bern. de Pass Domi. cap. 32. there is a perfect communication of good and bad things between him and us that his Grace is ours our sins are his with this difference onely that his Grace cancels our sins and our sins despoile not him of his Innocence The
Fourth DISCOURSE That the Vnion of Christians with their Head is an Imitation of the Hypostaticall Vnion CHristian Religion acknowledgeth three wonderfull Unities which exercise her Faith enflame her Love and entertain her Piety The first is the Unity of Essence which is found in the Trinity For the same Faith that â—eacheth us there are three Persons in one God teacheth us also that he subsists in one and the same Essence and that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are but one God This Truth soares so high above Humane Understanding that it cannot be conceived otherwise then by the light of Faith Reason would deceive should she be consulted with in this mystery Man would not be more faithfull Considera quod voceris fidelis non rationalis si dicas hoc non est exponcre sed expositione fugere respondeo in die judicii non damnor quia dicam nescivi naturam Dei mei si aâ—tem aliquid temere dixero temeritas poenam habas ignorantia veuiam meretur Aug. Ser. 1. de Trinitate should he labour to be more rationall in this subject and hee will fall into the Heresie of the Arrians or into that of the Sabellians did he not subject his Reason to his Faith The second is the Unity of Person in Iesus Christ which honours the Unity of Essence in the Trinity though it be in some sort opposite thereto For as there are three Persons in God which preserve their differences in the Unity of their Nature that the Trinity is neither confounded by the Unity Decuit cum summa quâ— in Deo est unitate congruere ut quomo o ibi tres personae una essentia it a hic convenientissima quadam contrarietate tres essentiae fint una persona Bern. lib. 5. de Consider cap. 9. nor the Unity divided by the Trinity There are three Natures in Jesus Christ that subsist in one and the same Person and which without losing their proprieties make one composition which is called God-Man There by a strange prodigie Flesh and Spirit agree with Divinity neither are the two Others swallowed up in This Each Nature preserves its rights and as the soul is not debas'd by being engaged in the Flesh the Divinity is not disparaged by being associated to both This shines forth by Miracles the Other Two are obscured by Injuries In a word the Son of God never loseth his Equality with his Father nor the Son of Man his Equality with his Mother The third Unity is that of the Body which is found between Christ and his Church for though there be so much difference between these two Persons Love hath combined them so neer together that not confounding their properties he hath made there of but one Body whereof Jesus Christ is the Head and the Faithful the Members They live of one and the same Spirit their Interests are common though one raign triumphantly in heaven the other suffer miserably upon earth they fail not to be so perfectly knit together that the Body is happie in the Head and the Head is afflicted in the Members Of these Three admirable Unities the Second adores the First and the Third the Second For the principal designe of the Word in his Incarnation is to honour the Trinity of the Divine Persons by the Trinity of his Natures and to pay homage to the Unity of the Divine Essence by the Unity of his Person This Divine Compound is an Image of the Trinity it declares the wonders thereof by its constitution neither did he take pleasure to unite the Flesh and the Spirit with the Divinity but to express to the Faithful the ineffable Unity between the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit in the difference of their personal proprieties Indeed this incomprehensible Mystery was not preached among the children of men till the Word became Incarnate and their Understanding clarified with the light of Faith began not to conceive the Trinity of the Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence till it conceived the Trinity of the Natures in the Unity of the Person of the Word Finally the Third Unity renders honour to the Second seeing Jesus Christ entred not into society with his Church but in pursuance of the affinity he had contracted with Humane Nature It seems he was willing to extend the mystery of the Incarnation in that he made all men his Members to make them the children of God and not being able or not vouchsafing to unite himself personally with every Christian he became united to them in the unity of the Spirit and of the Body The First of these Marriages is the example of the Second and we cannot well express the Union of Jesus Christ with his Church but by that of the Word with our Nature The Resemblances are so wonderful that they justly deserve this Discourse to see if we can clear them The chiefest secret of this mystery is that the Plurality of Nature destroys not the Unity of the Person Verbum caro factum unus est Christus ubi nihil est alterius naturaeâ—quod sit utriusque D. Leo. Serm. 10. de nat Dom. For though the Flesh have its weaknesses and the Divinity its perfections in Jesus Christ 't is nevertheless an admirable Compound that preserves its unity in the difference of its Natures he acts sometimes as God sometimes as Man receives the adorations of Angels and the injuries of Men that obeys his Father and commands with him suffers upon the Cross and reigns in Glory that 's buried with the dead in the Grave and triumphs over the devil in hell But in these different conditions he ceaseth not to be one and the same subject who accommodating himself to the proprieties of his Natures mixes Greatness with Humility Joy with Sorrow Repentance with Innocence without interessing his Person The same wonder is met with in the Marriage of Christ with his Church they are different in their qualities and 't is a strange effect of Love that was able to finde out a means to unite together two subjects whose conditions are so dissonant The one is Soveraign because God the other a slave because redeemed the one innocent the other guilty the one reigns in Eternity the other sighs and groans in Time nevertheless their Union is so strict that without confounding their properties they compose one and the same Body and both together make up but one onely Jesus Christ Whence it comes to pass that S. Augustine who after S. Paul hath best understood this Mystery Totus Christus secundum Ecclesiam caput corpus est non quia sinc corpore non est integer sed quia nobiscuÌ„ integer esse dignatus est qui sine nobis semper est integer Veruntamen fratres quomodo corpus ejus nos si non nobiscum unum Christus Aug. in Serm. Quod tribusmodis Christus intelligitur delivers these words One onely Jesus Christ is the Body and