from sinne An admirable mercy of God i◠this and a most singular testimony of his loue and of the most ardent desire which he hath of our saluation For man being forgetfull of himselfe and carelesse of his saluation and in stead of vertue louing vice not walking on towards heauen but towards hell Almighty God is pleased to visit him with sicknesse and tribulation against his will whereby he makes him enter into himselfe and to abhorre the sinne which he loued before and to forsake the way of hell wherin he was going and to pursue the way of heauen which he had left and to fly from many sinnes into which formerly he had fallen This is that mercy of God which Saint Isidorus ponders saying Almighty God seeing that many men will not reforme themselues vpon the motion and at the instance of their owne will sends them aduersities that being troubled afflicted they may be amended and so growe to loue those things which formerly they loued not And finding that some are so inclined and prompt to sinne he scourges them with infirmities of the body to the end that they may giue it ouer and he leaues them sicke because it is better for them to be broken by sicknesse and paine and so to obtaine the eternall saluation of their soules then to liue full of health and full of sinne and so to walke on towards hell This is the saying of Saint Isidorus And because sicknesse doth not produce so excellent and diuine effects in all Christians to take away their former sinnes and to hinder such as are future but onely in some who when they are sicke doe enter seriously into their owne hearts and haue contrition for their sinnes and change their liues it is therefore necessary for all men vpon obseruing that they are sicke to opē the eyes of their soule to examine their consciences well and to consider seriously of all those thinges which may giue impediment to their saluation and confessing their sinnes with sorrow giue a faithfull account of all to their ghostly Father instantly put all things in order with great diligence which concerne the amendment and reformation of their liues least otherwise that sicknesse which God did send a man with loue and mercy and to the end he might be clensed from sinne and so be saued doe not growe to serue but as a preface and beginning of those endles torments which are to be suffeby him in the next life as it will be to all them who will not profit by the sicknesses which God sends So saith the same Saint The scourge of aduersity and tribulation doth then clense the soule from sinne when the man changes his manner of life for vnles he change his life his sinnes remaine where they were So that vpon the whole matter euery scourge aduersity which God sends a man in this life is either to be as a spirituall Purgatory for his sinnes committed and of the penalty to which he is subiect for the same or els it will serue for a beginning of that other paine which he is to suffer afterward For certainly the paines and torments which are eternally to be suffred by some in the life to come are begun to be suffered some of them euen in this life The truth which this holy Doctor hath drawē out of holy scripture carries great force with it and the Holy Ghost therein doth teach vs and confirme by the example of many sinners that God did scourge them with great infirmities and because they profited not thereby they passed on from temporall paine and death to eternall And this ought to moue vs much to receiue any sicknesse as a most pretious gift of God and to giue him great thankes for it and to profit by it making a change of our life to the better to the end that being cleer both of guilt and paine we may make a short and certaine entry into eternall life And so that may be fulfilled in vs which Ecclesiasticus chap. 3 saith A great infirmity of the body makes a mās minde sober that is it cleers it from sinne and doth moderate and iustify it in all thinges THE VIII CHAPTER Of other great benefits which are drawen from corporall infirmities when they are borne with Patience BEsides this so excellent effect of clensing and freeing the soule from sinne infirmity of the body vses to produce diuers others which are very high of incomparable benefit Which dispose the soule to the end that it may receiue giftes from God that it may better and perfect it selfe more in vertue and increase in merit and that it may praise and glorify almighty God more and that a man may so become a particular instrumēt of the glory of God which shines in him either by his freeing him from that sicknesse with particular prouidence and loue or by giuing him admirable vertue and strength wherby to endure it with so great Patience that it may be seen how it is God who helpes him to endure so much and with so good a will in contemplation of eternall life Those blinde men to whom Christ our Lord gaue their sight at his entry and issue out of the Citty of lericho Luc. 18 Mat. 20. had neither seen his miracles nor heard his doctrine but had onely met with the fame of the wonderfull thinges which he did and of the mercy which he vsed towards all and thereby they grew to beleeue in him with so great faith and deuotion that before all those troopes which followed him they did with great cries confesse him to be the true Messias and the Sauiour of the world saying Iesus thou sonne of Dauid haue mercy on vs. And after when they receiued their sight they followed our Lord praising and glorifying God Many of the children of Israell and of the wise and prudent men of the people had heard the doctrine of Christ our Lord and seen his miracles with their owne eyes yet they had not embraced his faith nor had they bene moued by his works to glorify Almighty God whilest yet these blinde men by the onely fame of the workes of Christ our Lord which had come to their eares receiued his faith and glorified and confessed our Lord. And the cause thereof was in regard that the blindenes and pouerty of these men made them more capable and better disposed to consent to those diuine inspirations wherewith Christ our Lord toucht their hearts and called them to receiue the light of faith which Christ our Lord offered thē as also to the end that the fier of diuine loue might more easily inflame their soules with true deuotion and moue them to glorify the diuine Maiesty The Ghospell expresses not that Christ our Lord did pardon their sinnes or that he bad them sinne no more as he had done to other sicke persons but that he gaue them light both in body and soule to the end that they might see and beleeue
A TREATISE OF PATIENCE WRITTEN BY FATHER FRANCIS ARIAS OF THE Society of Iesus in his second parte of the Imitatiō of Christ our Lord. Translated into English In patientiâ vestrâ possidebitis animas vestras In your Patience you shall possesse your soules IHS With permission of Superiours Anno 1630. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY To the right honorable and most noble Lady the Lady B. A. MADAM In the translating of this Treatise of Patience I haue had no cause to exercise Patience for I dispatched it with a great deale of gust in regard that I was commaunded therein by your Ladyship the expression of whose will giues euer occasion of much ioy to mee Now therefore since vpon the matter it came from your Ladyship it is but reason that it returne againe though it must not be without the interest of my humblest thankes for your ministring mee so faire an occasion whereby I may haue seen more clearly what in my selfe I ought to be and consequently what I am not To the end that hereafter if I growe not more patient yet at least I may grow more hūble through the too certaine knowledge of my great defects Your Ladyship I assure my selfe will be pleased to looke vpon it with attention especially in regard of what it is in it selfe though partly also because it is a poore presēt of mine And I shall pray our good God with whole my heart that you also may be much the better by it in thanking his diuine Maiesty for that which you shall perceiue him to haue giuen you and in praying him hard to enrich you with whatsoeuer you may yet finde your selfe in this vertue to want And if his holy name may be glorified hereby and your soule and mine assisted to doe him the better seruice it is that very reward which most willingly I would bestowe vpon my selfe for this little labour though I had all power in mine owne hāds yours Ladyships I most humblie kisse and doe you reuerence with the hart of A most obliged and most humble seruant euer T. M. A TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS THE I. CHAPTER IN what the vertue of Patience consists and how the supernaturall fauours of God are necessary for our suffering the miseries of this life with true Patience Chap. 2. Of the euils or inconueniences of paine which Christ our Lord beganne to suffer euen from his Conception and Birth and of the example of Patience which he gaue vs therein Chap. 3. How Christ our Lord endured the company of the wicked and of the example of Patience which he gaue vs thereby Chap. 4. Of the euills of paine which Christ our Lord suffered in his Passion and of the example of Patiēce which he gaue vs by suffering them with so great good will Chap. 5. Of the Patience desire and loue wherwith Christ our Lord indured all those torments for the example and edification of our soules Chap. 6. Of the Patience wherwith wee ought to suffer the losse of temporall goods and of the example which Christ our Lord gaue vs herein Chap. 7. Of the Patience wherwith wee are to endure corporall infirmities and of the example which Christ our Lord hath giuen vs herein Chap. 8. Of the other great benefits which are drawen from corporall infirmities when they are borne with Patience Chap. 9. Wherein it is confirmed by the example of Saints how great the fruite of sicknes and other tribulation is and how this is an effect of Gods mercy which he shewes towards his friends Chap. 10. Of the fruite of the encrease of Faith and Patience which wee must gather from the Patience which the Saints haue shewed in suffering their infirmities and paines Chap. 11. Of the Patience wherwith discomforts and spirituall desolations are to be endured and of the exāple which Christ our Lord gaue hereof Chap. 12. Of the necessity and fruite of Patience and how it is a signe of the election and predestination of God Chap. 13. How pleasing the vertue of Patience is to God and of the great fauours which he affoardes them who suffer with Patience Chap. 14. Of the meanes whereby the vertue of Patience may be obtained which is that wee be watchfull to consider the fruite thereof and the examples whereby wee haue been taught it by Christ our Lord. Chap. 15. Of other meanes wherby wee are to obtaine and conserue the vertue of Patience namely to consider our sinnes and to resort to Almighty God for the remedy thereof A prayer for obteining Patience of Almighty God WHy doe I complaine ô Lord when I am wronged or afflicted vniustly if I call to minde how grieuously I haue offēded thee how often I haue deserued Hell how great thy mercy is appointing me to suffer light temporall punishment in this life wheras I haue deserued most grieuous and euerlasting torments in the next For it is not fitting that there should be delicate members vnder a thorny head and which hath been most cruelly vsed for them Why should I complaine if I doe but remember that for suffering patiently for a time these present labours thy mercy will cōfort me and with thine owne hand thou wilt wipe the teares from mine eyes and wilt giue rest to my broken and afflicted bones and that thy comfort and reward will be according to the measure of my Patience and suffering Let therefore whatsoeuer aduersities reine downe vpon me for thy sake ô Lord so that thou giue me strength and spirit to endure them because that without the helpe of thy grace the weakenes of my nature would faile Make me ô Lord to beare all false iudgements vaine suspicious slaunders al iniuries couragiously without repining without complaining without excuses without any interiour feeling of them and without any exteriour signe and let my soule be so much the more ioyed and delighted within it selfe by how much the more innocent it findeth it selfe and free from the fault where with it is charged Strengthen my soule ô Lord with the knowledge and loue of thy most sacred Passion that I may not only beare present aduersities with ioy but also wish them when they are absent and that I may account it a kinde of crosse to liue and dy without a crosse A SHORT TREATISE OF PATIENCE VVRITTEN BY Father Francis Arrias in the secōd part of his booke of the imitatiō of Christ our Lord. THE I. CHAPTER In What the vertue of Patience consists and how the supernaturall fauours of God are necessary for our suffering the miseries of this life with true Patience IT belongs to the vertue of true Patience to suffer all those thinges which are aduerse and serue for the punishment of man in this mortal life with a heart so firm and constant that to auoyd and fly from them he doe nothing which is faulty and contrary to the will of Almighty God It belongs also to Patience that the sorrow which naturally is raised in the soule of man by the approach and presence
grieuous to be endured by vertuous men But that which they are to doe for suffering it with that Patience which is fit and for gathering from thence that fruite of merits which God desires is this To distinguish on the one side by the vse of reason between that which is the fault of others and the losse of soules and the offence of God and that on the other side which is their owne affliction and paine and then to be afflicted for those sinnes for asmuch as they imply the offence of God and withal to be sory for the losse which soules receiue thereby and to make instant prayer to God for them and as for the paine and torment which results thereby vpon them selues to accept it at the hands of almighty God and willingly to be content to suffer it during all that time which God shal thinke fit not to take them out of that company and conuersation of the wicked By this meanes that company of the wicked will be a diuine Purgatory to them which may clēse their soules both from sinnes and the punishments due thereunto and a way of exercising chatity and humility and patience which ar of so great worth and merit and so very acceptable in the sight of God And to animate them to suffer this punishment with this Patience they are to consider those exāples of Christ our Lord wherof wee haue spoken which are the immense and continuall tormēt which he felt in behoulding all the sinnes of mankinde and that which he felt in being carryed by the diuell to Ierusalem and to the Mount that which he receiued by his conuersation with the Iewes who continued rebellious in their infidelity and that particularly which he receiued by keeping Iudas in his company and in the Colledge of his Apostles For to this end it was that he chose that miserable creature for an Apostle as well knowing how wicked he was to be and for this after he was peruerted did he continue him in his owne company and he tolerated him to the end that by this example they might seriouslie endeauour to endure those wicked and peruerse people with Patience whom they might chaūce to haue in their neighbourhood their house their family and their society So doth Saint Augustine aduise vs saying Christ our Lord had one amongst his Apostles who was wicked and he serued himselfe well of that wickednes First by complying with that eternall ordination of God concerning his Passion and secondly to giue an example to the world of the Patience wherwith they were to endure wicked men Let vs therefore animate our felues by these exāples of Christ our God and Sauiour to suffer with a good will and a constant minde whatsoeuer troubles contradictions and crosses may grow to vs by our neighbours our domesticks and our familiar freinds Let vs consider and ponder well what Christ our Lord endured at the hands of sinners for the loue of vs and how he hath endured our very selues dissembling our sinnes when we deserued hell for committing thē bestowing benefits on vs when wee committed offences against him imparting mercies to vs when wee did him wronges cryinge out and drawing vs to him and conuerting vs by his grace when we had departed from him and were fled out of his house and were making warre against his Law This Patience of Christ our Lord wherwith as God he endures all sinners hath endured our selues and as man endured those wicked people with whom he cōuerst in this world must induce and strengthen vs much in the way of sufferance Great saith Saint Ambrose is the Patience of God in not instātlie punishing sinners but in suffering them for sometime till they may be conuerted And in another place If our Lord our God and Sauiour Iesus Christ who with one single word could haue cast his enemies into the most profound pit of hell did yet endure them with Patience why should not miserable men who are full of sinnes endure thē also with Patience whē in this life they receiue paine and trouble from other men by whose meanes they are corrected and punished by Almighty God for their sinnes This is the discourse of Saint Ambrose Let vs therefore giue this glory to God that for his loue wee may endure all euills of punishment Let vs yeeld this honour a d giue this gust to Christ our Sauiour in that to imitate him wee may haue occasion to suffer all the iniuries and contradictions of men Let vs bestow this benefit vpon our owne soules in wiping away our sinnes by exercising this vertue of Patience and let vs fill it full of comforts and merits For as Ecclesiasticus chap. 1. saith the Patient man suffers onely during a time which is limited and afterward for his hauing suffered Almighty God giues him true ioy which springes frō that grace which at the present he receiues and from that hope of glory wherewith he is to be indowed afterward THE IV. CHAPTER Of the euils of paine which Christ our Lord suffered in his Passion and of the example of Patience which he gaue vs by suffering them with so great good will THe chief examples of Patience which Christ our Lord gaue vs were of his most sacred Passion by reason of the many and various kindes of sorrowes and tormentes which he suffered therein with vnspeakeable Patience and wee will declare these torments and the Patience wherwith he suffered them for the edification of our soules and particularly that wee may learne to suffer all the miseries of this life with Patience When they apprehended our Lord he giuing them leaue to put the malice and fury of their wrathed harts in execution the torments were many and very grieuous which they gaue him with their hands and feet by cudgells and irons and other instruments which they had and vsed throughout that whole way till they came to the house of Annas For if after they had imployed vpon his person so many and most cruell kindes of torment through all that night and so much of the next day till they nailed him fast to the crosse they yet were not satisfied at all but after they had crucified him they did yet cōtinue to persecute him with their viperous tongues and after they had fetched all the blood out of his vaines together with his life they would needes open his side and fetch the blood forth from his very heart what is to be thought that they would doe in that furious onset when first they began to exercise their cruelty vpon him and to streame out their deadly poison against him which had lyen for so long time horded vp in their malitious heartes In the house of Caiphas the High Priest whē Christ our Lord had confessed who he was and when all the Iudges had condemned him as a blasphemous persō and worthy death the soldiers Ministers of iustice together with the seruāts of the Priests in whose power he was
house to Mount Caluary which consisted of one thousand eight hundred and seauenty two paces And because our Lord would worke no miracle in carrying the waight of that Crosse but giue leaue that nature might suffer as much as possibly it could therefore when he had dispatched a good part of the way he grew to faint and fall downe vnder the burden And the prime men of the Iewes conceiuing that there might be danger least he should dy amōgst them in the way gaue him Simon Cyrenaeus for a companion who might helpe him to beare the Crosse so the assistence which they affoarded him grew not frō clemency in them but from a desire to impose greater torments vpon him by his dying not there in the way but on the Crosse it selfe The sorrowes and torments of that way being past and he being thē arriued at Mount Caluary they began to giue him new torments One was that they stript him by taking his owne cloathes away so to put him naked vpō the Crosse Now this was a most painfull thing to our Lord because his cloathes stucke fast to his woūds by the meanes of baked and congealed blood and whensoeuer they tooke them off with violence they still opened the wounds againe they flead his body and renewed all his former paines To this was added that other torment which the cold ayre caused for that penetrated into his body vpon the opening of his flesh made him all quake and tremble through the much cold he felt and this torment lasted till he expired The other torments which followed vpon his nakednes were these The soldiers tooke that most holy body with extreame fury and spred it forcibly vpon the Crosse applying his backe to the wood and extending his armes and feet at length they beganne to nayle one of his hāds and the nayle being great and not very sharpe it carryed before it through the hole both of the skinne and of the flesh Then tooke they the other hand and because the body and the nerues were shrūke vp together through the cold they were faine to draw out the hand with violence to make it reach that hole which they had already made They also tooke his sacred feet and they furiously stretched them forth to nayle them And there be holy men who deliuer that for the nayling of his hāds they gaue six twenty strokes with the hammer and for the nayling of his feet six thirty that through the violence wherewith they drue his hands and feet to nayle them downe the ioynts of his sacred body were dissolued the bones displaced in such sorte as that they might be numbred one by one O how great sharpe were these torments to that most delicate body how did they euen parte his bowels and euen pearce his hearte Our Lord did very litterally performe that which the Psalme 21. had said They haue boared through my hands and feet and they haue fastened them with nailes to the Crosse and by reason that the parts of my body were so extended one from another and all the substantiall humour thereof so consumed all my bones might be numbred As soon as his most sacred body was nailed they raised the Crosse vp on high and they suffered it to fall with great force together with his most sacred body which was fastened to it vpon a hoale made in a stone which was there prouided for that purpose This was another incomparable torment for then all the parts of his body did euen open their ioynts and his bowels did all quiuer and the hoales of his hands and feet did spred abroad and beganne to streame forth blood like so many springes It is past expression to shew the greatnes of the tormēts which those blessed armes endured being nayled and so strictly extended and those sacred feet which sustained the waight of his whole body that diuine head which now had no resting place but vpon thornes and the paines which all those parts of his body felt euery one of them being out of the true place and those finally which were felt by that blessed soule of his which carried vpon it the immense weight of all those torments together continuing after that manner that soule being grown a very sea of woe for the space of three houres till expiring he laid it in the hands of his eternall father THE V. CHAPTER Of the Patience desire and loue wherwith Christ our Lord indured all those torments for the example and edification of our soules AL these immense sorrowes and torments did Christ our Lord endure with a Patience which was vnspeakeable and indeed only worthy of himselfe He complained not of his enemies who treated him with so extreame cruelty nay he defēded not himselfe against them nor was he angry with them nor did he shew them any coūtenance of disgust nor did he speake any one word which might doe them any affront or offer them any threate or put them to any paine Nor did he so much as wish thē any hurt but did both wish and speake benignely mildly to thē And he conserued in his most dear heart a great loue towardes them all wherewith for as much as they would be capable therof he loued them giuing them holy inspirations and offering them diuine succours and praying for them wishing that they would profit thereby and cooperate with them and be conuerted to him and so be saued And he was euer ready to pardon them and to receiue them to his grace glory if they would be conuerted to him In this manner did Christ our Lord carry himself towards those enemies of his who tormented him and with this loue and with this Patience did he treate them And he suffered those paines and torments in such sorte as that he did greatly desire and delight in them and he imbraced them with the extreame gust of his hart reioyced in the interiour part of of his soule with vnspeakeable gladnes ioy that he had them to suffer And so when they laid the Crosse vpon his backe and when they nailed him to it he intertayned it with so much appetite and gust as cannot be expressed Great is the contentmēt and affection wherewith a mother embraces a most beloued sōne when shee findes him deliuered out of a long and dangerous captiuity and sees him returne safe and sound into her house But incomparably much greater was the contentment and gust wherewith Christ our Lord embraced the Crosse For already there were passed three and thirty yeares since he had begunne to desire and loue it with an immense desire and loue that so he might worke the saluation of the world thereupon and then perceiuing that his so long and vehement desire was to be satisfied it cannot be expressed how great gust he had when they laid and strecht him vpō that Crosse And therfore embracing it with those bowells of his most tender loue he would say to
that chief fruite of his most sacred Passion which are those spiritual and celestiall blessings through which we possesse God heer by grace afterward by eternall glory And therfore doth God giue vs afflictions and paines in this life not because our affliction or paine is pleasing to him but for that incomparable benefit which he knowes that wee ar to obtaine by meanes herof and which he ordained from all eternity to bestowe vpon vs in reward of that Patience wherwith wee beare it This is said by Rusbrochius And now by this consideration must wee faithfull Christians be greatly moued and encouraged to suffer corporall sicknesse and all other euills of punishment with great contentment For if the diuell as Saint Iohn Chrysostome saith when he propoundes to the heart of man some temporary and euen momentary delight the fruite and punishment whereof are most grieuous and eternall torments doth induce and ouercome him so farre as to winne him to expose himselfe to so great a misery for so flēder a delight how much more is it reason that wee who are the faithfull seruants of Iesus Christ when he proposes to our hearts those immense and eternall ioyes of heauen be moued and perswaded to receiue a sicknes or some other light and short trouble and to endure it with Patience which bringes forth such fruite and reward after it as is eternall life and an euerlasting kingdom of glory and aboue all which produces the fruite of pleasing and glorifying Almighty God which is incomparably the greatest reward and fruite which can be conceiued THE IX CHAPTER Wherein it is confirmed by the example of Saints how great the fruite of sicknes and other tribulation is and how this is an effect of Gods mercy which he she was towards his friends BEcause it is of so great importance to haue an vnderstanding feeling of this truth namely that it is a worke of vnspeakable loue in God to send vs sicknesses and other afflictions which he expresses toward his greatest friends and he prooues and perfects them thereby and makes thē worthy of most beautifull and most pretious crownes of glory wee will confirme it by the example of some very emiment Saints Timothy that holy Bishop and the disciple of Saint Paule was sicke of a paine in his stomacke 1. Tim. 5. which is a grieuous and irkesome disease and had also many other infirmities And Saint Paule louing him much and very tenderly and well knowing the great need he had of health that so he might with gust vndergoe all those difficulties which the office of a Bishop exacted at his hands did not yet take away this sicknes nor desire of Almighty God that it be taken away He cured other sicke persons Act. 9. and that with so great facility that it cost him no more thē to put of his girdle or to take out some handkercher which had wiped of his sweat then to giue it that it might be laid vpon those sicke persons and instātly the men were cured And he obtained so very easily that which he vsed to aske of God as that begging once the liues of two hundred seauēty and six persons who were going with him to Rome and were in danger of perishing by the way God did grāt the suite and freed them from death at his request and yet to this disciple of his whō he loued so much he neither gaue health by miracle nor did he beg the cure of God but permitted him to continue sicke as he was And for some ease in those infirmities which he had he gaue noe other thē that ordinary remedy which any vulgar friend would haue prescribed saying doe not still drinke water alone but take a little wine for that paine of stomacke which you endure and for the many other infirmities which you suffer But why then did not Saint Paule free his disciple Timothy from these sicknesses Because he knew that they were great testimonies of the loue which God bore him and that they were profitable to his soule by occasioning him to growe in Patience and humility and fauour in the sight of God Saint Gregory Nazianzen had many and grieuous sicknesses in his age they were both greater grew in effect to be continuall Amongst the rest he had the goute which tormented him much and so as that he could not stirre but carryed And thus howsoeuer he were of strong constitutiō his many acts of penāce and continuall infirmities consumed him at last and he came to dy at the age of 65. yeares as Caesar Baronius collects by the writings of the Saint Notwithstanding that he was still so sicke he yet laboured much and by those labours he greatly benefited the Church and by his infirmities he greatly benefited himselfe for he carryed them with Patience had much comfort therein Saint Basil was tormented with most grieuous sicknesses and sometimes they brought him to the very dores of death Yea they were so continuall that the paine he suffered whē he was best in health might passe for grieuous sicknesse in another Himselfe in his Epistles speaks therof and in one of them he saith I haue had many sicknesses and one of then hath succeeded another and now I am also sicke and there is scarce an houre of my life wherein I expect not my death And in another letter of his he saith If when I am best according to the apparance I haue of health they account mee amongst them who are giuen ouer from thence it may be vnderstood what kinde of thing I am when I am fallen into an expresse disease And it was matter of great admiratiō that vnder the waight of so many so great sicknesses he could labour so hard by writing disputing preaching gouerning and going as it were in pilgrimage to preach the Ghospell in diuers parts of the world that being so wasted with such paines of body and distempers of blood he should not slack one whit in the care and solicitude which he carryed in effect to all the Churches of the East which were mightly persecuted by heretikes And by meanes of these infirmities that most holy Doctor did mightily augment the merits of his most pure life Saint Gregory the Pope was exercised by Almighty God with extraordinary infirmities and most sharpe paines which continued a long time with him He had certaine seasons of the goute so long and tedious and which gaue him so excessiue paine that in one pang thereof it continued with him no lesse thē two yeares He saith thus in one of his Epistles I haue such torment by the goute that my life is grieuous to mee I daily faint vnder my paine and I expect the remedy of death He had also in his body an interiour ardour of heate which did as it were euen broyle and dry vp his very bowells And in all these infirmities and torments his heart was in such conformity to the wil of God he so greatly did desire
of miseries be moderated and subdued in such sorte as that it may doe no harme to the same soule by putting it into disorder and by making it swarue from the right line of reason This is that Patience which is necessary for vs and to which wee are bound by expresse commaundment whereby a man is secured from cōmitting either mortall or veniall sinne in such occasions But other degrees of Patience there are of greater perfection which belong to Counsaile and not to commaundment whereof wee shall speake afterward Saint Gregory the Great describes this Patience which is necessary for vs after this manner Patience consists in suffering those euills of punishment which happen to vs by the will of others with a moderate and equall minde and in that a man dispose not himself to hurt that other mā from whom it comes and that receiuing the scourges of paine and sorrow and other tribulatiōs at the hand of God he complaine not murmure not against him And declaring elswhere how it is not necessary for this Patience to which wee are bound by precept to quench intirely that sorrow and grief which a mind receiues through the euills of punishment but to moderate it in such sorte as that it may not be inordinate and hurtfull he saith thus Some thinke that true constancy and wisdome consists in not feeling those scourges and contradictions which come to vs in this life from the hand of God and others haue too excessiue sence thereof and are too much afflicted and dismaied therby but the true vertue of Patience and true wisdome teaches vs to hold the meane between those two Extremes In such sorte as that a Christian must neither be of a stupid heart because this necessary vertue of Patience cōsists not in that a man feele no sorrow for his aduersity nor yet that on the other side he should feele so much dismay griefe as to make him passe beyond the bounds of reason For if he exceed therein he offends against the vertue of Patience And because it happenes sometimes that some when a crosse arriues or when a wrong is offered doe by the helpe of God beare it well at that time and yet remembring it afterward fall either into sorrow or into rage with impatience against him who offended them the same Saint pronounces thus He is the possessor of true Patience who at the time when he receiues the hurt doth beare it without inordinate grief and when afterward he happenes to remēber it reioyces and is glad that he ēdured it And the end which a faithfull Christian is to hould in the sufferāce of these punishments and in vsing this moderation and in putting this restraint vpon griefe must be to conforme himselfe to the good pleasure of God and to will that which God wills For the will of God is that a mā should vnder goe that euill of punishment by whatsoeuer way it come to him whether it be by meanes of diuells or men or other creatures For by whatsoeuer meanes it comes God is the first Author the first cause from whence it proceeds and so his pleasure is that men suffer and accept well thereof as growinge to them frō his hand This is Saint Paules aduice Heb. 10. when he speakes thus to his faithfull children Because you are encountred with so many crosses which assault the strēgth of your hearts you haue need of Patience whereby you may in all thinges performe the will of God and yeeld entire obedience to his comaundments And complying after this manner with his heauenly will you shall obtaine those most high and eternall benedictions which the Diuine Maiestie hath promised to such as keepe his lawe Now by reason that mans weaknes after the fall of Adam is so great it is a matter of much difficulty for him to suffer all those euils of punishmēt which happen to him in this life with such strength of minde as that he transgresse not the bounds of reason and the lawe of God And if wee consider man in his naturall force not onely is this hard for him but wholly impossible For though as Saint Thomas saith well a man for the enioying of temporall blessings endure euē by the strēgth of nature many grieuous thinges because the naturall loue which he carries to himself helpes him on and with the greater naturall loue he ouer comes another loue which is lesse yet to obtaine spirituall and eternall blessings wherein consists our saluation which is the true end of vertue he is not able to endure thē For a naturall loue is not able to produce this effect but a loue supernaturall and grace from heauen is necessary for the enduring thereof And so wee see that the Philosophers and wise mē of the world who by the strayning vpon the force of nature did professe to obtaine the true vertue of Patience were able indeed to reach but to the shadow and apparāce thereof as Saint Cyprian notes in these wordes I finde not O my brethren that amongst all the wayes of spirit which are taught vs by our holy Religion any one of them is more vsefull towards the obtayning of the Kingdome of heauen then this of perfect Patience This was professed by the Philosophers but as the wisdome which they professed was for the most part not sollid and true so neither was their Patience because no man can be truly wise or patient who knowes not the wisdome and Patience of God by way of faith This is the discourse of S. Cyprian Now therfore since the weaknes of man is so great in suffering crosses with Patience and that he is in so great necessity thereof for liuing well in this world and for the obreyning of heauen in the next it pleased Christ our Lord to prouide vs with two very principall and efficacious remedies for the strengthening of our weakenes and for the exalting of our nature in such sorte as that it might obtayne this diuine vertue and the perfection thereof with much facility One of these meanes is the example of his most holy life passion wherby we may be animated to beare crosses with Patience and the other are those supernaturall helpes and succours of grace which he deserued for vs by his sufferings Let vs therefore goe declaring the chief examples of his life whereby he moues and perswades vs to suffer all the aduersities paines torments contradictions which may happen to vs in this world with true Patience To the end that considering them at good leasure and with true feeling and spirit wee may stirre our selues vp to an effectuall purpose and desire to beare Crosses And so also by a liuely faith of those so holy and blessed Mysteries by the the meanes of humble and deuont prayer we shall obtaine all those succours of grace which are needfull for the bearing thē with perfect Patience THE II. CHAPTER Of the euils or incōueniences of payne which Christ our Lord beganne to suffer euen
it in this manner in the interiour part of his hart O most happy Crosse how long is it since I haue loued desired thee it is now three and thirty yeares since I liue enamoured of thee and I all enkindled with the flames of this desire and loue to see myselfe conioyned to thee O thou most pretious wood wherupon the iust price for sinne shall be payed and the diuine iustice shall remaine fully satisfied and my Father shall be perfectly glorified and man shall be saued freed from sinne and death and eternall damnation shal make his entry into the Kingdome of heauen O with how good a will I suffer my selfe to be nayled to thee and will so continue vpon thee till I leaue to liue And because the affection and desire which Christ our Lord had to suffer was the cause of that vnspeakable Patience wherewith he endured all the sorrowes and torments of the Crosse let vs cōsider the testimonies of the Ghospel wherin he declared the frāke will desire which he had to suffer and wherwith he offered himselfe to his Passion and death He discouered this his pleasure in that he manifested and declared many times and in particular manner to his disciples how he was to suffer in Ierusalem and the torments kinde of death which he was to suffer Once he said thus to them Matt. 16. It is fit that I goe to Ierusalem and that I suffer many torments at the hands of the Scribes and Pharisees and chief Priests and that I be put to death by them And Saint Peter perswading him not to endure it he reproued him in sharpe manner for seeking to hinder his Passion It is cleer that since he knew so long before what he was to suffer he might haue auoided it and fled from it if he would and since he did not so it is plaine he had an affection and desire to suffer it Another time going vp to Ierusalem some few dayes before that Easter when he suffered he said thus to them Matt. 20. Behould we are going vp to Ierusalem and the son of man is to be deliuered vp to the Princes of the Priests to the Scribes who will condemne him to death and will deliuer him ouer to the Gentiles to the end that he may be scorned scourged and crucified by them As if he had said Behould how without being carryed or compelled we goe in a most voluntary manner to Ierusalem where those thinges which concerne my Passion and death are to be accomplished to the end that you may vnderstād how willingly I offer my selfe to that Passion and death whereby I am to saue the world He also discouered the great affection and desire which he had to suffer by his going to that garden which was so notorious a place and where he knew his enemies would seeke and finde him out as also in that being there and knowing that his enemies came to apprehend him he went not thence to some other place where they might not finde him but he went by that very way where they were cominge towards him he went to meet them and animated his disciples to goe with him saying Matt. 26. Rise vp and let vs goe for he who will betray mee is neer at hand So saith Saint Ierome when he declares these words Our Lord wēt to encounter his persecutors without any feare at all of his Passion and he voluntarily deliuered himself to them that they might depriue him of his life and he said to his disciples Rise vp and let vs goe as if he had said let not our enemies finde vs heer like fearfull men but let vs goe with good courage to receiue them and let them see the confidence and cheerfullnes wherewith we offer our selues to death Being gone forth to meet his enemies and already standing before them and they hauing many lights wherby they looked vpō him he being well knowen to them and especially to Iudas yet was it not in their power to know him then because he gaue them not that power not concurred with that faculty of their minde wherby they were to haue knowen him till such time as he discouered himselfe to them by saying It is I declaring thereby how truly it was in his owne hād not to be takē or so much as touched by thē vnles he would himselfe So saith Saint Chrysostome Our Lord stāding in the middest of his enemies did blinde their eyes this he did to make them know that not onely they could not haue apprehended him but not so much as haue seen him if himselfe had not giuen thē power to doe it He also declared thus much by making them returne and fall backward to the ground like dead men and that with one onely word discouering cleerly thereby how easy a thing it had bene for him to defend himselfe from them to take away both their strength and life if he had bene pleased He had formerly bene in feare in the garden to declare the weakenes of mans nature and by the immense loue which he bore to man he ouercame all that naturall feare and he being ouercome by that very loue and by the extreame desire which he had to suffer for the saluation of mankinde wēt forth to receiue his enemies as if they had bene his most beloued friēds And first hauing made it plaine that they could not once haue touched him nor so much as haue knowen him if he had not bene so pleased he then gaue thē leaue and power to doe what they would to him And this he declared by saying This is your houre and the power of darcknes This is that hower wherein liberty is giuen you to the end that you and the Princes of darcknes by your meanes may execute both his power his cruell wil vpon my person This affection wherewith Christ our Lord offered himselfe to the torments of death and this inuincible Patience wherewith he endured them had bene prophecied by Esai 53. chap. in these words He offered himselfe to death because he would The same Prophet had said The eternall Father had layd all our sinnes vpon Christ our Lord to the end that he might satisfy for them all and all those sinnes might be destroyed consumed by the vertue of his Passion And instantly he declares the manner how he layd them vpon him which was not by forcing or constraining him to suffer but by infusing an immense charity into him and by inspiring mouing his heart thereby to the end that voluntarily and freely with extreame readines and gladnes he might offer himselfe to death And declaring the Patience wherewith he suffered that death he saith As a sheepe he opened not his mouth So great was the Patience the desire and loue wherewith he endured the torments which he tooke vpō him for the discharge of our sinnes that he opned not his mouth either to defend himself or complaine of others Like a quiet sheepe
which bleyes not when his throate is cut so went he in sufferance and silence as he was carryed to death and as an innocent and still lambe which is silēt quiet whilest they sheere him so our most blessed Lord did in quiet silence and repose endure that fierce outrage wherewith his enemies tormented him and that most cruell fury wherewith they put him to death By these and other testimonies did Christ our Lord declare the immense loue and most ardent desire which he had to suffer the torments and death which he endured for man yea yet to endure greater torments to suffer more deathes if his enemies had power to giue him more wheereupon wee may inferre the vnspeakeable Patience and ioy wherewith he suffered them Wee must ponder and continually meditate with a very profound and deep consideration vpon these examples of Patience which shine in the life and Passion of Christ our Lord and thereby we must be animated to suffer endure with true Patience all those euills of punishment which may happē to vs in this life how great or tedious soeuer they may be For therefore saith Saint Efrem the afflictions and tribulations of this life seem grieuous and intolerable to vs because wee consider not the Passion and death of Christ our Lord. Let vs therefore allwaies carry before our eyes imprint in our hearts this death and Passion of his and all those examples which he gaue vs therin of Patience and let vs imitate him by suffering all the contradictions and penalties of this life with a good will And since it becomes a soldier to follow his captaine with much labour and with offering himselfe to troubles and wounds and dangers of death though he be but a mortall man who cannot giue him strength wherewith to fight nor can raise him from death if he should by in the combat nor can giue him who conquers any other reward then some tēporall thing of small value how much more is it reasonable that wee follow and imitate Christ our Lord Sauiour by suffering with Patience Since he giues strength to them who follow him wherewith to suffer and cōforts wherewith to do it cheerfully and deliuers them who imitate him from eternall death and and bestowes the most excellent reward vpō them of eternall life For as the Apostle saith it is a word most faithfull true worthy of all estimation that if wee dy with Christ our Lord that is to say if wee dy to our sinnes and ill desires abhorring and mortifying them as Christ our Lord died to his corporall life we shall lead a most glorious and blessed life together with him And if we suffer the sad and painfull things of this world and euen death it selfe with Patience for the loue of Christ our Lord and in imitation of him wee shall reigne with him for euer in his celestiall Kingdome THE VI. CHAPTER Of the Patience wherewith wee ought to suffer the losse of temporall goods and of the example which Christ our Lord gaue vs herein THough any one of the paines torments which were suffered by Christ our Lord may serue for a sufficient motiue to animate vs to endure all the afflictions and tribulations of this life with Patience yet that kind of paine endured by him which carries most resēblāce to the Crosse which most vsually is to be suffered by vs doth vse to comfort induce vs best to suffer it and for this reason wee will treat of some particular Crosses for which we may finde particular examples of Patience in the Passion of Christ our Lord. One of the ills of punishment which happens ordinarily to men is the losse of their estate temporall goods which befalles them sometimes because they are robbed sometimes they loose them by meanes of fier and shipwrackes sometimes by vniust suites in lawe sometimes they are coosened of them sometimes they are put to preiudice by the intemperate seasons of the yeare By what way or meanes soeuer we growe to loose our temporall goods wee must eudure it with Patience accepting it at the hand of God and conforming our selues to his holy will The particular example which must comfort vs in this afflictiō and giue vs heart to beare it with Patience is to see that Christ our Lord was vniustly stript of all his cloathes in his most sacred Passiō by those most base soldiers who crucified him He liued poore in this world and because he loued and extreamely delighted in pouerty he possessed no temporall goods at all Those things which he receiued by way of almes to sustaine his Apostles to deuide amongst the poore he had already bestowed There remained no more to him but his cloathes and of those they stript him and left him naked that nakednes was accōpanyed with great cold and great shame which he suffered by remayning in that sorte till he dyed From others who are executed mē take not their cloathes till they be dead but from our most blessed Lord they tooke his whilest yet he was aliue and he was pleased to ēdure this being dispoiled of his cloathes and this paine and shame in remaining naked that he might suffer for vs and withall might giue vs an example of Patience Let vs therefore animate our selues by this example of Christ our Lord to suffer any want or losse of temporall goods and let vs say thus in our owne hearts Since Christ the Kinge of glory and the vniuersall Lord of the whole world would needes for loue of me and for my saluation endure pouerty and the want of temporall goods was content that they should strip him of all his cloathes and expose him naked to the ayre and put him to the shame of appearing so to the whole people most iust it is that I for loue of him and for the saluatiō of mine owne soule should endure this want of meanes and this losse or wrong whereby I am depriued of the temporall goods which once I had And let vs consider for the better exercise of our Patience that whatsoeuer preiudice or temporall losse wee haue doth come to vs from the hand of God and for the good of our soules This did Christ our Lord discouer to vs by another example and testimony of the holy Ghospell Matt. 8. Luc. 5. Mar. 8. He went into the country of the Gerasens where he found two men tormented with diuells He cast the diuells out and so cured the men by the power of his word The diuells besought him that since he had cast thē out of those men he would giue them leaue to enter into a great heard of swine which was feeding in those fields hard by and which belonged to the inhabitāts of that Citty Our Lord gaue them leaue to doe it and instantly they possessed those swine which might arriue to the number of two thousand they carried them with extreame fury into the sea where they were drowned Hereby wee are
taught that the diuells could do no hurt to the swine vnles our Lord had giuen them leaue as neither the diuell nor any other creature can doe vs any hurt at all vnlesse God giue thē power to that purpose and vnlesse he worke by meanes of the diuel or that other creature which doth vs hurt whatsoeuer it be For though God be not the cause of any fault or sinne yet is he the cause of the punishment which is brought on by reason of the sinne or fault is receiued by meanes thereof So saith Saint Athanasius Since the diuels haue not so much as power ouer swine which are but the goods of men it is cleer that they haue no power ouer men who are made according to the image of God and so wee haue no cause to feare the diuells but onely God And the same did he declare concerning the hurt which might growe to vs from any other creature that it also proceeds from the hand of God saying Matt. 10. Two sparrowes are of so little value that they are sold for a toy and yet God hath so particular care and prouidence ouer euery one of them that not one can fall dead to the ground or be taken in a snare without his disposition will And thē how much more will he take care of men and not consent that any creature should so much as touch them either in soule or body or so much as in their goods without his leaue In this māner did Christ our Lord declare that all ills of punishment proceed to vs from the hād of God He also shewed how he ordaines them all to the good of soules that is to the end that sinners may be cōuerted and iust persons saued because he desires not the death of a sinner but that he may be conuerted and liue particularly he procures this when he takes their goods from them as Saint Augustine notes saying thus When God visits his seruants with the want of thinges necessary for this life and makes them suffer hunger or thirst as he proceeded with the Apostles he failes not thereby of the promise which he made them that nothing should be wanting to them For these temporall goods are helpes and kinds of Physicke to the soule and God is the Physitian who best knowes when to minister them and when to remoue them and so when they are wanting to vs as they are many times wee must knowe that God Almighty is the cause thereof for the exercise of our vertue and for the good of our soules And speaking in particular of that which Christ our Lord did with the Gerasins in depriuing them of their goods when he gaue the diuells leaue to drowne their swine Saint Ierome saith Christ our Lord gaue thē not that liberty by way of granting their desire or to performe their will but to the end that the losse of their goods might be profitable to the owners for their soules be an occasion of their saluation And the spirituall profit which came to them hereupon as Saint Chrisostome obserues was that they might knowe the power which diuells had to doe men hurt if God did not hinder them and so they might be thankefull to him for defending them by his diuine prouidēce as also to the end that they might feare and fly from sinne by meanes whereof men grewe subiect to the power of diuells to be vexed by them in this life with temporall paines and in the next with eternall torments These are the motiues reasons which a faithfull Christian must consider to the end that he may beare the losse of temporall goods with Patience namely the exāple of Christ our Lord that it comes from the hand of God and for the good of his soule And thus the losse of temporal goods will be of greater profit to him then the encrease thereof would haue bene For that little temporall losse will be the occasion of a great spirituall gaine The Saints of God haue confessed experimented this truth Whilest the blessed Laurentius Iustinianus he who afterward was Patriarch of Venice was one day out of his Monastery the house fell on fier and that parte thereof was burnt where he kept the prouisions of food which he had laid vp for the whole yeare When the Saint came home from abroad the Religious men tould him what had past and they were afflicted by occasion of so great a losse But the Saint cōsidering how it came ordained by the prouidence of God who so deerly loues vs and who in all thinges procures the good of soules and especially of such as serue him receiued this losse with much contentment though not for the losse it selfe but because the will and ordination of Almighty God was accomplished thereby And so with a cheerfull contenance he said to his Religious What hurt is there my children in this which hath happened to vs It is no ill but good it is no losse but gaine since by meanes thereof wee shall better execute our good desires in practising pouerty and Patience It is a great benefit to the seruant of God and of much merit and value when he may distribute his goods to the poore and imploy them vpon the workes of mercy but if he chāce to loose his goods if they be stolne from him if gotten away by iniustice or lost by any other accident and if he accept of that losse with much Patience and with much contentment for the loue of God and to conforme himself with his diuine will who so ordained he ordinarily doth aduantage his soule more and it doth merit more and please God more by this course then by the other For this Act of the vertue of Patience resignation is more pure free frō selfe loue thereby a man doth more deny and mortify his owne will doth more exercise Faith and hope in God as also the loue of his and the estimation of his holy will And so wee see that our Lord hath takē away these goods by some sinister accident from many Saints which they would haue giuen away in almes to affoard them meanes of greater merit thereby and for the exercise of that rare Patience wherwith they accepted and loued their aduersity and had gust therein as proceeding from the will of God Saint Iohn the Patriarch of Alexandria a man of rare mercy towards miserable men and euen a very miracle of mercy sent from Alexandria to the Adriaticke sea thirteene ships full loaden with marchandise and thinges of value which he had raised out of the Reuenues of his Church that so they might be sold in diuers parts remote and the whole price be giuen by him to poore people in the way of almes as his custom was Now it pleased Almighty God that vpon the rising of a great tempest at Sea al the goods were cast away and the shippes returned empty to Alexādria And God did thus ordaine because he more esteemed the
great Humility and Patience which the Saint would exercise in this wracke thē the Mercy which he would haue exercised if the goods had not bene lost And so without all faile the profit which the Saint drew from thēce was admirably great he receiuing it with a good will and giuing God harty thankes for the same and humbling himselfe much by the knowledge of his sinnes in regard whereof he confessed that God had sent him that losse to clense him more perfectly from those sinnes Saint Chrisostome teaches vs this truth and confirmes it by the example of holy Iob saying thus Nor onely the doing of good but the suffering of ill obtaines a high reward in the sight of God and Iob seemes to haue profited more in vertue by the afflictions which he endured then by the good deeds which he performed For really it was not so illustrious so high an act in him whē with the wooll of his sheepe he clad the naked set his house open to the destitute that they might take parte of the goods he had as when hearing that the fier had consumed his stocke and that his house was fallen and his fortune ouerthrowen he accepted of that losse at the hands of God and thanked him for it And a greater victory did he obtaine of the enemy and he confounded him more in giuing thankes to God vpō the losse of his goods then in bestowing thē vpō poore people For certeinly it is an act of greater vertue to endure the losse of goods with a generous gratefull minde to God then to bestow almes vpō the poore Nor is it a thing to be admired for a man to giue God hearty thankes when he is in good estate when things succeed prosperously with him but vpon the arriuall of mischances and in the losse of temporall goods to giue harty thāks to God and to esteeme such contradictions for benefits is a very admirable thing and giues a very excellent testimony of great vertue This is the discourse of Saint Chrisostome Let vs therefore serue our selues of these examples and testimonies of Christ our Lord and of his Saints to make vs suffer all losse of temporall goods with Patience Let vs so much esteeme of of the spiritual health of our soules that whatsoeuer may be profitable to vs for them wee may value as a great mercy and gift of God And since the losse of tēporall goods giues vs matter and occasion for the exercise of Charity towards God by louing it because he loues it and for the exercise of Patience by enduring it and accepting it willingly because God sends it and because therby we discerne the loue which God carries towards vs and the care he hath of our saluation since he giues vs helpes and ministers vs occasions whereby wee may serue him the better and so profit more let vs esteeme of euery temporall losse for a very great benefit and mercy of God and as for such let vs thanke and praise him saying with holy Iob. chap. 1. It is God who gaue mee this temporall blessing and it is he who hath taken it away as himselfe was pleased so hath he proceeded with mee Most iust and holy was his will both in giuing it and in taking it and his holy will the blessed for euer THE VII CHAPTER Of the Patience Wherewith wee are to endure corporall infirmities and of the example which Christ our Lord hath giuen vs herein ANother euill of punishmēt and very vsuall and common in the life of man is corporall infirmities and feauers and seueral other paines torments and wounds which he suffers by reason whereof he is in great need of Patience we must fetch it also in this kinde from the example of Christ our Lord. And though our most blessed Lord had no naturall infirmities at all nor was it fit that he should haue any because these are wont to proceed from some defect of cōplexion or natural faculty of the body or from some disorder in life yet all the paines and torments of his most sacred Passion may serue for a most efficacious motiue to make vs support all kinde of those infirmities with Patience which may happen to vs in this life and particularly the paine torment of thirst which he suffered vpō the Crosse the being so forsaken abandoned as then he was For that which mē are much troubled with in their sicknesse in their sicknesse is the paine and torment which sicknesse put them to and the want of that assistance seruice which is necessary for the cure or ease at least of the infirmity al this was found extreāly in that thirst which Christ our Lord endured vpon the Crosse The thirst which Christ our Lord suffered was most vehemēt First by reason of the incomparable labours vexations which he had suffered all that day and the night before and secondly because by the hurts and wounds which they had giuen him he had shed either all or in a manner all the blood out of his veines and by the waie as he went and by the vexation and labour to which he was put he had sweat away all the humour of his sacred body which then was growen all consumed and dry And to this it must be added that from the supper of the night before and in all that day following he had not drūke so much as one drop of water Now if any one of these thinges be wont to cause great thirst as wee see in men who are wounded and haue shed much blood and in them who haue laboured and sweat much and in them also who haue not drunke of a long time before what kinde of thirst shall that haue bene which was endured by Christ our Lord Infallibly it was most extreame the torment which it caused was grieuous beyond any thing which we are able to expresse And now declaring the paine and torment which he felt thereby he said thus I thirst and the remedy and comfort which he obtained for the ease thereof was that one of the soldiers tooke a spunge and wetting it in wine which was spoyled and growen vineger and mingled with gall he tyed it to a long cane and so applied it to his sacred mouth and our Lord tooke thereof not to drinke it downe because it was not fit that he should drinke of so deadly a thing but he tooke it to haue a taste thereof he tooke as much as might serue to afflict torment his taste so to suffer the more for vs. So doth the deuout Lanspergius declare saying Our Lord vnderstanding well how bitter that drinke was which they gaue him did yet take therof through his great loue to vs not so swallow it downe but onely to afflict his tongue and taste with bitternes that so he might take torment in that parte of him from which sinne grew in vs. For Eue committed her sinne by tasting of the forbidden fruite and by
to suffer them that he sought not for comfort and ease of his miseries in this life but onely desired it for the next And he esteemed thē for singular blessings and gift of God and was thankfull for them as being such as he declared in an Epistle which he wrote to Saint Leander Archbishop of Seuill who had written a letter to him wherein amongst other thinges he tould him that he had bene much tormented by the goute and Saint Gregory answered him after this manner You tell mee that you are tormented by the goute and my selfe am also vehemētly tormented by the continuall paine of the same disease but it will be easy for vs to finde comfort in these miseries if wee call our sinnes to minde and consider that wee are purged from thē by these infirmities and that so they are not meer scourges of God but blessings also whereby his diuine Maiesty doth vs so much good With such Patience as this did Saint Gregory beare his sicknesses and so they were of great helpe to him for the obtaining of that most eminent sanctity and most profound humility and of that most plentifull light which shined in his most holy soule Of the insufferable infirmities of Saint Iohn Chrysostom and of the inuincible Patience and constancy wherewith he suffered them and loued them and of the great merits which he acquired by them it would be a long businesse to write and therefore wee will remit our selues to his history and to his letters where he speakes of them Almighty God gaue also to the holy Saint Bernard many grieuous and dangerous sicknesses for the encrease of his vertue for the greater purifying of his life And yet to giue more encrease to the paine of his sickenesse and of his sanctity thereby God ordained so that such remedies as were giuen him for the ease of his paine should prooue to be of greater torment to him For a certaine holy Bishop a friend of his through the feare he had least the Saint would not there be cured well by reason of the rigour which he was wont to vse against himselfe tooke him out from the Monastery wherein then he was and deliuered him to an Infirmarian who through ignorance chanced to treate him so ill and gaue him thinges so hurtfull to eate and so painfull to take that euen men who had bene healthy and hungry would haue had difficulty therein And if the Saint asked for one thing the Infirmarian gaue him an other very cōtrary to that wherof he had need Now the Saint endured these sicknesses and this ill treatinge with so great Patiēce that he neuer complained nor vttered so much as any one word of disgust but obeyed that rude fellow in all thinges as any very obedient subiect would doe his superiour Saint Hugh the Bishop of Lincolne had extreame paines in his side which to any other man would haue bene of great impediment in the exercise of the Episcopall function but he suffered them with so great Patience and strength of minde that he laboured with that afflicted body of his as if he had bene perfectly in health and indeed it was a kinde of miraculous thing how he could haue strength and courage to doe so much Saint Dominicke had many infirmities and extreame paines in his stomacke and yet through the great desire which he had to suffer and well decerning that those were particular giftes of God he had much ioy therein And though whilest he was sicke they did diuers thinges of much contradiction trouble to him he neuer complained nor shewed that he was offended thereby but gaue God thankes for all Saint Francis besides the sicknesse he had wherein he was conuerted to God had after eight and twenty yeares for the space of twenty other yeares of his life many grieuous sicknesses and he suffered extreme paine in them He had a sorenes of eyes which put him to extreame trouble and once through the paine thereof he was faine to be shut vp fifty dayes without being once able to behould any light at all either by day or night and the torment was so great that he could take no rest at all He had extreame aches in his head in his side and in his spleen he had also great burning feauers His sicknesses and torments were such that he had not a parte of his body which was not tormented with excessiue paines his flesh was so wasted that his skinne did euen cleaue to his bones And besides all the rest of his infirmities he had a kinde of dropsy in his feet which gaue him much affliction So that his very diseases were so painfull that they may be accounted to haue brought him a tedious martyrdome full of tormēt Now this Saint endured these infirmities with so admirable Patience that he neuer complained of them nor so much as shewed to be troubled at them but he loued them and reioyced in them and through the great loue which he bare to them he called then his sisters and he was wont to say I giue thee thankes ô Lord for these paines and I beseech thee that if it be pleasing to thee thou giue mee a hundred times as much this shall be of great gust to me For the gust of my heart consists in this that thy will may be accomplished in mee Saint Thomas of Aquine had great sicknesses He suffred grieuous paines in his stomacke and he had a Fistula in one of his legs and he endured these infirmities with so great loue of God and desire to suffer that he mortified himself by forbearing to take such things as might haue giuen him gust and ease Being one day wholly without appetite thinking vpon a certeine fish whereof he might well haue eaten they brought it but he to mortify his sence did then refuse it and God accepted this act of abnegation at his hands and remedyed his necessity by other meanes The blessed Laurentius Iustinianus had grieuous and dangerous diseases Once they thrust a hot iron through his necke another time they opened a parte of his throat with a razour These paines were extreame and the Saint endured thē with so great Patiēce that neither did he complaine nor sigh nor made any shew that he was in torment but remained immoueable as if it had not bene he whom they burnt and wounded but some other man That which happened to those Saints whom wee haue mentioned her hath happened also to innumerable others namely to be exercised by almighty God with most grieuous sicknesses to endure them with admirable Patience to gather inestimable fruite from thence THE X. CHAPTER Of the fruite of the encrease of Faith and Patience which wee must gather from the Patience which the Saints haue shewed in suffering their infirmities and paines FIrst we may drawe from hence a very great and cleare testimony of the in fallible truth of the most holy Religion of Christ our Lord which was professed by all
those Saints For to suffer so grieuous sicknesses and so bitter paines so many yeares with so inuincible Patience for the obtaining of spirituall inuisible benedictions doth incomparably exceed all the naturall power and strength of man And so wee see by experience that men who are voyd of the Faith of Christ our Lord cā not beare such sicknesses and paines with true Patience but they faint and faile of courage therein and they fall into great sorrowes and other disorders against reason and some goe so farre as to despaire Silicius Italicus a most worthy man amongst the Gentiles and of great wisedome and authority who had bene Proconsul in Asia and Consul in Rome had a grieuous sicknes and was subiect therein to much paine and not being able to endure it and being seauenty and fiue yeares old he killed himselfe And as Cato Vticensis who went for so wise a man not being able to endure the affront of being held to be ouercome by Caesar killed himselfe to be free from that affront So did Silius Italicus kill himselfe to be freed from the paine of his sicknesse which he was not able to endure The Gentiles who through their owne fault were not assisted by supernatural fauours from God for the suffering of such paines with Patience were subiect to this great weakenes and impuissance in suffering them And euen amongst Christians they who are not in the grace of Christ suffer sicknesses and paines with great difficulty and when they chance to be very great men doe by occasion thereof commit many sinnes and fall into much disorder against the vertue of Patiēce Whereas wee see that Saints and the seruants of Christ our Lord endure most grieuous sicknesses and intollerable most tedious paines with so great Patience that they loue them and reioyce in them and thanke God for them And al the power of the sicknesse and the fiercenes of the paine can not make them cōmit any little errour against vertue as we haue proued by so many examples It is therefore a most clear and certaine truth that these men are greatly assisted and strengthened by Almighty God as true faithfull soules and seruants of his and that they are exalted by supernaturall fauours both to doe and suffer those things which all the power and strength of humane nature can by no meanes doe or suffer For certainly Patience whē a man is in some great aduersity is a gift of God as the Psalmist saith Psal 61. Patience comes to mee from our Lord. And S. Augustine thus declares the reason and root of this truth Amongst wicked people so much more couragious is any of them towards the enduring the inconueniences of this life as there aboundes in him more couetousnes and concupiscence and loue of the world in regard wherof he endures thē amongst iust persons so much the more couragious is any such man to suffer paines and tormēts as he hath the greater charity and loue of God in him for whose sake he suffers them The loue of the world hath his roote in free will being assisted carryed on by the gust and delight which men take in thinges of the world and the charity and loue of God is infused by God himselfe and so the Patience of iust mē is a gift giuen by God which was communicated to them by charity whereby they exercise true Patience The second fruite which wee must gather from hēce is a great courage and heart for the enduring of any sicknes or afflictions which it may please God to send vs as also a firme confidence that wee shall be able to endure them by Gods grace with true Patience and to the great benefit of our soules We know well indeed that wee are not able to endure them by the only strength of mans nature but by the fauour and helpe of God and that God is ready to impart those helpes and fauours in great abundance with much liberality and that in fine he will bestow them vpon vs as he hath done to all his Saints and true seruants For so the eternall God who is truth it selfe hath promised and so hath Christ our Lord merited for vs. And as the truth of God cānot faile nor the merits of Christ our Lord be diminished so it is certaine that succour cannot be wanting to vs on the parte of God if wee be disposed to profit by it Because as S. Paule saith 1. Cor. 10. God is faithfull and true in the accomplishment of his promises and will not permit vs to be tempted with any affliction or tēptation which may be too heauy for vs to beare and maister being assisted with that grace and fauour from heauen which he is ready to giue vs for that purpose But rather he will take care that in the time of the temptation or tribulation things shal succeed in such sorte either by encreasing our strēgth or by diminishing our Crosse as that wee may be able to endure it yea and to ouercome it at good ease and reape much fruite and merit by it This is deliuered by Saint Paule And since after the example of Christ our Lord and of his Saints wee are resolued to make the right vse of these helpes from God and to serue our selues of these fauours and to doe on our parte what wee can wee may be confident assured if we still rely vpon that succour from heauen that wee shall endure sicknesses and all other Crosses with Patience And that those thinges which it is impossible or at least very hard for our naturall weaknes to endure will be made easy and sweet to vs by these helpes from heauen namely by the gifts of grace and those diuine consolations which God will impart to vs to the end that wee may suffer them not onely with Patience but euen with ioy also as the Saints did Not onely must this hope encourage vs to suffer but it must greatly comfort vs therein Saint Saint Basil declared it by these words In the time of our tribulation wee must not seeke for helpe at the hands of our owne strēgth or power or riches or authority or humane glory but at the hāds of God who giues it to all such as seeke it And with this confidence in God be glad if thou be sicke for whō God loues he corrects and betters by sicknesse and if thou be poore be glad for God hath prepared eternall blessings for thee and if thou suffer any affrōt for Christ our Lord esteem thy selfe happy therein for that affront will be changed into that glory which the Angells enioy Let vs therefore resolue our selues not to make our first recourse in our tribulations to humane helpe and let vs not rely theron but haue recourse to God with prayers sighes and teares Let vs place our confidence in him and expect that from him for he it is who can saue vs. This is the saying of Saint Basil And by this very reason of hope doth
Saint Peter comfort vs saying 1. Pet. 4. Do you greatly reioyce since you cōmunicate with Christ our Lord in his afflictions and paines by suffering in imitation of him to the end that when after this life the glory of Christ our Lord shall be manifested in heauen you may also be made partakers thereof and may exult in that supreme and euerlasting ioy becoming like him in glory as you haue bene in paine THE XI CHAPTER Of the Patience wherewith discomforts and spirituall desolations are to be endured and of the example which Christ our Lord gaue hereof THese ordinary euills of paine of the remedy whereof wee haue already spoken such as are losse of goods and sicknesses are common both to the good and bad but there is another euill of paine which vsually doth onely happen to such as are good and for the enduring whereof they stand in great necessity to learne Patience frō the example of Christ our Lord. This euill are those discomforts and drynesses and spirituall afflictions which God is wont sometimes to impose vpō the soules of such as do most cordially serue him to the end that by the exercise of Patience and humility they may grow vp in vertue and serue him better Whē a seruant of God who loues him much doth treate and conuerse with him by meanes of Prayer and Meditation and contemplation and gusteth much in that familiar communication commerce with God he findes by experience the vnspeakeable dear sweetnes of his loue he enioyes a most liuely feeling of his presence his goodnes and his mercy he possesses a most euident and ioyfull hope and very intire promptitude of deuotion Now it happens sometimes that this man remaining in this spirituall paradise and passing there a great parte of his pilgrimage in this life God doth so ordaine concerning him not onely sometimes but very often and long together that enabling him still to mainteine and hould the substantiall parte of his loue which consists in louing that which he loues aboue all thinges and in taking contentment therein and in yeelding obediēce to his commaundments and in carying a hatred against all sinnes and in vsing diligence to auoid them in being watchfull and attentiue in the performing of all good workes enabling a man I say to doe all this God yet depriues him of the experimentall knowledge gust which he had of him and of his goodnes and of the sweet feeling of his presence and of the facility and ease which he was wōt to finde in treating and communicating with him and the readines of his deuotion and the ioy which he was wont to take in his hope And though that soule remaine still in grace and friendship with God and with a firme determination euer to serue him and neuer to offend him yet is it dry withall and sad and discomfortable and full of feares and assaulted by dismaies doubts And though it be true that this soule hath lost nothing in point of vertue or of the merit which it had or of the loue wherewith it loued God and was beloued by him yet in finding it selfe so altered it feares least it should be hated and abandoned by Almighty God This is the greatest tribulation and affliction to which good men are subiect in this life that which they apprehend most and Christ our Lord discouered both the inconuenience and the remedy in the holy Ghospell The Apostles were full of comfort in the society of Christ our Lord Matt. 14. Maro 6. enioying the suauity regalo of the sight of his presence of the hearing his doctrine and of the fauour priuilege of his Miracles And our Lord hauing once wrought that Miracle of the fiue loaues of bread whereby he had so particularly giuen them comfort and done them honour he seperated them from himselfe comanding them to imbarke them selues without him and that so they should transport them selues to the other side of that sea The Apostles found this to be a very vntoward and vnpleasing businesse and notwithstanding that they obeyed yet they did it with great repugnāce the thing being much against their minde This was noted by the Euangelist saying He compelled and constrained his disciples that they should enter vpō the ship without him which is as much as to say he made them enter perforce and much against their will And the reasons of this repugnance in thē was first because they would faine not haue wanted that sweet presēce of Christ our Lord which they did so deatly loue For so saith Saint Chrisostome Our Lord constrained his disciples in regard it was a thing so very hard for them to depart from him Which grewe without doubt frō that great ardour of affection which they carried towards him Another reason therof might be the feare they had least wanting his presence and fauour some trouble or danger might happen to them at sea And thus also saith Saint Hierome The disciples had reason to depart vnwillingly with much repugnance from our Lord for feare least in his absence they might sustaine some hurt or incurre some hazard by sea The disciples being departed from our Lord and being embarked and already vnder saile there rose a stiffe and contrary winde which made them a high Sea and brought a great storme vpon them The disciples rowed hard but could not aduance their backe a whit and so passed the rest of that day and all the night following in great labour and hazard till at length toward the morning our Lord did visit and comfort them make the tempest cease By this difficulty the disciples knew their owne weaknes the great need which they had of our Lord and so they desired his presence much the more And when he had visited them freed them from that danger they grew more in faith hope and loue of him and so casting themselues all prostrate at his feet they cried thus out with a more feruorous faith and with more intire deuotion Thou art certainly the sonne of God By the departure which Christ our Lord caused his disciples to make from him against their wil he taught vs how sometimes he would parte his faithfull great friends who serue him and loue him and haue much gust in his presence from that dear company of his Not for as much as concernes the friendship which he beares them nor for as much as concernes the state of grace wherein they liue but onely concerning the sweet comunication which they had with him and the ioy and comfort which they felt by his presence And this he doth very much against their will but howsoeuer he doth it yet for their good to the end that they may growe to vnderstand their weakenes better and what poore thinges they would be without God may become more humble and distrustful of themselues and exercise themselues more in Patience and haue a greater desire and make a greater estimation of the gifts of
God and that when afterward he shall visit them restore them to the gift of his delightfull and dear presence they may grow vp in faith and hope and loue of him Thus saith Saint Chrysostome Our Lord suffered his disciples to labour all night by rowing and to let their ship be tossed from one side to the other that so they might desire his presence so much the more and that the feare and danger of shipwracke being passed ouer they might confide the more in him and carry him the more deeply impressed in their memory and their heart An other time Christ our Lord tooke his Apostles with him and he put himselfe with them vpon the Sea and laid himselfe downe to sleepe in the pup of the ship and whilest he was sleeping there rose so fierce a tempest that it put them in danger of perishing And they cōceiuing that because our Lord was sleeping he saw not the perill wherein they were came towards him and awaked him saying Saue vs Lord for wee perish Our Lord then rose vp and hauing reproued them for their little faith he made the tempest cease By this did our Lord discouer to vs the same mystery although in other termes In that when Christ our Lord was on shipboard with his disciples a tempest rose wee are taught that whilest he is present by grace with his seruāts who are iust and holy men the tribulation temptation the seeming to be abandoned by Almighty God rises vp against thē And though our Lord doe well discerne the afflictiō wherein they are and hath great care of them and will be sure not to let them perish yet to their thinking he hath little better then forgotten them and it seemes to them as if they were forsaken and abandoned by him and that they are in great dāger of perishing Now our Lord proceeds thus with thē for their greater good to the end that they may the better knowe themselues and vnderstand by experience of how little strength they are in time of tribulation and that being freed from it by our Lord vpon whom they call they might the better iudge of the assistance and fauour which he affoardes them and that they may confide more in him and more admire his goodnes and power and diuine prouidence and become more perfectly subiect to his heauenly will So saith Saint Cyrill Our Lord permitted that a tempest should rise for the exercising of the Apostles in vertue and that knowing and confessing the danger wherein they were they might frame the higher conceit of the power of the power of the same Lord might resorte to him and place all their confidence in him And although they were in so great feare of perishing yet in very deed they were safe nor was it possible that they should be lost hauing that omnipotent Lord so present with thē as they had This is deliuered by Saint Cyrill But that example of Christ our Lord which is most proper to comfort his seruants in this kinde of tribulation and to animate vs to suffer it with Patience is that abandoning by the eternall Father which Christ our Lord endured vpon the Crosse which he declared when he said thus My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee The eternall Father had not forsaken him for as much as concerned the grace and glory of his soule nor for as much as concerned the vnion of the humane and diuine natures in him but he abandoned him according to what we haue already declared for as much as concerned the sensible ease and comfort which might flowe from the superiour parte of his soule to the inferiour parte of the same soule and to the sensitiue parte of the body which he suspended and deteined to the end that it might not redound vpon it nor be communicated to it that so the paine of his Passion might be the more pure more grieuous and more hard to be endured By this abandoning discōfort of Christ our Lord all the seruants of God are to be hartened and comforted in this kind of affliction of drynes and desolation considering and discoursing with great waight of reason after this manner Since the eternall Father did abandon his Sonne in his Passion whom he infinitely loued depriuing him of all sensible ease and comfort and since the Sonne himselfe would also haue it so to the end that he might suffer so much the more for the loue of man most iust it is and most reasonable that the men of God who are members of the same Christ be also depriued at some time of sensible cōforts and that they may be afflicted and forsaken to the end that they may resemble Christ himselfe and that the parts of the body may be like the head Yea it is most reasonable that they should suffer this discomfort and desolation euen gladly and with gust for the loue of the same Lord. Let them also consider that as Christ our Lord though he were abandoned by his Father departed not as he was man frō the vnion which he had with him by loue nor from the vniō which he had with the diuinity nor did he loose one iote of the infinite grace and immense glory which he had in his most holy soule so also his seruants though they want those spirituall feelings and sensible comforts though they be molested and afflicted are not therfore departed from the amity vnion with God nor haue they lost any parte at all of his grace and loue but they continue still his friends and still are pleasing in his sight but by this exercise of humility and Patience they growe vp in all vertue and merit both of grace and glory Most excellently doth Iustus Lanspergius thus describe these afflicted seruants of God of whom he had knowen many by experience Wee finde many friends of God in this world who want all that sensible cōfort in all the spirituall exercises of deuotion which they were wont to enioy so farre as that sometimes they can hardly once raise their spirit vp to God and by a secret dispensation of Gods prouidence they seem to be as it were oppressed with a great obscurity of heart And notwithstanding all this for as much as concernes the substance of vertue they haue it with a great feare to offend God they fly from al kinde of sinne whether it be great or small with much care and they watch very attentiuely and keep straight ward vpon their hearts for mainteining the purity of their conscience complying exactly in all those thinges which they vnderstand to cōcerne the will of God and they are truly mortified and humble Such persons as these although they haue not those feelings of loue and sensible deuotion haue yet a true and liuely faith whereby they liue and direct their course they are certainly great friendes of God though themselues doe not vnderstand it so This is said by Lanspergius Let therefore the seruants of God be
them the vertue of Patience is so necessary it followes that it is the fruite and effect of Patience to conserue the soule in such sorte as that it may receiue no hurt from temptatiōs and assaults of the diuell and to encrease their merits in heauen by the victory ouer those temptations and thereby to manifest by an experimentall way who are truly iust and elect of God So doth the holy scripture declare to vs in many places It saith in Ecclesiasticus c. 27. As the furnace of fier tries the pots of the potter so doth temptation and tribulation try iust men The meaning is that as the hot burning furnace doth examine and declare which vessells are good and fitly tempered and which indeed are they which being cast into the fier are not cracht or broken therby but remaine hard and whole and fit for the vse of man and as it doth also shew which other of them are ill made for they cracke and breake in the hot furnace so doth temptation and tribulation whether it be offered by diuels or by men declare and shew who are iust and holy And these are they who through the euills and temptations which they endure are not broken or ouercome by impatiēce or other sinnes but through the vertue of Patience perseuer firme and constant in the practise of vertue and the keeping of the lawe of God THE XIII CHAPTER How pleasing the vertue of Patience is to God and of the great fauours which he affoardes them who suffer with Patience ANother way whereby Christ our Lord declared the fruit and merit of Patience is the particular fauours extraordinary benefits which he vouchsafed to to men who suffered aduersity with Patiēce Christ our Lord came to the Piscina of Hierusalem and amongst so many sicke persons as he found there he imparted only to one of them who had remained there sicke eight thirty yeares so great a fauour and so illustrious a benefit as it was both to cure his body and to iustify his soule And the cause why our Lord bestowed this blessing rather vpon him then any of the rest was because he endured his sicknesse with more Patience then others As is plaine in that he hauing bene sicke so many yeares made no cōplaint but answered so meekly to what was asked Saint Chrysostome obserues this and saith Christ our Lord Io. 5. did not aske the sicke man if he had any desire to be cured as if he had doubted of his will but only for the manifesting of his Patience who hauing been eight and thirty yeares and daily hoping for health which he could not finde did yet neuerthelesse continue without going away and despaired not being there to teach vs also that the reasō why he cured rather him then others was his great Patience Let vs declare another exāple to the same purpose Christ our Lord Io. 9. cured a man who was borne blinde and for the constancy where with he confessed the same Lord and defended his truth the Pharisees did persecute and affront him both by word and deed and they cast him as an excommunicate persō out of the Sinagogue The good man obeyed this vniust comandment endured that wrōg with Patience and Christ our Lord who knew it al seeing the afflictiō wherein his faithfull seruant was the Patience wherewith he bore it sought him out of set purpose and spake to him after this manner with great affability loue Doest thou beleeue in the sonne of God which was as much as to say Wilt thou beleeue that he who cured thee is the true sōne of God And euen as he was speaking these wordes he did withall infuse a most excellent clear light into the most inward part of his soule to make him know and beleeue that he who had cured him was not onely a Prophet and a Saint as already he had confessed him to be but also the true and naturall sonne of God for the question did import so much And so he beleeued and asked Who is he O Lord And that Lord answered him thus It is euen he who is speaking with thee Then instantly he fell prostrate adored him This so admirable fauour to seeke him and comfort him and honour him and communicate so great light of faith grace to him did God vouchsaffe to this mā for his hauing been so faithfull in confessing him and so patient in suffering that wrong which they had done him in regard of Christ our Lord. So saith Saint Chrysostome they who with Patience suffer the iniuries which are imposed on them for mainteining the truth of Christ our Lord these men are greatly fauoured and honoured by him as wee see by the example of the blinde man whom the Iewes cast out of the Tēple for the Lord of the very tēple sought him out he receiued him with great loue and as a soldier who had fought valiantly he crowned him with a crowne of inestimable worth and beauty such as was the eminent grace pawne of heauen which he bestowed vpon him So great account as this doth Christ our Lord make of a faithfull and patient man and so much doth he esteem him that omitting many others he seekes him out with care he comforts him by his words he ioyes his heart by his presence he honours him by his fauours and he aduances him by his gifts This doth Saint Thomas obserue in these words The Euāgelist by relating that Christ our Lord sought out the blinde man whom he had cured giues vs to vnderstand that he was diligent in harkening him out because he found more faith and vertue in him then in others whereby wee may inferre that he more esteems one iust person thē ten thousand sinners This wee are tould by S. Thomas And though it be no exaggeration at all to say that God doth more loue one iust man thē the whole world of sinners put together since absolutely speaking he onely loues such as are iust with the loue of grace yet considering how greatly God esteems the saluation euen of sinners and the care he hath to conuert them to say that God more loues to saue fauour one iust man then many thousand of sinners is no sleight expressiō but doth greatly discouer the particular prouidēce and care which God carries towards iust persons and it giues matter also of much confidence to them who serue him that through his goodnes they are to be greatly fauoured and assisted by him towards their saluation Christ our Lord did also discouer the value and fruite of Patience in this that when he would vouchsaffe any great vnusual benefits to any he first disposed and prepared them by the exercise of Patience He was pleased Matt. 15. to feed foure thousand men with seauen loaues of bread and before he would impart this benefit to them he made them stay three daies in the patient sufferance of hunger the paines of being in a desert and continuing
penalties also which he had incurred thereby so to saue him in the eÌ„d This doth he coÌ„fesse by saying thus Tob. 3. Iust art thou ô Lord and all thy iudgments are very iust for if we haue been deliuered into the hands of our enemies to be made captiues and to be destroyed and killed by theÌ„ and to become the very scorne of all nations it is because we haue sinned against thee in not keeping thy comaundments nor conuersing with a pure hart in thy presence And further confessing the great mercy wherewith God punished them for their sinnes he saith Tob. 13. Our Lord punishes vs for our sinnes and the same Lord shall saue vs for his mercies sake After this manner by the knowledge of our sinnes and of the punishment which we deserue for the same wee are to embrace all those aduersities which God may send vs in this life with much Patience yea and wee must praise and thanke him for them Another and a very efficacious meanes whereby wee must helpe our selues to suffer all tribulation with Patience is instantly to resort to Almighty God in any affliction of ours whether it be great or small beseeching him with our whole hearts that he will giue vs strength to beare it well and to conforme our selues entirely to his most holy will And although it be lawfull to desire of God that he will take the tribulation from vs so that yet wee still resigne our selues to his good pleasure that so he may doe that which shall most import our saluation yet this is not necessary but our better suite is to be that he will helpe vs to endure it and ouercome it When Saint Peter with the leaue of Christ our Lord begaÌ„ to walke vpon the water Matt. 14. and when he found that a stiffe winde was risen he grew troubled and distrustfull and began to sincke and our Lord to deliuer him out of that great danger of drowing did not cause the winde to cease as Saint Iohn Chrysostome obserues but stretched forth his hand and laid hold on him therewith and made him walke vpon the water till he brought him backe to the ship Now this must wee beg of God in our troubles namly that he will take vs by the haÌ„d and that he will vouchsaffe vs his helpe and fauour that so our afflictions may doe vs no hurt but that suffering them with Patience they may yeeld great fruite to our soules and be of much glory to Almighty God This is that which Dauid Psal 117. begged of God in his tribulations and that which he desired and begged he also obtained as himselfe affirmed saying In my tribulation I called vpon my Lord and my God and cryed out to him in the most internall part of my heart and he of his infinite mercy heard my voice from that holy temple of his which is heauen and he accepted my prayer and imparted that fauour which I desired Besides these meanes there is yet another which is very effectuall towards the obtaining of Patience and it is to ponder profoundly well how all the contradictions and punishments which happen to vs in this life be ordained by the prouideÌ„ce of God and are sent vs by his holy hand for our good And besides those other testimonies whereby wee haue proued this truth elswhere Christ our Lord declared it in his holy Ghospell saying thus Matt. 10. Feare not for all the haires of your heads are numbred The meaninge is that God hath so particular care and prouidence ouer you that he hath counted euen all the haires of your heads and knowes the number of them all and there is nothing done euen concerning any of them which he ordaines not for the good of that man who puts his confidence in him Now if Almighty God conserue the memory and care of so light and triuiall thinges as are the haires of our head which serue but for the ornament of men and which although they be cut off doe not put the parties to any paine and this so faâ—…e as that euen one of them must not be cut or lost without his pleasure how much more tender care will he take of the life and saluation of that man who puts his trust in him and of all those principall thinges which belong to him that he may conserue and cherish and ordaine them for the good of his soule and not permit that he be put to the least preiudice without his pleasure and that whatsoeuer happens to him in order to his temporall affaires may proue to the good and remedy of his soule and for the doing all that which is fit for the carrying him on to the end of eternall felicity for which he was created This is the nature of Patience whereof wee haue spoken and these are the most excellent effects and fruiâ—s thereof These are the meanes whereby it is to be obtained and these are the examples whereby wee haue been taught it by Christ our Lord. Let vs therfore procure to obtaine it and moreouer to exercise it towards the whole world complying with that which the Apostle saith thus to Timothy ep 1. c. 6. Embrace and exercise Patience diligeÌ„tly And that also which he saith to the Thessal ep 1. c. 5. be patient and suffer at the hands of all men By this most pretious vertue of Patience wee shall obtaine and conserue all the gifts of God and become superiours to all our enemies For Patience will fortify vs in the confession of our Faith against tirants giuing vs strength to endure all their torments Patience conserues the supernaturall loue of God and of our neighbour for it giues vs courage to resist all those thinges which are contrary to charity Patience conserues and giues perfection to wisedome taking away those impediments of anger and sorrow which obscure the soule Patience builds vp abstinence and temperance inabling a man to suffer hunger and thirst and to bring sensual appetites into subiection Patience defends iustice encreases humility conserues peace and purity of heart and giues perseuerance in all vertue And so it fulfilles that whereof Saint Iames chap. 1. saith that it makes the worke perfect because it giues perfection and completenes to all the vertues O blessed Patience happy are they who possesse thee For thou art the vertue which giuest perseuerance in all good things and which openest the way to heauen where wee may see with perfect charity delight with supreme loue in that infinite beauty of God and possesse for euer those giftes of glory which he hath prouided for them who continue in his seruice according to that which our Lord promised saying He who perseuers to the end shall be saued FINIS