great for it hath all the dimensions of greatness it reacheth from Heaven to Earth even to the Gates of Hell It is extended from one pole to another nay it is immense as God himself participating of his Divine nature it searches the abstrusest corners of our Heart and if the least Crany be put open to his light and grace it is presently replenished by this great mercy Ah! did we but know what mists of terrene affections the beams of his mercy have dispersed within us what a change they have made in our bad inclinations what dangers they have met and diverted from us We should even repine at Nature that hath not furnished us with more Hearts and Tongues to love and praise this great mercy He adds likewise secundùm that is according to the custome of thy great mercy which uses not to boggle at the remission of any sin nor to look so precisely upon the degree of the offendours past malice as upon his present repentance whence he grounds the Communication of his Grace by which we may discern the Sense our Holy King had of his transgressions which made him willing to huddle up his score and without giving in any particular to desire they mighâ—â—…ther in a cluster be cast and drowned in the Ocean of his Mercy We are taught by this two things First not to presume upon the value of our own actions so farr as from them to justifie our selves for in this kind none could plead more for himself than our holy petitioner he had with a Piety and fortitude unequalled run through many difficult and glorious enterprises wherein God was pleased to appear for him and own him his champion Yet he thinks good to hush up all this well knowing that praise is due alone to him under whose guidance and protection he had begun and set a fortunate period to them Next we are taught that reflecting upon our sins past we should never despair for as our good deeds we owe to God alone by whose inspiration moving us we do them so we must submit our bad deeds whereof we our selves are the sole Authors to his Mercy Whence we may see though he cannot concurr with us in doing ill his unspotted Nature being incapable of any obliquity yet it being done he will share with us in the undoing or repairing of our misfortunes And which is more no sooner hath this Mâ—rciful Hand dragg'd us out of the mire of Sin but 't is stretched forth to be joyn'd to ours in a happy nuptial bond promising by his Prophet to espouse us unto himself for ever in misericordia in the inseparable Union of his Mercy It is this great Mercy without end or beginning which hath decreed from all eternity to bring us off clear from all misery and place us glorious in his light inaccessible from the time that God was and loved himself he disposed us for his love and mercy have we not therefore reason to spend every moment of our Life in loving praising and glorifying this great mercy It is in all kinds infinite no excess of malice obstructs it no frequency of Commission or reiterated guilt renders it inexorable no time excludes it no not a desperate delay to the last moment O God thy judgments may be well said to be unfathomed Abysses wherein are lost our most Enormous crimes and from that loss we find our selves transferred unto the enjoyance of thee irradiated with the comfortable beams of thy mercy But above all this mercy never appears so great as in the admirable Mystery of the Incarnation where we behold the eternal Father giving up his only Son in behalf of Mankind vitiated and defiled with Sin rebellious and insolent against His Sovereign a Worm and poor scantling of putrefaction a prey for the Flames of Hell That I say a God most perfect in himself who hath no want should love so vile a Creature at such a distance from him and who could stand him in no stead and yet this eternal God full of greatness hath cherished Man in such a manner as to bestow upon him the dear production of himself coeternal consubstantial and equal to him in Greatness and Majesty and for what end To save him from ruine to enrich him with eternal Life this is that great mercy our Penitent now implores and he claims it by vertue of a promise made to Abraham that since he had not grudged him his only Sonne all Nations should be blessed in his Seed that the Eternal Death of him who is temporal should be redeemed by the temporal Death of him who is eternal How many Miracles found birth in the execution of this act of love and mercy First Nature was stopt as to the result of a humane subsistence in whose place was intimately applyed the personality of the Divine word and this infinite subsistence was adorned with graces vertues and priviledges supereminent a Mother enjoyed a fruitful Virginity and a delivery without pain in the fruit was found at the same instant the blood consolidated organized animated and deifyed So that the Second Person of the blessed Trinity assuming a new Being newly produced that is the essence of a holy humanity attyred himself with it becomes a good man and a master piece of love and mercy A remedy so necessary that without it all the purity of Angels and Holy Souls all the inflamed desires of the Patriarchs could never have merited with condignity this incarnate mistery For were all the groans put together all the tears sufferings and exquisite torments which Saints have endured for the love of God and on the other side but one single tear thrown in of Jesus Christ shed either at his birth or any time of his life this tear issuing from the flaming Furnace of his Heart Sacred and united to the Divine Word would exceed in value all you can think or imagine in the meritorious actions of Creatures So that this adorable mistery is not a mistery of just retribution springing from any humane or Angelical merit but 't is a mistery of goodness and supereminent mercy and in consideration of that prodigious design of love he is animated in his suit and believes he cannot receive a repulse because he acts it Secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam in the name of the Messias in whom all the Divine mercies from the beginning of the World issued forth unto mankind are comprised and consequently may be stiled a great and the greatest of mercies The Application Our Holy penitent having in the clear prospect of his prophetick View beheld this great work of mercy brake forth into this happy expression and couches a clause of all others the most efficacious to obtain the end he sues for we may learn from hence that our Mediator Jesus Christ is the best Sanctuary in all our distresses whether in regard of our past offences or of our impotency to repair our failings Methinks I hear our Petitioner to say O God what
mercy than Justice for the one consists in a communicative vertue of what is good and as God is essentially good so he can alwayes breath forth these emanations of his goodness upon us Now Justice though it be equally essential to the Divine Essence with mercy and other Attributes yet in its operations ad extra or exteriour effects it depends upon the obliquity of our actions without which it hath no matter or Subject to work on So that mercy he can alwayes shower down upon us but Justice only when we offend he would not forget how the greater number of Angels stood the brunt of temptations when Lucifer perished with his proud adherents it was this mercy held them up at the instant of their Tryal and though our afflicted penitent found not this innocence preserving mercy yet he hopes to lay hold on that part where he is stiled a purifying mercy Let his Subjects fall from their obedience and throw curses at him let his Children prove unnatural and labour to dethrone him let a pestilential Disease depopulate his Country in fine let the Joy of his Life Absalom be sacrificed by the Hand of his own Souldier with smiles he will pass through all these Tests so they proceed from the hand of this all purifying mercy He values not the mediums but the end he tends to and when he thinks oâ— this he begins afresh to admire this mercy in the reward of the elect he knows not whether it exceeds more in the expectancy and furtherance of a sinners conversion or in those immense felicities he communicates by his presence For here he beholds a God courting his Creatures insensible as it were of injuries and dishonours from them and seconding their least good intents with the powerful succours of grace There he contemplates a God remunerating our small inconsiderable Acts of Vertue with the same Felicity wherewith he himself is blest and made happy For his Beatitude is to enjoy himself and contemplate his own beauty and perfections and this same Beatitude he imparts to us poor worms through the excess of his Mercy But whether our holy penitent more extolls the effects of his mercies in Heaven or Earth I know not yet of this I am sure he is reconciled to make it whilst he hath life the Theam of his Pen Heart and Tongue he will celebrate the praises of his innumerable mercies for all Eternity he hath scarce a Psalm which speaks not his zeal for this subject as if his quill had been dipped in this Fountain of mercies Another branch which growes up amidst the multitude of his mercies is that he distributes his blessings not so much in the measure of his wisdom as love and after his innumerable favours done to his Vineyard he defies the whole Mass of Creatures to tax him of any want on his part For should he reward us according to our actions which he in his praescience and eternal essence foresees will come to pass who of us should be left alive or who of us should be born Only the innocent should then be favoured and rather than it should be so he was willing to put it upon the Tryal how or what we might prove hereafter He foreknew that Lucifer should fall that Adam would sin Saul become disobedient and Judas betray him yet he forbare not for all this to throw his favours upon them to shew his mercy is ever in competition with Man's malice and like a good Physitian if one Medicine work no good he applyes another like a gâ—od Husbandman if his Land yield him no Crop one year he cultivates and labours it again the Second and Third by which it often happens that one fruitful season repaires the sterility of divers years past Just so God still goes on and though he sees no hope to stop our malice yet he stops not his mercy this proceeding made St. Austin cry Praise and Glory O Lord be to thee O Fountain of mercies the worser I grew and more perverse so much the nearer thou wast unto me It is said a small proportion of chastisement suffices a Father in order to his Son so God as a kind and loving Father thinks a little punishment enough for his Children St. Chrysostome says that after the Master of the Vineyard had his Servants beaten and slain by the Husbandmen he sent his Son and for all these their outrages required no other satisfaction than to see them abash'd and ashamed of their Cruelties and Ingratitude They will says he reverence my Son so that 't is evident their blushing not their bleeding he desired Whence St. Hierom makes a result of this Parable that in God's Clemency there was no Weight no Number no Measure nor likewise in the others Malice So that our holy penitent beholding in every transaction of God with Man this fulness of Mercy might with reason expostulate and entreat his pardon Secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum according to the multitude of thy mercies The Application Let every one examine his life from the time he had the use of reason and I am confident he will find many tyes of obligation to this great mercy nay amongst the mass of Christians I believe there is none but ranks himself a favourite in order to his largesses of mercy For his love is constant and knowes no change this great and good God hath persisted for an infinity of time in the perpetual resolution of gratifying us with his gifts his enflamed heart hath entertained a continual solicitude without any truce for our good Witness the Prophet Jeremy who sayes that God hath loved us with an everlasting Charity His love is eternal having alwayes decreed to enrich us with his favours St. Paul proclaims it that he hath loved us before the World was framed It is disinteressed without any advantage to himself or hope of return on our parts No other motive than the superabundance of his goodness like a fountain which runs over his natural goodness throwes blessings on all Creatures Plutarch speaking of love sayes it takes any occasion be it never so slight to oblige the beloved he wants no baits nor snares carrying about him the matter of his own bondage So God's love never takes leave of a Sinner nay where Man 's impiety extorts as it were from him the darts of his Justice he seems presently to relent and promises as he did after the Deluge to do so no more so that his love being eternal unchangeable and devested of all self ends what can we ask of God that issues not from his mercy wherefore let us with holy David cry have mercy on us O God according to the multitude of thy mercies Amen CHAP. IV. Dele iniquitatem meam Wipe away my iniquity OUr poor Criminal having thus prepared his Judge the next care is to lay open his condition and shew he implores God's purifying Mercy by whose vertue the Chains of our sins are loosened and dissolved Nor did it a
Death might not prey on a treasure that deserves to be immortal wherefore let us never cease to cry with our holy Penitent à peccato meo munda me cleanse me from my sin Amen CHAP. VII Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco Because I know my iniquity AFter all these supplications our Petitioner now comes to give a reason why so confidently he requires an Act of Grace At the first view it seems a strange one and to imply his greater guilt It is this because he knowes his iniquity Ignorance where the fact is palpable makes a great plea in offendours our criminal on the contrary acknowledges his trespass declares he knowes what he has done and from thence claims and pretends a rationality in his petition had he in lieu of this inserted a Repentance of his misdeeds a detestation of his past failings this might have carried some weight in order to a remission But we must reflect injuries done to God and Man are things very disparate and quite of another nature For I may consider many disobligations I have thrown upon my Neighbour and yet not retract in my will those ill Offices because I may have received the like from him and many humane Lawes have allowed this retaliation so that to retain a memory of the harms I have done to Man may signifie nothing of vertue or pious amendment But when I look upon any miscarriage in my Duty towards God this glance must needs reproach me of ingratitude there can be no pretence or shadow of excuse to justifie any failing towards the Divine Majesty Since we are overwhelmed on all sides with his favours and benedictions whence the Sequel of such a consideration inevitably will humble confound and cast us upon the storms of Repentance Our Petitioner therefore knowing his iniquity virtually declares by it he disowns what he hath done or rather owns it to be exorbitant and from this confession layes claim to his Justice which upon the conversion of a sinner engages to abolish and raise out of his memory all past iniquities Because I know my iniquity This knowledge evidences the return of Grace to his Soul In the 35. Psalm he describes his own condition in the state of sin My iniquities surrounded me and I could see nothing St. Austin exclaims against that day wherein he committed sin and questions whether he may call it day since he was involved in a profound obscurity and then he goes on saying he will rise and disperse the mists of his iniquities that he may see the fountain of all goodness Our Petitioner again in the 48. Psalm gives Man when enslaved by sin the title of Beast nay with something of aggravation assimilating him to a Foolish Beast He remembred how Adam after his fall was cloathed with Skins of Beasts which attire was but a Symbol of his Mind bestiatized and made Savage by transgressions St. Thomas speaking of those Clouds of darkness wherein poor sinners lye groveling sayes it proceeds from a propension bent upon evil aversed from God and deprived of grace The opposite beams then which fill our Souls with light and serenity must needs draw their source from a love of what is good an adhaesion to God and a sweet repossession of grace and in these splendours our Petitioner finds himself First they raise his Soul to an Object infinitely good and amiable and after vehement affections enkindled towards this Sovereign felicity his Eyes are unsealed and beholds the Ghastly shape of his sins which cast him into exclamations against his own unworthiness upon reiterated addresses for mercy and pardon and at last admitted into favour he learns by that inestimable gift under whose Dominion he now lives what it is to offend God how monstrous a thing sin is and therefore will not conceal his new acquired notions but proclaim Quoniam c. because I know my iniquity It was not an abstract knowledge of his iniquity he alledges for this may consist with the most innocent and spotless Soul and was found in Adam before his fall But 't is what he had learnt by dear experience he had tasted that Tree which imports knowledge of good and evil but alas far different from those pure Idaeas which reside in Souls that were never involved in the shades of sin for such survey with an intellect as it were Angelical the commands of God and in obedience to his Law make use of their knowledge but to avoid the prevarication But our Petitioner looks upon the deformity of sin in all its circumstances of the Abyss of ruine it drawes upon us and having with the Cananean cryed for mercy then he confesses his nakedness then he layes open his failings and blushes not at the knowledge of his iniquity because they are now washed in a Christal stream and their past horrours serve but to raise in him a detestation of them and to invite him at the same time to admire the Wisdom of God that thus by his penitential acts will manifest his Justice and lastly to praise his mercy that hath given him a perfect knowledge of his iniquity as a certain Land-mark to preserve him from future Shipwrack because I know my iniquity I remember the Prodigal Son when languishing in misery and perishing for hunger pitched only upon this remedy that he would tell his Father he had sined against Heaven and him In like manner our Petitioner layes aside the thought of any good he may have done offers to the view of his eternal Father all the wounds of his cauterized Soul and that he might engage himself to a compleat discovery confesses he is not ignorant but knowes all the Windings and extravagant progressions of his iniquity how they had led him from Adultery to Homicide thence to Pride Vanity and Sole reliance on his own greatness and power and when he had summed up all his ingratitudes he gives this account Domine opus tuum vivica illud Lord I know my Sin So likewise I know the temper of the delinquent how he is composed of frailties unable of himself to set his hand to any good vvork to any supernatural motion Wherefore he hopes this consideration may something take off and render his deviations less irregular Yet on the other side he will not flatter himself into a blameless condition he knows a support of Grace ever attended him amidst his predominant passions and smartest tryals by whose means he might have been victorious This brings him on his Knees and drawes from him an humble confession Because I know my iniquity It was this knowledge fixing him on the basis of humility which prepared him for those sublime and supernatural communications he afterwards received from his dear Creatour What are his Psalms but a Series of raptures and coelestial ravishments a Tabernacle of sacred mysteries vvith vvhich his understanding was fed that vve may see to vvhat pitch Man is capable of arising from this knowledge of our Sins How confidently did St.
reach this misfortune so that whosoever is upon the rack of a tortured Conscience seems to anticipate his sad doom and to find a Hell even upon Earth and no wonder when Mercurius Trismegistus asserts that the Body by habitual sin becomes brutish and the Mind turns to be a Devil which chastises and afflicts the offendour with the stripes of his own sin Our sad Penitent little foresaw this Enemy within him at the beginning his whole Solicitude was only to dazle the Eyes of the World by that means to stifle the dishonour might arise from his crimes He sends for Vriah to Court there caresses him and all his Stratagems failing at last commands him to be exposed to certain ruine and the drift of all this was to conceal his sin believing could that be effected he should do well enough for the rest but what was the event hear the tydings Nathan brings him thou hast done this offence covertly and in secret but God will publish it at noon-day and make known thy ingratitude Behold all his policy blown up in an instant and besides he hath this slow Executioner of his own Conscience which like a shadow inseparably attends him and makes him groan forth My sin is alwayes before me Epicure was of Opinion exorbitant actions ought to be declined upon the sole motive of fear which alwayes invades the Minds of Criminals this shews that nature is disordered by Evil for this Philosopher had no other ray than that of reason and the disturbance we find to spring from transgressions is but an effect of nature in order to its own preservation For who would conceive did not sad experience render it manifest that Man could support the constant reproaches and sharp sentences of his condemning Conscience for the enjoyment of some slight pleasure of Carnality Revenge and the like Which as a flash of lightning instead of glory and delight leaves us to moulder away in the ashes of dishonour and to be surrounded with torments even before we had at a full pause tasted the cause and subject of our chastisements Hence methinks Plato happily compares a person enslaved to his sensualities unto one who hatches and nurses up a Chymaera consisting of many exact lineaments and after a thousand complacent thoughts of this phantastick beauty it is found at last to be a meer effect of the imagination Our sad Penitent looking back into his life acknowledges the truth of this allusion he awakes as from a dream all his past delights appear to him under no other form only he finds the smart of his punishment to be real and confesses his unpittying Conscience like another Caligula destroyes him not at once by a stroak of fury but wracks him by degrees that he might as that Tyrant was wont to say feel he was dying and this in the most horrid manner to perish as it were by his own hands Other indispositions admit some intervalls this allowes no respit the very sleep of guilty persons is filled with spectres and frightful Ideas witness that reproach of Mankind Nero who confessed even when he slept the Ghost of his Mother failed not to torment him Witness likewise our Penitent who cryes out my sin is alwayes before me Ah! let us then make his misfortune our instruction to live well is the securest Bulwark against frights and terrours a spotless Mind joy alwayes attends as Sorrow and Anguish are the Mates of guiltiness And though these at present are the Companions of our Penitent he hath yet this consolation that the dismal shape of his sin carryes him on to repentance not to obdurateness nor despair and his hope is that after they have agitated and raised the storms of sad remembrances within him a gracious calm of pardon will follow as well to settle peace and security in his Soul as to banish for ever from his sight the hideous spectacle of his sins which is now the sad subject of his complaint and bitter remorse my sin is alwayes before me The Application St. Austin sets down the method his dear Creatour held to reduce him to his duty Retorquebat me ad meipsum ut viderem quam ulcerosus essem He threw me upon my self that I might in my self as in a Glass behold how I was ulcerated and full of Sores For this spectacle gave him at once a full view both of his own misery and God's mercy and both strike a terrour into him in the one he reads the characters of his banisment and forfeiture of his heavenly right since nothing defiled can enter heaven in the other a Shole of God's mercies appear before him which meeting with his ingratitude make a strange Combat within him and strike a terrour not to be expressed expecting every moment a just vengeance to fall upon his guilty head this is the effect of sin these are the lmps of that hideous Monster which surround a poor sinner and keep him still awake with continual Alarms Whence I wonder not if Solomon proclaims non est pax impiis that there is no peace for the wicked because the ugly face of sin is alwayes in their Eyes all the rigours of Disciplines Hair-cloths fastings and other austerities of a true Christian Dissciple are but toyes if compared to the tortures of a wounded conscience but to one grimace or wory look of sin the hissings of a Snake stinging of an Adder and croaking of a Toad offend not the senses like to the dire aspect and frightful voice of sin It was sin made Hell Devils and all that is terrible in nature wherefore let us beg to be freed from this dreadful Object and that we may never make it the subject of our misfortune as to have the reproach of mortal sins before us Amen CHAP. IX Tibi soli peccavi malum coram te feci I have sinned only against thee and done evil IT would amaze one at the first glance to see this clause of the petition inserted that he who had highly injured Vriah scandalized and drawn by his sin the heavy hand of God upon his people should disclaim of wrong done to his neighbour and assert with confidence that he had offended against God alone Nathan's Covert insinuation of the poor Man's whole and little stock wrested from him by a merciless depredation speaks the prevarication of a precept in the second Table which concerns our neighbour the curses of Semei stiling him a Man of blood import a charge of injuries done to Man again he knew the petitioned is a searcher of hearts to whom nothing can lye hid so as to extenuate his transgressions in the least tittle were absurd Besides St. Thomas sayes God showers down his blessings upon Princes for the Subjects sake so that if they abuse these gifts they are ungrateful to God the Author of them and injurious to the people for whose good they are to be managed and directed All this put together seems to reflect on the sincerity of our
birth to the Soul and communicates unto her a new Being which is called Divine in that the Soul receives from it a resemblance unto God after a manner extraordinary whose more perfect knowledge is reserved for the light of glory which will make the discovery unto us All we can now say is that no sooner this divine gift inhabits our Souls but we are designed to eternal beatitude Almighty God beholds us with an Eye of satisfaction as his Children received into his Family as Solomon sayes by grace we contract an eternal alliance with God St. Thomas stiles Grace a participation of the Divine Nature for what the Divine Nature doth in God the same Grace by imitation doth in a Soul as the Divine Nature is in God the cause of his most transcending actions to wit love and union So Grace in a Soul is the spring of glory beatitude supernatural knowledge and heavenly affections by which she regulates all her works according to integrity and holiness Nay God obliges himself to give a Soul that can plead the title of Grace the Kingdom of Heaven and possession of eternal bliss No wonder then if after the sprinklings of Hysop that is penitential tears our Petitioner expects a Harmony of joy and gladness since the divine quality of Grace purchased by repentance is attended on by so many advantages What matter of joy to be spiritually regenerated the Son of God the Brother and Coheir with Jesus Christ wherefore St. Leo sayes this gift of being the Son of God to be authorized to call God Father exceeds all his other liberalities for by generation a Father communicates his Nature to his Son producing him in species alike So by Adoption he that adopts gives unto a stranger in desire and affection what he is in himself attributing unto him the prerogative of a Son entitling him to all his inheritance the same as if he were his Son by Nature now what Man doth to another out of affection God doth in effect For imprinting Grace in a Soul he gives himself and is really in her insomuch that were it possible God could be not immense Grace would render him afresh present to and in the Soul Certainly if ever that saying was verified where guilt hath raigned there grace did yet more powerfully sway it was in the person of our holy Petitioner his raptures and Enthusiastick throwes his prophetick notions Nay God's own Testimony of him that Repentance had moulded him even conformably to his own Heart sufficiently proved his Soul to float in floods of Grace and consequently must needs swell with a great portion of joy therefore with just reason he proclaims thou wilt give unto my hearing joy and gladness Again this possession of Grace is accompanied with the expectation of a Sovereign good For the understanding enlightned by Faith knowes that Mans's Beatitude is in God that this Beatitude is promised him as his final end and the means to attain unto this End is by Grace and acts of vertue So that he enjoyes it not but upon the terms of being one day eternally happy this certain expectation of Beatitude St. Bonaventure calls the Anchor and basis of Man in this life It keeps him from dejection placing still before his thoughts an infinite good and which is infallibly to be the abject of his future acquisition it choaks presumption casting him upon the mediums ordained to lead him to this end it draws his affections from terrene things and raises them to God as the supream object alone worthy to be loved and served What joy then to have our VVills carryed on by this gift of hope which sweetly entertains us in the contemplation of Eternity and this not as a thing doubtful for what would Cloud the severity of our comfort but as a reward to which we are entitled by grace and of which by this vertue of hope we have an earnest and pledge St. Paul to the Hebrews prescribes hope as a means to compass whatsoever we would have Let us approach with confidence to the Throne of Grace as if we needed only a firm hope to be able to scale the Throne of God and bear thence what so e're we desire St. Gregory observes there is no pleasure in this World which is not greater in the expectation than fruition by which we see what a strange Operation the very hope of some temporal object hath in us what ravishments then must needs proceed from a hope that is fixed on the source of perfections and to have this addition that after our imaginations have proposed all the delights that humane wit can frame yet they fall infinitely short of those joyes the Object of a supernatural hope will discover unto us Blame not then our Petitioner if he give himself the assurance of joy and gladness when once his Soul shall be enriched with Grace and divine hope inspired into him since their presence brings the highest satisfactions we are capable off in this World I observe after Christ had declared the remission of St. Mary Magdalens misdeeds he bids her go in peace to shew she is no more impious For as they are strangers to repose so rest and satisfaction are the natural effects of a good conscience When the Thief on the Cross had obtained mercy immediately follow the glad tidings he should exchange that very day his Gibbet into a Paradise St. Austin had no sooner stepped into the Paths of pennance but he found himself overwhelmed with joy which he thus describes On a suddain sayes he it grew delightful to me to be weaned from trifling pleasures and what before I feared to loose now with joy I dismiss for thou O supream Diety didst tear them from me and supplyedst them by thy own presence who art in all honour beauty and pleasure excelling You see what he got in exchanging a few Worldly joyes for a life of pennance in quitting a Creature he came to the enjoyment of his Creatour in abandoning that we must needs once lose and which we still apprehend will be ravished from us he arrived to an inestimable and never perishing good Nay reason may tell us as happy experience hath informed Saints that if his mercy be so great and transforms it self into so many Shapes of vertues in reward to sinners it must needs be much more admirable in order to the just For it is but equitable that those who must love and honour him should have a more ample share in the Treasures of his mercies than such who injure and daily offend him If when we are Enemies he fails not to give Testimonies of his love being reconciled and readmitted to his favour what will he not do If he bestow a kiss upon a treacherous Judas with what overflowing sweetness will he visit a loyal heart which breaths forth nothing but love and a conformity to his will if a sound of his voice as Man was so charming that many of the Apostles at his first call abandoned
Death than she did the dishonour to herself and Family Solomon sayes a Thief may have some excuse in that extremity of hunger urged him to his villany at least in rendering seven-fold he makes satisfaction But an Adulterer hath no plea nor can the Indies ballance the wrong done by him Our Holy Penitent revolving all these truths in his Mind hath reason to joyn in his petition the crimes of homicide and adultery together since both are Coincident in his malice both injurious to our Neighbour both destructive to the very Lawes of nature and both exemplarly punished in all ages by Divine Justice Wherefore he may justly insert Free me from blood c. When I read a passage in St. Paul 2 Cor. Chap. 7. it appears terrible the resentment God entertains of Adultery He there sayes if the Husband be in the number of the faithful and the Wife of the unfaithful he shall not dismiss her But if she be unfaithful to his bed then he may lawfully forsake her so that God seems to be more offended in that she keeps not her saith with her Husband than in being disloyal to him insinuating by this that he will give no quarter to an adulterous act How odious this Crime is to humane Society appears in that the Civil Law permits the Father or Husband of the Adulteress if taken in the fact to offer violent hands and immediately destroy both the offendours and though the Cannons seem to disallaw of this Law as unjust because it precipitates the guilty into an evident hazzard of their eternal Salvation Yet still it concludes how monstrous an exorbitancy Adultery is in the judgements of Men when to punish it they allow parlies interessed to be both Accusers and Judges which in no other circumstance hath ever been permitted Adultery is a commerce between persons who are not linked together in a conjugal tye and from thence it is cloathed with the turpitude of fornication and is a sin against charity Next it is a violation of a bond indissoluble by which the Author of Nature hath united one to another and superadded to fortify this Chain the blessing and vertues of a Sacrament I remember the Councel of Trent in favour of this Sacrament teaches that God by it bestowes a particular grace that as in Baptism we purchase as it were a new Being regenerated and born to a spiritual life as in confirmation we receive a Grace strengthening us in our Faith as in the Eucharist an encrease of heavenly blessings is showred down upon us the like in the rest of the Sacraments So in that of marriage a grace is communicated which perfits and refines the natural love they bare to one another before they married Insomuch as that love which before was perhaps seated in some corporeal charm or grace afterwards becomes wholly sacred and no attractive appears which carries not along with it a pious allurement and which makes them whilest they tread the paths of vertue to have a horrour of any thing that may alter or diminish it Now this holy effect is evacuated by Adultery so that it may be called a kind of Sacriledge dissolving the sacred union of hearts which is made by marriage and therefore I wonder not if St. Cyprian terms it Summum delictum the highest crime that Man can be guilty of Our sad Penitent alarmed with the outcryes of blood on the one side and Adultery on the other for which as an Enemy to God and Nature he deserves to be exterminated hath no refuge but to the God of his Salvation and he repeats it again and again that he would daign to save him from the doom of both protesting a true repentance of both and that for the future like a Lamb in the shearers hands he will be silent endure all the opprobâ—ios his Subjects shall cast upon him and make a return of all the good he can Lastly he will extinguish for ever within him all the Fires of concupiscence and unlawful desires so he may be sheltered from these crying sins under the beams of his mercy Free me from blood O God God of my Salvation The Application The way to preserve our selves from this torturing guilt is to be well versed in the precept of charity For by this same vertue by which I love God I am likewise carried on to love my Neighbour So that whensoever I injure him I violate the Law of love towards God which obliges not only to love him but all that belongs to him Now as Man is the most excellent Creature in this inferiour World and most capable to render him honour and glory there can be no violence offered to him which reflects not upon the Sovereign Lord he serves for whose respect we ought to cherish what he would have cherished I must not then love my Neighbour because he is rich beautifull well fashioned or to me particularly obliging but I must love him because I love God to whose Family he belongs and in a place of Eminency by the priviledge of his Being I must love him in that 〈◊〉 the glory of God to which he may contribute much by the Conversion of his own and other Souls to his Service why should I then plot mischief against him for whom Jesus Christ hath a value why should I aim at his Death to whom God imparted life for whom our redeemer suffered Death and would if needful do it again What need I care if they be malicious to me since I love them nor for what they are in themselves not for what they are to me but meerly for the love I bear to my dear Sigiâ—…r Let us stick close to this Principle and pray Free me from blood c. Amen CHAP. XXX Et exultabit Lingua mea justitiam tuam And my Tongue shall exalt thy Justice AT the first glance one might Censure our Petitioner as not placing aright his acts of gratitude ascribing to God's Justice rather than mercy his deliverance from sin but you must know it is far from him nay contrary to the Doctrine he delivered in the preceeding Chapter to think he could merit any thing de condigno or by the value of his own works without sanctifying grace which is the sole effect of God's mercy His meaning therefore is that supposing he be enriched with the Donative of Grace he may then lay claim to his Justice for a reward St. Paul Tim. 4. sayes A Crown of Justice is reserved and will be justly given to him First he calls Heaven a Crown of Justice because it is given by way of Justice in consideration of the worth of merit Next that God will give it as a thing to which he hath a right and Lastly he styles God a just Judge in Testimony he doth it by vertue of his Office that is to observe the Rules of Justice The Arausican Councel chap. 28. declares that a recompence is due to good works but grace which is not due must go before and
shall I return thee in requital when I would praise thee an Abyss of Majesty exhausts in a moment all Encomiums and my Adorations appear nothing before thy Divine Essence could I unmake my self in deference to thee the Fountain of all Beings it were a poor homage to thy ineffable greatness Nay could I annihilate the whole World for thy glory yet would it nothing equal what thy immensity might justly exact But whilst I thus labour with my own poverty finding nothing created worthy thy acceptance behold the perfect oblation of thy Son a prodigious effect of mercy this I offer to thee he can best speak our gratitude who can only satisfie thy Justice since by this gift the very treasury of Heaven will be exhausted and the Earth enrich'd with a pure Sacrifice whose odour draws upon mankind a continued flood of mercies It is this eternal offering meant by our Petitioner when he mentions thy great mercy whose very thought and foresight at the distance of many ages replenished his heart with joy And if the expectation of him to come so transported what dilation of spiritual joy ought to invade us who now possess what they had only in hope who now reap a plentiful harvest of Salvation when before the World was blasted with sterility and doom'd to darkness untill the bowels of this great mercy were opened to store us with his light and grace Let us joyn our Petitions with Holy David and adore the wonders of this great mercy in which we behold humane flesh hypostasiated in a Divine nature a Creatour link'd to his Creature Death unto Life Glory unto Confusion and Iniquity stamped with Innocence And whilst we contemplate these admirable contrivances of the Divine Wisdom can they do less than ascertain us if we place in the Frontispiece of our supplications this compositum made up of so many contrarieties that our desires will take effect that under this Sanctuary we shall strike off all the scores of guilt and render a satisfaction as great as God can expect or require Hence you see how confidently every sinner may repeat with David Have mercy on me O God according to thy great mercy CHAP. III. Et secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum And according to the multitude of thy mercies OUr Holy Petitioner having expressed his relyance in general on Gods mercy next fixes upon its effects in particular and makes a series or list of all his mercies Wherein methinks I behold him just like one in desolation of Shipwrack fastning on a plank and though the storm continue darkness surround him and nothing but the Face of Death appears before his Eyes yet he remembers that many have been saved in his condition how some have been cast upon the shore others upon a Rock some by a passing Boat gathered up In fine he calls to mind a thousand wayes of preservation to consolate himself in this distress and every thought of hope makes him grasp with new fervour his floating support Even so I may say of our distressed Penitent his goodly Vessel of innocence was wreck'd dashed against the powerfull charms of a Woman from thence he was thrown into an Ocean of Sins where on all sides he beheld the menaces of eternal destruction in these perplexities he runs with his thought over all the passages of God's mercy from the World's beginning by the consideration of them a little to keep up his sinking Spirits He fails not to remember the mild proceeding of God with Adam in not punishing him irrecoverably as he had done the reprobate Angels but was contented to Exile him from the delicious place of his Creation and to expose him here to the Whirl-winds of passions in which contest if he proved faithful his reward was to be the same as first designed for him From thence he passes to the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah where though God's justice fell heavy upon those miscreants yet he layes it on their impenitency and admires his goodness that would notwithstanding have kept in his shafts of vengeance for the sake of ten just persons if that small number were but found in those populous Cities he goes on to the Ninivites and pleases himself to see them under the Lee born thitherby repentance even when the storm of God's wrath was ready to plunge them in an Abyss of ruine He insists much upon the prayer of Moses which still diverted the rigorous designs of God upon his people he fancies that every Groan and Sigh of his contributes something towards the making up of a brazen Serpent by whose Soveraign aspect his cauterized Soul might be unvenomed and made whole It was no small Consolation when he reflects on God's people in the Land of Egypt whose Oppression which their own Sins had drawn upon them was yet relieved at the rate of miracles and wonders and such as Israel had not seen And why all this But to make good his promise to Abraham Isaac and Jacob that he would never abandon a Truly-repenting Heart Thus he goes on enumerating a thousand other passages of God's mercy from the Worlds Creation until his time nor is he content with this but advances further displaying in his prophetick knowledge innumerable other effects of God's compassion to Mankind and at last begins to make this Application though he could not deserve to partake of his great mercy that is not only to have his guilt remitted but also to become the object of his choicest favours yet at least he hoped he might be hudled in amidst the multitude of his mercies How sweetly did those Attributes Divine resound in his Ears where God is stiled rich in mercies where his Mercy transcends all his other works and where his Goodness and Mercy are proclaimed inexhausted Sources He leaves not a Crany in the World unransacked and after the severest scrutiny finds and confesses there is no place destitute of his mercy no Creature that is not cheered and enlivened by the effects of his mercy this made him cry Lord when thou dost open thy hand all Creatures are filled with blessings and he tells us that every Being looks upwards depending on his Creatour and expects from him a seasonable supply of all wants Nay he excludes not Hell nor Souls doom'd to eternal flames from this mercy for he considers that God is bonus universis good to all and though his Justice have plunged them in that Calamitous State of misery yet that their torments are not more intense and in many circumstances aggravated they owe it to his mercy which still hath something to do even in the punishment of the highest offendours Having then survey'd Angels Man and sensible Creatures the Heavens Earth and Hell and found no Being that could in the least repine for want of mercy upon these reflections with just reason our Petitioner entitles them a multitude of mercies for on all sides they flow as from a natural Source Nor wonder that we have more Presidents of his
little raise his confidence that his Judge was not tyed up to Lawes as the Ground-work of proceedings with offendours but his power is absolute to do all he pleases and his will such as to render what ever he doe's good and Just So that the least propension of this Will in order to a remission is sufficient to wipe away all the iniquities of the Earth Besides he considers that when God chastises he doth a thing extraneous to him and as Esay saies a work that is not his But to be merciful he owns it as a propriety annexed to his Godhead not to extenuate his Justice but to insinuate the love he bears to Man He embroyls not his Fancy with the niceties in Schools which dispute how Sin is remitted whether by the expulsion of any positive form and the introduction of another opposite to it Whether it be by the meer infusion of Grace or else only by taking away the obligation of a Sinner to eternal punishment he omits all these curious questions and attends only to the sweet effect to wit that he may be freed from his iniquity oft repeating in his Heart he had rather be a good Disciple than a great Master in the exact knowledge of his own misery When he looks back into his life past and remembers with what satisfaction and spiritual joy he had performed many acts of vertue he begins to be enfired with new flames of urging for a grant of his Petition Since he knowes that whilst he lyes under this attaindour of Treason he is capable of no right nor priviledge in the Charter given us by Heaven that should he do actions which in another condition might be praemiated would now be looked upon as a Jewel counterfeit and of no value He compares himself to a Plant in a Region far remote from the Sun whose Fruit never comes to maturity so his iniquity sets him at a great distance with God the light and life of Souls and consequently nothing can be expected from him which savours not of a Soyl accursed and doom'd to sterility so that as a misfortune seldome walks solitary he finds besides the unhappiness to have offended God this addition to be unable to do any thing acceptable unto him Then he goes on ruminating upon the sad consequences of his Sin which makes him fluctuate in his thoughts wholly unresolved how to comport himself Sometimes he appears like a Statue without motion and would eternally remain so since by no endeavours he can please his Creatour Then again I behold him bent upon the execution of all the good imaginable at least within the extent of his natural Force or Power that he may omit no Homage and Duty he owes to the Author of his Being But after all his restless solicitudes he observes the main Hinge of his happiness depends upon this Dele iniquitatem the cancelling of this Bond by which he is lyable to eternal punishment e're he can hope for admittance unto his wonted ravishing entertainments with his Divine Master He descants upon the proceeding of Almighty God with Sinners and would feign search into the secrets of his Providence why some are drawn from the depth of wickedness even when they seemed to be lost to the World and Heaven whilst others less guilty in the Eyes of men sadly perish without source or redress The preservation of the one he attributes to the immense goodness of God which sometimes dispenses as justly he may in his own lawes as to afford unto an unworthy sinner such powerfull calls that they are never resisted such melting affections as if they had been train'd up in the School of Divine love not in the Forge of iniquity It is fit he confesses the Divine Will which frames all Creatures should so dispose of what he hath made that when he pleases to raise any one out of corruption and render them instrumental to his Glory none ought or can justly repine at it He sustains this Argument with much heat himself being a party interessed still expecting to be the object of his choice mercy He dilates and expands his Soul under this inexhausted source like the Earth without Water thirsting for one drop of that Coelestial stream which might allay the anguish of his Mind and deface all the foul Characters of his iniquity his groans and unwearied sighs are fair Harbingers of that Noble Guest he once entertained with unspeakable delight and if he ever gain the repossession he protests that neither Angels Men Devils nor all the charmes in Creatures shall ever brand him with a new stamp of iniquity his Eyes by which his Soul receiv'd her first wound are become two floods of tears and if they prevail not to cleanse his stains at least they will testifie to the World he repented what he had done He casts not one glance towards Heaven which is not accompanied with hopes of meeting this mercy and this confidence is so grounded in him that were it decreed God would save but one Soul he hath courage enough to hope that his might be that one nay he builds so much upon these hopes that transporting himself to the consideration of many Sinners abandoned in their impieties it doth not at all deject him for he considers that God hath given us a free-will which he will never violence to our prejudice and though we cannot elevate this will to an act so perfect as naturally to merit the first Grace yet it may in such sort dispose us for grace by love and sorrow that God will doubtless gratifie us so prepared Whence 't is clear that as we fall not but by our own default so by vertue of a promise and contract made by Heaven we cannot finally perish but by an obstinate reluctancy of our own Hearts If he sees a Phararh sink into ruine irrecoverably he beholds likewise a Nebuchodonozer for the same crime struck down to rise again They were both Kings the sin of either alike detaining God's people in captivity yet the Fates of both very unequal Because the one retracts his misdeeds and raises a detestation of them the other persists in his Enormities without any truce or suspension At last he makes a Corollary of this discourse and concludes since some are preserved in Innocence by continued showers of Grace others by a sweet violence drawn from an Abyss of Sin to the upshot of happiness and none so entangled whom a true repentance will not set free he will never cease to importune Heaven till his iniquity be rased out let his Throat grow hoarse with clamours his Eyes droop and wax dimme his Heart rend asunder with grief he will spare no Particle of his whole Body nay glory in its ruine if by that means he can but unclog his Soul from the weight of Sin He judged it very reasonable that the Body having contributed to his Sin should share in the punishment as it had done in the crime and as it had concurred unto his
contribute to the drift of his Petition which is to appear every minute with a greater purity in the Eyes of his Creatour Amplius lava me wash me more from my iniquity The Application St. Bernard observes that if at any time God deprives us of what is good it is but to gratifie us with something that is better upon this reflection he reckons it a happiness in St. Paul that he was struck blind for immediately upon that stroke he was raised to the third Heavens and admitted unto secrets unfit to unfold to Man and afterwards receiving the sight of his Body with that restitution was superadded the clear Eye-sight of his Soul God sent Jeremy to the Potters shop that he might see how the broken Vessel was to be new moulded and come out better than before if then the Clay frequently recieves a better form and fashion than at first let us in imitation and with the same confidence of our holy penitent after our failings cry Lord wash me more Let our past harms warn us not to presume of our own strength this humble opinion will separate much of the dross of our actions and teach us to rely more upon God than our selves Let us oft lay before us the Seal of God's pardon this cannot but enflame our love and enfire our Hearts in the zeal of his service nay Christ seems to set it down as a rule that we proportion our love to our Obligations He little loves to whom little is forgiven that where a large score is struck off by his Mercy there must needs succeed an ambition to a more supereminent perfection wash me more from my iniquity In fine this quadrates with Habakkuk's prophecy If heretofore thou madest one step in the way of Death thou shalt now tread for it ten in the way of life So that every sinner is encouraged not only to recover his innocence but to improve it throughout the remainder of his life never ceasing to repeat Amplius lava me ab iniquitate wash me more from my iniquity Amen CHAP. VI. Et à peccato meo munda me And cleanse me from my sin IN the Series of Acts inordinate and deficient from that rectitude required to give them a denomination of good We find some which relate immediately to God as when with contempt we strike at things directly ordained to his glory and service these pass under the name of impiety Others there are whose first tendency levells at our Neighbour as when we traverse the light of Nature in doing to another what we would not have done unto our selves and these are styled by the appellation of iniquity Lastly there are certain treasons whereof we make our Bodyes instrumental and by which we are corrupted depraved and wrought into strange habitual Frailties these are properly expressed by the term of sin because by them we act against our selves Our Holy Penitent drawes the exordium of his Petition from a sense of his impiety when in this first verse he said have mercy on me O God for there he owns his Frailties as a Creature in respect of his Creatour and beggs his Gracious pardon In the next verse he confesses his iniquity whose full discussion as to injustice towards his Neighbour I reserve for another place In this third verse he surveys his own person beholds the Havocks and corruption made there by sin and now would feign apply a Salutary Medicament to which end he inserts this clause in his Petition A peccato meo munda me cleanse me from my sin that is from the filth and ordure which accompany sins of the flesh Amongst all the irregular motions whereof Man is capable there is none which leads unto Labyrinths so inextricable into precipices so disastrous as this unhappy sin of carnality In the first place it drawes a Cloud over the understanding and so depresses the faculties of the Soul as she becomes in a manner terrestrial that is unable to elevate her self beyond the objects of sense for the operations of the Soul are more perfect as they are more abstracted from materiality Now this sin wholly drowns and takes us up in the pursuit of sensible things and consequently must needs debilitate and weaken the Mind in her natural functions In other passions as Anger Fear Joy and the like there are still extant some Seeds of reason this destroyes all that is Man in us and makes Man by a thousand homages and venerations subject to that Sex which God and Nature have designed Mans inferiour as if it aimed not only at Mans destruction but to resolve the World into another Chaos For what shafts of Gods vengeance have fallen heavy upon Mankind that were not directed to the chastisement of this sin It was an inordinate appetite to mix with the Daughters of Gentiles that first gave birth to Monsters and Gyants and from their accursed off-spring the Earth became such a sink of abominations as no less than an universal inundation was able to wash away the stanch and infection of their impieties It was this foul pleasure which ministred Fuel to the consuming flames of Sodom and Gomorrah this blind passion led Israel ensnared by Madian Women in Idolatry a foundation to all the Calamities and derelictions by God which befel that chosen Nation At one time twenty four thousand Hebrews were punished with Death for Adultery and what a slaughter of sixty thousand persons did our sad Penitent behold and this in revenge of his own libidinous Acts as if the stains they had left behind could not be drawn out by a Sea of blood When his affrighted thoughts had layed before him all these dismal passages he trembles expecting every moment to be shivered and dispersed into Ashes by the decrees of a just avenger he approves the fancy of those who compose Venus of the Froth of the Sea brackish perfidious and the Seat of hazzards and disquiets the pleasure he hath had appears to him now but like a Froth or bubble which if not born away as easily it is by every blast will certainly of it self soon dissolve and work its own ruine and however the substance be fleeting it leaves notwithstanding a remembrance behind so bitter and distastful and so hardly clawed off as one would think that alone were a sufficient punishment for a trespass of so little satisfaction and for the storms and wastes it often makes in Kingdoms and private Families scarce any age hath not furnished many sad examples I am sure our Holy Penitent felt the smart of this bitter Truth in the desolation of his house in the dishonor and death of his Children in the rebellion of his Subjects and above all in the forfeiture of those large promises made by Heaven to him and his posterity all which found not their Tomb but in the corruption of this unhappy sin So that in this request to be cleansed from his sin he first declares the foulness of it evident in the horrid Disease Nature gives
God is only permissive and accidentally concurring unto final impenitency that is in not imparting his grace dissolving Hearts unto such as will not receive it for since they obstinately cleave unto sin he is not obliged to violence the liberty of Man's free-will which he hath in his Creation decreed unto him Nor prodigally throw away his precious grace upon those who contemn it Wherefore the penal substraction of his grace springs not from the slow current of mercy to a sinner For it is alwayes ready to flow where the Channel is cut out and prepared to receive it but from the malice of Man by which he is totally averted from God opposite and refractory to his holy inspirations When therefore he begs not to be sequestred from his face far be it from his thoughts to impeach God as Author of obdurateness it would only speak he is cause of the punishment not the fault That if by the prevarication of our first Parent we were reduced to such a condition as God might justly leave us to our selves much more by actual sin do we deserve it and in this dereliction we can never rise nor frame a supernatural act without which it is not possible to attain unto Salvation So that if God will use his own right and divert his face that is the effects of his goodness and mercy from him he gives himself for lost and so justly lost as not to have the least matter of complaint against his Judge Nay on the contrary he joyns issue with the Prophet Esay saying Lord if all the Nations thou hast made should perish who can blame thee If God hath drawn some out of the gulf of perdition to issue forth the Marks of his goodness even in the height and fury of their malice this is no warrant to our Petitioner that for his sake he will break the ordinary rule of his providence he rather apprehends he may be made an Example of his Justice and be abandoned to his corrupt inclinations wherefore he petitions that he would daign to cast a benign Eye upon him nor throw him away from his blessed face Another dismal thought occurs which eggs him on to this demand and it ought certainly to be very dreadful to a sinner that is there is a certain period set to every Man's transgressions which is called the measure of his iniquities and if this be once compleated such a Cloud of obstinacy and perseverance in evil involves him as he never will be cheered with the Sun-shine of God's mercy This proceeding hath been evident in the downfall of several Nations and Cities whose excess of wickedness hath drawn upon them the exterminating hand of God Our Holy Penitent first places before his Eyes the universal deluge where it is declared that the World had accomplished their malice and by it so prepared the divine Justice as there wanted nothing but his avenging Rod to fall heavy upon them Again as to the Land of promise designed to the Seed of Abraham God told him he could not yet perform it and his patience awaited the space of four hundred years untill the Amorites and Canaanites had summed up their iniquities after which they were made a prey to the Children of Israel In sequel of this our Holy Penitent concludes that though these examples in a vast multitude were remarkable and terrifying yet God's judgements hold the same method in the concern of every particular Soul Besides his fears encrease when he considers that God's patience is spun out longer with some than others and whether his last sin might not be the upshot and close of all God's special favours to him he knowes not Wherefore in this suspence and just subject of apprehension he petitions not to be thrown away from his face Our Holy Penitent finds notwithstanding some glimmerings of comfort when he revolves in hes Mind the marks of this helpless desolation First he remembers when the Sodomites were consumed in the flames of his anger the Harbinger of their destruction was their notorious and publick commission of their crimes and this joyned with such impudence as to vaunt and boast of their impieties Our sad Penitent found himself not guilty of this for what contrivances had he nol framed to conceal his sin and when reproved by Nathan presently with shame and confusion he owned his miscarriage The next presage of Reprobation is obstinacy which was laid before him in the person of Pharaoh whose hardned heart not all the importunities of Moses nor the prodigious wonders he wrought could in the least mollify nor work him to the dismission of God's people When therefore you behold a person so bent upon his wicked wayes as no remonstrance entreaty promise nor threat can prevail you have reason to believe as St. Paul sayes they are given up to a reprobate sense which insensibly and unawares will bring them to endless ruine Our Petitioner cannot likewise accuse himself of this prelude to perdition this present Psalm which he composed immediately after the Prophet from the part of God had denounced unto him his ingratitude sufficiently evinces he was not deaf to the workings of God's inspirations nor impenetrable against the power of exciting grace Another cause of God's dereliction is an habitual application to a certain sin to which one is so fastned as his ordinary grace hath no effect to draw him from it and God is pleased not to gratify him with any thing extraordinary in punishment of his transgressions having so often abused his mercy This habitual malice was evident in the Jews who from age to age had persecuted the Prophets sent to mind them of their duties insomuch as St. Stephen laid it to their charge and defied them to name any one who had escaped their fury and this they continued untill at last they laid their hands on the Saint of Saints Christ Jesus after which Sacrilegious act arrived at the utmost pitch of their demerits they were given up to the Tyranny of the Romans who totally subverted their City and Nation Our Penitent had reason to hope his deviation was an effect of frailty rather than malice having not continued any space without repentance when once his sin was represented to him by the Minister of God's word yet knowing the web of Man's Salvation to be wrapt up in the secret of the Divine Providence that though he had revealed to many of his Servants the glad tidings of their predestination yet never had he to any communicated the doom of reprobation lest it might cast them into despair therefore he thinks it the wisest course to sail between hope and fear and in all events to implore that he may not be excluded from his sight Some again weighing the subsequent verse where our Penitent petitions God not to take away from him his holy spirit are of Opinion that this demand imports not a dread of reprobation for he seems to thinks himself in the possession of grace but argues
when they prevaricate by injustice falshood irreverence to God impenitency and the like they act against a Law-giver which is God himself and against a Law that took birth with their Creation and is the Model and Rule of humane Lawes which without conformity to this Law are not Lawes but injustice and tyranny I will teach the wicked thy wayes The third remonstrance of our enflamed Doctour is to inform the wicked that positive Divine Lawes are necessary not only to rectify their wandring steps but also to preserve the just in their righteous paths The reason is Man is designed to a supernatural end to arrive at which his natural faculties are deficient wherefore it was requisite he should have supernatural precepts and rules proportioned to the sublime condition of his end Besides after he had exchanged a state of innocency for that of sin and corruption he stood in need of a Master who might instruct him how disastrous a thing sin is how necessary to have a redeemer all which Divine Lawes do open unto him Again to observe even the Lawes of Nature would have been a hard task if he aspired not after somthing more sublime for the efforts of his Soul are so clogged by the violence of his passions and his nature so weakned by sin that unless divine positive laws had engaged man unto heavenly pursuits scarce would he ever have been able to reach the perfect observance of the Law of nature Lastly it was necessary he should have alwayes before his Eyes his dependency and subjection unto God so to be stirred up to the performance of his duty and by giving testimony of his faithful obedience merit something at his hands wherefore his Creation was no sooner finished but God laid a command upon him that he might know even in Paradise he had a Master Next he consecrated the Seventh day to works of his service obliging the first inhabitants of the Earth to its observance Moreover those first Men of the World were obliged to the supernatural vertues of Faith Hope and Charity without which acts they could not be saved now those decrees were positive Lawes and superadded to those of nature so that in all times Men were never left purely to the Law of nature but it was intermixed with several positive ordinations that might help them on more advantagiously in the way of their Salvation Our Holy Penitent having thus exposed before the wicked the endearing providence of God over mankind who never abandoned them to the sole instinct of nature and conduct of their own Reason but like a careful Master teaching them his will by himself and giveing them particular directions to lead them in the way of vertue he would not stop there but proceed to a further elucidation of God's benefits towards them that at last overcome by his goodness they might lay down their arms and think it no dishonour to lye prostrate at the feet of so noble a Conquerour which if our penitent can effect he will repeat with much joy I will teâ—ch the wicked thy ways Our zealous convert plyes the Iron whilst it is hot hoping to render the wicked more malleable wherefore he produces the Mosaick law given by God to sanctify the Children of Abraham and dispose the World for the knowledge belief and honorable reception of Jesus Christ The Law consisted in precepts moral ceremonial and judicial The first contained the Ten Commandments and divers others relating to them and though the Law of nature led to their observance yet many errours were committed in reference to them which were cleared and better regulated by positive Lawes The Ceremonial were ordained in order to the worship of God regulating what belongs to the Sacraments Temple institution of fasts and bloody Sacrifice of Beasts wherein God manifested his justice declaring that sin deserved Death and likewise his Mercy in that he would exchange the death of a sinner for that of a poor animal The third are judicial which conspire to the establishment of a rare Government amongst the Jews that by an admirable policy being kept in peace Religion might flourish the number of their Laws amount to above six hundred an Argument of God's indulgence towards them For the Jews being stupid and of a gross apprehension uncapable of being led by general rules as not knowing how to apply them in particular emergencies he was pleased in every point to satisfy and instruct them Nay his particular providence here in appears that delivering so many Articles for their observance he seems to take upon him the whole care of providing for their temporals as well as spirituals as if he would keep a watch over every step and motion of theirs to the end all things might be exact and setled in the highest order He designed them likewise to be a pattern of Holiness and Sanctity to the Gentiles that by their example they might be drawn from the corruption of Idolatry to the real sentiments of vertue and religion wherefore he planted them in the midst of the habitable world Lastly it was just that Nation should be the most Religious and Pious from whence Jesus Christ was to issue forth that they might prefigure publish and engrave him in the hearts and minds of Men by their holy Ceremonies and legal observances which were all to represent him and the wonders of his life and death for this cause the kingdome of the Jews was prophetick and their religious actions a figure of the qualities condition and mysteries of Jesus Christ Nay all the worship and service which God required of that Nation and all the Exercise of their Religion was meerly to foretel announce expect and receive the Messias wherefore St. Paul calls it a holy Law abounding in Ceremonies and all tending to this effect I cannot doubt but our great Doctour and Prophet did with much Energy insist upon the designed End of the Mosaick Law which is Jesus Christ representing to the wicked that the sole way to Salvation was by repentance and belief in the Messias exhorting them to joyn with him in the practice of Heroick acts of vertues so to expedite his coming and repeat after him this his daily Prayer who will give us from Sion the Saviour of Israel He told them there was not a sigh or languishment any prayer or good work directed for the accelleration of this mystery which had not its effect that Abraham advanced it much by his prodigious act of obedience in offering to Sacrifice his Son and after he had run over all the Gests of Saints till his time he conclude all these motives would have been little efficacious without the charity mercy and love of God to lost Man St. John attributes the glory of this Action to love alone and if some have compared the vigour of love to equal that of death I dare give it a higher Encomium and will say it was so generous as to transport it self up to Heaven and assault the Divinity
give life to them and truly it is rational that since God threatens punishment to the wicked deeds of Men he should likewise propose a recompence to vertuous actions otherwise he might be said to be more enclined to severity than sweetness which is much repugnant to his nature Again sanctifying grace is a quality so sublime that it dignifies and exalts the works of that subject it informs above all the Worlds greatness Now there being nothing but eternal glory which surpasses grace a meritorious action animated by grace cannot be recompenced to the worth but by glory whence it followes that grace by a title of right and condignity merits eternal glory Lastly sanctifying Grace is communicated by God unto a Soul with the circumstance of an affectionate Amity by which in the first place he loves her and this love of friendship moves him to pardon all her offences to receive her into his favour and adorn her with the incomparable Ornament of this Celestial quality This done Man becomes a Friend of God in his first justification is raised to a pitch of greatness so transcending as his works are worthy of Heaven as performed by a friend of God who hath an affection for her and by that will render her compleatly happy Upon these motives and supposition of a grant to the preceeding clause of his petition he will blazon forth the Iustice of God not in the remission of his sin for this he acknowledges to his pure mercy but upon the score of a recompence which his goodness hath promised This consideration awakens him from sluggishness and as the Labourer endures patiently the fatigues of his task in hopes of his salary at Night so will our Petitioner unweariedly sustain the traverses of this life and amidst his tribulations every thought of Paradise shall move his Tongue to exalt O Lord thy Justice Merit is defined a service which obliges to a retribution or a good work done freely and which God accepts of as the price of eternal life Now albeit good actions arising from grace by which they are supernaturallized are in a certain manner rendered worthy of eternal life even without the promise of God yet they can no wayes oblige God to give it unless he first engage his word to this effect For he is the Sovereign Lord of the World and most particularly of just Men and their good deeds yet can they not so much sway with him as to put a constraint on his will to let them share with him in his Heavenly Kingdom For when all the just had consecrated to his honour all the good works imaginable he might justly say I accept of these in discharge of your past debts and obligations due to me for your Creation conservation grace and power I have given you to act So that when any one makes an oblation of his person fortune or any other his goods unto God he must not present it in way of a gift but with humility as in satisfaction of a debt nor yet as if he would clear all scores but as a small parcel of that great Summ which he owes Wherefore that Man may have an unquestionable right to Heaven by the value of his good works being so engaged to God as he is it was necessary a contract or stipulation should pass by which God should please to declare he would give him Heaven in recompence and upon this ground he should have a title to demand and obtain it In this proceeding his Mercy and Justice meet his mercy in that he accepts the works of the just for more than the bare discharge of their obligations His Justice in that he is pleased to give the rate of Heaven in return of their good works by this means Saints are humbled in the excellency and value of their merits for by it they know that Heaven is so bestowed by way of Iustice as they are notwithstanding unspeakably obliged to the Divine mercy which passing over the debts accepts of their works for Heaven this certainly will give them immortal resentments of gratitude for which they will powre forth an infinity of praises and benedictions throughout the vast spaces of eternity to a Benefactour who treats them so nobly with such signal favours as to become a Debtor even to his own debtors St. Austin admiring this Mystery sayes God hath made himself a Debtor to us not by receiving any thing from us but by promising what he pleased unto us For all things are depending on him nor can they oblige him but as far as he will oblige himself by his incomparable Charity and inviolable Fidelity Our great Penitent ravished in the contemplation of these truths cannot but unloose his Tongue to celebrate the praises of the Divine Iustice which so attempers the circumstances of our Salvation that we may claim it as our due He hires us into his Vineyard and if we prove faithful to our task he will not fail in his promise to give us a salary he often reflects what a comfort it will be to a beatifyed Soul to have contributed something to her own happiness In this liberty and free will which God hath given us he beholds the perfection and greatness of the Soul that neither the most charming beauties the most ravishing delights the most glorious dignities the most amiable vertues in spiritual entertainments nay nor the most eminent hopes of glory can work any impression or impose any necessity upon her actions but according to the mtasure of her will Again she hath a vigour impregnable fortifyed with God's grace against all sin and misfortunes that neither the allurements of what is lovely nor the horrid face of what is frightful can make any entrance by force for the Soul is above all the machinations of Men can resist them and meerly because it pleases her so to do Let them speak fair let them bribe threaten weep attack thunder lighten muster the Elements into storms and fury nothing finds admittance but at her disposal So that these words in the Apocalips may justly be applyed to her I have been dead and am living She was dead by Original sin and is revived by the Grace of Jesus Christ she hath put into her Hands the Keys of life and death that is free will which may open to her either Paradise or Hell After this survey of Man's liberty in this life by which he is free either to the acting of what is good or bad he makes a pause upon the apprehension that Man would have been more perfect were he limited to vertue and incapable of any vitious action as God himself is and all the blessed by a clear vision But he solves this objection considering that God alone by nature is impeccable it is a priviledge wherein none can share with him as being infinitely perfect and can admit of no imperfection St. Ambrose sayes that only the substance of the Divinity is a Being that cannot dye to wit by the death of
that it is required to the end the light of Faith may have its effect a cooperation in our wills otherwise this ray how glorious so e're it be is rendered useless and as it vvere under a Cloud Therefore St. Paul ad Rom. 10. sayes Faith which justifies must come from the heart and in Luke 22. Christ reprehends the Disciples going to Emaus that notwithstanding he had filled them vvith the beams of his light yet their hearts were slow in admitting a belief Job likewise confirms this Chap. 24. saying they were obdurate and rejected the light presented to them Our Learned Graduate and Petitioner more happy rejected not the internal call of God by his secret inspirations but corresponded vvith them by a pious affection in his will and having a merciful invitation to a feast of grace he would not like those guests mentioned in the 22. of St. Matthew Let the consideration of a poor Farm or a little musty vvare gain more upon him than the hope of this treasure more pretious than the whole VVorld He vvould not preferr darkness before light nor choose to vvallow in dirt and mire rather than beautify his Soul with a gift which will one day render him immortal in glory He had already obtained a desire to do vvell and this desire he would improve by action and since God had daigned to give him the velle or will to serve him he begs he would open his Lips that he might redeem his miscarriage in setting forth the Enormity of sin the Characters of the divine goodness and the greatness of his Justice Lord thou wilt open my Lips St. Austin reflecting upon the goodness of God in that he not only bids us ask but even gives us more than we demand sayes That our slothfulness ought to blush in that God is more ready to give than we are to receive Abraham petitioned for a Son and received a promise that his Seed should be multiplyed like Stars of Heaven or Sands of the Sea and that Christ should issue forth from his Loyns Jacob's request was extended only to Bread and a Garment and he was honoured with Angels to be his Companions was partaker of many heavenly visions and abundance of riches powred as it were into his Lap. The Thief on the Cross sued but for a remembrance and Christ gave him a promise of Paradise So our Penitent seems to be very modest in his petition knowing well the wont of God's bounty that doth not succour us in one kind and leave us miserable in another but relieves compleatly Wherefore he sues only to have his Lips unsealed for the rest he referrs it to his incomparable munificence being fixt in this Principle that according to the measure of his donation he will exhort allure threaten nay put himself into any shape that may most effectually purchase Souls unto God Nor is it a bad presage of his future success that he is so confident to have his Lips laid open Lord sayes he thou wilt open my Lips as if he had the Key of grace at his command For I observe when God would dispose a Soul for the reception of his favour the first Seed he casts into her is that of hope this lesson he read to the Paralytick Matt. 9. Son be confident and hope well Cassianus sayes it is a sign we shall obtain what we demand when we find a strong faith and confidence in our selves whilst we offer our petition For Almighty God uses to inspire this vertue into us as an earnest or pledge of his future grant this made the Apostle St. Paul prescribe it as a means to compass our desires Heb. 2.16 Let us approach with confidence the Throne of grace As if we needed only a firm hope to be able to scale the throne of grace and bear thence what ever we desire Hope is defined a vertue residing in the will which raises it to the expectation of a sovereign good and consequently to all necessary means in order to that as grace remission of sin and the like For the understanding enlightned by Faith knowes that the beatitude of Man is in God that this beatitude is promised him as his final end whence the will sets itself a work after this sovereign good and being unable of it self to reach so high this vertue of hope is infused to strengthen the imbecility of our nature Now the motives of hope are First God's mercy which is no less prompt to free his Creatures from misery than the fire is to burn or the Sun to give light The next motive is his Providence which allots unto every Being what is necessary to lead them to their final end The third motive is his divine power against which no machination or force can be of any effect to ruine a Soul he means to save For all the power of Hell before him is but like anâ— atome before the Sun nay he can with more facility draw a Soul from an Abyss of sin and adorn her with an Angelick purity I say with more ease than we can utter a Syllable or make the twinkling of an Eye Besides he is generous and seeing his Enemy at his Feet imploring his mercy he loves to raise them by his pardon and cannot endure that any in vain should hope in him In sequel of this meditation our Petitioner assures himself that God will not reject him nay that he will give him more than even he dares to hope for That since he hath designed him to a supernatural end his providential care will enrich him with an interiour illustration of his Mind and a holy impulse in his will that he may comprehend those Truths which he hath hid from the wise and discovered to his little ones He knew the Messias would not shed his pretious blood to make us great Oratours Physitians Astrologers or the like because Man by the strength of his own capacity may reach and acquire them in some perfection but to enable us to supernatural principles And though by the contemplation of created things Man may make many deductions and inferences and so come to the knowledge of several perfections in God Yet knowledge thus acquired is very imperfect and therefore St. Thomas observes that the wisest Men have fallen into many sottish errours untill a supernatural Divinity came to rectify what Man's Wit could not penetrate and discern Our Penitent now feeling himself to swell like a Fountain to the brim with these irradiations and sacred transports longs to discharge himself and besprinkle the Arid Souls of languishing sinners Wherefore he begs his Lips may be laid open that like a torrent he may bear all down before him destroy all the Barricado's of impiety and teach the World in his Example that notwithstanding we forfeit by sin all supernatural aids yet repentance is of power to redeem them and restore us to a capacity of regaining our eternal Beatitude Wherefore he exhorts all Men to joyn issue with him and
within us since all Charity in Man begins at home and in order to himself Our Holy Penitent had steered his actions according to the Rules of Charity First he had consecrated his love to God his sovereign good and in view of this he beheld all other things as a fair nothing When he had paid him these first fruits of his inclinations he fell upon his own concerns in his spiritual necessities and having exposed them all before the beams of God's mercy which never fails to enliven and cherish a contrite and humble heart he presumes now to intercede for his Neighbour and petition in behalf of the inhabitants of Sion a Hill dedicated to God's service and for the holy City of Jerusalem that these places might be preserved to the encrease of the peoples devotion and not be laid open to destruction upon the score of his transgressions wherefore he cryes Be favourable O Lord in thy good will with Sion When I read a passage in Jeremy Chap. 7. I admire the power and force of prayer for there God speaking to this Prophet sayes do not pray for this people lest I divert my anger and again he bids Moses forbear his importunity that his fury might break forth which shews that the supplications of the just bind up Gods Hands and stand like a bulwork between his rage and our guiltiness Now if the efficacy of prayer be such as to appease his avenging Face when all enflamed against offendours it hath doubtless no less vertue to obtain what ever we demand for our own or our Neighbours good St. Austin sayes that whilst God leaves us a Heart and Tongue disposed for prayer we need not fear the substraction of his graces for he is faithful in his promise nor will ever give a repulse to just petitions The Head of this Truth springs from the order of his Providence which hath eternally resolved that many things shall be done in the World by the means of prayer For there are two kinds of decrees the one absolute by which he determined the Creation of the Heavens Angels and Elements and these things he determined to create without any entermingled condition His other decrees are conditional as that of Beatifying the Angels and communicating unto Men eternal glory upon supposition that by their vertuous actions they rendered themselves worthy of Beatitude Such also is that decree by which he designs a grant of several benefits in case he be petitioned for them and with humility demanded at his Hands as the Author of all good Wherefore prayer works no change in Gods determinations but brings them to Execution sutably to his orders whence prayer hath the power of impetration and obtains of God's mercy what he hath graciously promised but this must be understood in things that are conducing to Salvation Whereupon St. Bernard delivers these excellent words The Care of God over thee is so tender and prudent that when ignorantly thou dost petition for what is useless or perhaps prejudicious to thee he is deaf to thee in this particular yet will exchange it into some gift or other more to thy advantage For example suppose you ask to be freed from some affliction that seems very heavy to you if God grant you patience it is a blessing beyond the deliverance you seek after Again you would be exempted from this or that temptation as St. Paul made it his earnest suit but if God give you grace and courage to repress it in such sort as to receive no injury but an encrease of merit you have no reason to repine So that God is alwayes faithful in his promises and never breaks his word with his Creatures but gives the effect of prayer either in the specifical thing demanded or in that which is more valuable if I say it be asked with faith hope perseverance and concerning necessaries to Salvation St. Austin sayes the Soul hath power assisted by grace to cultivate herself and by a pious industry purchase and get into the possession of all vertues by which she may be delivered from the difficulties of concupiscence which torments her and of ignorance that blinds her Nay in the height of temptation or ignorance God never takes from her a free will by which she may demand seek and play the couragious even before she assent to those that ask discover to those that enquire or give admittance to such as importunately press upon her how comes it then to pass sayes he that she is sometimes ignorant what to do it is because she hath not yet received that Grace but infallibly she will receive it if good use be made of what she hath already received that is a grace to seek piously and with diligence Hence he layes the ruine of many Souls upon this default in not praying against the difficulties of concupiscence and ignorance Nay on the contrary we covet for the most part to be glutted with some Earthly satisfaction on which our sensitive part is fastned for which our prayers and instances are made out of self love not the glory of God Now because they are pernicious to us he playes the deaf and thinks it misbecomes his love to Man to set a seal to his undoing which made St. Austin say It is a stroak of Gods mercy sometimes to withdraw his mercy Our Petitioner knew that the gift of prayer is the first grace God bestowes on Man which serves as a Ladder that by it he may ascend to other Graces necessary to Salvation he hath made it the Subject of his Song and beat upon no other string in the whole tract of this his petition than to obtain pardon for his sins and to be restored to the inestimable treasure of Sanctifying grace after this task of his own concern he undertook to instruct the wicked and labour in the conversion of the impious and that these principles wherewith he had imbued them might take the deeper root by a constant practice he now supplicates the Divine Majesty in behalf of the City of Jerusalem and the holy mountain of Sion to the end it might be settled in peace and be a secure refuge not onely to the numerous inhabitants but also to that infinite resort of Pilgrims who from all parts came thither to pay their religious duties to God and he hopes for a good effect of his prayer since it is in order to the establishment of God's Church in which action the divine zeal hath more visibly appeared both in gratifying such as have advanced the structure and in punishing any sacrilegious violence than in any other external actions of Men. Ezekiel painting forth the abominations of the Temple sayes there came six Angels and every one had in his hands Vessels of slaughter upon which Theodoret observes in the destruction of Zenacharib's Army one only Angel appeared but against the prophaners of his Temple six are deputed that no day of the Week should pass over their Heads without a fresh Executioner to